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Date: November_17_1998
Topic: Creation of a Home
Category:
Duration: 10 min., 16 seconds

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. It is November 17. By our Vedic calendar it's Sun 6.

Today, our pilgrims from Kashi Ashram in Florida, departed. 3 brahmacharis and 2 swamis, came all the way across the United States, across the Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian island to observe how our ashram here manages to reach out to so many people worldwide, from the little garden island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They observed our 5 schools within the ashram. The school of temple cooking and taking care of the animals. The school of maintenance, growing food and taking care of the lands. The school of publication. The school of finance, purchasing and selling. The school of managing Saiva Siddhanta Church and the Himalayan Academy Correspondence Course. They went back with their head full of new knowledge, to make their ashram more like our ashram.

Ashrams around the world share information, with each other. We are also working with an ashram in Bangalore, India, that is taking 5 of our young men, from ages 7 to 12, for a 5-year training course, training them to be the temple priests of our new temple here on the garden island of Kauai.

Today, we are going to share with you a talk, given on November 11, to a group of about 15 Hindu pilgrims, in our Kadavul Hindu temple, here at Kauai Aadheenam. The subject that they needed to hear was -the creation of a home, a real home, raising of children. It explains how with mother and father working, the children are basically street children. Nobody to talk to, nobody to guide them. Everyone too tired, and they just get yelled at.

We gave some very potent examples of how this is working, how in the United States of America, we would like to turn the situation around. There are newspaper articles, magazine articles and you see it on television occasionally. America is waking up that a woman's place is in the home. A mother's place is in the home. A full-time mother taking care of her husband, and her children is what is needed for the next generation. They say mothers like to work, because they like to express themselves. A home has so much of intrinsic values for the next generation, plenty of room for self-expression. I think you will enjoy this inspired talk.

Today with 'Living with Siva', we have cultural accomplishments. I am going to read you a few of these scriptures.

"Lovers of Siva shall learn a skill or craft regarding the use of the hands, such as pottery, sowing, knitting, weaving, painting, gardening, taking on a building of arts, to manifest creative benefits for the family and the community."

All over the world, even in our organization, The Saiva Siddhanta Church, young girls are all going to men's occupations. You ask them what they are going to do?
They say,,"Oh, I am going to be a lawyer."
You ask them, "Can you cook?"
"No."
"What can you actually do, around the house?"
"When I am a lawyer, I'll hire somebody." "Can you raise children?"
They don't know anything about that either.

Therefore, children are basically, raised up on the streets, with no father, no mother, nothing to guide them, except other children. Children are being raised today, by other children. Parents rarely talk to their children today. Husband is an engineer, wife is a doctor. They have nothing in common. Doesn't even go along with the Hindu caste system. It is only the worker caste, the shudra caste, where both men and women work. And then when there is all this money, what good is it going to do? The children will squander it after you die. They won't be involved in the family tradition, because there is no family tradition.

All over the United States , it is being recognized that a mother's place is in the home. With her mind free from worldly affairs, teaching the children ritual worship, teaching the children the kalas of refinement, culture and art, taking the children to the temple, giving them a life, communicating with them, knowing who their friends are and what they are doing, knowing their parents, not losing contact with the children, normally, in Hindu society.

In today's world everybody follows everyone else. Everyone is following everyone else. Where is the individuality and who are the leaders? They are too few and far between. Just stop and think, "What about the next generation of Hindus?"

A young man contacted me from Houston, Texas. He started going to the Hindu temple at Houston, Texas. He was beaten so badly by his father and hated his father so much, that he totally turned away from Hinduism. He, along with thousands of other children, thought, "If the parents treated the children this way, for their benefit, not for ours, what is there in this religion that is worthwhile?

Now the psychiatrists are going over his past hates and fears about the corporal punishment, the whipping that he got at home. He joined a gang, went on drugs, stole, lied to his parents. With a lot of encouragement, he is back in school now, and hopefully one day, will graduate with an education. It is thanks to the temple, he is off drugs, leading a fairly decent life, but left with the scars in his mind, of being beaten, being pinched, being slapped, rather than being explained to, being raised with love.

Then, we have thousands of other testimonies from all over the world, of kids that are hurt and abused, in the upper class Hindu families. We hope that you will take a message back to your community that discipline means to teach, not to hurt and that ahimsa means not hurting anybody physically, mentally or emotionally.

We know a few Hindu families who have never beaten their children or disciplined them physically in any way.
We ask them "Why?"
They say, "Because we love them, we love them."
"So, how do you train them, how do you discipline them?"
"Well, we have them go into the shrine room and sit for 10 minutes and think over what they did wrong, and they come back and we talk to them. We communicate."
Then we say, "What about TV? Aren't you watching TV all the time?"
"No. We can't watch a lot of TV with children. They consume a lot of your time."

Of course, in most families, the mother was at home and the home wasn't just like a hotel lobby, with people coming in and going out.

I can't imagine why the desire in the Hindu community to buy and furnish big homes and never live in them. Mother is out early in the morning, back late. Father is out early in the morning, back late. The kids are out with other kids, on the street. Where is the vibration of the home? The vibration of the home is asuric. The demons live there and cause people to argue and to fight.

We would like to turn this around. We would like the Indian Hindu community, to become the model of all communities in the United States of America.

Well, I'll be seeing you in all of our familiar places, where we enjoy sitting together, looking at our computer screen. I am looking at you, you are looking at me. It is darshan time, again tomorrow, in cyberspace ashram. Tune in. We'll be looking at each other through cyberspace.
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Today's Sun One Homa was a "fiery inspiration" as usual.

Paramacharya Bodhinathaswami gave a wonderful talk this morning, following from the lessons of the Innersearch study guide. The topic today was on "penance" and "remorse" and the Hindu understanding that we can in fact "erase" misdeeds by undergoing the proper penance. But, for this process to work, the individual must be truly remorseful. In other words, one should really feel that what they did was wrong. Only then will the penance work properly.

We had an esteemed guest today, Swami Ishwarananda, one of the Chinmaya Mission's 65 sannyasins. Swami has been serving for the past five years at the Chinmaya Mission in Anaheim, Southern California. Traveling with him are Mr. and Mrs. Manoj and Rashmi Patel and Mr. and Mrs. Shashi and Rekha Acharya.

We gave Swami an extended tour of the property. He will be returning to India to serve as a teacher of young monastic aspirants/brahmachari who stay for a two-and-a-half year program in the monastery of Sandapany, the headquarters of the Chinmaya Mission just outside of Mumbai.

According to the families traveling with him, Swami Ishwarananda has done a great work in the Los Angeles area, and today their "Bal Vihar" school for youth has over 500 students, due to his wonderful inspiration and leadership. We are always appreciative of the excellent work the Chinmaya Mission is doing and the way they implement a refined Hindu culture throughout all their activities and lifestyle.

Swami is an avid reader of Hinduism Today and we gave him a tour of our publications facility. Here the monks of the Ganapati Kulam introduce the group to the new book "Living with Siva." There on the table is the "blue line" which arrived from Malaysia a few days back and, with corrections and proof reading mark up, the book is being sent back to Malaysia and should go to press in a few weeks.

Meanwhile the Thai families on the island are celebrating a birthday in the family in the traditional Buddhist manner, where they feed the monks. Thai lunch today for everyone.

All the monks sit in the Himalayan Academy pavillion and are served.... our kitchen staff also gets a brief respite from cooking today.

Buddhist lay people feel that by feeding those who do sadhana and strive for liberation, some of the good merit that accrues through the monastic life will pass on to those who feed them.

Elders are well taken care of in this community.

Happy monks...yes, we think definitely a lot of good merit will be going to this family!

The Remarkable Vision

Iraivan Temple Progress Update

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Course number three is well underway now. Gurudeva will be home in a few days, so he will be able to see course number two still visible below. Later it will disappear below, covered by the sand of the retaining wall on the outside. Please give generously, consider the possiblity of sponsoring a whole course of the sanctum for $7,500.00. Email Iraivan@hindu.org for details.

Gurudeva's spiritual center in the island country of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean near South Africa

Ganesha Chaturthi is a national holiday in the country of Mauritius where the majority Hindus include a large Marathi population for whom this celebration is the main one of the year. But, all the various Indian ethnic communities will also join in the festivities. The occasion draws large crowds to visit Pancha Mukha Ganapati at Gurudeva's spiritual park and Mauritius mission center. Rajen Manick writes:

"Ganesha Chaturthi is a public holiday on the island of Mauritius for the local Marathi community. However Hindus of all denominations now celebrate this festival with joy and make it a duty to leave home to worship Lord Ganesha on this special day. All through the day hundreds of devotees have been coming to the Saiva Dharmasala at La Pointe to worship Lord Pancha Mukha Ganapati at the Mandapam. Here we have a group of devotees crossing the wooden Ganesha bridge."

Once they crossed the Ganesha bridge, devotees walk on a gravel path with bamboo railings on both sides. They then leave their sandals at the lava rocks steps before entering the Mandapam.

Sometimes devotees would have to patiently wait for their turn at the shrine to worship Lord Ganapati.

We had a large group of devotees from Flor�al who stayed at the Ganesha Mandapam for a long time singing bhajans in a very organised way. Other visitors who came sat down to listen to the beautiful devotional songs before leaving.

It was a memorable day for two young men who took their Arulsishya vows in front of the sacred fire while devotees were worshipping at the Feet of Pancha Mukha Ganapati.

Here we see Nuckiren Pyeneeandee who is actually right in the middle of his university studies in France and Selvaraj Sanjeevee who lives in Goodlands. They have both studied Gurudeva's teachings for a long time and are now beginning earnest preparation for membership in Gurudeva's Saiva Siddhanta Church.

Group photo of Innersearchers at Tallinn.

A majestic ship... for a majestic Master. Sadhaka Japendranatha and Sadhaka Mahadevan, who went to Europe just for the Innersearch portion of the trip, returned yesterday. They said that one of the special highlights of the journey was the wonderful way the ship's staff and crew take care of Gurudeva and the Innersearchers as something very special for them and the ship.

The city of Tallinn.

We celebrated one of many birthdays onboard the ship and this was the celebration of Stephanie Corgatelli's birthday.

A happy, harmonious group.

Happy Birthday, Stephanie!

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