Srinivas (“Sri”) and Padma Mandalaparthy who follow TAKA regularly noted the Ganapati’s Kulams work on digital publications and decided to make a gift of an iPad to the Aadheenam. Today they joined the Ganapati Kulam to make their presentation. Their two sons were already avid users! A wonderful and timely gift to the team that is working tirelessly to get Gurudeva lifelong legacy online, and the iPad is our next platform to conquer.

Thank you Sri and Padma!

They are working daily with the trilogy, and love to find moments in life which they describe (a paraphrase of Gurudeva) moments where Siva is in all and all is Siva.

While attending the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, last December, Palaniswami and Senthilnathaswami interviewed Amma Sri Karunamayi of Penusila Ashram in Andhra Pradesh, South India. (At left is Swami Amarananda from the Ramakrishna Mission, Geneva, Switzerland, who was also interviewed.)

Amma had this to say about Hinduism Today: “It is a beautiful, beautiful magazine. It is a total mirror for Hindu Sanatana Dharma. We love the magazine so much. You introduce so many holy souls to the real souls through that magazine. You do a great job. I have been to Hawaii and seen all of you there, the beautiful gardens, a very sacred place, the Siva temple. Very beautiful, what you have done is so great, I have a lot of respect for your magazine. You mentioned Hinduism Today is not your life history, not your book. It is all of the saints, great teachings, their life and the essence of what they are giving through their meditations, through their life essence, their teachings are the essence of their life. So every holy person’s essence of their truth is in your Hinduism Today magazine. So, it is not just like any printed matter, it gives a sense of all the holy people, holy sages, great souls. That is why what you are doing is so great, the unbelievably great things you are doing through the magazine to share with all the people who love the Sanatana Dharma, the Hindu dharma, which is Sanatana Dharma. They love the magazine so much, they feel it belongs to their soul.”

Here is another snippet from our Hinduism Today interviews in Melbourne. One day, Swami Avdheshanand, the head of the Juna Akhara (an order of 500,000 sadhus) in North India, and a recipient of our Hindu of the Year award, invited Bodhinatha, Palaniswami and Senthilnathaswami to lunch at the home of a devotee he was staying with in a Melbourne suburb.

Swamiji had this to say: “Hinduism Today magazine is a wonderful work. It’s a divine work, and I can say it is the work of God. That is the only work that can perpetuate our values, principles, parampara, sampradaya, all our traditions, cultures, customs. So, really, I am very happy. I appreciate all of you. I admire all of you. And I salute all of you because Hinduism Today is a wonderful work on this Earth. I have only word for Hinduism Today, that is a divine work. You are doing God’s work. Amazing, Swamiji, amazing. I admire this work because Hinduism Today is sustaining, promoting, emphasizing, preserving, cultivating ethics and values. Hinduism Today is the face of Hindu culture, tradition, Hindu values. This is not only a magazine, this is the face, this is the soul of Hindu values. Hinduism Today’s work is divine work.”

(And yes, the head of India’s largest order of sadhus carries a Blackberry. He felt quite comfortable with us, with our iPhones and all.)

Swami Mayatitananda was another one of our interviewees in Melbourne last December. She has written for Hinduism Today for over a decade and has always admired the magazine. It was truly a joy for us to meet up with her, talk to her about various issues facing Hinduism nowadays, and to hear her thoughts about the magazine. "It is the voice of reason for Hinduism. It's also an intelligent voice that deals with the issues straightforwardly, intelligently. We are so fortunate as a Hindu community, world community, to have Hinduism Today. So many of our Hindu erudite leaders are so busy that they're not able to put pen to paper or collect thought in a cohesive manner. You've covered the issues intelligently, well, in defense of Hinduism, for Hinduism, safeguarding and also explaining Hinduism to those who have a whole lot of ideas that are erroneous about the tradition.

"What you did in terms of the textbooks alone, that whole series you did on the protection of the textbooks in America–why can't Hindu erudite scholars oversee the formation of those manuscripts? Why must it be done by this chap from Harvard, whatever his name was, Witzel, who still lives in the Harappan civilization with some erroneous history? He still thinks that the Aryan civilization are the rishis, and those types of propaganda! Hinduism Today has been incredible as a very rational, reasonable voice backed by the Shastra, backed by Vedic wisdom and quotes and knowledge, to position itself in response to so many erroneous things about Hinduism. We are so fortunate to have Hinduism Today disseminating information–more education than information, I would say–in a really amazing manner."

We have always felt close to Dada J.P. Vaswani, the spiritual head of Sadhu Vaswani Mission in Pune, India. In the late 1990s he came to Kauai to see Gurudeva, whom he adored. Gurudeva had him address the monks in our guru temple–a very rare privilege. He was later chosen as Hinduism Today’s 2002 Hindu of the Year for the magnificent work he does worldwide. We met with him in Melbourne, interviewed him again for Hinduism Today, and he was just as charming as ever, exuding the love and the basic practical advice that he is known for. He gave a rousing speech at the Convocation of Hindu Spiritual Leaders at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne on December 8, declaring that to begin to solve the world’s problems we must stop all killing and raise our children with love.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_yhi7dtih8

More about his address at his website.