Episode 4: Academic, Moral, and Spiritual Philosophy from the Ramakrishna Order African(a) and South Asian Philosophies

Dylan Watts (UG physics and philosophy) and Aamir Kaderbhai (MSt study of religion) interview Swami Medhananda, ordained monk of the Ramakrishna Order and Senior Research Fellow at the Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education, Mysore, India Rather than zooming in on a particular piece of content within Indian philosophy, our discussion explores the experience of studying it and investigates the relationship between academic and ‘spiritual’ approaches to Indian philosophy. Our conversation covers a lot of ground, from Sri Aurobindo scriptural hermeneutics, to the epistemic value of religious experience, to differences between traditional Sanskrit education and contemporary academic institutions. Swami Medhananda uses his academic knowledge and personal experience to argue for the possibility of using the tools of scholarship to further one’s own spiritual life, and the value of a practitioner’s standpoint for academic understanding.