It was an amazing experience to spend a weekend in the Washington, DC area giving talks and holding interactions at three separate Chinmaya Mission groups in that region. Swami Dheerananda, head of Chinmaya Mission in the DC area, has clearly done an outstanding job developing a solid community of families. Parents and their kids jointly participate and their level of interest and commitment is amazing. Swamiji sat through the entire proceedings of all the events and was very supportive and involved. I spent several days editing the footage from these event, which consisted of nearly ten hours. Much of the content was repetitious at the different talks, but there were also unique points made each time, and especially the interactions were different, lively and informative. So I decided to edit all the footage into thematic videos, taking material from each event and organizing it by topic. For someone who wants to get a good idea of my thinking on the subject of my recent book, this set of videos is the best organized collection I have published thus far. Each thematic video includes within it the relevant Q&A that belongs in that theme. 1) Introduction (7:57min) Swami Dheerananda introduced me briefly followed by a longer intro by one of their prominent members. I explained my childhood association with Swami Chinmayananda. 2) Difference & Related Discussions (48:25min) A small child's question, "wouldn't it be better if we were all the same?" begins this video. It goes into the nature of difference both cosmologically and socially, and includes important questions from the audience. 3) Digestion: What, Why, How (41:50min) The concept of digestion is explained with examples, and there is lively discussion on related issues. This is a critical concept. 4) History Centrism & Identity Issues (30:48min) After explaining this pivotal concept from my book, there is an extensive discussion on how identity formation differs in the Abrahamic religions as compared to dharma. A bright college student engages me in raising challenging questions like "aren't all religions ultimately leading to the same goal?" and "if truth is one, how can there be difference?" These discussions are important. 5) Integral Unity, Chaos, Self-Organization (20:52min) Indian metaphysics of unity is contrasted with Western metaphysics, and also the implications at the social/political level. This explains an important distinctiveness of Indian civilization. 6) Indian Contributions Define Our Difference (15:55min) One way to secure a civilization's distinctiveness is by understanding its amazing contributions to the world, including to present day society. 7) Explaining ‘many gods’ and other Q&A (29:03min) A few questions that did not fit any of the above major themes were placed in a separate video, such as the important one often raised: How do we respond when people ask about Hindu's having many 'gods'? 8) Book Signing (4:30min) All the books I had taken with me got sold out in the very first session out of three, because the level of interest was extremely high. | 
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