Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. This is HSCI's motto. Vasudha - eva - Kutumbakam. The world is one family. Vasudha is the network of life, the Earth Mother in whose womb we all live and thrive. Kutumbam means family. While the word Vasudha gives us the macroscopic vision of life, the word Kutumbam tells us how to live in the Vasudha life-network: we should live as a family.
Members of a family are connected by relational networks of mutual well-being, of caring and nurturance. The usual focus regarding families is kinship and blood ties. However, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam sensitizes us to the caring aspect that binds families.
Oftentimes, we're not with "family" for the better part of the day. School, work, gym, senior center or daycare, we're with a variety of people who are not kin. The Vasudha-kutumba-ethos urges us to relate in ways that brings overall beneficence to whatever little life-network we're embedded in. Clearly, this ethos applies to the non-human world as well.
We are what we are because we've been nurtured and sustained, not just by our immediate family, but also by others and by the many non-human beings that populate Vasudha's living-networks. Indeed we are a "world-family."
Moreover, we are what we are because we've been nurtured and sustained, not just by our immediate family, but also by others and by the many non-human beings that populate Vasudha's living-networks. Indeed we are a "world-family."
HSCI's vision is centered on spiritual care. Why should it matter that care be intertwined with "spirit"? Hindu tradition has always maintained, since the immemorial Vedic times, that we each are a jiva-atma. At the core of each one of us, and even in our relational processes, is the flow of spirit manifesting as the shakti of life. It is this spirit that is our ultimate family-bond. It is this spirit that makes our caring numinous and makes us see the divine in the small webs of our lives.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam presents us with a wide, ever-evolving smorgasbord in which we can practice care, attention, love, wonder, and gratitude. HSCI sees the possibilities of spreading this sweetness of Hindu tradition to all corners of the world.
Mala Setty, Ph.D
Mala Setty has a PhD in mythology (with emphasis in depth psychology). She is a retired engineer. It is actually in her life with family and friends, and especially in play with her grandchildren, that Mala ji has experienced Hinduism's unique gift for suffusing the ordinary with meaning. She is especially grateful to HSCI for bringing spiritual care to the forefront of our collective consciousness.