1. Afghanistan's Historic Hindu Temples Busy For Navaratri
2. Tirupati Temple Shuts For Solar Eclipse
3. Chinmaya Mission Event in Delhi
4. London Hindus To Celebrate Deepavali In Trafalgar Square
5. The Faulty Conclusions From the Aryan Invasion Theory
6. Christian Group Alleges New Age Beliefs Taught In Public School

1. Afghanistan's Historic Hindu Temples Busy For Navaratri

www.hindustantimes.com

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN, October 5, 2005: With the onset of the nine-day festival period of Navaratri, Kabul's ancient Hindu temples are buzzing with a record number of devotees of all faiths. The focal attraction is Asamai temple. Hundreds of Afghanistan's Hindus and Sikhs as well as Indians employed in reconstruction projects pay their obeisance there every day. The hill is named Asamai after Asha, the Goddess of hope said to be residing on the hilltop since time immemorial. Legend goes that the Akhand Jyoti or continuous fire there has been burning uninterrupted for over 4,000 years. Amazingly, both the temple and the jyoti have survived numerous bloody wars for supremacy over Kabul, says this article. Two large halls with a capacity of about 1,000 persons form part of the Asamai complex, commonly used for religious congregations on festivals like Navaratri and Diwali. Kabul boasts another ancient temple complex--Harshri Nath--with temples devoted to Hindu deities Siva, Saraswati and Ganesha. The Harshri Nath temple attracts several Hindu families who returned to Kabul over the past four years. Several Sikh families also visit the temple every week to pray alongside Hindus. Kabul's third temple is located in the Shor Bazaar area once the hub of the trade in clothes, currency and dry fruits that is dominated by Hindus and Sikhs. Dedicated to God Siva, the small temple miraculously survived severe shelling during the Civil War, even as the entire Shor Bazaar was reduced to rubble. Though the local Hindu and Sikh population has dropped to about 5,000 from close to 20,000, the temple is a favorite with scores of Indians currently engaged in reconstruction work.

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2. Tirupati Temple Shuts For Solar Eclipse

news.webindia123.com

HYDERBAD, INDIA, October 3, 2005: The world-famous temple of Lord Venkateswara at Tirupati and other adjoining temples were closed for the day Monday in view of the annular solar eclipse. The event is not considered auspicious for worship. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), which manages the temples, closed the doors at 9.15 a.m. Monday. The doors will reopen at 7 p.m., after the eclipse that starts at 4.21 p.m. and lasts till 6.13 p.m. Thousands of Hindu pilgrims from all over the country and abroad throng the Venkateswara and other temples every day. The sprawling premises of the country's richest temple were deserted as temple authorities also postponed all rituals connected with the annual Brahmotsavams. Some other major temples, including the Sri Sitharamachandraswamy temple in Bhadrachalam, have also been closed. Hindu astrologers believe that the solar eclipse this year is not auspicious and could affect earth and seas, triggering natural calamities. Vedic expert and astrologer Vishwapati has pointed out that the solar eclipse would be followed by a lunar eclipse on Oct 17. According to him, it was rare for a solar and lunar eclipse to occur within a fortnight.

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3. Chinmaya Mission Event in Delhi

Rajiv Malik, HPI Correspondent,

NEW DELHI, October 4, 2005: "Meditation is nothing but attention. Meditation is paying attention to the divinity within us. Everything in nature including animals and birds are meditating. Even in the tiniest of the things in nature the ability of being attentive is there. We must also know that meditation has great curative powers. If we meditate on each and every part of our body, thereby focusing on the life energy, we can even cure a disease like cancer."

These were the views expressed by Swami Nikhilananda, Regional Head and Acharya, Chinmaya Mission, while delivering his keynote address on the subject- "Power Of Meditation" at The Mega Spiritual Convention organized on September 30, 2005, by Chinmaya Mission's Chinmaya Centre of World Understanding at their Lodhi Road auditorium situated in the heart of New Delhi. The event was jointly sponsored by Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Panacea Biotec, while Aastha television channel was the media partner for the convention.

The convention began with half an hour of Vedic chanting. In his welcome address, Shri Sunil Sachdeva, a devotee of Chinmaya Mission, was greeted with a thunderous applause when he announced that Chinmaya Mission's head, Swami Tejomayananda was recently awarded the Hindu Of the Year Award conferred by Hinduism Today.

The audience greeted Swami Nikhilananda with an applause, when he said- "We are amrutasya putras [the children of immortality] and we must always have a positive world view of the life. Our scriptures have said- 'sarvam khaluvidam brahma' which means that virtually everything in this universe is divine. Which means that while on one hand an elephant is divine, on the other hand even a speck of dust is divine. All human beings are divine and even the devatas are divine."

Simplifying the art of meditation, the learned swami said, "Meditation is experiencing the divinity and infinity and both these can be defined as pure existence, pure bliss and pure energy. Sometimes we have the perception that the world is our enemy and we start reacting. Our scriptures state- 'yatha drishti, tatha srishti' which means- 'as is your sight, so is your vision of the universe'. So depending on our vision, the world changes. We start looking at the world from a narrow standpoint because we have forgotten our true self, which is divine. This narrow perception of the world develops because the world addresses us in so many different ways. And because of this bombardment of messages we tend to lose our true identity, causing us a lot of sorrow and suffering."

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4. London Hindus To Celebrate Deepavali In Trafalgar Square

Hindu Council UK

LONDON, ENGLAND, October 6, 2005: The Mayor of London in association with Diwali in London Committee has organized "Diwali On the Square," October 16, 2005, 4:00 to 8:00 pm at Trafalgar Square, London's most famous gathering place. Trafalgar Square will be transformed with magical light displays, floating lanterns and a huge model of the elephant God Ganesh as Diwali celebrations return to the square. Crowds will be offered free Indian sweets as well as messages and prayers for peace. There will be performances by a variety of Indian dancers, singers and a finale by Jagi D. Veronica, Jay Sean and Mentor Collective.

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5. The Faulty Conclusions From the Aryan Invasion Theory

www.bbc.co.uk

The Aryan Invasion Theory
LONDON, ENGLAND, September 30, 2005: HPI note: This article appears in a section of the BBC website called "Religion and Ethics: Hinduism." It is an excellent article, especially for the section called "Dangers of the theory." We recommend this list be incorporated in protests to schools over the continued promotion of this theory in school textbooks.

The article reads:

One of the most controversial ideas about Hindu history is the Aryan invasion theory. This theory, originally devised by F. Max Muller in 1848, traces the history of Hinduism to the invasion of India's indigenous people by lighter skinned Aryans around 1500 BCE. The theory was reinforced by other research over the next 120 years, and became the accepted history of Hinduism, not only in the West but in India. There is now ample evidence to show that Muller, and those who followed him, were wrong.

Why is the theory no longer accepted?

The Aryan invasion theory was based on archaeological, linguistic and ethnological evidence. Later research has either discredited this evidence, or provided new evidence that combined with the earlier evidence makes other explanations more likely. Modern historians of the area no longer believe that such invasions had such great influence on Indian history. It's now generally accepted that Indian history shows a continuity of progress from the earliest times to today. The changes brought to India by other cultures are not denied by modern historians, but they are no longer thought to be a major ingredient in the development of Hinduism.

Dangers of the theory
The Aryan invasion theory denies the Indian origin of India's predominant culture, but gives the credit for Indian culture to invaders from elsewhere. It even teaches that some of the most revered books of Hindu scripture are not actually Indian, and it devalues India's culture by portraying it as less ancient than it actually is.

The theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas:

* It suggested that Indian culture was not a culture in its own right, but a synthesis of elements from other cultures
* It implied that Hinduism was not an authentically Indian religion but the result of cultural imperialism
* It suggested that Indian culture was static, and only changed under outside influences
* It suggested that the dark-skinned Dravidian people of the South of India had got their faith from light-skinned Aryan invaders
* It implied that indigenous people were incapable of creatively developing their faith
* It suggested that indigenous peoples could only acquire new religious and cultural ideas from other races, by invasion or other processes
* It accepted that race was a biologically based concept (rather than, at least in part, a social construct) that provided a sensible way of ranking people in a hierarchy, which provided a partial basis for the caste system
* It provided a basis for racism in the Imperial context by suggesting that the peoples of Northern India were descended from invaders from Europe and so racially closer to the British Raj
* It gave a historical precedent to justify the role and status of the British Raj, who could argue that they were transforming India for the better in the same way that the Aryans had done thousands of years earlier
* It downgraded the intellectual status of India and its people by giving a falsely late date to elements of Indian science and culture

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6. Christian Group Alleges New Age Beliefs Taught In Public School

www.charlotte.com

RALEIGH, N.C., September 25, 2005: A Christian group says stress-reduction classes for students at a Raleigh elementary school promoted "New Age" beliefs and were school-sponsored religious activities that violated the First Amendment. Called2Action, a local activist organization, has sent a letter to Wake County Schools Superintendent Bill McNeal and school board members asking them to make sure this kind of "spiritual and religious program" doesn't happen again. Called2Action said it received complaints from a mother whose children were asked to do breathing exercises, chant and use their "life forces" last month at Partnership elementary School. The classes were conducted by Emily Gunter, founder of the Rites of Passage Youth Empowerment foundation in Durham. Her foundation's Web site says its mission is "to bring peace to our world through the personal empowerment and spiritual development of the Youth." The Web site also notes that Gunter just returned from a spiritual pilgrimage in the Himalayas of Tibet and Nepal. A Florida legal firm contacted by Called2Action issued a legal memorandum that said Gunter's "conscious breathing" activity is a New Age religious and spiritual activity associated with Hindu religious faiths. The memo adds that Gunter was engaging in a program of religious meditation that violated the First Amendment by making the school proselytize the children in New Age beliefs. The complaint was being reviewed by the school district's attorneys.

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