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duce them to our way of life. Next time stop by the cow-shed. Let your kids watch how we feed the cows. Let them observe when the cows are milked. Or when a calf is suckling. Don’t tell them that we worship cows. Let them experi-ence it and know why. Let them also learn that milk doesn’t magically appear in the cartons in the grocery stores. Have you observed the developments going around the temple? Do you remember the amazing Tulips in spring? There are lots of trees being planted reg-ularly. There are fruit trees, flowering trees and shady trees coming up all around the tem-ple. And all the flowers - roses, sunflowers, hibis-cus, etc., And Lord Krishna’s favorite - Tulsi! All these green-

Last month, at the con-clusion of a Pooja, the devotees were sitting together with families and friends and dining. After his daughters ate their food and started playing with their friends, a contented Sumit turned to me and said “what a wonderful atmosphere… feels as if we are attending a wed-ding in India”. That’s the feeling I get when I visit our temple. Home! What experience do you seek when you come to the temple? Of course the primary reason is to worship and seek the blessing of our dear Ba-ba. But you can do that from your living room couch. You come to the temple to experience much more than that. You bring your family to experience the divinity together. You bring your kids so that they can experience our culture. our heritage. You intro-

H o m e , S w e e t H o m e ! – N a g u P a r a s u

Sa

i A

mr

ut

ha

Jy

ot

hi

I n s i d e t h i s i s s u e

Home, Sweet

Home

1

Upcoming events

in September

1

Sai’s Kitchen 2

Temple Deities 2

Sri Sai Satcharit in

our daily life

3

Word Search 3

Jeopardy 3

Panchatantra 4

Answer Key for

August edition

4

Temple Services 4

3 r d S e p t e m b e r , 2 0 1 5

U p c o m i n g

e v e n t s i n S e p -

t e m b e r :

September 3rd:

H a y a g r e e v a A b -

hishekam and Maha

Saraswathy Puja

September 12th:

New batch for Yoga

class starts

September 16th:

Ganesha Chathurthi

September 26th:

Bharatanatyam by

students of Lakshmi

Vadi, Apsaras Shool

of Dance

Sai Baba Ab-

hishekam per-

f o r m e d e v e r y

Thursday

2 0 1 5 , I s s u e 3

We welcome you to share your personal experiences in the form

of articles, poems, paintings etc. Please email us your articles, by

15th of each month, at saiamruthajyothi@gmail.com

ery brings many more guests. The beautiful cardinal, hummingbird, mockingbird and blue-jay to name a few. There are also rare plants like turmeric and ginger. So identify those to your kids. Let them learn the birds, plants and trees around us. Be a part of the temple. It’s your temple. So claim it. Get in the kitchen and serve food. Prepare food. Cleanup. Take the trash to the dust bin. Trim some plants. Collect some flowers for the Pooja. Water some plants. Pick some weeds. Clean the pavement. Ar-range some chairs. Then sit quietly in the temple. You will feel it. The tem-ple belongs to you. Not the other way around.

Come home to Sri

Amrutha Sai Temple

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2

Gopal: Mom can you tell me when Sai's Kitchen was opened?

Mom: Sure dear. In the later part of 19th century Sai Baba felt the urge to

feed the poor and Sai's Kitchen came into existence. He realized that provid-

ing food to the poor is very essential and was the best of all charities. And he

commenced to cook and feed the needy.

Gopal: How and why did Baba do that mom, for he himself relied on alms,

S a i ’ s K i t c h e n - S r e e l a t h a P a r a s u

T e m p l e D e i t i e s — K u r m a N a r a y a n a & K u r m a N a y a k i — S a r a d a J a m m i

In our temple, we have very unique and one of a kind vigraham of Sri Kurma Nayaki sa-metha Sri Kurmanarayana Swamy. As you may know, Kurma (turtle) represents the 2nd avatar of Lord Vishnu. This vigraham was specially prepared in per Guruji’s design and was made by skilled artisans from Tirupati, for a Mahayagnam performed in Srikurmam, Andhra Pradesh in 2006. Srikurmam is the

Sridharamrutham — “Knowledge is something which you learn everyday and wisdom is something which

you let go everyday “

right?

Mom: Well my dear child, Baba was a saint, and he lived on

alms. But out of love and compassion for fellow human be-

ings he wanted to feed the poor and the hungry. Since he was

a saint and a fakir, people in and around his hometown visit-

ed him for advice and blessings. They gave him dakshina,

and he used that to buy the provisions to cook food. Since

then Baba’s hospitality is continued through his devotees or

through Sai organizations all over the world.

Gopal: Why do we have to buy food from the temple for

Five dollars?

Mom: We surrender our ego and our five senses to Baba

and we receive his blessings in the form of prasadam from

Sai's Kitchen, at the temple. The prasadam gives us good

health to engage us to lead a healthy and prosperous life.

holy place where we have the one and only temple in India for Lord Vishnu in the form of Kurma Narayana. This beautiful vigraham has both Sri Kurma Narayana and Kurma Nayaki, facing front and back respectively, expertly hand carved in a single piece of wooden block, and shows ex-quisite details. It is designed in a such a way

that the lower part of the idol is in turtle shape and the head portion shows the face of Kurma Narayana/Kurma Nayaki (representing the male and female ener-gies). In addition, the vigraham also has Garuda and Anajaneya on either side of the Kurmam, and along the base you can see the Dasavataras (10 incarnations) of Lord Vishnu, and in the middle of the base it has Lord Vishnu resting on Sesha talpam. The tiruvachi (the arch) of the vigraham has beautifully carved Ashta Lakshmis on both sides. After conclusion of the Mahayagnam in Srikurmam in 2006, His Holiness Sri.V.V. Sridhar Guruji graciously gave the vigra-hams to pandit B. Rajagopalan. As he gave Guruji asked him to take it to USA while Mama was living in Toronto, Cana-da at that time. With lot of difficulty after a year of struggle the murthy finally left India in September 2007 after mama moved to the USA and the temple land was acquired and the ground breaking ceremony was performed. This was in fact the 1st vigraham to have come to our temple. Carved in teakwood, being the Pradhana Murthy in the Sri Kurmam

Yagnam, Sri Kurmanarayana blesses one and all with all prosperity. According to puranas, in this form Lord Vishnu negotiated with the Rakshasas and Devathas to work together to churn out “Amrutham”. During the churning, first Halahalam(Poison) comes which is taken by Siva, then Kamadhenu, Sankhu, Chakram, Celestial Dancers, even Mahalakshmi and Amruthanarayana who has the pot of Am-rutham in the form of Mohini have come out from this churning of the ocean. Incidentally, our temple has lot of associa-tion with Kurma Narayana, and that is the reason we got him as our first vigraham. We strongly believe that “Kurmam” is the base for our temple. In fact the topography of our temple land is in the shape of Turtle. The back is where our present temple, which is slowly curving down to the North east with the face in the pond. Also, when we started ground work for the “Bhoomi Puja”(ground-breaking ceremony), we were not sure where the Yagna Kundam could be con-structed. Prophetically we found a turtle in the spot where we built our current ya-gnashala. And again, we have our main dei-ty, Sri Amrutha Sai Narayana located where we had the second appearance of the turtle in 2008. Ours is the only temple outside of India which has Kurma Narayana vigraham. Pray-ing to Lord Kurma Narayana helps one to obtain very good negotiating skills which is very essential for leading successful career at work. Also, Amrutha Narayana is prayed for good health and prosperity.

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W o r d S e a r c h ! - C h a i t a n y a C h a n d r a

Search for the words chosen from Sri Shirdi Sai Satcharit!!!

Om Sri SaiRam

CHAPTER 3

While giving His approval to Hemadpant to write HIS life events, Sai blessed him and said as fol-lows: “Do it fearlessly! Hearing My life history will give happiness, remove obstacles and offer protection. Diseases will be cured. Peace will befall upon them. If one says SAI, SAI, he will be relieved of Maya.” As various jobs are entrusted with various people in a holy endeavor, Hemad-pant was entrusted by Baba with writing the holy Satcharit.

S r i S a i S a t c h a r i t i n o u r d a i l y l i f e - S a n k a r K u m a r

Saiamrutham — “All actions results from thoughts, so it is thoughts that matter”

Before embarking on this sacred task, Hemadpant narrates how Baba showered His love on him like a mother shows on her child . On his re-tirement he went to Shirdi and with the help of Anna Cinchanikar got

the blessings of Baba and was included in His darbar. There was a man called Rohilla who used to chant the Holy Quran in loud voice which was disturbing the villagers’ sleep. When they went to complain about him to Baba, Sai said that Rohilla [who is a bachelor] is doing so to get away from his wife! Baba actually meant that one’s bad habits are like his wife. Hemadpant concludes with Baba’s blessing words: “ Whatever you do, wherever you go, know that this SAI knows it all! I am the

LEGEND

AVIDYA

DHARANA

DHYANA

DURBUDDHI

KALMA

ROHILLA

SHRUTI

SMRITI

YAGYA

Indian Mythology

1) This sage trained Lord Ram and Lak-

shman to become expert archers

2) This mighty king was the grandson of

Sage Pulastya

3) This great warrior was born with the

divine armour (kavacha) and earrings

(kundala) which made him invincible

4) Name this asura who was killed by

Satyabhama and Lord Krishna

5) This bow was presented to Arjuna by

Lord Varuna on the behalf of Lord

Agni

6) This asura took the form of a deer to

lure away Lord Rama and later Laksh-

mana away from Sita

7) What is the origin of the name, Pan-

chavati, where Rama is said to have

built a hermitage?

Jeapordy!

creator, protector and destroyer! I will be with those who never forget me .” On hearing this, Hemadpant decided at once that Baba is his savior and surrendered at His feet. He requests all the readers to pay close attention to these stories, which will help them immensely and relieve all wor-ries.

Bow to Sri Sai! Peace be to all!

LIFE APPLICATION:

1. Know that reading or listening to Sai

satcharit will fulfill all our desires and save us from troubles.

2. Bad habits attach ourselves firmly and

one should strive by any means to get rid of them.

3. By combining the above two, it would

be obvious that Baba knows what we do all the time and if we are sincere to Him, He will protect us.

Sri Satchitananda SadGuru Sainath Maha-

raj ki Jai!

A Z S K A Y Q X D G

B N M M A G A J H K

J Q A G R Y O Y Y Q

P C Y R D I H Y A A

R A Z I A B T L N L

G A V T F H R I A L

B A Y Y X E D F I I

I H D D U B R U D H

S H R U T I K F Y O

A M L A K V V B F R

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4

A n s w e r K e y f r o m J u l y e d i t i o n : W o r d S e a r c h

Pa n ch a t a nt ra :

T h e C ra b a n d t h e C ra n e —Sat hy a Ramkumar

A crane lived near a big lake, which was

full of fishes and other water creatures.

The crane had grown so old, that he

could not catch fishes from the lake any-

more. He became lean and weak with

every passing day due to lack of food.

Unable to bear the hunger anymore, he

hit upon a plan.

As planned, he sat at the edge of the lake

for everybody to see, and began wailing

which attracted a crab and other living

creature in the pond to him. When they

asked the crane why he was wailing , the

crane responded saying that he over-

heard a wise astrologer mentioning a 12

year drought coming up because of which

the lake would dry up. All the animals

and fish, on hearing this, panicked and

requested the crane for advice and plead-

ed with him to save them all. The crafty

crane suggested that there was a big and

beautiful lake not far from where they

were. Noticing that he had gained every

ones trust and confidence, the crane sug-

gested that he could transport one crea-

ture at a time.

The wicked crane had succeeded in his

plan. Every day, he would carry one of them on

his back pretending to take them to the other

lake. After flying a little away from the lake, he

would smash them against a rock and eat them

up. He would then return after some time to the

lake and relate false messages how they are hap-

py in the other lake.

This happened for many days. Now it was the

turn of the crab to be transported. The crane

was happy to see that his next meal was going to

be a crab as it had become monotonous to con-

sume the fish for several days.

The crane started carrying the crab to the same

rock. The crab looked down from above and saw

the heap of bones and skeletons. At

once, the crab understood what the

crane was up to and suggested that the

old crane to take rest since he was car-

rying a lot of weight for a long time.

Over confident that the crab cannot

escape from him, the crane blurted out

the truth that there was no lake at all

and all the while the trip was for his

own meal. The crane also mentioned to

the crab that he would smash him to a

rock to kill him before eating him as his

meal!

When the crane confessed the truth, the

crab got hold of the crane's neck with its

strong claws, and strangled him to

death. Then the crab slowly dragged

the crane back to the lake to the sur-

prise of other water creatures in the

lake. They became curious, and asked

all sort of questions. The crab explained

how all of them were fooled by the

crane’s tale of the lake drying up just to

become the crane’s meal .

When everything else fails, use

your wit to overcome the situa-

tion.

Services in the temple

Priests services like Yantra

Puja, Gruha Pravesham,

Satyanarayana Vratam, Pitru

K a r m a , S e e m a n t h a m ,

Upanayanm, Vahana Puja

etc., are available which will

be performed at devotees

homes for their good wealth

and prosperity. We also do

archanas, abhishekam's for

all our deities.

Seva (Volunteering) oppor-

tunities are also available at

the temple.

For more details please vis-

it http://sriamruthasai.org/

services/. Or contact the

Temple at 804-708-0867.

LEGEND

Bhakti Chandorkar

Dabholkar Jnana

Kakasaheb Shama

Shirdi Tatyasaheb

Upasana

J e o p a r d y : A n s w e r s t o K n o w y o u r V e d a s

1. Sanathana Dharma means “eternal or

absolute set of duties” everyone should

practice

2. Sanskrit is known as the “Language of

the Gods”

3. Yoga means “Union of Atman

(individual self) with Brahman

(universal self)”

4. Karma means “the law of action and

reaction (cause and effect) applied to

life”

5. Moksha means “liberation from the

cycles of birth and death”

X

G E Z B A V B T D

C H A N D O R K A R

U G A K E S S B T L

I P X M H I H B Y Q

E

Q A I A O M H A F

P

I R S L H B A S W

N D V K A X S K A M

I P A N A N J T H D

T R C R L L A I E K

K A K A S A H E B R