Catholics, Protestants and Vaishnavas - A School Visit.

On Thursday, forty-five school-children aged 10 - 11 brought extra life to our temple. Half were from a Catholic school in Downpatrick and the rest came from a Protestant one in Newtownards. This is part of a scheme to bring children together from these two strands of Christianity to get to know and appreciate each other and also to learn about other faith traditions.

The temple was a-buzz bright and early, preparing to receive our young guests. When they had arrived and entirely filled the hallway with their forty-five pairs of shoes, our Shelina Sunderani ably explained to them something of the way of life and philosophy of Gaudiya-Vaishnavism.

They learnt about the difference between the body and the soul, about karma and reincarnation and the goal of pure love for God. They also had fun putting on tilaka and bindi-dots and offering worship to a picture of Krishna. There was an amusing moment when Shelina asked the children what Krishna was holding in His hand; "an axe" said one.

But by the time they were crowded into the temple-room to see beautiful Sri Sri Radha-Madhava, they were all able to recognise Krishna by His flute and the peacock feather in His hair. Radha-Madhava looked very pleased to see them all. They were treated to one of Vrajeswari's songs about Krishna in Vrindavana. And, to round it off, had lunch of pizza and chips prasadam - shocking, maybe, to those concerned about healthy-food-for-children, but they don't get to visit a temple everyday!

Shelina is a qualified school-teacher and you can listen to her presentation and to the songs and music at this link.

Below: Bhagavata and Vrajeshwari - the musical section of the event.

Teaching Hinduism.

This week, Lal-krishna paid his seventh annual visit to Victoria College, Belfast. He's invited every year to speak to the older girls about Hinduism, as part of their religious knowledge education.

As he boldly faced his class of eighty young ladies, what did he hope to convey to their modern, western minds about this complex subject?

Lal-krishna: "Well, I keep it pretty simple. I show how 'Hinduism' is a huge umbrella term, under which almost every kind of theology or philosophy exists - from atheism to monotheism. I describe the three main strands of Hinduims - Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism, and tell them that as I am from the Vaishnava tradition, I'll mainly concentrate on that.

I'm not so interested in presenting Hinduism as a foreign culture, or an academic subject; what really interests me is to engage the girls in the philosophy of the East and to give them something which has real meaning in their lives. I like talking to teenagers, as they're at an idealistic age and often think deeply about things. This time I talked to them about the advancement of consciousness. Our civilisation has advanced so hugely in terms of technology and science, but has it lessened greed, or envy? Are there fewer criminals, less depression, more happy people? Unless we advance also in spiritual consciousness, our material assets won't do us much good. This really seemed to strike a chord with them.

I explained the difference between matter and spirit, the concepts of reincarnation and karma and how to transcend the cycle of birth and death. The basic tenets of Vedic philosophy."

Apart from Lal-krishna's visits, Victoria College has another connection with ISKCON Ireland: one of it's ex-pupils became a devotee of Krishna in the mid-1980s. An accomplished artist and business-woman, she lives with her husband and family in Wicklow.