Report: Acharya Thirunakshatram Celebrations - W-DC.

[Guest guest]

sri:

 

Humble pranam to all devotees:

 

By HIS unconditional grace and love, we had a very blessed and active

Acharya Thirunakshatram Celebtations at

Sri. JETUSA W-DC Center , Sri Venkateswara Temple of Virginia.

 

We were all very blessed to participate and interact with other

devotees from all over the USA. (Boston, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, LA,

Detroit, OH, Chicago, NY, NJ, PA, Virginia & W-DC)

 

It is truly our good forture that we could all participate and celebrate

together

our Acharyas Thirunakshatram.

 

Sri Ravi Aharam & Smt Vasanthi ji are truly blessed as they are always

constantly involved in so much kinakriyam (Selfless service to lord and and his

devotess)

JET W-DC and other volunteers effectively and efficiently took care of all the

details needed,

running the Kitchen (preparing delicious food " Thaligai " for the Lord and Azhvar

Acharyas,

devotees got the bhagyam (good fortune) to have this as prasadams)

 

Here, at Sri. JETUSA W-DC Center , Sri Venkateswara Temple of Virginia,

it was a fresh breeze, where the priest sri SitaRama Swami & the religious

committee Chair sri Seshu

and local temple admin, Sri Kishore, encouraged us to chant more

Mudal, 2nd and 3rd Thiruvandadi, Kovil Thiruvaimozhi, Ramanuja Noothandadi,

Upadesa Ratna Mala, Yathiraja Vimsathi (apart from the usual temple Nitya

Aradhana Chaning)

Usually the priests run out of time, here an unusual phenomenon for the US

(the Goshti cut short some chantings as we were out of time)

 

Sri Uppili Gopalan Swami's rendition of Azhvar Pasurams was so melodious,

devotees could see the

smile on lord's face (Mukhollasam). We pray many other temples get to have this

type of

Goshti to serve the Lord (at least during festival days).

 

The Goshti consisted of : Swamins; Vanamamalai Srinivasan, TCA Venkatesan &

Balaji (detroit)

Sriman Narayana (8 yr old devotee, who performs Nitya Agni Karyam), Sudhanva

Char (Atlanta)

Shanta Ramji, Sehsagiri, Sudarshan Azhgiya, Seshadri (NJ),

AnandSrinivasan, Raghu Mudumba, Sridhar Srinivasan, (TX)

Sundar Saranathan, Balaji Srinivasan (Boston)

Upiili Gopalan, T.Vinjamoor Srinivasan, Narayanan_KV, N.Mathavan, SriKanth,

SriHari, RaviAharam, Dasarathi,Ramankanth (Viriginia, W-DC)

Srinivasan, Nallan Chakravathy Narasimhan (NY)

Mukundan VP, Sampath Krishanan, Sri Kishore, Srinivasji, Ranganath and other

devotees from other areas.

 

The Andal Goshti: Smt ji's: Chitra Madhavan, Sheela Belur (Ranganayaki mami),

Padma Char, Apurva A.Srinivasan,

Hema Saranathan, Mrs Srinivasan, Deepa Balaji, Padma Paravastu, Prema, Tejaswi,

Rohini, Roopa, Dhivya and others.

 

This devotion being contagious spread to many devotees and Smt Sheela Belur

(Ranganayaki mami)

led the Purva and Uttara Dinacharya rendition.

 

Sri SitaRama Swami's alankaramas and care for Lord and his parivar was one to

watch and enjoy (anubhavams). His concern and devotion for Azhvars & Acharyas

is truly inspirational.

 

For the Second part of the celebrations we moved to a Hall across the temple.

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Talks and open dicussions and QA were given on :

 

1. Our Gurupampara: (A booklet was released with all our purvhacharya

tanians, and contributions)

The only lineage that starts with the LORD himself, (So we have LORD as

the 1st Acharya)

Key: Every Spiritual knowledge we need to know has been taught and

written by our Purvacharyas,

we just need to follow their words. All the Qs have already been posed

and Answered by purvacharyas

Any qs we ask is not new, we just need to follow our Purvacharyas works.

We just need to follow their teachings, anything we say, learn or teach,

has to be in-line with and

derived from Purvacharyas works only.

 

2: HH Sri Sri Sri Tridandi Srimannarayana Ramanuja Chinna Jeeyar Swami:

http://www.chinnajeeyar.org/

Sri Raghu Mudumba gave a informative talk on HH, Epitome of Acharya Bhakti. We

were celebrating

HH's Thirunakshatram again for the 2nd time in W-DC.

 

Smt Chitra Madhavan delivered a very passionate talk on HH, and his services.

 

3: BhaktiNivedana & JET Activites: Sri Ravi Aharam & Raghu Mudumba.

The new English Bhakti Nivedana was released to all the devotees.

 

But it was Sri ShantaRamji who took all our breath away

(Acharya Anugraham and katasksham is there for all but we could see this in

full in sri Shanta Ramji's talk on HH)

- Truly Inspirational, For anyone who did not know of HH, this talk made them

eager to get HH's darshan,

and for those of us who are blessed to know HH, tears had to flow.

 

4: Swami Mamunikal ( VaraVara Muni) - His contributions and Teachings - Mukundan

VP

Simple message on all what we need to learn and know. - URmalai.

 

5: Sri Ramanuja - Sri Nallan Chankravarthy Narasimhan, Sri Anand Srinivasan.

 

6: Sri Pillai Lockacharya & His Works - Sri Sridhar Srinivasan

Estabishment of Sampradaya through his works. (True to Azhvars and

Acharyas)

 

7: Mudal Azhvars - Sri TCA Venkatesan.

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Many many blessings of more kainkariyams to all the voluneteers and devotees.

 

Our W-DC and Virginia community deserves a big hand for doing this unique &

beautiful funtion. All of us look forward to more of these funtions,

and more participation from the younger generation. (This time about 100

devotees registered)

 

After this past week Acharya Celebrations, we have started receiving

enquiries about our next program. With HIS blessings, we hope to make

W-DC our center for Mamunigal TN Event every year.

 

For those of you who have not been to this center, please visit, and visit

often,

12501 Braddock Road, Fairfax, VA 22030, Phone 703-815-4850

this is the only temple in USA, where we could hear the (Sattumirai)

SarvaDesa Dasa Kale, in the SLOW chanting style as is witnessed in

Varadaraja Sannidhi - Kanchee and at many other Dhivya Desams in India.

 

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Some of the suggestions reveived for the next years function:

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- Make this a 2 day funtion.

- Have Classes for Sandhya & ThiruAradhana for those interested.

- Arrange a bigger hall and do 2 sessions in parallel

- One for beginner audiences (General Talks, Vedic Games, Quiz, posters

etc)

This should have more children particiapation.

- One for Advanced deeper esoteric Topics (Azhvars, Arulicheyals etc)

- Arrange for a Videographer so the Talks could be heard later on line or on a

CD.

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