2017 LinnMar Diversity Event - HINDUISM

On April 20, 2017, I had the opportunity to represent Hinduism in LinnMar High School. There is always a first and the 3 hours of off-and-on explanation of Hinduism to eager teenage minds was surely my first and an exciting, lovely experience!

True to the teenage spirit, as soon as my camera was focused on the interactive audience, another happy friends group swarmed from nowhere in a spirit of revelry!

I regret not having the opportunity to captures all my audiences.  

        I was also happily surprised with a lightening visit from none other than Akash Gururaj, our dear friend Padmanabh’s elder son who is budding into an accomplished Carnatic musician..!  Suddenly out of the blue, I hear “Hello Aunty” and I spin around to a tall (I remember he was definitely shorter than me last time) beaming Akash who had 15 mins in between classes to check out the happenings in the gym.   

      Between attending my adult or young audiences, I was happily engaged in lively discussions on Vedanta by the young couple Balaji and Varshika representing the Hindu Temple of Cedar Rapids.

     Keeping my young audience in mind, I came up with the following PowerPoint presentation on the theme: Hinduism. The detail of this presentation with captions are available at:

Hinduism-Culture & Philosophy-An Intro  

This presentation encompasses both the Philosophy (Vedanta) and Culture. 

The highlight was on: (1) how Philosophy (Vedanta)-centric the Hindu culture is and (2) the commonalities between Individual and Community practices.

     Of all the slides, the most popular idea that struck the chord with most of them was that everyone is praying to the 1 God and all religions are valid.
The theme on this slide#2 was based on the eternal principle of Vedanta as explained in Mundaka Upanishad (rivers meeting the ocean) extrapolated by Sri Ramakrishna: “All religions are valid paths leading to the same goal”.

   It is indeed a freshening experience when dealing with open-curious minds..!