Author: Greg Garrison
Publication: The Salt Lake Tribune
Date: June 5, 2004
URL: http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jun/06052004/saturday/172785.asp
The first question most people ask
the tall, blond, blue-eyed Hindu swami from Texas, almost everywhere he
goes on his traveling lectures, is how did he get to be a Hindu swami.
After all, most Hindu swamis seem
to be from India, the home of Hinduism.
"People always ask me that," said
Swami Akhilananda, wearing sandals, beads, a saffron robe and a vertical
red streak on his forehead called a tilak during a recent visit to the
Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Birmingham.
"Since I was a young child I was
raised as a Hindu," he said. "Hinduism is such that, whatever you can ask,
there's always an answer."
His father, a carpenter, was a spiritual
seeker who studied Hinduism and helped oversee construction on the Barsana
Dham, a Hindu Temple in Austin, Texas. Built on 200 acres near a flowing
stream, it's one of the largest Hindu temples in the United States.
His parents now live at an ashram,
or temple, in India.
Steeped in the history and scriptures
of Hinduism, but raised in Texas, Swami Akhilananda has emerged as an eloquent
spokesman for the appeal of the ancient religion to people who are not
of Indian descent.
"I preach at some churches, mostly
Unitarian or Unity," he said. He spent a week in Birmingham for a series
of lectures on "How to Reach God" at the Hindu Temple.
The swami pointed around the temple
at the various representations of deities, including Shiva, Vishnu and
Radha Krishna, who is believed to have spoken the Bhagavad Gita, one of
the sacred scriptures of Hinduism.
Some of the deities are animal representations,
such as Ganesh, the elephant god, and Hanuman, the monkey god.
"Every Hindu knows there's only
one god and he manifests himself in many different ways," Swami Akhilananda
said.
The representations of gods are
to help people understand a formless reality, he said. "There are a lot
of different understandings of Hinduism," he said. "We don't do idol worship.
It's a way to visualize God."
The Hindu temples in Roebuck and
Pelham, which serve more than 400 Hindu families in the Birmingham area,
each has numerous statues that are treated like living gods and brought
food every day by a brahmin, or priest.
The statues require a priest who
lives at the temple and conducts daily rituals to care for the statues,
which are treated as the actual presence of the gods. Nallaswami Gurukkal,
the resident Hindu priest in Pelham, lives in the building and conducts
daily rituals that involve ceremonially waking, "feeding" -- by offering
foods -- and bathing the gods.
"We are very devoted to our culture,"
said Andra Soni, who was born in India and moved to Birmingham in 1981.
"This place here is our heritage
link between us and our home country," said Anil Agawal, who left India
at age nine and moved to Birmingham in 1995. "It's a sense of belonging."
During worship services, Hindus
perform an Aarti, a ceremony of lights at the throne of a god, waving a
silver plate with candles in front of the statue.
Hinduism teaches that souls are
separated from God. Chanting meditation is one of the ways to get closer
to God, he said. "We say various names of God, or his virtues," the swami
said.
Through reincarnation, souls have
a chance to progress toward unity with God. Otherwise, each person keeps
being reborn. "It's a huge, unending cycle," the swami said. "We talk about
how the soul can attain perfection. We try to give our mind and heart and
feelings to God. It's the living relationship between the soul and God."
Achieving the soul's reunification
with God is called Moksha. "If you know God absolutely, then you're free
of the cycle," the swami said.
