Berkley Center

Patrick Beldio is a scholar and teacher of comparative theology with a focus on Hinduism, Sufism, and Christian spirituality. He is currently a visiting assistant professor in the Theology/Religious Studies Department at the University of Scranton and a research fellow at the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. His recent book The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Co-Creator of the Integral Yoga (2025) explores the transformative contributions of Mirra Alfassa (1878-1973), a French, Jewish woman who became an Indian guru known as “The Mother” with a global following. Beldio is also a professional sacred sculptor with a studio at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, DC. His artwork is in private and public collections in the United States, Europe, and India. Beldio holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from George Washington University and a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America.

Prakrithi Jayanth (SFS'28), an international politics major in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, is a professional Carnatic vocalist and veena artist. She has been learning for the past 17 years under Dr. Sumithra Vasudev, a learned scholar of Carnatic music and Sanskrit, and Sri. N. Vijay Siva, one of the senior-most Carnatic musicians of this century. She has won several national and international prizes in the United States and India.

Jeffery D. Long is the Carl W. Zeigler Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, where he has taught since completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2000. His books include Jainism: An Introduction (2013), Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds (2020), and Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Thought (2024). He has written widely on religious experience and pluralism in the Vedanta tradition of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, and he edits the Bloomsbury series Explorations in Indic Traditions. With support from the Templeton Religion Trust's Program in the Study of Mysticism (PRISM), he is writing The Perennial Philosophy: The Next Draft, which reformulates Aldous Huxley's perennial philosophy in light of its Vedantic roots. He has spoken at the United Nations, received the Ahimsa Award from the International Ahimsa Foundation, and appeared in PBS and History Channel documentaries, including America's First Guru. With his wife, Mahua, he hosts the Vedanta Society of Central Pennsylvania.