GANGES -- The sanity of each person in the world is very dependent on the sanity of others, now more than ever, said a religious leader at a rare meeting of Hindu teachers at a Michigan retreat.
And the future of civilization may depend on whether technology can be harnessed to respect ethics and used to do good for mankind, said Swami Brahmarupananda of Washington, D.C., as he spoke during a three-day conference at the Vivekananda Monastery and Retreat in Allegan County's small town of Ganges.
The event, "Vedanta in the Third Millennium," was expected to attract hundreds of people to Ganges, a village in southwestern Michigan about 90 miles from Chicago. Ganges was chosen as the monastery's site in the late 1960s because it shares its name with India's holy river. The conference ended Sunday.
Brahmarupananda was one of 14 leading swamis -- Hindu religious teachers -- attending the conference. It was only the third time a group of hierarchy of Vedanta has met. The first was in New York in 1970; the second at Ganges in 1987.
This year's retreat drew leaders from India, Bolivia and across the United States. More than 800 others attended the conference as delegates or visitors.
Swami autamananda, head of the Ramakrishna Math in Chennai, India, said he was pleased at the number of delegates interested in religion and the conference. He said democracies need spiritual values to succeed.
Swami Brahmarupananda said technology has expanded so rapidly and it can do enormous good, but also enormous bad to the population. It allows the individual to cause great harm to others at unprecedented levels, he said, citing the Oklahoma City bombing.
Without ethics, technology could lead to the demise of the world, he warned.
Vedanta evolved from the main scripture of the modern Hindus and means spiritual wisdom. Followers believe the spiritual laws deal with moral, ethical and spiritual relationships between the individual soul and the supreme soul.