Hinduism - A journey to self realization.....

This is nothing less than a miracle that first time in the history of United States of America an African-American has been selected as the president. On behalf of all Hindus across the world, we congratulate Mr. Barack Obama.

He defeated his rival, Mr. John McCain of Republican party.

From the point of view of all Hindus, first time US election has been so interesting because of the association of Mr. Obama with a Hindu deity, Hanuman. A photo of Mr. Obama carrying a small metal idol resembling to Lord Hanuman has been circulating over the internet. Some people were even doubting as to whether he is a hidden Hindu or an anti-Christ.

But Mr. President overcome all these hurdles and created history by winning the US Election 2008.

We hope, he will continue the US Policy of tolerance to all religions in the future and wish him best of luck for his future endeavors.

Finally, the movie "The Love Guru" failed at box office and the main contributing factor to it was the boycott called by all Hindus.

According to many Hindu organizations, the movie lampoons Hinduism. In India, a religious group called the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti is calling for a boycott before the film has even arrived. So, most probably it will not be even released in India.

According to 2000 Census, there are about 3000 Hindus in Brazil. The number must be more as Hinduism has greatly accelerated in the last 10 years. Though most of the Brazilian Hindus are ethnic East Indians, significant numbers of White Brazilians have converted to Hinduism in the past few decades.

Today about 5 million Brazilians are practicing yoga regularly and several dance and art schools have mushroomed all over Brazil. Major Hindu influence began in Brazil in 1953 when yoga was taken by a French man, whose Indian name was Shivananda. He started a yoga academy in one of the towns of Brazil. Later, many other forms have entered such as Hare Krishna Movement, Vedanta Philosophy, Indian classical music and finally Indian classical dance. The Brazilians got hooked to Indian music, vegetarianism, food and culture and there has been no stopping its popularity.

Indian way of live has penetrated deeply among the people and some of the Brazilians have great admiration towards Indian culture. Many have ventured out to take a trip to India visiting several ashrams and gurus. They have taken back to Brazil a kind of Indian culture which has created a deep rooted impact among Brazilians.

Because of the discrimination in churches, about 185 Dalit Christian
families in Tirunelveli district decided to reconvert to
Hinduism on the occasion of mahasivarathiri, on March 6, 2008, at Sri
Nellaiappar Temple.

The reconversion ceremony is organised by the Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK).

All of these families are from Palayamkottai, Radhapuram, Sankarankoil and Thaalaiyoothu in Tirunelveli district and Sathankulam in Thoothukudi district. There are four priests among those who are getting reconverted.

The reason for their returning to faiths according to them is
several forms of discrimination on the basis of caste. The
practice of burying the dead in separate cemeteries is a classic
example of caste bias.

Unfortunately, even after convering to Christianity, the christians never accepted them. These people are termed as Dalit Christians and constantly receive discrimination. They are not even allowed to enter some churches.

Source: http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=2654

Pat Rafter has turned to Buddhism and Hinduism as his spiritual outlet.

He revealed that he moved away from Christianity because much of it stopped making sense to him.

Rafter regularly visits an Indian Spiritual Guru in Sydney.

He added, "There are certain branches of Christianity that I don't like. I like the more spiritual side of Buddhism and Hinduism."

Pat Rafter is a two-time US Open Champion.

Source: news.com.au

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, a guru to the Beatles and over 6 million followers, died on Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at his home in the Holland, town of Vlodrop. Some of his famous followers were Beatles, Beach Boys, Singer Donovan, and actor Clint Eastwood. He was 91 years old. He died at about 7 p.m. when he was asleep.

His original name was Mr. Mahesh Prasad Varma and was born reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917, in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradhesh (India). He graduated in Physics from Allahabad University.

He became a disciple of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati around 1939.

Maharishi Yogi began teaching transcendental medication in 1955 and brought the technique to the United States in 1959. The Beatles attended one of his lectures in 1967 for gaining control over the mind. After that Beatles gained a huge success. He dedicated his life to spreading the Vedas across the world.

His famous teaching is, “Instead of fighting with darkness, try to lit the light, darkness will automatically go away.”

His organizations founded many meditation centers and universities across the world.

On July 12, 2007, first time in the history of United States, one of the United States Senates began its day with an universal Vedic prayer by Mr. Rajan Zed who is a Hindu chaplain from Reno, Nevada.

This prayer is taken from Vedas (one of the sacred books of Hindus), Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

The prayer is originally in Sanskrit (the most ancient language of the world) like this :

Asato Ma Sathgamaya
Tamaso Ma Jyothirgamaya
Mruthyorma Amruthangamaya
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Heem......

The meaning of above prayer in English is:

Oh God,
Lead Us from Unreal to the real
Lead us from Darkness to Light
Lead us from Death to Immortality
Let peace, peace, and peace be there unto all…

Rajan Zed is also the director of public affairs of Hindu Temple of Northern Nevada and spokesman for India Association of Northern Nevada.

This prayer was protested by three individuals from visitors gallery. Their names were Kathy Pavkovic, Ante Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar from the Christian Right Anti-Abortion Group. They shouted:

"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight. This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before you."

These people were immediately removed from the Senate by security persons.

This prayer created history both in America and on the Internet. Though the prayer was welcomed by most of the Christian brothers, some Christian organizations opposed this. Google search yielded 1,20,000 results for the keyword "Rajan Zed." On YouTube the video of this event had been one of the most favorite videos for that week.

Actually, all this controversy was created because of some peoples' ignorance and misconceptions about Hinduism. Most of the people believe that Hindus believe in many Gods and it was a prayer of that kind. But in fact, Hinduism believes in only one God but at the same time allows to worship other deities also because they are considered as part of the same Supreme Being.

So, Americans do not need to change their sloagan from "In God We Trust" to "In God(s) We Trust" as it was commented on lots of blogs around the world.

But the e-mails Mr. Zed received were very encouraging. Most of the people thank him for spreading the message of peace and applogized for the disrespect he received.

There was a flamboyant reaction to this incident from Hindus around the world. Lots of people started saying that Christians in America are nontolerant, etc. What I think is that before giving such reactions, we should think about why some Christians reacted like this. This was because they thought Vedas are for Hindus only but in fact, they are universal and refer to the same God of whom we are the children. Once they come to know about this, they will not react like this. So, it is our duty to erase such misconceptions about Hinduism from peoples' mind.

Before this incident, on March 19, 2007, Mr. Rajan Zed read a Vedic prayer in the Nevada State Assembly. He is also schedued to open Utah State Senate on February 13, 2008, and Washington State Senate on February 22, 2008.

Let peace, peace, and peace be there unto all…