A Hindu temple opened amidst the picturesque area of the East Village in New York City. This temple is operated by the Ramakrishnananda Yoga Vedanta Mission, funded by His Holiness Swami Ramakrishnananda. This magnificent temple is attended by expert pujaris and the disciples of Swami Ramakrishnananda. The Mandir, in 96 Avenue B. (Between 6th and 7th Sts.), East Village, New York, was opened for the purpose of serving the Hindu community. Pujas and vedic ceremonies are performed daily, and the hindu holidays are celebrated in a classical way, as well as Satsangs and classes given personally by Swami Ramakrishnananda. Numerous members of the Hindu community expressed their greetings and well-wishes for the opening of the Mandir. The public that follows Santana-Dharma enthusiastically attend the daily ceremonies. There are free lectures, classes about Hinduism, Ayurveda, classical Hindu music, Vedanta, and hatha yoga classes. www.ramakrishnananda.com
INATS East, the International New Age Trade Show sponsored by the New Age Retailer magazine, held this winter in Orlando choose 10 companies out of hundreds participants, as the "best of show" for the quality of their products. Ramakrishnanada's Gifts a not for profit business was chosen as one of the "best of show" for their unique resin insence and aromatic oils.
Hoping to rally its various factions and supporters for the first time on an environmental platform, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will launch a 99-day 'Save Ganga' campaign as it held 'rampant corruption' responsible for 'unabated pollution' of the country's most sacred river. The rally will start from Gangasagar where the river merges into the sea and go all the way up to the river's source at Gangotri. One of the high points of the campaign will be Feb 17 when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani and RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan will participate in a special yagna, or fire ritual, in Varanasi. Advani is also expected to address a rally on the banks of the river that day. Hindu clerics, including the four Shankaracharyas, yoga guru Swami Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as well as Ramjanmbhoomi Trust president Mahant Nritya Gopal Das will join what the RSS has billed as the Ganga Sanskriti Pravah Yatra. 'The yatra is a part of the Ganga Mukti Abhiyan taken up by us as a mission to save the Ganga from further degradation,' Acharya Vishnu, national secretary of the RSS outfit Ganga Mahasabha, told IANS by phone from Varanasi. He said 'gross neglect and rampant corruption' at all levels in different state governments was largely responsible for the unabated pollution of the country's most sacred river. 'We have reason to believe that billions of rupees have been pilfered in the name of ridding Ganga of pollution; this campaign is aimed at exposing this as well,' he added. From Varanasi, the yatra will proceed to Allahabad, Kanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Rishikesh and move upstream to Devprayag, Tehri, Uttarkashi and finally Gangotri.
Bhopal, Jan 12 (ANI): The Madhya Pradesh government has made yoga and 'Surya Namaskar,' the "sun-salutation," an integral part of school curriculum, despite political opposition. To mark the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Madhya Pradesh issued guidelines to schools on the Sun salutation. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that Yoga is one aspect that should ideally not attract opposition from any quarter. He insisted that yoga and such health programs should be encouraged. "A sound body and a sound mind are pre-requisites for all successful activities. Yoga is a healthy way of living. Nothing can be better than introducing yoga amongst the students," said Chouhan. He said that yoga would be made compulsory in schools from the next session. Chouhan said that even if a few hundreds vowed to practise yoga regularly, it would be a great achievement. While the government says the move is to bring about a healthy lifestyle among the youth, the opposition parties have condemned the move bringing to notice the pathetic state of schools and the increasing dropout rate. Authorities contend that for the first time hundreds of thousands of students participated in a mass health campaign. "I am very happy that I am practicing yoga. It helps keep fit with a sound mind and body," said Chanchal, a participant at the health camp. Yoga comprises the practice of asanas or postures and includes disciplines of asceticism and meditation, which are thought to lead to spiritual experience and profound understanding or insight into the nature of existence.
Hindus are a lot of things. There are Hindu monotheists, polytheists, panentheists, and even atheists. There are Hindu monists, dualists, non-dualists, and qualified non-dualists. There are Hindus who identify strongly with terms like these, and there are those who feel strongly that the religion shouldn’t be pigeonholed into convenient subdivisions. One thing Hindus aren’t, however, is conspicuous. You won’t find Hindus sitting behind a table on College Walk and passing out flyers in an effort to convince you that whatever you believe in is wrong. The Hindu lecturers invited to campus speak to inform, not to preach. Unless you usually attend the annual Diwali celebration in the fall or play Holi on the steps in the spring—events to which anyone with a penchant for having fun (and eating good Indian food) is invited—you might easily never notice the large Hindu presence on campus. Keeping a low profile is a manifestation of the non-interventionist mindset that has enabled Hinduism to survive some 8,000 years in spite of assaults like the Muslim invasions, the Goa inquisition, and more recent encroachments like the Gospel Fellowship Trust India’s campaign to aggressively convert Dalits and impoverished tribesmen to Christianity. Although this live-and-let-live philosophy probably originated as either a product of geographic isolation or a defensive tactic, it persists in Hindus today—not due to isolation or fear of ostracism, but because it is inherent in the religion and in the tradition of Sana-tana Dharma, the literal translation of which is “eternal natural law.” Sana-tana Dharma is simultaneously a weltanschauung, a set of spiritual laws, and a philosophy, central to which is the idea that lauding one’s own beliefs as superior to other belief systems is unnatural and contrary to the notion that people must progress toward truth on their own. Being Hindu and living Sana-tana Dharma at Columbia on a daily basis is not difficult—in general, the people here are accepting. There are challenges, however, associated with the fact that Hindu students are not an especially noticeable presence on campus. In October of last year, anti-Semitic graffiti, including a swastika, was found in Lewisohn Hall. Although in context the swastika was intended to be offensive to Jews, its use was cause for alarm among other groups—not only because the graffiti was hateful and destructive, but also due to the history of the symbol. Among Hindus, the swastika has long been an extremely holy and auspicious symbol. The administration, commendably, dealt with the graffiti expeditiously and contacted those student groups they felt were most likely to be affected. But the Hindu Students Organization (HSO) wasn’t among those groups. When some members of the Hindu community expressed concern about the possibility that the perversion of the swastika and its use as an anti-Semitic symbol might reflect negatively on the Hindu community, the HSO was at a loss to respond because it hadn’t been promptly informed about the incident. Another effect of the Hindu community’s inconspicuousness is the lack of academic discussion at Columbia about Hinduism, which is both a boon and a disadvantage. In both informal and organized arguments about religion, Hinduism is often overlooked—these arguments are, more often than not, about Abrahamic religion rather than about religion in general. While this allows Hindus to escape any uncomfortable perlustration, it also means that followers of Dharmic religions don’t benefit from the same scrutiny that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are often subjected to—largely, they must question and challenge their personal philosophies for themselves. The intellectual and personal growth of students at any university is contingent upon the presence of engaging and open-minded debate. The absence of such debate is not only detrimental to those whose views are left unchallenged, but also to students who are largely unfamiliar with a religion whose relevance increases every day, as most of Hinduism’s adherents inhabit a country with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. It is imprudent to allow the third-largest and oldest extant religion to go unnoticed, especially at a university that is always at the forefront of global affairs. In spite of the lack of debate about Hinduism, the open-mindedness of the people at Columbia and the presence of a close-knit Hindu community have, for me, greatly facilitated the process of self-discovery that many people begin to undergo when they reach young adulthood. It has been a largely positive experience. The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in physics.