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It’s a quiet Sun Two at the Aadheenam. We had a few Gujarati families visit who were on a boat cruise that stopped over on Kauai and planned to go to a local museum… the taxi driver asked them if they were going to the temple and they said they didn’t know about it and asked him to skip the museum and come here instead. We don’t have photos from here today, but lots of photos from activities abroad, including more from Texas and a series from Malaysia on the wedding of Sivaram and Devika which we will spread over a few days.
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We have a hundred or so photos from Texas and a great report to share with you… here is Bodhinatha in front of the new temple there. We will give you the captions that Yogi Japendranatha has sent us along with the running story, for Days Two and Three. Note, the story may not exactly match the event you see in the picture, and events of both days are a bit interleaved… but you will get the idea.
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A veritable sea of swamis and devotees in the main tent. And the morning of Day Three.
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Yogi Japendranatha’s report from Day Two:
By the grace of Ganesha, Sadhu Jnanpurush Swami called to say our transportation for the day was coming. Our VIP vehicle made its way through traffic barriers, around security guards and through crowds of people, passing by rows of giant generators and temporary AC units with bundles of very large temporary ducting going out to the various tents and temporary buildings, around to the back of the big tent set up next to the temple where this mornings worship events were taking place. We were whisked inside the “Saints Only” entrance behind the stage, meeting lots of happy sadhus with beautiful smiles all along the way, and there we were up on the giant Swaminarayan stage. Pramukh Swami Maharaj, now 84, was in his grand chair, back to the audience, performing puja. I think the puja was for Sri Harikrishna (Radha-Krishna, who also appears on their altar and is explained as an earlier incarnation of God, Lord Swaminarayan being more recent and, of course, the founder of their sampradaya).
On stage during the diksha ceremony.
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[report continued…]
Bodhinatha was given a seat of honor amongst the many sadhus, stage right. Professional photographers and video cameramen were everywhere documenting the happenings. I got to sit at Bodhinatha’s feet and take what photos I could, as well as chat with some of the monks I found myself squeezed intimately amongst. Sadhu Atmaswarup Swami, the head of the London center, and Swami Gyanpriya Swami, the head of the Toronto center, were among them. All the sadhus remember Gurudeva, know who Bodhinatha is, and love Hinduism Today magazine. Gurudeva’s own Church and members are very much alive in their minds and hearts, every single one of them. Again I was struck, heart-warmed, and slightly overwhelmed by how comfortable I was with this group of fellow renunciates.
New sadhu in white receiving diksha from Swamishree.
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[report continued…]
Looking down from the stage, there was a veritable sea of people in this giant tent, watching everything that was going on with rapt attention. Clearly this is an historic moment in their lives, and in their presence in America.
Sadhus lined up, daddies behind.
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[report continued…]
After the puja, Pramukh Swami rose with great dignity and came over to have photos taken with Bodhinatha. He deftly tied red and yellow strings around our wrists and put kumkum and rice on our foreheads, a traditional special blessing from him. He is a graceful and elderly swami surrounded by a great big shining aura of powerful love. He walks along in his orange robes as if floating on a cloud. He is sweet, humble, and preciously unassuming, though you know instantly a great soul is present. We felt quite blessed to have his… well… blessings. It was a powerful moment as all the sadhus (and cameramen) crowded around to witness the tying of those threads of connectedness.
Sadhu receiving instruction from Swamishree.
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[report continued…]
Swamishree, as he is affectionately called, was then escorted off the stage. We were taken out into the hot Texan sun (thank God those tents are air-conditioned), and we had chance meetings with the head engineer (one of the swamis) on the way, as well as Sadhu Atmaswarup Swami, the head of the London center, who took us to one of the classrooms and told us some great stories of some recent seva the BAPS people in London did for the community. We were then taken to the media room where we interviewed a couple of grihastha men from the congregation and one of the leaders of their youth volunteers. Then it was time to go and meet with Dr. Swami, their affectionate name for the most elder swami, a swamibhai of Pramukh Swami and disciple of Yogiji Maharaj, their paramaguru.
[report continued…]
While we waited for Dr. Swami in a room in a house on the temple property that seems to be where some of the visiting (and resident) sadhus stay, we had a wonderful talk with Vishvamurti Swami and Tyagprakash Swami, both from England. Dr. Swami joined us, along with Atmaswarup Swami, and we ended up having a swami think tank, a sort of fantastic discussion, with wide-ranging topics, in sannyasasambandham as they asked Bodhinatha intelligent and important questions that have been on their minds. Bodhinatha had insightful, to-the-point answers, and there was a wonderful back-and-forth chat about such topics as what kind of dikshas are given in our order, misrepresentation of Hinduism in the West (the Emory University Ganesha book thing really irked them) and what to do about it, how Hinduism Today can help them with learned answers to university level questions from Americans about Hindu concepts that are difficult to explain (we have details on these for the HT team), how we (our monks from the west) came to Hinduism, adoption versus conversion, how we deal with those wanting to leave Christianity to join Hinduism, and more… Really great to be a part of such a wonderful chat amongst kindred souls with a common purpose.
They place a tremendous emphasis on character building, as Gurudeva and Bodhinatha do. The first half of this quote from Swamishree is “If wealth is lost, nothing is lost.”
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[report continued…]
They fed us lunch again (feast is the word), and after that we had an interview with Vishvamurti Swami about the monastic order.
Sorry, the lighting was too low and distance too great for a flash to capture the stage activity in perfect focus but you still get a good idea.
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[report continued…]
In the afternoon we got ready to go for the parade. The murtis went all around town in a grand parade for a few hours before the swamis and we joined at the local high school. When we got there, we were ushered into a very fancy new car to be part of the parade. There were hundreds of people in the parade, lots of kids dancing, chanting, singing, walking, etc. There were countless thousands of people on the roads watching the parade. We didn’t get many photos from our position in the car in the parade itself, so we hope to get some from the pro photographers who were on the job. The floats were beautiful, the murtis are beautiful, it was great fun. More sadhus everywhere, very respectful of Bodhinatha, lots of love and a wonderful feeling of brotherhood in their eyes.
Here is what you see, sitting in front of one of the shrines in the temple during the murti pratishtha.
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[report continued…]
The parade ended at the mandir.
[report continued…]
The temple is lit beautifully in the evening, and we got some nice pictures of it. It’s a perfectly elegant and awesomely beautiful temple, and there is a definite vibration, even before the Deities have been installed. It must be all the loving devotion, dedication and sacrifice by so many devotees that makes it so magnificent, not to mention the fact that an awesome order of 720 sadhus is behind it.
[report continued…]
Another thing we wanted to mention that has been happening is that numerous people have come up to Bodhinatha and introduced themselves as Hinduism Today subscribers. There are lots of them amongst the Swaminarayan grihastha membership, and they just love Hinduism Today. They walk up and say things like, “Oh, it’s so wonderful to see you! I am a Hinduism Today subscriber! We love your magazine!” Very nice support.
Report on Day Three in Houston:
It’s hot here in big sky country. Temperatures have been about 100� during the day, mid-high 80s at night, although it’s overcast tonight, we got a little lightning and rain, and it’s cooled down to the mid 70s. Also, it really is “big sky country.” Wide open spaces everywhere, vast open spaces even between the buildings! Huge housing communities, which are kind of packed together, but then there are these giant cleared areas with roads that seem to be set up to become industrial parks. There are usually a couple buildings, really far apart, with most of the space open for leasing, and giant fields with land for sale signs on them. The highways are giant too, and it looks like they run far below capacity. Everything is just big, really big, Texas big.
Almost every section of ceiling is unique. There are some 122 of these elaborate curling archways between the pillars of the temple.
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[report continued…]
We had a wonderful day at the Swaminarayan Mandir in Houston today. The morning began a little earlier than usual, at around 8:00, with the sadhu diksha ceremony in the giant event tent (did I say this tent is huge? must be something like 100 x 250 feet). A bit of background first on their dikshas: They first go to Sarangpur for one year, equivalent to our premonastic program, to live and experience sadhu life before making a firm decision to become a sadhu. During this time they are called Sadhakas. If they decide it is right for them, they take Parshadi Diksha, where they are given the white robes and hat, and they begin 3 or 4 years of training at Sarangpur in preparation for sannyas. During this time at Sarangpur, they are watched carefully by the senior swamis, and if all feel that sadhu life is truly for them, then they take Bhagavati Diksha, receive their sadhu name and don the orange robes as full-fledged sannyasins.
Atmaswarup Swami shows Bodhinatha some literature about children’s programs they are conducting in London and elsewhere… in one of the Houston center’s classrooms.
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[report continued…]
Five sadhus took Parshadi Diksha (white) and one sadhu took Bhagavati Diksha (orange) today in Houston. The ceremony is interesting. Each sadhu, accompanied by his father, went up on stage, already dressed in his new dhoti but bare-chested. Two senior swamis, Dr. Swami and the senior swami in charge of the Sarangpur training center, shared the duty of putting the shawl and hat on each new sadhu, and then one by one, accompanied by dad, they went up to Pramukh Swami for blessings. The father officially handed off his son to his second guru, Pramukh Swami gave his blessings in several ways such as touching him on the head, then looked him in the eye and spoke with him for a minute, apparently giving specific directions. The father then touched his son-now-sadhu’s feet, stood together with him and Pramukh Swami for a photo, and turned around and left the stage. The emotion of the parents was noticeable and touching. Some may not know that the Swaminarayan Sanstha is very strict in that, after diksha, sadhus never again have any contact with their family. They are not even allowed to acknowledge them should eyes fall on each other by happenstance.
[report continued…]
This was clearly a very big day for the BAPS congregation, sadhus and grihasthas alike. After the diksha ceremony in front of thousands of devotees and all the other sadhus present here in Houston, we sat for a while up front in front of the stage as most of the sadhus went off and prepared for the temple’s murti pratishtha ceremony.
[report continued…]
The murti pratishtha ceremony began, and we, along with most of the devotees, were watching it on the big screens. We think only the sponsors were able to fit in the temple itself. It’s not a very big temple, maybe the size of Iraivan plus a little more width. After a while one of the sadhus walked up and asked Bodhinatha if he’d like to go to the temple and participate in the ceremony. Yes, of course, and we were on our way. Going out of the AC tent into the Texan mid-day height-of-the-summer felt just like being in India. We were escorted as VIPs to the temple, entering from the back, and up right in front of the shrines. Bodhinatha was seated on a comfortable chair right in front of the right-most shrine. I was on the floor next to him amongst many sadhus, cameramen and some very hot lights. It’s amazing being around these swamis, because they interact with me just like I’m one of them. With Bodhinatha it’s a little different; they show him great respect and treat him like the great guru that he is.
The beginning of our senior swami think tank in the house. This was a powerful meeting. Some major issues were discussed. These men are clearly Swamishree’s inner circle, thinking about the major policies, the future of their order and congregation, of Hinduism in America and in the world.
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[report continued…]
Pundits were chanting the puja chants while an elaborate little tabletop shrine was setup in front of the central shrine (doors were closed). Pramukh Swami arrived with great pageantry beneath colorful festival umbrellas amongst an entourage of his sadhus, and the beautiful wooden shrine doors were opened so he could have the first darshan of the newly installed Deities. After that, he got settled in his elaborately carved chair and performed puja for the little Harikrishna Deity, which seems to be something he does to begin most ceremonies. He then gave a talk, then the naivedyam offering, then the arati. Bodhinatha was given an arati tray to perform arati for the Deity he was positioned in front of, and Pramukh Swami did the arati for the Swaminarayan Deities, other swamis such as Dr. Swami and another senior swami performing arati for the other Deities. It was a remarkable ceremony, beautiful.
Dr. Swami’s English isn’t very good, so Tyagprakash Swami, raised in Britain, translates for him.
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[report continued…]
As Pramukh Swami made his way out after the puja was finished, he walked by and paid his respects to Bodhinatha. It is quite clear to us that he is really happy Bodhinatha is here.
[report continued…]
Not making our exit soon enough, we found ourselves quickly surrounded by devotees in one of those shoulder-to-shoulder mob scenes thought only possible in India. At first we just went with it, and we ended up in front of the main Swaminarayan shrine, where we noticed a powerful darshan and paid our respects accordingly. It was evident that we needed to begin pushing, as others were, so we squeezed our way through slowly and popped out of the crowd at the edge of the temple, where we ran into Dr. Mehta, who was delighted to see us at his new masterpiece of concrete engineering (he did their foundation with fly ash sans rebar, just like ours, which was the first). Soon after walking down from the temple to the ground level, we were met by some grihastha men who took us back to the main tent.
There are seven unique pillar designs among the 136 carved pillars in the temple.
Vishvamurti Swami, a powerhouse of love and discrimination.
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[report continued…]
A wonderful collection of talks were given, most in Gujurati or Hindi, as were most of the talks and announcements during this festival. Sadhu Atmaswarup Swami from the London center was the only sadhu who spoke in English. His English is very good. The head County Judge of North Bend Country was introduced, and gave a very nice talk with much admiration of BAPS for the temple and how he sees it influencing Texas and America. Next, to our delightful surprise, was House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (who hails from this part of Texas), who gave a fantastic talk beginning with “Jai Swaminarayan!” He began by speaking of religious freedom in America, and how that promise was extended to BAPS without restraint, and how when a religion lays down its roots here, it is a great day for all Americans. He made some absolutely amazing comments in praise and support of BAPS, something I know I wasn’t expecting. It was truly inspiring to see such an important congressional leader saying such things about our religion, our spiritual brothers, our American Hindu population.
Amazing ornamentation!
Pramukh Swami Maharaj, worldwide head the Swami Narayan Fellowship surrounded by his sadhus.
Also known as “Swami Shree” he is a man of great purity and spiritual attainment.
The parade apparently went for miles (grihasthas only) by motorcade through the city before it arrived at this high school to regroup and get ready for the swamis to join and take it to the temple.
Now, even in his 80’s Pramukh Swami Maharaj travels constantly.
Groups of boys dressed in beautifully elaborate, traditional Gujurati costumes joined and danced and sang.
Behind our car.
[report continued…]
Bodhinatha was invited to give a talk, which was by far the most clearly presented and most audible of them all. Everyone listened carefully and absorbed his message, which was all about the Swaminarayan group. All the events today were being live webcast and telecast on TV to 160 countries, in the US on the channel called TV Asia, and in India on Ashta, the major religious TV channel there. Hopefully somebody will send us a tape. We’ll ask the swamis tomorrow also…
[report continued…]
We had lunch at the out-of-town-guests’ tent. There we met Surender, of Zarposh India, an HT advertiser of four years, as well as a number of other nice people, including more happy HT subscribers. Then in the afternoon we spent time with long time supporter of Hinduism Today, Vijay Pallod and his associates discussing the topic that is on everyone’s mind: passing Hinduism on to the next generation.
We never saw the beginning or the end of this fabulous parade. It just seemed to go on forever. Countless thousands participated, and countless thousands lined the sides of the roads in witness. Local residents came out of their homes and enjoyed the pageantry.
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[report continued…]
All in all, at the official end of the BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir Mahotsav, we can say that we have had a very wonderful time at a great festival inaugurating a truly awesome temple, a major architectural masterpiece that is really a statement of Hinduism to not only the greater Houston community but also to the entire American community, much in the same way that the BAPS temple in Neasden was a great statement of Hinduism’s greatness to the UK.
[report continued…]
Tomorrow, in a more post-festival relaxed mood, we are going to meet again with Dr. Swami, who has requested some more discussion time with us, as well as some of the other swamis for interviews about various topics for the Hinduism Today article we are doing, including one or two of the just-initiated sadhus. We hear that we may also get a chance to sit with Pramukh Swami Maharaj for a few questions. We’re really looking forward to that.
Swami Shree performs arati at one of the shrines of the new temple.
Look familiar?
Look, just like us. Vishvamurti Swami coordinating on his cell phone.
This is the portable television studio that was used as the center of operations for the TV coverage.
Saiva Siddhanta Church
Malaysia Mission
We happy to share these photos sent to us from Malaysia where the newest couple in Saiva Siddhanta Church is getting married….
Today we bring you four photos from the legal, civil wedding held on June 25, 2004 at the Penang Registration Department.
Devika Says “yes” when asked if she accepts Sivaram Eswaran as her lawful husband at the legal wedding.
Sivaram signs the marriage licence
Sivaram and Devika with the family.
Sivaram and Devika pose together after the registration.
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