Dharma: Hindu spirituality

Jordi Esteban Fuentes, plastic artist, director and teacher of the center Aditya, amigos del yoga  (Girona, 1997), certified in yoga IYENGAR by R.I.M.Y. of Pune (India) and member of the Seminar Raimon Panikkar - UdG, thanks to his knowledge and experience makes us a clarifying and didactic approach to some essential aspects of Hindu Dharma, understood as a perennial and universal way of harmonization between matter and spirit, between the person and the Whole:

The Hindu Dharma, Sanatana dharma (‘eternal order’), would be that tradition which has realized that its function consists in participation in the dynamism of the cosmos so that it does not explode into a thousand fragments due to centrifugal disintegrating forces.

  • Raimon Panikkar, Espiritualidad hindú. Sanatana dharma, Kairós, Barcelona, ​​2005.

The origin of this text -on which the exposition is based-, as the voice of a dictionary on spirituality, “Algunos aspectos de la espiritualidad hindú”, in Luis Sala Balust and Baldomero Jiménez Duque (ed.), Historia de la espiritualidad, vol. IV, Juan Flores, Barcelona, 1969, p. 433-542, already makes it a well structured writing, which Panikkar later takes up again at the beginning of this century to give it a more complete, mature and definitive form. Subsequently, his complete work is included in the volume: El Dharma de la India (Opera Omnia Raimon Panikkar, IV.2), Fragmenta, Barcelona, 2021.

As the back cover of the 2005 edition says: “Panikkar first acquaints us with the nature of spirituality as conceived by the Hindu tradition. He follows a descriptive part with the outline of a historical scheme of Hinduism, from the Vedic period to contemporary times. It then delves into the fundamental intuitions of dharma: the path of action, the path of knowledge, the path of devotion, the logic of caste, the stages of life, the values and dimensions of reality. To finally see how this universal spirituality (Sanatana dharma) crystallizes in viṣṇuism, śivaism and śaktism.”

Jordi Esteban makes a deep reading from the perspective, above all, of the Hindu yoga school.

This research has generated a document that has served as a script for the session, with a first presentation and subsequent discussion. We would like this document to serve as a basis and stimulus for future studies on the role of Hinduism and the practice of yoga in the life and work of Panikkar.

See here the video recording of the session.