"After you realize the Self,
you see the mind for what it is
the self-created principle."

Gurudeva

Mr. S. Ganapati Appan and his wife Rajam were our pilgrims today who came all the way from Houston. The Appans have been in the US since 1967 just two years after the immigration laws changed to allow Indians to come into the US. Appan's father, Ganapati was a founding member of the Meenakshi temple in Pearland, Texas and so was one of the early "Hindu Pioneers," bringing Hindu temples to America. His son, Appan carried on working on various temple committees and most recently spent three years on the fund raising committee for the just completed Kalyana Mandapam of the Meenakshi temple--a 1 million dollar project. We asked him about youth programs at Meenakshi, if they have classes and if the youth were active in the temple. He was quite frank, "The kids don't understand the rituals, they just get bored. And the swamis that come from India, really their discourses don't mean anything to these youth. Its not relevant to them. To be quite honest, we are not really getting any youth participation at all."

The Appans were originally from Kerala. He and his wife were ecstatic during their visit. Mrs. Rajam Appan said, "This is like paradise. I still can't believe I am here. When I was a girl, my parents took me to Rishikesh and I still remember having a bath in that very cold water and the memories of that religious experience were very strong. Coming here it feels like that place." Standing in river water she said, "I would love to stay forever." Mr. Appan said, "What you are doing here is fantastic. Every Hindu in American should help with this project. What you are doing is very important, and I don't mean just the temple, but the teachings, the publications. You are reaching the youth and no one else is doing that. I am going to go back to Texas and tell everyone to help build this Temple!"

Mr. and Mrs. Fred and Diane Jager, a local Kauai family dropped by from Koloa with Mrs. Jager's mother and some friends from Utah. Diane was quite excited because her brother works for Apple Computer and told her "There are some monks on Kauai that use really high powered equipment and when we have something new we send it to them to test." Not quite true, but sometimes it feels like that as we live on the sometimes "bleeding edge of technology." The guests were interested in our books and purchasde a vegetarian cook book and other books.

[For news from Acharya Palaniswami in Atlanta,
go to the Hot Masala Page]