In Sanskrit and Hinduism, “Guru Paramdevatam” means guru is the supreme divinity that exists. This concept, out of the many, could be very close to what assistant professor of religion at Mississippi State University Jonathan Edelmann teaches his students.
A Hindu scholar, Edelmann grew up in Boston, Mass., and graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in philosophy with honors. He later moved to the University of Oxford for his masters in Science and Religion, which ended in a Ph.D of religious studies and theology. 
Edelmann said his interests in Hinduism initially were very personal. 
“I wanted to understand it for myself. It meant something to me as a human being, and it still does, but I also wanted to be a scholar of it. To be a scholar of Hinduism means you learn the Sanskrit language at the very least, and you get into the complexities of the world with the inhabitants,” Edelmann said. 
Edelmann teaches classes in religion at MSU and for the Shackouls Honors College. 
Edelmann said he thinks Hinduism is a vast subject to research and study, but that does not lessen his desire to teach. 
“I would never not want to teach. I do enjoy my summer to go very deeply in a new research topic or to revisit old projects. I do try to make my research as relevant to my teaching as possible and my teaching as relevant to my research as I can, but I would never not want to be in a classroom setting,” Edelmann said. 
Melissa Altsman, MSU alumna said she took Edelmann’s classes including Hinduism, Sanskrit, Indian philosophy, World Religions and Buddhism and he displayed an enthusiasm in every class that affected all of the students.
“His main goal was to make the students not simply retain the information, but to critically think about the subject matter and even attempt to argue against its foundations,” Altsman said. “Dr. Edelmann continuously went above and beyond the duty of a professor in order to better the students who had the privilege to learn from him.” 
Jamie Aron, sophomore political science major, said she never had Edelmann as a professor but first met him through the dean of Shackouls Honors College.
“Now, it is very common for us to meet together to discuss religion, politics and ideologies. He is profoundly open, deep and an excellent professor to talk with. Our coffee shop discussions are always intellectually vibrant. I genuinely appreciate his open-minded nature and his wealth of knowledge of other cultures. He is an exciting asset to our university, and I am constantly learning from him,” Aron said. 
Edelmann said the compliments he gets are humbling, and he does want to impact students in a positive way. 
“I do think using the human mind to think about philosophical and religious issues is of huge benefit to their personal life and their intellectual development and also their professional development, so I feel it is a big responsibility to be a teacher. I know how much my teachers transformed me as a student, and I know how important they were to me in my own development, so every time I step into the class, I try to be cognizant of that and take that responsibility,” Edelmann said. 
John Bickle, philosophy and religion department head at MSU, said Edelmann kick-started MSU’s undergraduate Philosophy and Religion Club.
“He single-handedly started a department-faculty working paper group, where people can present research projects and papers ranging from the germ of a new idea to papers ready to be submitted to professional journals,” Bickle said. 
Edelmann also published a book called “Hindu Theology and Biology: Bhagavata Purana and Contemporary Theory” and has won the 2011 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise. 
Edelmann said he loves the religious and intellectual component of India, but he doesn’t think of becoming a Hindu Yogi anymore. 
“I think when I was a young man, part of me wanted to be a yogi, but not anymore,” Edelmann said. “I know a little Hindi, but I would like to learn more including Bengali, deepen my knowledge of the Sanskrit language, especially the high grammatical tradition of ‘panini,’ and become more steeped in a particular Hindu tradition called the gaudia vaishnavism.”