"To have a New Age, we need people with brains! "

Gurudeva

Today's actinic homa was followed by a wonderful sharing where Gurudeva called on differents ones present to tell about there missions. Our most senior swami, Paramacharya Bodhinatha gave a short summary of his two month mission to Asia. "We met with 18 Kulapati's and their extended families in Singapore, Malaysia, India and Mauritius. It was inspiring time as it has been many years since we sent any of our monks on a nurture mission dedicated to Gurudeva's Sishya. We explained and clarified the present master course program of spiritual study for all the members and set everyone up on the new karma yoga focus which is the seva of promoting Hinduism Today subscriptions and fund raising for our temples here in Hawaii and Mauritius." Our newest mathavasi, Nilakantha, who travelled with Bodhinathaswami on the mission said: "This was not only my first trip to Asia, but my first time anywhere outside of USA. It was an incredible experience for me. The work on the Iraivan temple in Bangalore is so beautiful and all the many experiences in India and throughout the trip were truly wonderful and uplifting."

Gurudeva also asked Acharya Palaniswami, who is departing for Atlanta today to stand up and tell everyone about his mission to the South West. Acharya explained: "Hinduism Today has been invited to a conference of some 175 religion editors called "AIDS and Religion in America." There we will share the Hindu view of disease from an Ayurvedic point of view as well as various aspects of the Hindu view of brahmachariya, purity and abstinence as it relates AIDS and also the Hindu view of the process of dealing with terminal illness, be it AIDS, cancer or any other such disease, as a time of conscious preparation for transition and re-birth. One of the keynote speakers, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati will also be there to share views and testimony gained from her mission work which involves care of 100's terminally ill AIDS patients at her various centers. As a result of preparing for this conference we have learned to our surprise that Ma has a large ashram of 250 people, 6 sannyasis, a group of young men preparing for sannyas, and a strong dedication to Shiva. She is also very inspired by our own Gurudeva's teachings. After the conference we will fly to Florida for a day to make visit the ashram. Then we will fly to California for two days with Gurudeva shisya there." We can look forward to more news after they return nine days from now.

Yogi Yuganatha, who will travel with Acharya Palaniswami, said, "Well this will be my first trip off the island since I joined the monastic order here four and a half years ago. I am looking forward to seeing mainland USA and especially to find out more about the US 'South,' which we often here so much about.

Following through on Gurudeva's research of the drug situation on Kauai, Arumugaswami and Sivakatirswami went to the police station yesterday and spoke to the officer in charge of drug offense investigations for juveniles. On the positive side he explained the DARE program (Drug Awareness and Resistance Education) which is now being taught to 5th graders (average: 10-year-olds) which will soon be taught also in the 3rd grade and 8th grade. The other officer there who interfaces with the youth, when asked to identify three root causes of drug use said, "Peer pressure, low self-esteem and poor family values, but which I mean a family where the parents are poor role models, smoke or use drugs themselves, lack any spirituality, do not communicate with their children or participate in their lives in any significant way."