U.S. Saraswati Temple Continues Recovery

[Guest guest]

EPPING (Feb. 29, 2004) - For the local Hindu faithful, the same God

who destroyed their temple will build it again.

 

On New Year's Eve, a fire gutted the interior of a two-story

addition to the main living quarters at Green Pastures Estate on

Ladd's Lane. That addition held a second-floor temple and first-

floor office space.

 

Pandit Ramadheen Ramsamooj, the Hindu commune's resident guru, said

his initial reaction to the fire was despair for his lost temple and

the ruin of musical instruments, statues and journals filled with

entries by his own guru.

 

"Emotionally, I was very much carried away initially," Ramsamooj

said.

 

Before a weekly ceremony last Sunday morning, Ramsamooj told a group

of students on retreat from Wellesley College how Hindu worship can

help a person escape the control of the material world to see life

from a spiritual perspective.

 

Seated cross-legged on large pillow, he chanted mantras and swayed

his upper body front to back, offering birthday wishes for a young

woman named Seema, praying that she discover the divine nature

inside her. With flames leaping from a metal tray, the girl burned

clarified butter with herbs to bless some food and cleanse the air

in the auditorium where the worshippers gathered.

 

"The rituals help us to get focused so that our brain begins to

operate differently," Ramsamooj said. "We have to have that ability

to get beyond our logic."

 

In a separate interview, the pandit said that's exactly what he had

to do to receive God's message in the temple fire.

 

"You have to get into a state of meditation," he said. "The lesson

that I have to learn is that I have to let go of the past if I wish

to re-create something new for the future. I have to let go and let

God flow."

 

This doctrine is seen in the very names for God that Hindus use.

Though Hindus are pantheists, believing all reality is a single,

divine presence, they recognize God's different faces in the

material world. Shiva, one of three main manifestations of the Hindu

deity, is the destroyer.

 

"He sees that there's a need for a new creation, and so first he has

to destroy that what's old," Ramsamooj said. "That's exactly what

has happened here."

 

Congregants in the Hindu community believe the creator God, Brahma,

will build them a brand-new temple on a rolling meadow near the

corner of Ladd's Lane and Route 27, east of the current complex of

buildings.

 

"He's the one who will carry us through these miserable situations,"

said Lee resident Ayodhya Upadhyay, a cradle Hindu from Nepal who

moved to New Hampshire a year ago. "Sometimes we are not wise enough

to view what he's doing to protect us."

 

Gaining wisdom and knowledge is the ultimate Hindu goal, especially

for the local community. The temple is named for Brahma's consort in

Hinduism's female trinity, Saraswati, the goddess of learning. It is

the only Saraswati temple in the United States and the only Hindu

temple in New Hampshire, according to the Hindu Web site

lokvani.com.

 

As a community dedicated to the goddess of learning, the Mandiram

Saraswati temple emphasizes its role as an educator of children.

Vivekananda Academy on the Green Pastures Estate currently has 24

students who can graduate with a two-year college degree by age 15

if they enrolled as young children. Ramsamooj said by targeting a

student's artistic right brain through meditative practices,

teachers can impart knowledge much faster than in typical Western

classrooms.

 

"Repetitive action bores our left brain to death, so it puts it to

sleep," he said. "What you would do in 1,000 years, you would learn

in one year's time."

 

The school opened this year, and next year Ramsamooj hopes to double

his teaching staff from four to eight and offer scholarships to 150

local students. As with the new temple, the funding to support the

scholarships will come from within the Green Pastures community, the

pandit said.

 

Rita Sud, an Indian-American who has lived on the estate and managed

its finances for the past two years, said the fire may motivate the

congregation to work harder at making Green Pastures a place of

worship, love, peace and compassion.

 

"Maybe this was a way for us to be recognized throughout the

community," said Sud, who is running to become Epping Town treasurer

and a Budget Committee member. "I saw it as the hand of God, and

whatever the message was, we hope we got it. ... Maybe we're

supposed to do things better."

 

"Maybe guruji has a bigger role in the community to play," said

Upadhyay, speaking of Ramsamooj. "(God) has a plan to make a big

temple out here on the hill. Maybe this is the time."

 

Ramsamooj said the organization''s insurance will not cover the

entire cost of the damage, but friends of the temple are banding

together toward the goal of building a new worship space.

 

"The congregation has been quite inspirational in helping me to come

to terms with this loss," the pandit said. "The divine mother is

inspiring us all to have a new home for her."

 

Rita and Dipak Patel, whose children attend the school, recently

gave the temple 10 percent of the $30,000 purse they won for selling

a winning Powerball ticket at the business they own, Gary's

Beverages in Portsmouth.

 

"That's like a miracle in my store that someone won the lottery,"

Dipak said. "That's my gift from God. Here is your part. ... That's

a Hindu temple; I'm a Hindu, so I should support it."

 

******

 

Shakti Sadhana members wishing to donate to the cause of rebuilding

the temple can send donations to Saraswati Mandiram, Mandir Building

Fund, 38B Ladd's Lane, Epping, N.H. 03042.

 

Source: The Portsmouth Herald, "Green Pastures suffers loss, readies

to rebuild," by Jesse J. DeConto

URL: http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/02292004/news/2584.htm