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CHIRANTANA


In Bhagbat Gita,Lord Srikrishna is telling Arjuna,

"Leave all the religion and surrender to me, I will make you free from all the sins"




We are proud to bring this "Patrika" on occasion of 12th monthly Oriya Bhajan Program on 18th July 1998. As you know this program started on August 9, 1997 and since then it is being held every month at Baltimore ISKCON temple. Lord Balabhadra, Subhadra and Jaganath are worshiped in this temple. The temple president Sri Nrusingha Chaitanya Das and five other priests are from Orissa. We are thankful to Nrusingha chaitanya prabhuji and his group in the temple for their continued support and encouragement for the program.

The program is held at 6:00 PM on third Saturday (preferably) of the month. Children activities like prayer, coloring etc are integral parts of the program. Prabachan by Nrusingha prabhuji is truly heart touching. Finally the program ends with cordial discussions by the dinner speaker. Till now topics disscused are: how to raise our kids in this western society, stress management and also various developmental projects to promote our religion.

Typical time schedule of the program is as follows.

Children Bhajan 6.00 PM
Bhajan by All the Participants 6.15 PM
Arati 7.00 PM
Prabachan 7.45 PM
Prasad sevan and discussion 8.30 PM

Everyone is welcome to attend the bhajan program. If you have any comments or suggestions or plan to attend, please inform us.

Bigyani and Naresh Das, (301) 498 3729
Dharitri and Prafulla Misra, (301) 384 3417
Sikha and Brahmapriya Sen, (410) 531 1943




(Priests from Orissa are seen here in front of Lord Jaganath in Baltimore ISKCON temple. They are from left to right, Jagatguru Das, Niranjan Pani, Mahashakti Das, and Sudhansu Das.)



(Live picture of an evening oriya bhajan program. Jai Keshav Pravu is giving prabachan)


Missions

Promote religious awareness among younger children
Raise everyone's spiritualism through bhajans, music, meditation and discussions
Establish Oriya and Jaganath culture in multicultural society
Teach our children oriya through group discussion and story telling
To uphold our family culture through sharing and caring


From the pens of writters/poets

We all live in a world which is overly materialistic. Everyone of us is trying to devote most of our time and energy to collect material wealth. In this process our lives are becoming more prosaic and many of us do not like this type of life. And sometimes we develop disgust for our lives. Developing disgust for own life is tragic and a gross mistake. In the process we are becoming threats to the community where we are living and also to the mankind. By living a healthy and fruitful life we will be able to fulfill the desire of our creator and will be able to appreciate the supreme creation. One of the means to live a peaceful life is to spend some of our time to collect spiritual wealth. Spiritual wealth comes to a person through performing dhyan,yoga,pooja and upasana. In my opinion pooja is the easiest of all. In any pooja we chant mantras which brings us pleasure and peace. There are instances of people recovering from fatal diseases by enchanting mantras regularly. Offerings to God gives us pleasure. In Bhagavat Geeta Bhakti Yoga it is said that

Atha chitan samadhatun na saklosi mayee sthiran
Abhyasyogen tato mamichhaptun Dhananjaya
Abhyasopyasamarthosi mat karmparmo bhaba
Madarthmapi karmani kurban siddhi mbapsyasi

(If you cannot concentrate in me then Oh' Dhananjaya! try to get me by practicing the means of following me. If you fail to practice try to perform the deeds which will please me. Through deeds also you will be able to get me.)

This tells why we should do pooja


Pitambar Sarangi, NJ

 



Hare Krishna

Hare Krisna Hare Krisna Krisna Krisna Hare Hare
The music rings in my ears
And it will be for anybody who hears
It's a fascinating sound
That has been found
We use it everyday
In our own special way
Because it is good for you and me
Just as you can see.

Bagmi Das, MD




Your Comments are welcome


I want to write a few lines about the religious background of our children. I found it very hard to instill the idea of God, our religion and our culture in our children. May be we were brought up back in Orissa watching what my parents or relatives were doing, what festivals we see day to day or what we read about our culture. So I took it for granted about our Gods and religion etc. Here I see, how christian people are regular in going to churches and get a community feeling about their culture and religion. Since we are far away from our culture, here we have to create our community, arrange for our cultural programs etc. and then give our children an opportunity to witness and hope they will probably pick up something when they will be adults. Here anything we do has to be in an weekend, whereas our culture in Orissa was not like that. Our festivals come as per our panjika and not necessarily in a weekend and we deal with that because we were allowed to spend time for that. Or I am not thinking right? I think whatever we are doing to build a community, discuss our culture, talk about our Gods and Goddesses, we must put children into practice and
make sure they participate in some way so that they would understand why we are doing. But we have to communicate our children in english language. I think it is not exactly the same way to teach our culture and religion in english. we have no choice. And you may say did I do what I say. The answer is no. In the end I would say that you are highly commendable in arranging a regious get-to-gether atleast once a month and it is continuing with minimum corum. That is an escellent start. I saw there was some participation of children in the activities when we came last to the get-to-gether. If children's participation can be increased in some way, it will be great. Wish you all the best.

Jay Gopal Mohanty, PA
mohantyj@auhs.edu



I have attended the Bhajan Program at the Jagannath Temple of Baltimore on numerous occasions in the past. It is gratifying to note that this Program has completed several months of continued support and encouragement from a group of committed individuals from the State of Orissa. It is of importance to the Oriyas and other devotees of Lord Krishna and Lord Jagannath living in the tristate area of Maryland, Virginaia, and Washington, D.C. to know that there are such religious recitals happening everymonth. This provides rare opportunity to enjoy such programs and have Darshan of the Deities. Environment is such that it fosters active engagement of audio, visual, and speech, all these three sensory elements to forget the sorrows of this worldly life. It is heartening to see that there have been concerted efforts to involve the kids in the program gradually. I wish this Bhajan Program to sustain its current standing and continue to attract more and more devotees in the future.

Nrusingha Misra, MD

About ten months ago, a handful of oriya families for the first time gathered in the premises of the Baltimore Jaganath temple to mark the beginning of what would later be a monthly religious communion. The few families have been consistently attending these evening programs to conduct these successfully. While parents carry on singing bhajans and doing kirtan, kids themselves engaged in small projects and activities. The kids work will be assessed at a later time during the program by an adult to choose a winner. Parents take active participation in the kirtan and later on in the religious discourse. There is a general sense of sincere involvment. This is a great opportunity for oriyas to get to see each other once a month at least. Families are encouraged to bring along relatives and friends to both visit the temple and meet the oriyas. The goal of this community excursive is to consolidate fellow feeling amongst ourselves and to give our kids a rather direct exposure and first hand experience to familiarize themselves with the typical oriya Jaganath culture. This will allow them yet another opportunity to know about their ancestral origin and native tradition. We believe it is vital for people to have knowledge of their roots in shaping and strengthening their character and personality. We need our children to be conscious of and as also aware of the background of their parents came from in order to have better communication, interaction and to know their rightful position in a diverse society as the USA. We hope to have more oriyas involvement and would like to see more families join, so we may move forward.

Lipisree Nayak, MD

Thanks to all the families for their contributions for bhajan program. Special thanks to following families for sponsoring the feast on different months.

Bigyani and Naresh Das
Bandita and Nrusingha Misra
Dharitri and Prafulla Misra
Gita and Sushant Mohanty
Lipisri and Srikant Nayak

Jobs well done

Congratulations to Satish Mishra for his artistic talent which owned him first prize for three consecutive months in children coloring contest. We also thank all our children, Bagmi, Biju, Pallabi, Ananya, Devaki Nandan, Ramu, Subhasri, Raju, Mrunali, Natasha, Anjana, Richa,Tasha, Sonal, Asmin and Ritu for making this children coloring competition a grand success.

Thanks

We express our heartfelt thanks to the following families who have participated in the bhajan program.

Bigyani and Naresh Das, MD
Puspa and Pratap Das, MD
Sima and Raghunath Das, MD
Upendra Das, VA
Pratap Dash, MD
Niva and Suresh Kodelikar,MD
Dipti and Rabi Mahapatra, MD
Kanchan and Anil Mahapatra, MD
Archana and Dwarika Mishra, VA
Bandita and Nrusingha Misra, MD
Dharitri and Prafulla Misra, MD
Jhunu and Indu Misra,MD
Sanjeeb and Mukta Misra, MD
Gita and Sushant Mohanty, MD
Sulochana and Jay gopal Mohanty, PA
Lopamudra and Sudhanshu Mohanty, MD
Anadi Nayak, MD
Bandita and Vinod Nayak, MD
Lipisree and Srikant Nayak, MD
Sujata and Surya Nayak, MD
Ila and Arun Ojha, MD
Kalpana and Pinakhi Panigrahi, MD
Alok Praharaj,MD
Nilam and Koneti Rao, MD
Prabhat Sahu,MD
Pitamber Sarangi, NJ
Amiya and Jayashree Pani, MD
Sikha and Brahmapriya Sen, MD
Sukanti and Surendra Ray, MD
Anusaya and Ravi Tripathy, PA

News

Rath jatra was celebrated by Oriya people in Philadelphia at Samarpan temple on June 28. The Jatra was coordinated by Sri Indubhusan Das.

A Huge brick-built Budhist monastic complex, dating back to 7th century AD, has been unearthed on a hill slope in Jajpur district of Orissa. The remains which came to lght in a series of excavations that began in February, have been termed Udaygiri-2, because of their proximity to the earlier excavated Udaygiri complex.


Direction to temple

From I95 take I695 ( Baltimore Beltway) west towards Towson. Take exit 13 for Catonsville, (Fredrick Ave West). Turn left at first traffic light to Bloomsbery Ave. After a couple of blocks the temple is on right. 200 Bloomsbery Ave, Catonsville. (410) 744 1624.

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