The Self-Realization Fellowship, which has headquarters in Los Angeles, follows the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) that are based on yoga and on Jesus. The fellowship has temples and meditation centers around the United States.

The painting “Christ the Yogi” hangs at the San Francisco temple of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, where congregants regard Jesus to be a spiritual master who embodied pure love.

Read a biography of Jesus written by Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati Maharaj, who lived from 1887 to 1963.

Read “What do Hindus Believe about Jesus?” from BeliefNet.

The Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Boston has held a special Christmas Eve service in which the Nativity story is read and Christmas carols are sung. Contact Swami Tyagananda.

David Haberman is a professor of religious studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. He teaches on the subject of religion and ecology, particularly in regards to South Asian religions. His books include River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India and Understanding Climate Change Through Religious Lifeworlds.

Vasudha Narayanan is Distinguished Professor of Religion at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and she helped found the university’s Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions, of which she is director. She is a noted scholar of Hinduism and the environment.

Stephen Warner is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was co-director of The Youth & Religion Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment. The first phase of that project involved talking to college students of different religious, ethnic and racial backgrounds about their experiences with their religions. A second phase involved […]