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Posted on Mon, Dec. 12, 2005

 

Hindu celebration in Livermore embraces all

 

By Tom Lochner

 

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

 

LIVERMORE - On the stage of the Hindu Community and Cultural Center on

Sunday, four children -- Shruti Ravishankar, Sujaya Tranquebar,

Navneedh Subarraman and Krithika Jagannathan -- performed a skit based

on an anecdote from the boyhood of Krishna, the Lord Incarnate.

 

Krishna and his friend, Sudama, were gathering firewood in the forest

when a thunderstorm forced them to take shelter under a tree. Both had

taken a bag of puffed rice for sustenance. Sudama ate his, and finding

Krishna asleep, ate his friend's portion as well.

 

"Life went on," said Dr. Kamala Shankar, a physician and a temple

library volunteer, paraphrasing the skit. Sudama became a Brahmin

priest, took a wife, raised two children and lived in poverty.

Krishna, the king, lived in prosperity.

 

One day, Sudama's wife told her husband to visit Krishna. Having

nothing else to offer as a gift, Sudama gave Krishna the rice from a

pouch he carried. When Sudama came home, he found his house full of

riches.

 

The moral is, "Whatever is given to me with love is more precious than

another rich gift," explained Laxmikant Joshi, another volunteer. It

is also one of the messages of the Bhagawad Geeta, one of Hinduism's

holiest scripture.

 

The skit was part of Sunday's Geeta Jayanti celebration at the

Livermore Hindu center, part of a complex that includes the

Shiva-Vishnu Temple. Geeta Jayanti marks the day almost 5,400 years

ago when the Bhagawad Geeta was revealed to the world. The scripture,

in the form of a dialogue between Lord Krishna and epic hero Prince

Arjuna, traces the journey of the soul from a state of confusion to

the realization of the self through total surrender to God.

 

The celebration began with a recitation from the Bhagawad Geeta,

describing "how we can live a peaceful life within the family, the

society and nature," said Prabha Duneja, a missionary, pacifist,

scholar and teacher who has written several books, including "Bhagawad

Geeta: The Gateway to Freedom."

 

It closed with a prayer for peace that Duneja paraphrased as "Oh Lord,

may I become the embodiment of peace and carry that peace wherever I go.

 

"In order to have peace in our lives, we have to live in awareness of

the divine ... in unity with the source of life," Duneja continued.

 

In between, there were hymns and other devotional music, children's

dances and theater performances and vegetarian Indian food.

 

While Geeta Jayanti is a joyous celebration, its celebrants were

mindful of the "imbalances" in the world -- the natural disasters and

other "un-dharmic events," as Joshi put it. Last year's celebration,

on Dec. 26, came as news of the catastrophic tsunami in Indonesia and

the devastation it wrought on India's East Coast hit the Internet and

newscasts. Earlier this year, the temple raised money for victims of

Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Kashmir.

 

A month ago, the temple held a ritual with rhythmic recitations of

mantras "to please the planet, to calm it down," Joshi said.

 

Hindus believe in reincarnation and the cyclical nature of life.

 

"So many cycles have happened before, when the earth was destroyed,"

Joshi said. "This cycle will end, too."

 

"But not anytime soon," Shankar said.

 

Built in 1977, the temple has grown to about 24,000 member families.

There are plans to build a senior center and children's classrooms.

 

Sunday's celebration attracted Hindus from all over the Bay Area and

beyond.

 

"For us, it is an opportunity to get our kids connected to our culture

and values," said Dr. Uday Devanaboyina, a Fremont toxicologist and a

native of Hyderabad, India. He and his wife, Lalitha, a registered

nurse, watched their daughters Pooja, 6, and Vennela, 5, act and dance

in a musical skit that celebrated Krishna's love of mankind.

 

To temple president Amrit Duneja, Geeta Jayanti represents "a

renewal." For Venkat Kode, it is an occasion to "mix business with

pleasure."

 

"We are mixing the business of praying to the Gods with the pleasure

of meeting friends and praying together," he explained

 

Prayers implicitly embrace all humanity, as well as other creatures,

Kode said.

 

"Even in a personal prayer, you pray for all the beings."

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