Source: www.hinduismtoday.com

KAUAI, HI, USA, December 1, 2010: The January/February/March edition of Hinduism Today, Hinduism’s flagship magazine, has been released in digital form and is now available for free on your desktop. You can read it on our website or download it. In this issue we deliver two monumental Educational Insights, a major feature story on the famed Gold-Clad Temple of Vellore and a host of other captivating pieces you can’t miss.

Our first Insight Section tells the modern history of India from Independence to modern times. If you have found history to be a tough read, as most of us have, you will find this summary remarkably engrossing from start to finish. The expert critics who reviewed the text for us said they found it an “easy read” and were inspired to see how Dr. Shiva Bajpai and our editors had managed to accurately and endearingly summarize six decades of complexity. This is the fifth and final chapter in our series on Hindu history for use in US primary and secondary schools. In writing this lesson, we found that little appreciation has been given modern India’s founders for their genius, skill and courage in creating the world’s largest democracy out of the ruins of Colonial India. Between 1947 and today, India stayed united as astounding progress occurred: the life expectancy doubled; its share of world’s gross income doubled; the annual national rate of growth more than doubled; poverty was reduced by half; and literacy was increased six-fold. These figures resulted from successful nation-building. To a significant extent, India’s unity over these last sixty years has sustained Hinduism’s unity. It is also notable that modern India continues to be what India has always been: a deep source of wisdom and practical spirituality valued by societies around the world. Read all about it in this issue of Hinduism Today.

Our feature article takes us to Malaikodi, a once sleepy village outside Vellore in Tamil Nadu, where a new spiritual movement is emerging with dynamic social service programs and a powerful temple to the Goddess that is entirely gilded in gold. Until now, the press has been kept at bay by the Narayani Peedam, and cameras are not permitted on the grounds. When our intrepid reporter, Rajiv Malik, and professional photographer Dev Raj Agarwal stepped into the complex, that was the first time journalists had been given free reign to tell this amazing story in words and pictures. The Sri Mahalakshmi Narayani Golden Temple is the magnificent centerpiece of a sprawling 100-acre complex established by the Narayani Peedam, a grassroots organization led by a guru called Sakthi Amma, a young, self-proclaimed avatar of the Goddess.

Our second graphically rich Educational Insight brings you deep into sadhana, a Sanskrit word that names the broad range of spiritual disciplines that make Hinduism such a dynamic, progressive force of personal progress and experience. The heart of this piece is an inspired discourse by our founder, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, in which he outlines for seekers the importance of sadhana, especially in the form of a daily vigil. He discusses the misconceptions and benefits, arguing that the consistent performance of sadhana yields experience about the body, mind, emotions and the three worlds of existence that yields spiritual transformation. This Insight introduces several novel sadhanas that you can adopt in your own life, including “Being the Witness,” “Complete Surrender” and “Subconscious Journaling.”

If you are not already concerned with the direction that mainstream food has taken, you will be after you read our three-page story entitled “How Our Food Choices Affect the Entire Planet.” We present excerpts from eye-opening books by experts in the field. In “The Ethics of What We Eat, Why Our Food Choices Matter,” Professor Peter Singer and animal rights activist Jim Mason show how eating meat, poultry, fish and factory-farmed dairy products not only contributes to animal abuse, but also environmental degradation, social injustice and climate change. For further insights and earthy alternatives, we refer to Michael Pollan’s 2010 bestseller, “Food Rules.” Skipping his recommendations on eating flesh, you will, as we did, find his 64 rules for better eating remarkably sensible, and funny as well. Pollan’s impressive set of food books will make readers stop and think before buying factory raised flesh or processed foods.

In this issue’s Publisher’s Desk column, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami focuses on a question that Hindus everywhere ask him: “How can I be a good Hindu amidst our busy times?” In response, he lays out the basic practices of Hinduism and explains how they can enhance your life. His prescription, called “Practice makes perfect,” comes with an encouraging, compelling theme: “Our inner essence, our soul nature, is already perfect. Our practice, or self effort, is to bring that inner perfection into our outer intellectual, emotional and instinctive nature…. The most devout know that each life on Earth is an opportunity for advancement and therefore take advantage of the many tools their faith provides. Following these five traditional observances brings forth, day by day, the perfection that lies, waiting, within each of us.”

There is lots more, of course. A book review, our Quotes and Quips page, and some dynamite letters to the editor in which readers debate the merits and demerits of “Sita Sings the Blues,” the feature story in our last issue. Last but not least, we should mention Dr. Virender Sodhi’s column on ayurveda. It is a blockbuster. In this issue he dives into the malady of hypertension, describing the debilitating way this serious imbalance is approached by mainstream medicine, while offering solid, earthy advice from the perspective of India’s science of life.

Yes, all this is in the current issue of Hinduism Today, where you go to stay in touch with Sanatana Dharma. Don’t miss it! Read it here.

Source: www.nytimes.com

NEW YORK, November 22, 2010 (an editorial from the New York Times): President Obama has issued an executive order revamping the rules covering religious-based and neighborhood programs receiving federal dollars. It makes some good changes to better ensure that the faith-based initiative begun by George W. Bush and extended by Mr. Obama respects religious liberty.

But the revisions have a glaring omission. Ignoring one of Mr. Obama’s own important campaign promises, and a large coalition of religious, education and civil rights groups, the new decree fails to draw a firm line barring employment discrimination on the basis of religion. The order leaves untouched a 2007 Justice Department memo that dubiously concluded that the government cannot order religious groups not to discriminate as a condition of federal financing. That memo should have been withdrawn long ago by this administration. President Obama firmly asserted that principle on the campaign trail in 2008.

Source: community.nytimes.com

USA, November 30, 2010: [HPI note: The New York Times article “A Debate Over Yoga’s Soul,” summarized on November 28’s edition of HPI, spawned a prolific and intelligent debate among the readers, who posted hundreds of comments. You can see them here . Some examples are below, edited for brevity.

reader Manas, from San Francisco:
Chopra, Debbie Desmond and their ilk’s contention is based on the thesis that what is today known as Hinduism is dissonant from what they refer to as Vedic, ancient Indian, Sanskritic, Oriental, and what not. This asinine argument that “Vedic Tradition” and Hinduism are disparate is consummate dishonesty and is ludicrous at best.

Simply because the moniker Hindu is of recent origin does not imply a disjunction with everything prior to its coinage. Case in point, the appellation “India” for Bharatvarsh is of recent origin. This does not imply that the heritage of Bharatvarsh prior to European colonialism (which led to the moniker India) can be dissociated from India.

It is credit to Hinduism’s plural and inclusive philosophy that Hindus accepted a non-Sanskrit name for the harder to pronounce Sanatana Dharma. It is also to Hinduism’s credit that in consonance with its pluralism and inclusiveness, Hindus are happy to share Yoga, Ayurveda, Vedanta and other very Hindu traditions, practices and philosophies with non-Dharmic ideologues, without any sort of coercion for conversion. However, credit and recognition of their undeniable and inseparable roots in Sanatana Dharma (or its recent moniker Hinduism) would go a long way in cultivating a space of respect and empathy.

reader Siddhartha Banerjee, from Oxford, PA:
Of course, Yoga is Hindu. It comes from India and has been practiced by Hindus for centuries. What does that make it? And it is not unfair to ask those profiting economically from the Yoga industry why they wouldn’t want to acknowledge that connection

reader N.S. Rajaram, from Dartmouth, MA:
As the author of several books on ancient India, I am struck by the dismissive tone of Dr. Deepak Chopra whom the article rightly calls a New Age Writer. He is not a scholar, knows no Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism, and has no competence to comment on its history or philosophy. He is a pop philosopher who borrows its symbols to market his books and himself. He has written also about the Buddha, Jesus and Prophet Mohammed though he is no more a scholar in these fields than in Vedic Hinduism.

reader Paul, from New York City:
Yoga uncoupled with a moral construct leads nowhere, except towards being more physically fit. Hinduism provides that moral construct.

reader Kel, from Texas:
I practice yoga 7 days a week in the privacy of my own home - so in my home I own yoga. And I’m a Christian - and my soul is doing fine.

reader Jane, from New Hampshire:
The “yoga brand”? That doesn’t seem to echo the concern over “yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.” It is frightening to me how ubiquitous ad lingo has become. Towns are brands, religions are brands, trees are brands, local agriculture is a brand, I am a brand…The only way to justify right action is to appeal to “brand?”

reader Srini, from New Jersey:
The genius of Hinduism is that it cannot be defined. It really is everything to everyone. It starts with “God is within you” and fans out to “You can worship God in any form”. This is where the multi-theism seems to have come to represent the religion. As far as yoga is concerned, it is what Yogis practice, and Yogi’s are wise people and one might suppose these Yogis were religious people and they melded religion and spiritual practice with the practice of Yoga. Hinduism suggests that one lead a moral life (Dharma and Karma - Actions and Consequences). So anyone can be a Hindu by definition - no requirement to worship a specific pantheon of Gods. Therefore Yoga belongs to everyone (my assertion, and of course debatable). I hope people involved in the debate take a step back and follow the tenets of Hinduism and “live and let live.”

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apKfMTasN_I&hd=1

KAUAI, HI, USA, November 30, 2010: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, publisher of Hinduism Today, addresses the subject of perfection in his latest Publisher’s Desk article. How to reach it? Watch the video here.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

ROHTAK, INDIA, November 24, 2010: A rare 1200-year-old sandstone sculpture of a Hindu Goddess has been discovered from an archeological site near Kaleshwar temple in Kurukhsetra. According to historians, the sculpture signifies the prevalence of worship of female Gods during the Pratihar and pre-Pratihar era.

The 66 lb. sandstone sculpture of Goddess Shakti could be from the Shakti peetha of Savitri or the Bhadrakali of Thanesar in Kurukshetra. Thanesar is known for Shaktism, worship of the divine in the form of the Supreme Mother of the universe.

Rajesh Purohit, deputy director and curator of the Shrikrishna Museum, spotted the sculpture near the banks of Saraswati pond in Kaleshwar temple in Thanesar recently. Purohit who is also an archaeologist, said: This kind of an Deity has never been noticed here before in the history. This is one of the finest early-Pratihar era images found in Haryana.

Source: www.abpnews.com

DALLAS, TEXAS, October 20, 2010: Texas Faith, a regular feature of the Dallas Morning Newswebsite, invited panelists Oct. 19 to react to a column by Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, warning that “Christians who practice yoga are embracing, or at minimum flirting with, a spiritual practice that threatens to transform their own spiritual lives into a ‘post-Christian, spiritually polyglot’ reality. Should any Christian willingly risk that?” Sam Hodges, the reporter moderating the discussion, asked 12 panelists from various faith traditions about whether they agree with Mohler.

Jim Denison, theologian in residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, pointed out that the dictionary defines Yoga with a capital “Y” as “a Hindu theistic philosophy.” The lower-case form describes a series of exercises “originally used to advance Yoga.” “Millions of Americans are apparently happy to adopt and adapt yoga with little or no knowledge of Yoga,” Denison wrote. “But is this a good idea?” “Albert Mohler doesn’t think so,” he continued. “In his view, ‘When Christians practice yoga, they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their practice of yoga. While I disagree with Dr. Mohler on a variety of subjects, I find myself persuaded by his logic here,” Denison said. “Christianity and Hinduism are contradictory worldviews. Jesus taught that ‘whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). Hinduism embraces reincarnation, thousands of gods, and eventual ‘moksha’ whereby one is absorbed into Brahman and ceases to exist. If one is right, the other is wrong.”

George Mason, senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, meanwhile, observed that Mohler “seems to be on the prowl these days to purge all impurities from Christian practice.” “The problem is that Christianity is always and has always been at work adjudicating spiritual reality rather than summarily rejecting everything it doesn’t create itself,” Mason said. “Spiritual practices like yoga can be infused with Christian meaning without opening the door to New Age thinking,” Mason said. “It requires knowing what one believes and why, but Mohler’s alternative of rejecting everything outside his world view of the Christian faith is not a healthy or faithful approach to a God who is also at work in the world outside of the Christian community.”

Source: www.thehindu.com

LONDON, U.K., November 24, 2010: Radiation from Wi-Fi networks which enable our burgeoning online communications may be killing off magnificent trees. Trees planted close to a wireless router had bleeding bark and dying leaves, says a Dutch study. The revelation will raise fears that Wi-Fi radiation may also be having an effect on the human body and supports parents who have campaigned to stop wireless routers being installed in schools, the Daily Mail reports.

The city of Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands ordered the study after officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees. Researchers took 20 ash trees and for three months exposed them to six sources of radiation. Trees placed closest to the Wi-Fi source developed a ‘lead-like shine’ on their leaves which was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis - the leaf’s skin.

In the Netherlands, 70 per cent of all trees in urban areas show the same symptoms, compared with 10 per cent five years ago, the study found. Trees in densely forested areas are not affected, according to a Wageningen University statement. The Dutch health agency issued a statement, stressing that “these are initial results and they have not been confirmed in a repeat survey”.

Source: HPI

KAUAI, HI, USA, November 30, 2010: Himalayan Academy is offering complimentary paperback sets of the Master Course trilogy of books; Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva to temple and ashram libraries. The books are courtesy of the Hindu Businessmen’s Association Trust, a fund with Hindu Heritage Endowment. Send an email to books@hindu.org with your temple or ashram’s name, contact person and mailing address.

Source: www.hinduismtoday.com

To give love is true freedom; to demand love is pure slavery.
   Swami Chinmayananda

Source: www.nytimes.com

NEW YORK, USA, November 27, 2010: Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.

But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism. The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.

That suggestion, modest though it may seem, has drawn a flurry of strong reactions from figures far apart on the religious spectrum. Dr. Deepak Chopra, the New Age writer, has dismissed the campaign as a jumble of faulty history and Hindu nationalism. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said he agrees that yoga is Hindu — and cited that as evidence that the practice imperiled the souls of Christians who engage in it.

The question at the core of the debate — who owns yoga? — has become an enduring topic of chatter in yoga Web forums, Hindu American newspapers and journals catering to the many consumers of what is now a multibillion-dollar yoga industry.

In June, it even prompted the Indian government to begin making digital copies of ancient drawings showing the provenance of more than 4,000 yoga poses, to discourage further claims by entrepreneurs like Bikram Choudhury, an Indian-born yoga instructor to the stars who is based in Los Angeles. Mr. Choudhury nettled Indian officials in 2007 when he won a United States patent for 26 yoga poses he packaged as “Bikram Yoga.”

The effort to “take back” yoga began quietly enough, with a scholarly essay posted in January on the Web site of the Hindu American Foundation, a Minneapolis-based group that promotes human rights for Hindu minorities worldwide. The essay lamented a perceived snub in modern yoga culture, saying that yoga magazines and studios had assiduously decoupled the practice “from the Hinduism that gave forth this immense contribution to humanity.” Dr. Shukla put a sharper point on his case a few months later in a column on the On Faith blog of The Washington Post. Hinduism, he wrote, had become a victim of “overt intellectual property theft,” made possible by generations of Hindu yoga teachers who had “offered up a religion’s spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism.”

That drew the attention of Dr. Chopra, an Indian-American who has done much to popularize Indian traditions like alternative medicine and yoga. He posted a reply saying that Hinduism was too “tribal” and “self-enclosed” to claim ownership of yoga.

The fight went viral — or as viral as things can get in a narrow Web corridor frequented by yoga enthusiasts, Hindu Americans and religion scholars. Dr. Shukla said reaction to the yoga campaign had far exceeded his expectations.

“We started this, really, for our kids,” said Dr. Shukla, a urologist and a second-generation Indian-American. “When our kids go to school and say they are Hindu, nobody says, ‘Oh, yeah, Hindus gave the world yoga.’ They say, ‘What caste are you?’ Or ‘Do you pray to a monkey god?’ Because that’s all Americans know about Hinduism.”

With its tiny budget, the foundation has pressed its campaign largely by generating buzz through letters and Web postings to academic journals and yoga magazines.

[Read Hinduism Today's article on this subject, featuring the debate between Dr. Aseem and Deepak Chopra, here. ]

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

USA, November 24, 2010 (by Saumya Arya Haas): I am vegetarian. I am American, but there is no turkey on my table. At Thanksgiving, my house today is as confusing, chaotic and lively as my childhood. But it’s not “turkey day.” Traditionally, we make lasagna. I’m not sure how that started. But it’s perfect: an Italian dish, a Hindu cook, an American table.



I also make the whole, expected, shebang: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, about four different kinds of pie and chai. My family would rebel if there was no chai.

My family experience of being Hindu is deeply rooted in inclusiveness, social equity and community service. Chai-party values, if you like. Giving is part of being thankful: We acknowledge our own bounty and share with those who have less. This year I am achingly aware of those who have less, those who struggle to put everyday food on the table. I can’t imagine the anxiety that Thanksgiving, with all its demands of abundance, must bring to those who have no abundance. I am shamed by my shallow vision of perfection.

Bounty is not only the material: it is the strength of our hearts, the power of our intellect, the wisdom of our traditions, the poetry of our being. Community is the communion of sharing these things. Sharing means giving as well as receiving. We are intertwined; our actions reverberate and echo and come around again. No one only gives or only receives.

Everyone brings something to the table.

On Thanksgiving, I have been surprised by unanticipated guests, interesting food, odd drinks, badly-behaved pets, talented teenagers, amazing stories and conversations both warm and contentious. More than anything, I have been surprised by the thrill of the unexpected amid the familiarity of ritual. My expectations are always challenged.

I have to surrender my image of perfection. The reality is far messier, but it is warm and real, unpredictable and delicious. It is the abundance at my table.

There’s pumpkin pie on the table and chai on the stove. This is America, after all. We create our own truth, if there even is a truth at all. We are all poor in something. We share with those who have less. Everyone brings something. We are imperfect, real, enriched.

Source: www.hinduismtoday.com

You can’t stop people from using and transforming yoga, but you should know where yoga came from and respect those origins. Lisa Miller, Religion Editor of Newsweek

Source: www.thehindu.com

NEW DELHI, INDIA, November 26, 2010: The seminar “How deep are the roots of Indian civilization? An archaeological and historical perspective” was inaugurated by Ministry of Culture Secretary Jawahar Sircar on Thursday. It focuses on creating awareness in civil society about recent archaeological and historical researches, and also to promote understanding and relevance of Indian civilization in modern times.

Organised by Draupadi Trust in collaboration with knowledge partners Archaeological Survey of India and Indian Archaeological Society and hosted by the Vivekananda International Foundation, the three-day-long seminar will include presentations by renowned scholars and archaeologists from India and abroad.

Mr. Sircar stressed the importance of a “serious study on the subject of antiquity of Indian civilisation” and urged scholars to base their research on rational, not emotional basis.

Delivering the keynote address, former ASI Director-General Prof. B. B. Lal spoke about “postulates [that] have been distorting our vision of India’s past”. Among these is the belief that the Vedas are no older than 1200 B.C. and that Vedic people were nomads. Recent excavations at sites in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat and a fresh study of Vedic texts, he said, have proved that most of these postulates are “ill- founded.”

According to Prof. Lal, these excavations proved that the Rigveda is older than 2,000 BC and people of this civilisation were not nomads. Quashing the “Aryan invasion theory” he said that the Harappan civilisation did not become extinct, and C-14 dating procedures proved that Harappan and Vedic people were indigenous, not invaders or migrants.

Thursday’s session focussed on the life and practices of Harappan and Vedic civilisations, with presentations on scientific findings of the geographic identification and significance of Sapta Sindhu by California State University Professor Dr. Shiva Bajpai; the drainage system in north-west India with regard to river Saraswati by Central Arid Zone Research Institute’s Dr. J. R. Sharma and Indian Space Research Organisation scientist Dr. Bidyut Bhadra; among many other luminaries.

Source: www.spiked-online.com

UK, November 19, 2010: Today, as Britain seeks to expand diplomatic links with India and as Churchill is championed as a hero of multiculturalism, Madhusree Mukerjee’s shocking account of the exploits of the Empire is well worth reading. His book “Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II” reminds Britain’s conduct in the Indian subcontinent, which has largely disappeared from memory - at least in Britain.

For example, during the struggle for independence a reasonably sympathetic report in the Daily Telegraph matter-of-factly declared that in India Winston Churchill “has been blamed for allowing more than a million people to die of starvation.”

Madhusree Mukerjee, writes with all the authority and clarity one might expect from someone who has served on the board of editors of Scientific American. Even for those who know a little of what happened in Calcutta and Bengal between 1939 and 1945, her chronicle has a true capacity to shock and enlighten.

“India was, next to Britain, the largest contributor to the Empire’s war”

Churchill’s racism toward Indians, especially Hindus, is no longer news, such has been the tide of revisionist thinking that began with the historian John Charmley’s 1993 book Churchill: The end of glory - A Political Biography. Nevertheless, the scale of British perfidy towards the 400 million people of India, and the scale of the famine that befell Bengal in 1943, are recounted by Mukerjee with such blistering coolness that one is left reeling. The fact that today, these things should be so badly forgotten, or treated as a surprising revelation, also gives pause for thought.

India’s job in the 1940s, as far as the British were concerned, was to ward off the Soviets from Afghanistan, to join in the defeat of the Germans in the Middle East and Africa, and, after Pearl Harbour, to join in the defeat of the Japanese. But there was another job Britain did, too: it removed India’s best troops from India, so that no nationalist mutiny there could be successful. Added to this, as Mukerjee makes clear, the colony’s entire output of timber, woollen textiles and leather goods, as well as three quarters of its steel and cement, were diverted to the defense of the British Empire. India was, next to Britain, the largest contributor to the Empire’s war.

Minutes from Britain’s War Cabinet in February 1940 record that Churchill regarded the ‘feud’ between Hindus and Muslims “as the bulwark of British rule in India.”

Estimates differ on how many died of famine in Bengal during and after 1943, not least because, as Mukherjee laconically observes, ‘deaths from malnutrition were undoubtedly occurring even in so-called normal years’. But three million is probably the best estimate. How did this happen?

Read more about this book here

Source: Religion News Service

WASHINGTON, November 2010: Religious leaders and veterans called for a reconsideration of conscientious objection to war, saying military members should have the right to object to America’s wars for moral reasons. In a report issued on November 10, the Truth Commission on Conscience in War called on the military to revise its rules to include “selective conscientious objection,” and urged religious leaders to address issues of conscience during wartime.

“It denies freedom of religious practice and the exercise of moral conscience to those serving in the military who object to a particular war based on the moral criteria of just war, which the military itself teaches and upholds as important,” the report reads. The report notes that military rules dating to the time of the Vietnam draft leave no legal basis for objection for someone who believes “participation implicates them in an immoral war or in war crimes.”

Source: www.hinduismtoday.com

Even as water becomes one with water, fire with fire, and air with air, so the mind becomes one with the Infinite Mind and thus attains final freedom.
   Krishna Yajur Veda, Maitreya Upanishad 6.34.11

Source: www.chynetwork.org

[HPI note: This opinion piece was written by Tejas Dave on the occasion of the Hindu Mandir Executives Conference, in November, and published on the website of The Coalition of Hindu Youth,an umbrella organization to foster unity and share resources among Hindu youth and Hindu youth groups.]

USA, November 16, 2010 (by Tejas Dave): I have heard many questions about why we even need temples. God is said to be omnipresent, He is everywhere. Let me answer by saying this, air is everywhere, but we still need a fan to feel that air. God is everywhere, but we need a mandir to feel God’s presence.

Today, while the temples continue to fill this void, they also address the phenomena of Hindus born away from their ancestral home. And yet, while these great strides were made mostly by first generation Hindu-Americans, it will soon come time for a new generation to take over the reins of leadership of Hindu mandirs and organizations and expand them to adequately fulfill the needs of an ever growing population.

It is for this reason that the Hindu Mandir Executives’ Conference (HMEC) was convened. This was not to reminisce upon the past, but to envision the future; to understand these concerns and the rapidly changing needs that our community faces. As our numbers continue to grow and our age spectrum continues to broaden, it will be necessary to make changes in the way the mandir is a part of our lives.

For the torchbearers of Hindu tradition and current leaders of Hindu temples, it is now time to search for the protectors of this legacy in the future. And for college and high school students, such as myself, it is now time to understand the rich and vast culture that we are charged with sustaining. It is time for an active effort to enfranchise and empower the next generation of leaders.

Read the full text of this reflection here.

Source: www.hindu.com

INDIA, November 14, 2010: “My opting for Hinduism is not a religious gimmick,” says Julia Roberts with her usual self-confidence in a telephone chat with Ranjan Das Gupta. In London recently, the actress spoke about her recent “Eat, Pray, Love” and its success during the interview. “It is similar to a character of Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. It’s about finding peace and tranquillity of mind in Hinduism, one of the oldest and respected religions of civilisation”.

The Pretty Woman’s Hindu faith is a private matter.

“I have no intention of demeaning any other religion simply because of my fondness for Hinduism. I don’t believe in comparing religions or human beings. A comparison is a very mean thing to do. I have received real spiritual satisfaction through Hinduism,” she says.

Source: Religion News Service

UNITED STATES, November 18, 2010: Marriage is on the decline in American society, with nearly four in 10 people claiming the institution is obsolete, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. The Pew survey, conducted in association with Time magazine, shows a shifting definition of marriage and increasing acceptance of cohabitation beyond traditional boundaries of matrimony.

“The young are much more inclined than their elders to view cohabitation without marriage and other new family forms — such as same-sex marriage and interracial marriage — in a positive light,” said the report.

Since 1990, cohabitation has nearly doubled, according to the Census Bureau, and the Pew survey showed that 44 percent of adults have lived with an unmarried partner at some point during their lives. Younger people are also hesitant to get married. In 1960, 68 percent of 20-somethings had tied the knot, but now only one in four have. The economy has some effect on this trend, especially for those in the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder, since many people seek financial stability before getting married. In 2008, more than half of all adults were married, compared to 72 percent in 1960.

Source: www.nytimes.com

USA, October 27, 2010: Remember climate change? It used to be a hot topic.

It’s hardly surprising that a new study released the other day by a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research didn’t register on any political radar screens, amid America’s political wars. But it predicted the future of America’s agriculture with wide implications.

The study, by Aiguo Dai, concluded that most of the western two-thirds of the United States will be significantly drier by the 2030s, and that large parts of the nation face an increasing risk of extreme drought. This is not about melting ice caps; it’s about Dust Bowl-style drought within two decades. “If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous,” Dr. Dai said.

When Barack Obama won the nomination, he said his election to the presidency would be historic on two issues: health care and climate change, a point when “the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Two years later, you can barely find the phrase “climate change” on the Web sites of Democrats running for office, and for Republicans it has become an item of faith to be a skeptic.

Despite debate, informed and less so, the scientific consensus has not changed. We can tune in 50 years from now and find out who was right — at which point it will be too late.