The story depicts the importance of experiential knowledge versus acquired knowledge. It was a story about a young Chettiar boy being trained in business, but not directly as is the Westgern manner, but subtly and indirectly. His teacher was an elder Chettiar who had a business selling items in the town, and who wanted to help this new entrepreneur get started.

This Chettiar not only loaned money but indirectly taught a lesson to the youth everytimethey met. For example, the boy was wondering why no one was coming to his shop. The elder replied, "Well, your shop is not clean". After the boy had eagerly cleaned his shop and decorated it well, he told the elder that people were coming but they didn't buy his deities. The elder replied, "Well, how are they going to buy your deities if they don't look nice". The boy polished his deities and put them out for display. This time a few people did come to his shop and bought a few deities. When the elder came back to collect his returns from the boy's sale, the boy told him that he did not make much with his sales. The elder replied, "You don't go to the temple", do you?" The young Chettiar started to go to the temple. Slowly people from the temple started to come to his shop and sales increased.

So it went on and on till the boy mastered his business and prospered and expanded, learning the hard way, through actual experience. At the end, the elder gave him direct instructions to find another bright and intelligent young Chettiar and invest part of his returns and coach him until the young boy prospers in his business.

The wonderful thing about experiential knowledge is that it impresses the mind so thoroughly and goes deep into the memory patters, deeper than a lecture ever could.

Prayer is communion with God and the Gods, it is a showing and a sharing of love, appreciation and gratitude by devotees and also a means of asking for help, protection and divine intervention in the devotees life. Meditation is feeling and enjoying God's presence deep within us. Prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God.

The best way to pray is to talk to God in the temple. It is not really different than talking to our parents when we are in need of help, protection, love or answers to our questions, except it is done in silence, in quiet places. Of course, we can pray to God anywhere at anytime, for he is everywhere and always with us, never somewhere else. He is closer than our hands and feet. However, the temple is a very special place where our thoughts are clearest and we can feel God inside of us. If you cannot go to a temple everyday for prayer, a shrine room in the home is also an ideal place. Prayers are the strongest if they are filled with love and appreciation for God. In our prayers we always want to show live, and so we should never be vengeful or hateful toward any beings. Another way to pray is to write our deepest thoughts on paper and have them burned during a fire ceremony in the temple such as a homa or havana.

Meditation is concentrating the mind to feel God's divine and loving presence within us. God is all powerful, but there is one thing he cannot do. That is he cannot take Himself out of you.

To meditate, one should sit comfortably with spine very straight and head relaxed on top of the spine. Then just breath diaphragmatically and evenly. That means to breathe with the stomach moving in and out, instead of the chest moving. It is helpful to count as you breathe, nine counts in and nine counts out. As your awareness becomes concentrated, you can concentrate on God by visualizing an image of God in the mind. This will invoke the Darshan of God from deep within our soul. And one can concentrate on this Godly energy that exists within all people and all beings.

Darshan is a life force coming from God that makes one inspired, full of energy, happy, content and at peace and filled with love. You will enjoy a positive, successful and selfless life from relying on the power of meditation.

What one thought would like to leave with a child?

Love..... Love would make the child tolerant, devotional, fair, fearless, obedient, secure, happy and selfless. If a child learns to love, she has learned every important thing on earth.

Can you recommend any publications & websites for additional information? Here are a few publishers both Hindu and Non-Hindu whom we feel publishes great resources for children.

They also asked for some resources for kids, and we sent them the following:

Publishers: DK PUBLISHING, INC., 95 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10016 USA WWW.DK.COM.; ELEMENT BOOKS, INC., P.O. BOX 830, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 01966 USA; DHARMA PUBLISHING, 2910 SAN PABLO AVENUE, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94702 USA; TILBURY HOUSE PUBLISHERS, 132 WATER STREET, GARDINER, MAINE 04345 USA WWW.TILBURYHOUSE.COM; ANNICK PRESS, DISTRIBUTED BY FIREFLY BOOKS, INC., P.O. BOX 1338, ELLICOTT STATION, BUFFALO, NEW YORK 14205 USA; SAMHITA ENTERPRISES, 183 SAINT PAUL STREET, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK 14604 USA; MARSHMEDIA, P.O. BOX 8082, SHAWNEE MISSION, KANSAS 66208 USA. FREE SPIRIT PUBLISHING, 400 FIRST AVENUE NORTH, SUITE 616, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 55401 USA. E-MAIL: help4kids@freespirit.com. www.samhita.com www.hindu.org/reading/ look for kids books.

We will depart from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on March 25th and return to Fort Lauderdale on April 4th and be traveling on Holland America's spectacular, brand new cruise ship, the MS/Volendam. For information contact our wonderful tour agent who will be conducting the Innersearch: Kailash and Indra Dhaksinamurthi of Search Beyond Adventures, Inc. ASAP at
search11@mail.idt.net

Very Important!:
Be sure to include your mailing address and phone number in the body of your message! Kailash will be mailing you information, but if you don't send an address there is nothing he can do.