The Ganapati Kulam is in the middle of the pressure-cooker final days of editorial work on the Hinduism Today April issue. This issue includes a major achievement: coverage of 15 festival that are being designed as “Pagers” for distribution to the mainstream media and then re-formatted for our magazine.

Here is Mahasivaratri. These pagers are designed very simply with an explanation of the meaning of the festival, when and how it is observed. Included are some key points of Hindu philosophy related to the festival and recipes. Of course for Maha Sivaratri the recipe is H20 Water!

This is the Navaratri festival pager, with a recipe for Sundal, chickpeas, (garbanzo beans) Indian style.

For the pager on the Guru Purnima Festival, we took this photo of Bodhinatha’s padukas from our own Guru Peedam.

We are looking for new members of the HPI team. You need a good command of the English language to do this seva, which is so important–and influential–in the Hindu world. Please contact studyhall@hindu.org and thank you!

A Story from Palaniswami:

Hinduism Today, Gurudeva’s brilliant creation, continues to amaze. Every single Hindu there knows it and reads it. In the halls and chambers of the Parliament I had a most revealing experience, about four times. It went something like this:

Important swami approaches with impressive retinue, meets us and stops to inquire:

“Namaste, and where are you from?” (Said with the clear sense that we are blessed to meet him)

We’re from Hawaii, swami

Oh. And what is your mission’s name?

Saiva Siddhanta Church

I see. And what do you do there? (awkwardly looking for a way to exit the conversation)

I am the editor of a magazine, swami.

Very good. What magazine would that be?

It’s called Hinduism Today.

(Suddenly there is unrestrained elation in the voice) Hinduism Today! I LOVE Hinduism Today. You’re the editor? I am so glad to meet you. Let’s talk about…

Ah, the power of the press. From no-name minion to BFF in just one sentence. How sweet it is to see everyone’s smile when they know who we are. How wise our Gurudeva was, wise and prescient.

Don’t miss ordering your Saivite Calendar for 2010 with the fine artwork of S. Rajam that you see in the books produced by the monks. a href=”http://www.zazzle.com/Skandadeva*” target=”blank”>http://www.zazzle.com/Skandadeva*
Partial Proceeds to Iraivan Temple Building fund.
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END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming two-day retreat,
until Dvitiya Tithi, Sun One, Thursday, December 17th.

The big news today from Australia is the Hindu Climate Declaration which we present here in full:

Presented for Consideration to the Convocation of Hindu Spiritual Leaders
Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne, Australia, December 8, 2009

Earth, in which the seas, the rivers and many waters lie, from which arise foods and fields of grain, abode to all that breathes and moves, may She confer on us Her finest yield.

Bhumi Suktam, Atharva Veda xii.1.3

The Hindu tradition understands that man is not separate from nature, that we are linked by spiritual, psychological and physical bonds with the elements around us. Knowing that the Divine is present everywhere and in all things, Hindus strive to do no harm. We hold a deep reverence for life and an awareness that the great forces of nature–the earth, the water, the fire, the air and space–as well as all the various orders of life, including plants and trees, forests and animals, are bound to each other within life’s cosmic web.

Our beloved Earth, so touchingly looked upon as the Universal Mother, has nurtured mankind through millions of years of growth and evolution. Now centuries of rapacious exploitation of the planet have caught up with us, and a radical change in our relationship with nature is no longer an option. It is a matter of survival. We cannot continue to destroy nature without also destroying ourselves. The dire problems besetting our world–war, disease, poverty and hunger–will all be magnified many fold by the predicted impacts of climate change.

The nations of the world have yet to agree upon a plan to ameliorate man’s contribution to this complex change. This is largely due to powerful forces in some nations which oppose any such attempt, challenging the very concept that unnatural climate change is occurring. Hindus everywhere should work toward an international consensus. Humanity’s very survival depends upon our capacity to make a major transition of consciousness, equal in significance to earlier transitions from nomadic to agricultural, agricultural to industrial and industrial to technological. We must transit to complementarity in place of competition, convergence in place of conflict, holism in place of hedonism, optimization in place of maximization. We must, in short, move rapidly toward a global consciousness that replaces the present fractured and fragmented consciousness of the human race.

Mahatma Gandhi urged, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” If alive today, he would call upon Hindus to set the example, to change our lifestyle, to simplify our needs and restrain our desires. As one sixth of the human family, Hindus can have a tremendous impact. We can and should take the lead in Earth-friendly living, personal frugality, lower power consumption, alternative energy, sustainable food production and vegetarianism, as well as in evolving technologies that positively address our shared plight. Hindus recognize that it may be too late to avert drastic climate change. Thus, in the spirit of vasudhaiva kutumbakam, “the whole world is one family,” Hindus encourage the world to be prepared to respond with compassion to such calamitous challenges as population displacement, food and water shortage, catastrophic weather and rampant disease.

Sanatana Dharma envisions the vastness of God’s manifestation and the immense cycles of time in which it is perfectly created, preserved and destroyed, again and again, every dissolution being the preamble to the next creative impulse. Notwithstanding this spiritual reassurance, Hindus still know we must do all that is humanly possible to protect the Earth and her resources for the present as well as future generations.

One of our master course students, Kumar, in Europe has thought of a way to help raise funds for Iraivan…

Check out this lovely calendar:

http://www.zazzle.com/Skandadeva

Indian artist S. Rajam depicts Gurudeva giving darshan from the Guru Peedam, his legacy trilogy beside him. We are honoring that life and that legacy today, honoring his presence still in our lives, his many gifts we are still unwrapping eight years later. Today, we offer a small excerpt from the book "Seven Mystic Gurus" the monks are working on, sort of our version of "Autobiography of a Yogi," the stories of our spiritual lineage. One day Gurudeva told us, "A sannyasin of attainment has had many, many lifetimes of accumulating this power of kundalini to break that seal at the door of Brahman. Here is a key factor. Once it is broken, it never mends. Once it is gone, it's gone. Then the kundalini will come back–and this gives you a choice between upadeshi and nirvani–and coil in the svadhishthana, manipura, anahata, wherever it finds a receptive chakra, where consciousness has been developed, wherever it is warm.

"A great intellect or a siddha who finds the Self might return to the center of cognition; another might return to the manipura chakra. The ultimate is to have the kundalini coiled in the sahasrara. I personally didn't manage that until 1968 or '69 when I had a series of powerful experiences of kundalini in the sahasrara. It took twenty years of constant daily practice of tough sadhanas and tapas. I was told early on that much of the beginning training was had in a previous life and that is why, with the realization in this life, I would be able to sustain all that has manifested around me and within me as the years passed by. Results of sadhanas came to me with a lot of concentrated effort, to be sure, but it was not difficult, and that is what makes me think that previous results were being rekindled."