#  Dharma, the Mahatma, the Saint 

 





The Lights That Guide Our Path: Dharma, Nonviolence, and the Grace of God



 

October 09, 2025

 

 

October 2-3 I was privileged to participate in a conference at California State University, Fresno: *Peace and Dharma: Ethics, Nonviolence, and Justice in the Religious Traditions of India*. It was sponsored, as every year, by the Uberoi Foundation for Religious Studies, which serves to raise awareness of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism and their respective music and arts through scholarly study. It was held in collaboration with Fresno State's M.K. Gandhi Center and Jain and Hindu Dharma Initiative. The conference was guided start to finish by Professor Veena Howard who holds the Endowed Chair in Jain and Hindu Dharma and who, along with serving as chair of the Philosophy Department, serves as the Founding Director of the *M.K. Gandhi Center: Inner Peace and Sarvodaya*.

At the heart of our deliberations was an inquiry into the ancient and pervasive concept and reality of dharma, a wisdom not limited to any particular tradition in India, but basic to all. How then can Indian traditions of dharma guide and energize work for nonviolence and justice in the 21st century?

This year the Uberoi conference occurred on October 2-3, at a confluence of auspicious moments: Gandhi’s birthday; the International Day of Nonviolence; Yom Kippur; the end of the Hindu Navaratri festival, with the final celebration — Vijayadashami (Dussehra) — on October 2, celebrating the triumph of good over evil eternally and yet in every age, time and place; and the October 1 death of Jane Goodall, whose dedicated work over many decades taught us to attend with respect to all the living beings around us. On that evening, there was a lovely and moving honoring of Gandhi in the Fresno State Peace Garden, led by Dr. Sudarshan Kapoor, who created the Garden during his many years teaching at FSU, and opened with welcoming comments from university president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval. Song and dance made it a very beautiful tribute to Gandhi and his ideals. This conference was in the right place at the right time. (The program can be found [here](https://cah.fresnostate.edu/philosophy/centers/gandhicenter/documents/finalpeaceanddharmaconf.pdf).)

 ![at the Gandhi Center](/sites/g/files/omnuum2606/files/2025-10/Gandhi%20Center.jpeg)

 

On that first day, October 2, Bawa Jain, a globally known proponent of peace, spoke about “Nonviolence as a ‘Weapon of the Strong’”, an inspiring talk grounded in his own experience, and a fine preview for the rest of the conference. That evening, I spoke on “Dharma as Radical Tradition: From Ancient Sages to Gandhi”, simply to make one main point: we ought not try to change the world as if starting over and doing it on our own. We need to remember and delve deeply into our traditions East and West, traditions older than us that will outlive us all. We need to allow their wisdom to become manifest in our worldviews and work, even if we do still adjust traditional ways to modern times.

Friday, October 3, was given over to panels of an illustrious array of scholars and practitioners, older and younger, who from many angles explored the values of dharma that have for millennia shaped life in South Asia: “Dharma in Action”; “Peace, Nonviolence, Interfaith Dialogue, and Constructive Imagination in Dharma Traditions”; “Dharmic Resources for a Plural World”; ”Dharma in the Modern World”. Fresno State students, and people from the neighborhood filled the hall, and participated actively in the Q&A. The conference ended with a remarkable concert, “Poetry and Music for Peace”, where several pieces of music and poetry premiered, all melding music of India and the West, so that we could listen and hear what harmony and peace sound like.

Even during the conference, we kept asking ourselves what we therefore must do in the face of today’s many troubles, from the economy and politics and warfare to the environmental and personal crises. We ought not be merely bystanders, facing up to the crisis in a personal way, changing our lives to fit the extraordinary times in which we live. How do we take the first step and begin to act, and begin actually to change our lives – rather than just talking about the need for action? What is it that makes a Gandhi and a Goodall, devoting their lifetimes to make a better world? Hard indeed to answer these questions in general and for ourselves. So it was timely then that the conference, even after it ended, had one more event.

October 4 was the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, perhaps the Catholic saint most beloved by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. I was honored to be asked to celebrate a Sunday Eucharist to mark the feast, at the St. Paul Catholic Newman Center at the edge of the campus. It was organized under the leadership of Jim Grant, a longtime leader of social justice and interfaith activities in the Fresno area, and Katie Fleener, Parish Life Coordinator and Executive Director. Some of the conference participants who had not left Fresno on Saturday were present at the Mass, remarkably crowded for 730 in the morning.

At Mass, we were asking ourselves how it was that Francis changed himself, stepped away from the ordinary business his father anticipated for him, and became a radical renunciant, intimate follower of Jesus, bearing the marks of Jesus’ nails in his own flesh — and yet too a poet who evoked Brother Sun and Sister Moon, who preached even to the birds. What happened to him, and could it happen to us? How did his conversion to radical love and justice come about? And, granting that he was a figure graced beyond our ordinary experience, could we imitate him, and change ourselves and change the world too, even in 2025? I found a kind of response in remembering the arc of life, beginning to end, and for this I had simply to reflect on the special readings chosen for the Mass.

*Jeremiah* 1 opens the possibility that before the very beginning of our lives, God is already calling out to us by name, makes it possible for us to speak.

“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’ ‘Alas, Sovereign Lord,’ I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am too young.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,’ declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.’” (1.4-10)

If we realize that grace is always already at work in our lives, then we can see that our journey to justice and peace and universal love — with all the pulling down and building up that is required — is already under way. We don’t need to start — we just have to keep going.

In *Galatians* 2, St. Paul boldly states the radical endpoint, immersion in Christ, identity in Christ alone. This ideal needn’t be just for a Paul or a Francis, but an end point for our lives too:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (2.20)

If we see where we are going, with and into the reality of God as we know God, the whole journey may be easier, clearer, simpler.

 ![Francis and the Birds](/sites/g/files/omnuum2606/files/2025-10/giotto_di_bondone_St_Francis_of_Assisi_preaching_to_the_birds.jpg)

 

And in-between God’s original call and an ending in-Christ, how ought we live? Surely, we work for justice, peace, inclusion, love as we can, each of us in our own way, but the challenge is to work as if we are not working, as if nothing really is at stake — since God’s grace is not just a beginning and an ending, but as it were the air we breathe, the sun that shines, every day. As Jesus puts it in *Matthew* 6:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?..  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (6.25-27, 33-34)

St. Francis shows us that God is always with us and taking care of us, even in the worst of times. Knowing this, we can free up our energies, seek the kingdom, then live each day without fear, without worry — workers for peace, since God has from the start given us peace, and our lives end in peace beyond all understanding. To share the wisdom and the journey, we need conferences, conversations, the good example others set for us. We need to know the Dharma, how the divine plan for peace and justice will succeed, because grace is already at work everywhere, from the beginning to the end, and at every moment in-between.