About UEF
Human Flourishing Through Wisdom Traditions
Universal Enlightenment and Flourishing, UEF, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to human flourishing and religious literacy. Our approach is based on universal concepts, marrying ancient wisdoms with findings of modern physical and social sciences. UEF creates, curates, and distributes content related to human Flourishing and religious literacy.
Scholars from across disciplines and leaders of all faiths have battled with the fundamental questions of living a fulfilled life — that of good and evil, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, life and death, the meaning of life, and the purpose of our existence. While distilling through the vast array of these approaches, I found a beautiful simple insight that emphasizes a common universality for all humans. In our view, “To Flourish is to Love, Learn & Play”. These three are the most deep-seated of our existential longings. We can truly flourish if we approach everything we do with an LLP (loving, learning, and playful) mindset. This framework is as simple as it is profound.
Our Vision
Our goal is to enhance Human Flourishing by integrating knowledge across the silos of time, civilizations, geographies, and the academic disciplines of social and physical sciences; and sharing actionable insights, which have been validated through science and lived experiences.
Our Mission
UEF facilitates the research and dissemination of ideas around human flourishing and religious literacy through published literature, dynamic social media content, partnerships with educators for school children, and events such as seminars and bootcamps. Our key insight is that we can truly Flourish simply by engaging in our three deepest human longings — Loving, Learning, and Playing in everything that we do.
UEF seeks to explore and demonstrate how the LLP framework is applicable at all stages of life, across all professions and vocations, across cultures, ethical traditions, and other belief systems. Most importantly, the insights from UEF’s flourishing framework are compatible with all belief systems and of high relevance for all faiths.
Over the past four years the UEF team has researched over 60 commonalities found across all religions, which we share with email subscribers in our Weekly Wisdom Bytes. These findings have been collected and organized in our first publication, Bridges across Humanity — Many Religions, Same Learnings.
We hope you are inspired by our mission, and our pursuit to unite humanity through Flourishing. We invite you to engage with us intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. There are several ways to contribute, be it pro bono or professionally, full time or part time, participation in discussion groups, as an editorial contributor, to sharing feedback.
Our Book
“Bridges Across Humanity” explores an amazing number of common themes (54 of them — yes, 54!) across the world’s religions. This book is a culmination of five years of research undertaken with the help of Allen Simon, a Harvard Divinity School graduate.
In today’s world, which is torn apart by many divisive forces that play on our ignorance, “Bridges Across Humanity” offers a message of oneness, unity, and solidarity. This book takes one theme at a time and shows how it is present in all religions.
The book begins with a wonderfully written foreword by Francis X. Clooney SJ, Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School, and current president of the CTSA (Catholic Theological Society of America), which is the largest theological association in the world.
With religiously motivated conflicts and violence still being so prevalent in our world today, my hope is that this book will be just the first of many steps toward reconnecting humanity through the restorative meaning-making potential of religion.
Our Team
Akhil Gupta
Founder & Director
Anu Thareja
Board Member
Rajiv Thareja
Board Member
Our Contributors
Donald E Frederick
Editorial Contributor
Allen Simon
Editorial Contributor
Adam Rudolph
Composer
Varun Narayan
Contributor
Lisa Catterall
Contributor
Father Francis X. Clooney
Contributor
Partners
Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Project
Tyler J. VanderWeele, PhD
Interdisciplinary program that "aims to study and promote human flourishing, and to develop systematic approaches to the synthesis of knowledge across disciplines."
🌐 https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/
The Center for the Study of World Religions
Charles Stang, PhD
A research institute affiliated with Harvard Divinity School, which promotes the study of religion through lecture series and other events.
🌐 https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/
Harvard Divinity School’s Religious Literacy Project
Diane L. Moore, PhD
Professor Moore launched a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) through HarvardX on January 8, 2018 entitled Religion, Conflict, and Peace in Contemporary Global Affairs.
🌐 https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/
Stanford University’s Stanford Civics Initiative (SCI)
Josiah Ober, PhD
A newly inaugurated program of interdisciplinary courses and faculty, run through the Political Science department at Stanford University.
Columbia University’s Center for Clinical Medical Ethics
Lydia Dugdale, MD
An organization concerned with fostering flourishing relationships between patients and medical professionals.
🌐 http://columbiamedicine.org/ethicscenter
The Paul Hodges Trust
Jenny Carlen
Grant-giving charity breaking the cycle of poverty in Africa through women’s advocacy, education, and empowerment.
🌐 http://www.thepaulhodgestrust.co.uk/index.html
San Juan Public Library
Ms Connie Estades
Founded in 1987, the San Juan Community Library is one of the few lending libraries in Puerto Rico and has more than 30,000 books in Spanish and English in its collection.