Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami is the spiritual leader of the Saiva Siddhanta Church and publisher of Hinduism Today, a magazine of global Hinduism, which is published at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Kapaa, Hawaii.

Gautam Jain is a teacher of Vedanta based at the Vedanta Cultural Foundation in Somerset, N.J.

Pravrajika Vrajaprana is a nun at the Vedanta Society of Southern California, residing in Santa Barbara. She says two issues confronting contemporary Hinduism are how it is practiced differently outside of India and how Hindus identify themselves – as Hindus or Indians or citizens of the countries in which they live now. Those answers can […]

Norris W. Palmer is an associate professor of religious studies at St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga, Calif. He wrote a chapter on Sai Baba for Gurus in America and contributed an article in 2006 to Nova Religio on how Hindus use their temples to negotiate their identity in America.

Leslie C. Orr is a professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal. One of her areas of specialty is Hinduism in the West. She is the author of the book Donors, Devotees and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu.

This organization brings together the canonical hierarchs of the Orthodox jurisdictions in America. The purpose of the conference is to make the ties of unity among the canonical Orthodox churches and their administrations stronger and more visible.

Timothy Lubin is an associate professor of religion at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. He teaches a course on Hindu temples.

Diana L. Eck is a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard University. She is also director of Harvard’s Pluralism Project, which explores the religious diversity of the U.S. 

Read a column about Diwali gift-giving by author Arthur Magida, posted at Beliefnet.com.