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KAUAI, HAWAII, May 18, 2013 (Hinduism Today): Our editor-in-chief, Sadasivanathaswami, is traveling to Europe in June and July, there to make a presentation at the Lisbon Yoga Summit. He and assistant editor Senthilnathaswami will be traveling through Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and France. Their objective is to understand the current status of Hinduism in Europe, and the trends that lie ahead.

We are reaching out to see if you know anyone who has done research or even blogged on the status (or history) of Hinduism in any of these nations, or in Europe as a whole. Good, solid research will help this feature article reflect the complex presence of Hinduism in Europe.

Please contact: sadasivanatha@hindu.org

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One should go beyond relative knowledge and abide in the Self. Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world. Seek the seeker.
-- Ramana Maharishi (1879-1950), South Indian mystic

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TEXAS, U.S., May 2013 (by M. Vijalapuram/V. Tummala): Holi, also known as "The Festival of Colors," is a Hindu festival that has also become popular with people of other backgrounds and communities, with thousands of people celebrating it each year. Holi is a joyous occasion that commemorates the story of Prahlad, an ardent devotee of Vishnu, prevailing over the demon Holika. Furthermore, Holi ushers in the new spring season, and celebrates good harvests. It is observed worldwide, with participants organizing Holika Dahan, a bonfire symbolizing the defeat of Holika, and throwing colored powder at each other. As college students involved with the Hindu Students Association at our respective universities, we strive to bring together Hindus and individuals of other backgrounds as we celebrate Holi on our campuses.

At the University of Houston the theme for this year's Holi, "Connecting cultures through color" was truly brought to life with the diversity of the students of all cultures who came to celebrate. It is a holiday to unite all cultures and races together. It is a day where no social classes exist; everyone is equal regardless of race, religion or status.

Holi at Texas A&M University had a huge turnout of over 1,500 students, professors and families who, seemingly strangers at first to one another, danced together covered in color.

Holika is a Hindu program that happens every year at Bellaire High School. The event consists of different organizations who organize a dance team competition for all local schools. The purpose of Holika is to provide a fun and informational event which showcases the diversity of Indian culture. An estimated 500 students attended the event this year.

Additionally, the 3rd annual Holi at The University at Texas at Dallas had over 500 students of different backgrounds attend their event and the HSA branch at The University of Texas at Austin hosted their 10th annual Holi this year attended by 6000 students and faculty.

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SRI LANKA, May 11, 2013 (New York Times by Aatish Taseer): Four years ago this week, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam announced that their struggle for an independent homeland in northern Sri Lanka had "reached its bitter end." The group had been fighting on behalf of the Tamil people for more than a quarter-century, and its defeat was absolute.

Today, great sections of Tamil country are still a scene of devastation. The houses are either destroyed or brand-new; the land is uncultivated and overgrown; there are forests of decapitated Palmyra palms, damaged by heavy shelling. And then there are the relics of war -- graveyards of L.T.T.E. vehicles rotting in the open air.

When I first arrived there last March, I saw the loss in primarily military terms. But the feeling of defeat among the Tamils of Sri Lanka goes far deeper than the material defeat of the rebels. It is a moral and psychological defeat.

For the truth is that the Tamil defeat has less to do with the vanquishing of the L.T.T.E. by the Sri Lankan Army and much more to do with the self-wounding ("suicidal" would not be too strong a word) character of the movement itself. The Tigers were for so long the custodians of the Tamil people's hope of self-realization. But theirs was a deeply flawed organization. Under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers pioneered and perfected the use of the suicide bomber. This was not simply a mode of warfare, but almost a symbol, an expression of a self-annihilating spirit. And it was to self-annihilation that Mr. Prabhakaran committed the Tamils. He was a man who, like a modern-day Coriolanus, seemed to lack the imagination for peace. He took the Tamils on a journey of war without end, where no offer of compromise was ever enough, and where all forms of moderation were seen as betrayal.

More at source of this insightful essay.

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Youth is not a time of life--it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions. It is freshness of the deep springs of life. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
-- Swami Bua, famed yogi who lived approximately 120 years

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VIETNAM, May 1, 2013 (Tuoi Tre News): The Ponagar fest, the biggest cultural event held by Cham people in the south of the central region, kicked off on April 30 in Khanh Hoa's Nha Trang coastal city. The event also earned the recognition as an intangible national heritage the same day.

From April 30th to May 2nd when the festival takes place, the 1,200-year-old Ponagar tower is open free of charge to tourists. Roughly 60,000 pilgrims and visitors, almost double last year's number, are expected to join the four-day festival. The festival features such rituals as dressing up the Ponagar Goddess, requiems, floating flowers and colored lanterns, processions and offerings to the Goddess and Cham traditional dances.

The fest, held annually in the third month of the lunar calendar, is to pay tribute to Goddess Yan Po Nagar, or Thien Y Thanh Mau in Vietnamese, who is identified with the Hindu Goddesses Bhagavati and Mahishasuramardini. As legend has it, Thien Y Thanh Mau taught locals how to do farming, weaving and knitting along with several other vocations to fend for themselves and safeguarded them from calamities and wars.

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MARTINIQUE, May 2013 (martinique.franceantilles.fr): The 160th anniversary of the arrival of Indian workers in Martinique was celebrated in Basse-Pointe during the first weekend of May 2013. The festivity was the second edition of the "Days of Indianness." It was an opportunity to showcase all those who are contributing to the preservation of the Indian cultural contribution to Martinican society.

Among the activities were an exhibition "History of Indianness in Martinique" at the town hall and a walking tour of the two small Hindu temples in the area. There were also seminars and exhibitions of Tamil language, cuisine, traditional dress, jewelry and medicinal uses of plants of Indian origin that are growing on the island. There was a seminar on important Indian historical figures and an honoring of the elders.

To honor the event the town named a street after Antoine "Zwazo" Tangamen, who was a respected Hindu priest, one of the last fluent Tamil speakers on the island, and widely recognized for helping to insure the survival of Hindu tradition in Martinique. The event was organized by the tourist office in Basse-Pointe in collaboration with the Martinique-India cultural association.

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Man arrives at immortality by breaking beyond the limitations not only of his physical self, but of his mental and his ordinary psychic nature into the highest plane and supreme ether of the Truth: for there is the foundation of immortality and the native seat of the triple infinite.
-- Sri Aurobindo (1879-1950)

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Though Pakistan was established as a state for Muslims, the original vision of its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was of a place of tolerance and inclusion. "You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state," he said in speech in August 1947.

Yet Jinnah's vision has steadily been eroded. Today, as Pakistan prepares for a historic election on 11 May, its Christians and Hindus, which together comprise perhaps 3 percent of the population, face persecution and assault. Some have fled. "If people have any resources, they want to leave here," Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, of the Pakistan Hindu Council, said from Karachi.

The Pakistanis who have made their way to the village of Bijwasan, not far from Delhi's international airport, all belong to the same low Hindu caste and come from the same part of Sindh province. They have applied unsuccessfully for visas to India for years and hit upon the idea of asking to visit the Kumbh Mela festival, the most auspicious date in the Hindu calendar. "Getting a passport is not so difficult. But getting a visa is very hard," said 35-year-old Hanuman Prashad, another fruit trader from Hyderabad, explaining how they told the Indian authorities they wished to attend the festival.

The Hindus, who came in three groups, said their biggest motivation to leave was the challenge of educating their children. There was discrimination in government schools, where they were referred to as "kafirs," told to go and work in the fields and obliged to recite the six kalimas, or tenets, of Islam.

They said the situation had become worse since the rule of the military leader General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who seized power in 1977 and for the next decade oversaw an increased Islamisation of Pakistan. Following the notorious destruction of India's Babri mosque by a Hindu mob in 1992, the Hindus of Pakistan were often the victims of revenge attacks.

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PHUKET, THAILAND, May 8, 2013 (The Phuket News): Despite having already served the Thai-Nepalese community for more than a decade, the Thai-Nepalese temple on Patong Hill was officially opened on April 19. The event attracted hundreds from the local Nepalese community, many of whom work in the tailor industry in Patong and other tourist areas, as well as a select group of politicians and local government representatives.

Phanuphong 'Daniel' Limbuprasertkul, president of the Thai-Nepalese Association, took time to speak to The Phuket News. "We have many VIP guests here today, including nine Hindu priests from Nepal and of course the Ambassador of Nepal," Daniel said, as we watched the lighting of incense sticks and offerings of food.

The whole bright and colorful celebration had begun a few days before, with the initial offering of donations that included water, milk, honey, butter and rice to several newly installed statues. "These objects represent life," explained Omjee Khodomkul, just one of the devotees wearing traditional dress, "and on this day we give these things back to those from whom we received life."

Although similar to Buddhist ceremonies in certain aspects, Hindu events are also very different, with such as the ritual walking in circles by devotees around the new statues. "This reminds everyone that we are constantly going around the universe by dying, being reborn, and dying again," said Daniel.

Phuket Vice Governor Sommai Prijasilpa, representing the island's government at this culturally significant ceremony, expressed the importance of the Nepalese community to Phuket. "There are around 1,500 Nepalese in Phuket and they do business very well and are important for Phuket industry - they are especially very good at tailoring."

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When I came out of the spacecraft (Discovery) for a space walk, I had this feeling that Ganesha was looking over me.
-- Sunita Williams, astronaut, the second Indian-American to orbit the Earth

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MAJULI, INDIA, April 14, 2013 (New York Times): Not too long ago, Ganesh Hazarika grew rice, vegetables and peas near the edge of the Brahmaputra River on a small plot that provided him a livelihood and a safety net. Then one day the river took it away. Steadily and mercilessly, it had chewed at the banks until his tiny farm fell into the water.

Landlessness is a rising problem for farmers across India, but Mr. Hazarika's situation is unusual: his plot was located on Majuli, one of the world's largest "inland" islands, an ancient religious center that is home to about 170,000 people and dozens of monasteries. The same river that has encircled the island and sustained it for centuries is now methodically tearing it apart.

For many environmentalists and scientists, the Brahmaputra is a critical laboratory in studying the impact of climate change, with much of the attention focused on the mouth of the river in Bangladesh, where rising waters are expected to radically reorient one of the world's most important estuaries and potentially displace millions of people in the coming decades.

But many miles upstream, the Brahmaputra is also proving difficult to predict or constrain. Seasonal flooding, always a problem, has intensified in recent years in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Erosion is a concern across Assam, as the huge river regularly shifts course while carrying sand and other sediment from the Himalayas in a simultaneous process of construction and destruction: new sandbars appear even as old, inhabited places are battered by the currents of the river.

Climate change is contributing to these upstream changes, some scientists say, though the Brahmaputra is naturally unstable because of seismic activity and the river's braided shape. The erosion of Majuli has become the most drastic example of the river's ruthless power, and local officials, trying to protect the monasteries and the island's growing population, have responded by building embankments and other protective measures.

Since the 15th century, Majuli has been a center of Vaishnavism, a monotheistic branch of Hinduism centered on the God Vishnu and His avatar Krishna. Today, there are 36 monasteries, known as satras, yet erosion has forced several of them to relocate within the island. Another 28 monasteries have been moved off the island altogether.

Much more at source.

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TRINIDAD/TOBAGO, April 26, 2013 (Guardian): Quick action by a 27-year-old lover of historical buildings saved a Hindu temple in Reform Village, constructed in the 1940s from gobar (cow dung) and other materials, from possible demolition or modification by the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha. Liam Boodoo, a Spanish teacher at Couva East Secondary and also a photographer and budding historian, made a determined bid to save what he is referring to as scarce East Indian-built heritage in T&T.

He said the Reform Village Hindu School is on the same property as the temple and the Maha Sabha, which runs the school, wanted to build an addition which would have affected the structure of the mandir. He got the intervention of the National Heritage Trust by seeking to have the building listed as a protected site. Boodoo said plans to demolish the temple or modify it have since been halted.

He said the temple was constructed by Reform Village residents in the early 1940s and designed by a craftsman from the Sidoo family of Debe, during a period of transition from indentureship to small peasant proprietorship. The land was paid for in advance for 100 years by members of the community.

Boodoo said the temple was patterned after those found in the central states of India and was plastered on the inside with gobar, and reinforced with sand and gravel from the Guaracara River and stones from the San Fernando Hill quarry. The Shiva Mandir was opened on March 2, 1946, Maha Shivratri night--an auspicious night on the Hindu calendar--Boodoo told a gathering of members of Citizens for Conservation at the Medulla Art Gallery on Fitt Street, Woodbrook, during a presentation on the temple recently.

"Any modification to the temple will destroy the original structure," Bodoo said. He said in an attempt to stave off the plan, he spoke to architects Geoffrey Maclean and Rudylyn Roberts, of CFC, and they suggested he do a dossier of the temple and submit it to the National Heritage Trust for listing as a protected building. "I got a reply from the National Heritage Trust last Monday and was told they contacted the relevant parties and it was agreed plans would be revised so as not to negatively impact the mandir," he said.

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OTTAWA, CANADA, April 8, 2013 (National Post): -- A growing number of Canadians are identifying themselves as having no religious affiliation, although more than two-thirds of the country's population says they're Christian. Statistics Canada's voluntary National Household Survey (NHS) released Wednesday also shows immigration is contributing to the growth of non-Christian religions, including Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist.

The NHS shows nearly one-quarter (about 7.85 million people) of the Canadian population had no religious affiliation -- a sizable increase from 16.5% a decade earlier. Roman Catholics easily remain the largest Christian group, with more than 12.7 million people identifying themselves as Roman Catholic, or approximately 38.7% of Canada's population.

Nearly half a million people said they're Hindu (1.5% of the population), with about 455,000 people identifying themselves as Sikh, and 366,800 as Buddhists. Most of the recent Hindu or Sikh immigrants came from India, while most Buddhists came from China. Ontario was home to 73.6% of the total Hindu population in 2011.

Immigration is responsible for the growing popularity of some religions in Canada and absence of faith among others, according to the National Household Survey. Among immigrants who arrived in Canada before 1971, only 2.9% identified themselves as Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist. However, these religions accounted for 33% of immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2011.

In the latest survey, 16% of immigrants who came to Canada before 1971 had no religious affiliation, but that proportion rose to 22% among immigrants who came between 2001 and 2005, and 19.5% of recent immigrants.

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As a dog, let loose after being tied up for some time, is energetic and active, so one, who learns to remain summa, or still, gets increased energy which can be put to good use.
-- Siva Yogaswami of Jaffna (1872-1964)