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MATERIALISM IS GOD IN
kli-yug...
BUT HUMAN SOUL IN ALL HUMANITIES
UNKNOWINGLY
STILL SEARCHES FOR THE
TRUTH OF ONE GOD ....
PVAF has a primary mandate to spread
knowledge of the SCIENCES OF CREATION AND LIFE
to all humanity...with a prayer that this knowledge
will set the humans free of suffering and pain and empower them to have
happiness and joy with progress and prosperity in life they desire.....
The knowledge of SCIENCES OF CREATION AND LIFE
is called veD in
sNskRUt language....sNskRUt
language is the oldest language known to the current humanity...and
all world languages can be traced to have some origin in
sNskRUt language....The sNskRUt
language and the texts of its writing known to current humanity
is very difficult to fully decipher even after 2500 years of endeavours...the
last person to partially figure out the grammar of the extant
sNskRUt language texts was
pANiANi in around 500 BC....pANiANi's
research has enabled the sNskRUt
scholars to understand some parts of the extant
sNskRUt texts of:
- veD,
- veDik history of cyclic
creation, sustenance, de-creation and recreation called
puraaAN,
- itihaas which is the historical
compilation about certain major events in the creation cycle such as the
history of raam in raamaayAN and
history of mHaabhaart war,
- upniSHD which is the try to
explain creator bRH`m of
veD and
- 6 veDNg which are six appendix
texts to veD of various sciences.
The extent of current veD that is
understandable by current humanity is very limited....and this is the fact and
the reason by which the humanity in Europe and North America is currently
focused for the last 500 years in what is called scientific research to
understand how nature and the entire creation in nature works to self-create,
sustain, de-create and cyclically recreate the de-created in new forms...
The peoples of bhaart (India)
believe in what this world calls "religion"
which is termed by the world as Hinduism....However
study of the "religious" belief of Hinduism reveals that it is the
SCIENCES OF CREATION AND LIFE called
veD.....And this
PVAF web site has been endeavouring to
research, compile and share the understanding of veD
in its original form among the world humanity.....
Just to keep all PVAF we visitors and
participants aware of how different peoples in the world understand
veD in the form of the
"religion" called
Hinduism PVAF from time to time publishes news reports from various
sources....Please click on the next line to read a recent report in the
Lifestyle page of the
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE in USA about the writer's
understanding of a Hindu temple in USA.....
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"Hinduism is such that,
whatever you can ask,
there's always an answer."
By Greg Garrison, Religion News Service Of
Salt Lake Tribune
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The first question most people ask the tall, blond,
blue-eyed Hindu swami from Texas, almost everywhere he goes on his traveling
lectures, is how did he get to be a Hindu swami.
After all, most Hindu swamis seem to be from India, the home of Hinduism.
"People always ask me that," said Swami Akhilananda, wearing sandals, beads, a
saffron robe and a vertical red streak on his forehead called a tilak during a
recent visit to the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Birmingham.
"Since I was a young child I was raised as a Hindu," he said. "Hinduism is
such that, whatever you can ask, there's always an answer." His father, a
carpenter, was a spiritual seeker who studied Hinduism and helped oversee
construction on the Barsana Dham, a Hindu Temple in Austin, Texas. Built on 200
acres near a flowing stream, it's one of the largest Hindu temples in the United
States. His parents now live at an ashram, or temple, in India.
Steeped in the history and scriptures of Hinduism, but raised in Texas, Swami
Akhilananda has emerged as an eloquent spokesman for the appeal of the ancient
religion to people who are not of Indian descent. "I preach at some churches,
mostly Unitarian or Unity," he said. He spent a week in Birmingham for a series
of lectures on "How to Reach God" at the Hindu Temple.
The swami pointed around the temple at the various representations of
deities, including Shiva, Vishnu and Radha Krishna, who is believed to have
spoken the Bhagavad Gita, one of the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. Some of the
deities are animal representations, such as Ganesh, the elephant god, and
Hanuman, the monkey god.
"Every Hindu knows there's only one god and he manifests himself in many
different ways," Swami Akhilananda said. The representations of gods are to help
people understand a formless reality, he said. "There are a lot of different
understandings of Hinduism," he said. "We don't do idol worship. It's a way to
visualize God."
The Hindu temples in Roebuck and Pelham, which serve more than 400 Hindu
families in the Birmingham area, each has numerous statues that are treated like
living gods and brought food every day by a brahmin, or priest. The statues
require a priest who lives at the temple and conducts daily rituals to care for
the statues, which are treated as the actual presence of the gods. Nallaswami
Gurukkal, the resident Hindu priest in Pelham, lives in the building and
conducts daily rituals that involve ceremonially waking, "feeding" -- by
offering foods -- and bathing the gods.
"We are very devoted to our culture," said Andra Soni, who was born in India
and moved to Birmingham in 1981. "This place here is our heritage link between
us and our home country," said Anil Agawal, who left India at age nine and moved
to Birmingham in 1995. "It's a sense of belonging."
During worship services, Hindus perform an Aarti, a ceremony of lights at the
throne of a god, waving a silver plate with candles in front of the statue.
Hinduism teaches that souls are separated from God. Chanting meditation is
one of the ways to get closer to God, he said. "We say various names of God, or
his virtues," the swami said. Through reincarnation, souls have a chance to
progress toward unity with God. Otherwise, each person keeps being reborn. "It's
a huge, unending cycle," the swami said. "We talk about how the soul can attain
perfection. We try to give our mind and heart and feelings to God. It's the
living relationship between the soul and God."
Achieving the soul's reunification with God is called Moksha. "If you know
God absolutely, then you're free of the cycle," the swami said.
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