bharatiya temple & cultural center of greater lafayette...
TRANSCRIPT
S P R I N G F E S T I V I T I E S
Subra Narayan
Spring of 2013 was a very busy and exciting time at BTCCGL and we have quite a lot to cover in this newsletter. Mahashivaratri was celebrated on March 10 for the first time at BTCCGL with a lot of enthusiasm, and the proceedings are summarized by Amit Varma in this issue. Then on March 24, the first ever Samoohika Satyanara-yanavratam was officiated by DHR Sarma, who has summed up the highlights includ-ing its significance. Spring was ushered in with Vaisakhi celebrations on April 13, hosted by the Punjabi Association of Greater Lafayette with music, dance, good food and fun-filled activi-ties! Rama Navami celebrations were conducted on April 21 and was officiated by Shri Chandrashekara Gurukkal from the Greater Chicago area, who had previously performed puja for the Temple opening in December of 2012. The highlight for Rama Navami was Sita Kalyanam followed by a palanquin procession at BTCCGL that was a source of delight to all. BTCCGL’s Youth Group led by Seema Mattoo toiled hard to celebrate Earth Day on April 22 amidst a whole slew of activities, described by Seema in this issue. BTCCGL was formally recognized as a 501(3)c non-profit religious organization and this milestone is described in detail by Shalini Shah. Last but not the least, on April 27 a fundraiser for BTCCGL was arranged at the Lafay-ette Theater. Sumkali, an eclectic musical group from Michigan kept everyone en-thralled with their wonderful renditions of Indian Classical and Western fusion music. The fundraiser was a huge success as Niraj Ramachandran mentions in his round-up, and generated close to $50,000 in contributions. Thanks to all donors who pledged heartily at the fund-raiser and reaffirmed their faith in the mission towards building a vi-brant community center and place of worship for the Indian diaspora of Greater Lafayette! BTCCGL wishes to thank all volunteers who have made every event possible, including set-up, decorations and donations.
Kalpa Vriksha
Bharatiya Temple & Cultural Center of Greater Lafayette
B T C C G L
E X E C U T I V E
C O M M I T T E E
Umesh Patel– President
Vishal Lodha– Secretary
Jagdish Patel– Treasurer
Indrajeet Chaubey –Officer
Sunil Prabhakar -Officer
Shalini Shah -Officer
Amit Varma –Officer
T R U S T E E S
Tanuja Sheth
Subra Narayan
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C O N T A C T S
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://btccgl.org
www.facebook.com/btccglin
Rentals: Bhavin Shah
Temple: Indrajeet Chaubey
Building: Jagdish Patel
Events: Niraj Ramachandran
Donations: Shalini Shah
Bharatiya Temple & Cultural Center of Greater Lafayette 1210 Montgomery St, West Lafayette, IN 47906
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Kalpa Vriksha
The first annual fundraiser of BTCCGL on 27th April 2013 was a very special and interesting evening. Just like the advent of Spring brings new hope and greenery around, so did that Saturday evening. Even though there were many events happening in and around town a lot of people were still able to make it for the event to show their support. The evening started off with a social hour that included various appetizers, enjoyed by everyone. The audience was then treated to some phenomenal music by “Sumkali” a classical music group from Michigan. The group performed a fusion of Indian and western classical music. The first half was followed by the most fascinating part of the evening -a round of raising funds for BTCCGL. Dr. Ketan Sheth who was the MC for the evening did a fabulous job and within about 15 minutes more than $ 50,000 were raised. It was fantastic to see the support and belief that the community has in BTCCGL. That evening was again a validation of the value that BTCCGL has created in the community of greater Lafayette. Everyone who attended that evening had a great time and acknowledged the success of the event. Such support and encouragement goes a long way in motivating all volunteers working for BTCCGL. We look forward to seeing everyone next year.
B T C C G L A N N U A L
F U N D R A I S E R E V E N T
Niraj Ramachandran
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Kalpa Vriksha
A SIGNIFICANT MILESTONE FOR BTCCGL
Shalini Shah
On 3rd March 2013, BTCCGL was recognized as 501(c)(3) nonprofit religious public organization. It was given this status effective February 6th of 2012. Under section 170 of IRS code any contribution made to BTCCGL is tax deductible. Regulations specify such deductions must be verifiable to be allowed (e.g., receipts for donations over $250). This was a major achievement for BTCCGL and a vital step to the success and growth of the organization. 501(c)(3) exemptions apply to corporations, and any community chest, fund, cooperating association or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, to foster national or international amateur sports competition, to promote the arts, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. The basic requirement of getting tax exempt status is that the organization is specifically limited in powers to purposes that the IRS classifies as tax exempt purposes. Unlike for-profit corporations that benefit from broad and general purposes, nonprofit organizations need to be limited in powers to function with tax exempt status, but a nonprofit corporation is by default not limited in powers until it specifically limits itself in the articles of incorporation and/or nonprofit corporate bylaws. This limiting of the powers is crucial to obtaining tax exempt status with the IRS and then on the state level.
References : Wikipedia.org, IRS.gov and IRS publication 1828
Mahashivratri 2013
Amit Varma
Shivratri occurs on the 14th night of the waning moon (krishna paksha) just before the new moon in differ-ent zodiac signs (rashis) every lunar month. Shivratri is very auspicious for penance, worship, and medita-tion. Mahashivratri occurs when the 14th night of the waning moon (and the new moon) occurs in the zo-diac sign (rashi) of Aquarius or Kumbha, which is considered to be the most philosophical sign of all. Maha-shivratri is personally blessed by Lord Shiva to be the most auspicious night for worship and meditation lead-ing directly to moksha. The new moon occurs at the end of the krishna paksha when the moon is fully aligned with the sun, and therefore invisible from earth. In vedic astrology (jyothisha), the moon represents the human being’s (jeeva’s) mind, and the sun represents both the individual ego (jeeva) and the universal ego (Ishwara). Mok-sha or Samadhi is experienced when the jeeva’s mind is resolved in Iswara by bhakti or meditation. There-fore, the 14th night of the waning moon (just before the new moon) provides the best opportunity to pre-pare the mind (moon) to be resolved in the universal ego or Ishwara (sun).
We celebrated Mahashivratri for the first time in BTCCGL on March 10, 2013 with a lot of fanfare. Volun-teers decorated and set up the stage in the main hall for worship as several devotees took part in the cele-brations. Shri Krishna Sulakhe (www.apnipuja.com), a Hindu priest belonging to the Shukla Yajur Veda tradi-tion led the worship with Ganesh Pooja followed by Rudrabhishek Archana and Alankar to Lord Shiva. The entire hall then reverberated with the melodious chanting of the Maha-Mrutyunjaya Mantra, elevating the devotee’s consciousness to a higher realm. A group of Balavihar students recited the Nagendra Haraya Mantra. Shri Sulakhe gave a short talk on the significance of Mahashivratri and sang Bhajans in praise of Lord Shiva. The festivities concluded with Aarti, Prasad and sumptuous food for everyone. Later in the evening, meditations were conducted by Mrs. Manju Jarori and bhajans were sung by a group of Sai devotees.
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Shiva Lingas shown above were designed & created by Amit Varma with help from Meghna , Shalini, Bhavin & Padma .
Below is one of the great invocations for Shiva, along with the meaning and explanation by Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Saylorsburg, PA. This mantra was chanted during Mahashivratri pooja and is provided here for reference.
This mantra belongs to the Hindu tradition of chanting the names of the Lord. Each name is designed with special and significant meaning to reveal the imminent and transcendental nature of the Lord upon contem-plation. For example, Trayambakaya means “to one with three eyes.” The three eyes refer to the sun, moon, and fire, which are all sources of light revealing the forms of all objects observed by the Jeeva. Tra-yambaka also refers to the comprehensive seer (witness) of the three states of experience of the Jeeva, namely, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Trayambaka also refers to the creator, sustainer, and destroyer of all things objectified by the Jeeva, namely, the past, present, and future. Thus, Trayamabaka reveals both the imminent and transcendental nature of Lord Shiva.
The tradition of chanting names in a poetic meter (mantra) offers us (Jeevas) the opportunity to contemplate upon the meanings of the names, and realize the imminent presence and transcendence of Ishwara in our lives.
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Kalpa Vriksha
Saamoohika Satyanarayanavratam
A historic event for BTCCGL
D.H.R. Sarma
On the morning of March 24th, 2013 the weather forecast was disturbingly gloomy. Devotees were about to gather at BTCCGL by 10 AM to take part in a saamoohika satyanarayanavratam, the first-ever such event for Greater Lafayette. About 50 families were scheduled to perform the pooja individually at their own pooja stations. The devotees brought their own pooja ingredients augmented by items the event organizers pro-vided (which included a keep-sake framed image of the Lord) . As the saying goes, “neither rain, nor snow” would deter these devotees. But as if by magic, nay, by divine grace due to the mahima of our sankalpam, the snow storm held off until much later, providing hassle-free 4 hours for a peaceful and festive propitia-tion of Lord Satyanarayana (actually Ramaasametha Sri Satyanarayana) and the delicious prasadam and lunch that followed, thanks to the dedicated volunteers. The pooja was performed in traditional vedic fash-ion including a long version of mantrapushpam , and was officiated by D.H.R. Sarma, with Archana and Pankaj Sharma leading the group as the couple performing the pooja on the grand stage specially set up for the event by the organizers. Satyanarayanavratam (SNV) is a pooja per-formed over many centuries all over India and also in many other countries by Indian immi-grants. Its origin is explained in skaandapu-ranam. Perhaps the most recognized feature of this pooja is the katha (story) that follows the vedic worship of Lord Satyanarayana, a form of Lord Vishnu. The worship itself is slightly different from other poojas, in that in SNV the entourage of Lord Vishnu (which in-cludes the nine planets, the eight rulers of the eight directions of the Earth, and many other gods) is first welcomed and propitiated. The Lord is then established in the form of a kalasam and then worshipped using the purusha-sooktam as the basis for the pooja.
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Kalpa Vriksha The katha popularly consists of five chapters: The first chapter deals with the origin of the pooja, the moti-vation for which is explained as arising out of compassion that the sage Narada felt for the earthly beings. In a striking departure from earlier worship procedures, SNV procedure is described in this chapter as enunci-ated by Lord Vishnu himself, with all the details, including the recipe for the prasadam. The simplicity and affordability and the devotion to the act of worship as opposed to the fanfare of the event are stressed in this chapter. The lesson: simplicity and devotion. (Contemporary teaching: devotion to all noble tasks at hand) The second chapter enumerates SNV events of the beginning which includes people of different castes and different economic status (Contemporary teaching: no one is ineligible to worship nor are fruits of worship privilege of the wealthy few or the so called high castes) The third and fourth chapters deal with how the Lord bestows wishes on people who genuinely pray to him and also gives anecdotes of the miseries that fall folks who broke their promises out of either negligence or nonchalance and how misfortune befalls on those who mete out contempt to those who may not exude glamour of the times.. (Contemporary teaching: Be thankful for what is bestowed on you and keep your word and respect one and all) Finally, the short fifth chapter narrates the story of a king who insults his simpleton subjects and the Lord, and hence suffers heavy penalty, but then regains his wealth and wisdom by correcting himself. (Contemporary teaching: all beings are created equal, and superiority is merely a product of one’s mind)) Historically and traditionally, the beauty of these stories is best enjoyed while listening attentively as the stories (katha) are narrated by articulate learned purohits, as has been the custom for centuries. It is my humble opinion that such stories of the pooja are vocally “told” and not just read aloud from a book. May Lord Satyanarayana bless all with heath, wealth, and above all wisdom and love for the fellow beings!
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Kalpa Vriksha Rama navami
Shri Chandrashekara Gurukkal performing RamaNavami pooja. Palanquin & giant bow & arrow were designed & created by Amit Varma with help from Meghna, Shalini, Bhavin & Padma.
BTCCGL YOUTH GROUP CELEBRATES
Seema Mattoo
It began as a concept presented by a peace activist, John McConnell, at the UNESCO conference in 1969 and was implemented into being by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970. Earth Day. A day to celebrate, protect and nurture our environment. Held annually on April 22nd, the first Earth Day event in 1970 was coor-dinated under Senator Nelson’s guidance by a college student, Dennis Hayes. Hayes energized the youth population in American universities and schools and founded the Earth Day Network, which has since spread to 180 nations. How fitting then that the 2013 Earth Day celebration held at BTCCGL was organized by its own Youth Group! The Earth Day event was held on the BTCCGL premises and was spon-sored by Drs. Michael Poderycki and Seema Mattoo. In addition to a canned food drive and recycling drive, the event involved an assort-ment of informational and musical items by members of the Youth Group and guest speakers. Seema Mattoo started off the morning with the history of Earth Day. This was followed by presentations from Arthi Puri and Anuj Patel, who gave an update on the Youth Group’s Re-cycling Project. To this end, the Youth Group has arranged for recycling
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Youth Group members with guest speakers at the BTCCGL Earth Day celebration, 2013.
Dr. Kerry Rabenold speaking about the Ross Nature Preserve
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bins and pick up of recyclable waste at BTCCGL. Plans are currently underway to start a composting bin at BTCCGL. Krithika Subramaniam and Kaveri Sheth informed the audience about the Hunger Project. Goods collected from the canned food drive were donated to the Food Finders Food Bank.
We were very fortunate to have guest lectures by es-teemed ecologists, Drs. Kerry Rabenold and Jeff Lucas. Dr. Kerry Rabenold is a Professor at Purdue University and Director of the Ross Reserve, a 92 acre
forest on the banks of the Wabash river that houses hundreds of plant and animal species. The Ross Reserve is also the home of the Alton A. Lindsey field laboratory, which offers courses and laboratory resources to Purdue University’s re-searchers and students. Dr. Rabenold gave a lecture on the history of the Ross Reserve, the types of flowers – dogwood, ginger, Jack-in-the-pulpit – and trees on the Reserve, and how the creation of this nature preserve has curbed the ram-pant effects of deforestation during the 1950s. Over the coming months, the Youth Group aims to organize field trips to the Ross Reserve for the community youngsters. Next, Dr. Jeff Lucas, Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, led a lively and interactive session describing his studies on bird hearing. He played lovely bird songs, described the audiology patterns used to analyze them, and explained what each song meant – to be precise, most bird songs are not love songs but rather birds being territorial and chirp-ing, “I hate you!” Or, as my daughter puts it, “Go away, or I’ll peck you up!” Dr. Lucas followed up by having the audience record their own voices and ob-serve the audiology patterns as compared to the bird songs. This definitely delighted the kids! We also had an informational seminar by a representative from Energizing Indiana, Cameroon Woodard. Cameroon gave us tips on en-ergy conservation and signed families up for free energy evaluations of their homes. Donations from these energy assessments were given to BTCCGL and the Youth Group. In between the lectures, Arthi Puri, Krithika Subramaniam and Anuj Patel delighted us with their musical prowess. Arthi’s voice melted the audience as she sang a melodic aria, while Krithika and Anuj’s performance of Mozart’s Duet No. 1 on the flute and trombone was breathtaking. The event culminated with the youth members painting a rain barrel for raising funds for the “Paint the Rain” Water Conservation efforts of Wa-bash River Enhancement Corporation (WREC). The 55 gallon rain barrel for collecting rain water was gener-ously donated to the Youth Group by Dr. Aparna Puri.
Kalpa Vriksha
Dr. Jeff Lucas enthralls the audience with his recording of bird songs
Musical performances by Krithka, Anuj & Arthi
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Youth members Kaveri Sheth and Arthi Puri
running the paint stand for barrel painting.
We get by with a little help from our friends – (L to R) Seema Mattoo, Ta-nuja Sheth, Aparna Puri, Sangeetha Kolla, Rakshi Ahsan.
The children enjoyed painting Earth Day and Indian themes on the rain barrel, which is currently being displayed at different locations in the Lafayette/West Lafayette area. Join the WREC’s hunt for rain barrels by following the map on http://www.tippeconow.com/painttherain/barrel_hunt.php. Our rain barrel can also be viewed in the rain barrel gallery at http://www.tippeconow.com/painttherain/gallery.php. We thank Aparna Puri, Sangeetha Kolla, Tanuja Sheth, Rakshi Ahsan, and Avanti Puri for help with painting and transporting the rain barrel. The Youth Group also inaugurated a vegetable garden on the BTCCGL premises during the Earth Day celebra-tion. We thank Jagdish Patel for getting the garden tilled. The children potted several seeds for carrots, peas, cauliflower, cabbage, okra, and a few flowers during the event. This vegetable garden will be watered using the rain barrel described above. Anuj Patel will serve as the point person for managing the vegetable garden Earth Day at BTCCGL was a great success! A fun and productive morning, the attendees went home having learned something new and feeling good about their contributions towards making BTCCGL more eco-friendly and sustaining a healthier environment. We thank everyone for their participation. Special thanks to our speakers, Dr. Kerry Rabenold, Dr. Jeff Lucas, and Cameroon Woodard; to Dr. Aparna Puri for donating the rain barrel and informing us about the “Paint the Rain” program; to Drs. Michael Poderycki and Seema Mattoo for sponsoring the event; to Dr. Yudaya Sivathanu and Deepa Divakaran for lending us their projector; to Arthi Puri, Krithika Subramaniam, and Anuj Patel for their musical performances; and to Mrs. Padma Subramaniam, Dr. Tanuja Sheth, Mr. Jagdish Patel, and BTCCGL for their support
Planting seeds for the vegetable garden
Our BTCCGL Youth Group Barrel
Barrel Painting
bins and pick up of recyclable waste at BTCCGL
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B T C C G L
U P C O M I N G A C T I V I T I E S
Aug 17 Purdue Get Involved Fair Aug 31 Janmashtami Sep 14 Ganesh Chaturthi Sept 21 Vibrant India Celebration Oct 5-Oct 13 Navaratri Celebration Nov 2 Laxmi puja Nov 16 General body meeting/elections
VAISAKHI 2013
Kalpa Vriksha