From the Ganges to Walden to Cape Cod: How Water Connects Us

Did you know Thoreau brought a copy of the Bhagavad Gita to Walden Pond? Hindu wisdom was quietly shaping the New England Transcendentalists long before the modern environmental movement. Gopal D. Patel— UN consultant, Hindu environmental activist, and speaker at the World Economic Forum, Princeton, Cambridge, and Oxford — visits Cape Cod for a multiday event series. At 10:30am on May 17, he’ll reflect on how the Bhagavad Gita shaped Emerson and Thoreau. At noon, he joins a lunch panel — “Hope, Responsibility, and Action” — alongside MassIPL’s Rev. Michael Reed and Susan Starkey of the Cape Cod Faith Communities Environmental Network.