American Vedantist

[Guest guest]

The following exchange of emails on our Website may be of interest to all

hence we are sending it to the mail list.

 

EDTipple <edtipple

 

21 April 1999 01:37

American Vedantist

 

 

>I was interested to learn about you in the current issue of AMERICAN

>VEDANTIST. It sounds as though you are doing splendidly. Bravo!

>

>My questions are two:

 

 

>1) Why you are devoted to teaching Hindu children when Swamiji came to

>the West for all and,

 

 

>2) The AV mentioned an e-mail list for devotees of Vedanta and

>Ramakrishna to keep in touch. Is this for Westerners as well, and/or

>is it primarily for people of Indian descent?

 

>Best wishes,

>Edith D. Tipple

>

Dear Edith

 

Thanks for your kind comments.

 

Reply to your questions: -

 

We are keen to put across Swami Vivekananda's teachings to 'all' youngsters

we come across.

 

We have tried very hard to ensure that our Sunday classes would attract

Western children. We tried to recruit an English couple in London to help us

so that the children feel more at home with English teachers. We have stood

outside many English schools giving out leaflets about our Sunday classes.

The problem we have to face is that Swami Vivekananda is a distant memory -

parents worry that we may be 'one more of those Eastern cults' that will

take away their children. They have not heard of Swami Vivekananda.

 

We have found a way round this and are able to put Swamijis message across

to Western children via school assemblies. We must have conducted over 50

school assemblies in the past two years - sometimes with 800

children/teachers present. All these assemblies have been well received by

the youngsters. We continue to work in this indirect manner. We are hopeful

that in days to come we will attract enough Western parents to participate

and let these classes be truly universal. (Sometimes we feel that we would

have been more successful in doing this if we were operating in America - do

you agree?).

 

Our mail list is quite new. It has got about 100 members at the moment.

It is very difficult to know how many of these are of Indian origin. We

would like this list to be truly international. If it becomes a list only

for the people of Indian origin then we would feel that we have missed out.

From the postings we have seen so far we would say that we have a reasonable

number of non-Indian participants. We are hoping that the article in

American Vedantist will attract more American participants.

 

We have not the slightest doubt that Swamiji is truly a messenger of

spirituality to the West. We are also aware that the real take-up of

Swamiji's message will be in the West. We also feel (perhaps we are too

optimistic) that this will happen in a dramatic manner through the findings

of the Modern Physics; during our life time.

 

 

warm regards

jay

Vivekananda Centre London

 

 

p.s. We will take the liberty of putting this message across on our mail

list to encourage our Western participants to feel more at home.