Many people here are not aware that you can get a glimpse of India, at least once a year, without spending a lot of money. You can have India right here in the middle of USA at the "India Fest".
Yesterday, my family and I enjoyed a quick trip to India at the "India Fest" in Peoria, Illinois. Peoria is a beautiful small city about 50 miles west of Bloomington (where I live) in Illinois State. India Fest was a mixture of various events that included Indian art, culture, food, music, and religion.
The day-long India Festival was organized by the Indo-American Society of America of Peoria (IASP) - a fledgling organization founded in 2000. IASP celebrates Indian culture and its values such as respect for diversity, importance of public service, and development of a harmonious community.
The India Fest featured the most-loved Indian sport- Cricket. There were two matches - a Celebrity Cricket (30-ball match) and another between the teams of Bloomington and Peoria. In a country where sport means either football or baseball, cricket was a refreshing change. Of course, the better team of Bloomington won.
The festival included informative talks on a variety of popular Indian topics such as Ayurveda, Meditation, and Yoga.
The venue for the India Fest cultural events was the beautiful Peoria's River Front overlooking the majestic Illinois River. The audience was typically what you will find back in India at public gatherings- a delightful mixture of young and old dressed in the most colorful salwar kameezes, sarees, casuals, and pyjama kurtas.
Stage entertainment at the India Fest was a plethora of events featuring Bharatnatyam, Bhajan Songs, Bollywood Songs, Classical and Western Dance Fusion, Folk Dances, Tribal Dances, Instrumental Music and Variety Entertainment. The artists were mostly young boys and girls with lots of enthusiasm and talents.
Kids in the age group of 3 to 10 seemed to enjoy the events much more than the adults. It was a delight to see the kids run around, chase others, and dance off-stage without any inhibition.
Housed underneath camping tents, the festival site included a henna (Mehendi) shop to paint beautiful designs on palms, gift shops that sold Indian dresses and art items, and some cultural exhibits on India.
And who can forget the food? How can there be India without Bhel Puri, Samosas, Spicy Rice, Roti and Garam Chai? All of these delicacies and more were on continuous supply to please the Indian tastebuds.
Next year, if you are planning a visit to India - Save your precious money and time. Visit the India Fest!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Chitra Pournami
The day is Saturday, May 13. My tear off calendar says today is Chitra Pournami. It is the full moon of the Hindu month of Chitra, when the star Chitra (Virginis) is close to the moon. Several New Years came before this, including Ugadi (the Telugu New Years day), Tamil New Years day, and Holi-Baisakhi. Every religion has something very dear to celebrate and Chitra Pournami is one such occasion celebrated in parts of South India. Despite the hatred that exists among various sects of humanity, such festive occasions bring a fresh promise of renewal and joy to its followers.
Chitra Pournami is considered as the birthday of a very important person in the celestial world: Chitragupta, the Keeper of Deeds who assists Yama, the God of death. It is believed that Chitragupta keeps the good and bad deeds register of every birth that helps tally your positive karma against the negative. Chitragupta is remembered on this day. I am not sure if this was just an ancestral device to alert us on our conduct and put us on the path of austerity.
Chitra Poornima is also sacred to remembering your mothers. Austerities done on this day are supposed to please the mothers. Suggested activities on this day include: An early bath, praying for the welfare of your mother and giving them gifts, performing a good deed like helping/feeding somebody, sitting peacefully and praying to be cleansed of emotional toxins: anger, bitterness, revenge, jealousy. It is interesting to note that tomorrow Mothers Day will be celebrated in the USA.
There’s also the legend that Indra, king of the celestials, once managed to offend Brihaspati or Guru and was forced to come down to earth for expiation. He spotted a Shivalingam under a kadamba tree and this struck him as so auspicious that he worshipped it with a golden lotus from a pond nearby. This feeling of piety and repentance in his manas heart, formalised externally as worship, redeemed him from his sin. The day was Chitra Pournami and the place where his penance was performed and accepted is Madurai. Indra is believed to have built a temple there and even today, in the great Madurai Meenakshi temple, Devendra Puja is observed on Chitra Pournami while in the grand Vaishnava temples like Tirupati and Azhagarkoil, devotees bathe in the natural springs.
Chitra Pournami is considered as the birthday of a very important person in the celestial world: Chitragupta, the Keeper of Deeds who assists Yama, the God of death. It is believed that Chitragupta keeps the good and bad deeds register of every birth that helps tally your positive karma against the negative. Chitragupta is remembered on this day. I am not sure if this was just an ancestral device to alert us on our conduct and put us on the path of austerity.
Chitra Poornima is also sacred to remembering your mothers. Austerities done on this day are supposed to please the mothers. Suggested activities on this day include: An early bath, praying for the welfare of your mother and giving them gifts, performing a good deed like helping/feeding somebody, sitting peacefully and praying to be cleansed of emotional toxins: anger, bitterness, revenge, jealousy. It is interesting to note that tomorrow Mothers Day will be celebrated in the USA.
There’s also the legend that Indra, king of the celestials, once managed to offend Brihaspati or Guru and was forced to come down to earth for expiation. He spotted a Shivalingam under a kadamba tree and this struck him as so auspicious that he worshipped it with a golden lotus from a pond nearby. This feeling of piety and repentance in his manas heart, formalised externally as worship, redeemed him from his sin. The day was Chitra Pournami and the place where his penance was performed and accepted is Madurai. Indra is believed to have built a temple there and even today, in the great Madurai Meenakshi temple, Devendra Puja is observed on Chitra Pournami while in the grand Vaishnava temples like Tirupati and Azhagarkoil, devotees bathe in the natural springs.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Knowledge and Wealth
Knowledge and Wealth
Today is Sunday May 7, 2006. As usual, I scanned the news over the internet. I was fascinated by the review on a new book "Wisdom for the New Millennium" by His Holiness, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. In this book, the saint-author describes four pillars of knowledge and six types of wealth.
The final chapter discusses the four pillars. The first is 'Viveka'. Though 'grossly translated as discrimination' this is more: it is "the understanding or observation that everything is changing." Changes, not only the prices of shares that keep ticking on the screen, but also in your thoughts and emotions. For instance, "You cannot maintain the same degree of sadness every day all the time... You can never be unhappy for the same reason continuously." How does it help to know that everything changes? "The moment you see that things are changing, simultaneously you start seeing that the one who is observing the change is not changing." The reference point of change is non-change, explains Shankarji.
The second pillar is vairagya, dispassion. Which is not the same as apathy, or being unenthusiastic, depressed, or not being interested in anything. "Dispassion is a lack of feverishness," be it in what you desire, hope or aspire for.
Then comes the third pillar, which includes the six wealths: shama, dama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha and samadhana. The first wealth, shama, means tranquility of the mind. "When the mind wants to do too many things, it gets completely scattered." With shama, you can focus your mind and be more alert, counsels Shankarji.
Dama is about having a say over your senses; essential, because many times you don't want to do something, yet you do! With dama, your senses don't drag you; instead, "you will say 'yes' or 'no' to the senses."
The third wealth, titiksha is 'endurance or forbearance.' When difficult things come, forbearance allows you to go on without getting completely shaken and shattered, guides Shankarji. Opposites such as health-sickness, losses-gains... come and go; armed with titiksha, however, you aren't deterred by whatever happens. "Often, whatever is unpleasant can become pleasant later on. These are the changes that go on in life... The ability to not get carried away by the events, the judgments, is titiksha."
The fourth wealth, uparati, means rejoicing in your own nature. How? By not doing things because someone else says or does something, by not labouring hard to win approval, or keeping up with the Joneses. "Being in the present moment, being in the joy that you are, the ability to rejoice in anything that you do, that is uparati."
Faith or shraddha is the fifth wealth. "Faith is needed when you have found the limit of your knowing... Your willingness to know the unknown is shraddha." It would be fanaticism to think there is nothing beyond. Absence of faith is doubt -- in yourself, others, or the whole. "Ninety nine per cent of people doubt the whole, because they do not believe that there is a whole that is functioning."
The sixth wealth, samadhana, is being at ease, being content. "Being at ease with everything, the whole existence... a great wealth by itself."
These six wealths together form the third pillar, he says, before moving on to the fourth pillar, mumukshatva -- "the desire for the highest, a desire for total freedom, for enlightenment."
Today is Sunday May 7, 2006. As usual, I scanned the news over the internet. I was fascinated by the review on a new book "Wisdom for the New Millennium" by His Holiness, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. In this book, the saint-author describes four pillars of knowledge and six types of wealth.
The final chapter discusses the four pillars. The first is 'Viveka'. Though 'grossly translated as discrimination' this is more: it is "the understanding or observation that everything is changing." Changes, not only the prices of shares that keep ticking on the screen, but also in your thoughts and emotions. For instance, "You cannot maintain the same degree of sadness every day all the time... You can never be unhappy for the same reason continuously." How does it help to know that everything changes? "The moment you see that things are changing, simultaneously you start seeing that the one who is observing the change is not changing." The reference point of change is non-change, explains Shankarji.
The second pillar is vairagya, dispassion. Which is not the same as apathy, or being unenthusiastic, depressed, or not being interested in anything. "Dispassion is a lack of feverishness," be it in what you desire, hope or aspire for.
Then comes the third pillar, which includes the six wealths: shama, dama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha and samadhana. The first wealth, shama, means tranquility of the mind. "When the mind wants to do too many things, it gets completely scattered." With shama, you can focus your mind and be more alert, counsels Shankarji.
Dama is about having a say over your senses; essential, because many times you don't want to do something, yet you do! With dama, your senses don't drag you; instead, "you will say 'yes' or 'no' to the senses."
The third wealth, titiksha is 'endurance or forbearance.' When difficult things come, forbearance allows you to go on without getting completely shaken and shattered, guides Shankarji. Opposites such as health-sickness, losses-gains... come and go; armed with titiksha, however, you aren't deterred by whatever happens. "Often, whatever is unpleasant can become pleasant later on. These are the changes that go on in life... The ability to not get carried away by the events, the judgments, is titiksha."
The fourth wealth, uparati, means rejoicing in your own nature. How? By not doing things because someone else says or does something, by not labouring hard to win approval, or keeping up with the Joneses. "Being in the present moment, being in the joy that you are, the ability to rejoice in anything that you do, that is uparati."
Faith or shraddha is the fifth wealth. "Faith is needed when you have found the limit of your knowing... Your willingness to know the unknown is shraddha." It would be fanaticism to think there is nothing beyond. Absence of faith is doubt -- in yourself, others, or the whole. "Ninety nine per cent of people doubt the whole, because they do not believe that there is a whole that is functioning."
The sixth wealth, samadhana, is being at ease, being content. "Being at ease with everything, the whole existence... a great wealth by itself."
These six wealths together form the third pillar, he says, before moving on to the fourth pillar, mumukshatva -- "the desire for the highest, a desire for total freedom, for enlightenment."
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