அமெரிக்க வாஷிங்டன் மாநிலம் இந்து பிரார்த்தனையுடன் துவங்கியது

அமெரிக்க வாஷிங்டன் மாநிலம் இந்து பிரார்த்தனையுடன் துவங்கியது
ராஜன் அவர்கள் இந்த மாநில செனட்டையும் இந்து பிரார்த்தனையுடன் துவக்கி வைத்துள்ளார்.

Senate opens with its first Hindu prayer
Traveling chaplain on a mission in legislatures
By JOHN IWASAKI
P-I REPORTER

Parliamentarian prattle and stilted deliberations usually mark the language of lawmakers in Olympia.

But Friday, ancient Sanskrit mantras filled the chamber when a Hindu prayer was recited for what is believed to be the first time to open a session of the Washington State Senate.

Rajan Zed, who calls himself "a prominent Hindu chaplain and Indo-American leader" from Reno, Nev., sought and received permission to deliver the traditional opening prayer.

Wearing saffron-colored clothes and displaying the tilak, a traditional religious mark, on his forehead, Zed spoke in Sanskrit and English and uttered "om," regarded by Hindus as "the mystical syllable containing the universe."

Washington was the latest of six Western state senates that Zed has opened in Hindu prayer, each reportedly for the first time, in the past eight months. He also was the first Hindu to open the U.S. Senate in prayer, which drew protests from the gallery and has been viewed nearly 300,000 times on YouTube.

His appearance in Olympia did not result from an invitation from Washington's Hindu population, a community of at least 25,000 by some estimates. Leaders of three Seattle-area temples said they knew of Zed from news accounts or not at all.

"I don't know how he advertises himself or how he gets access to these things," said Shyam Oberoi, secretary of the board of trustees of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell.

Swami Bhaskarananda of the Vedanta Society of Western Washington in Seattle said Zed sounds like "someone ambitious" whose appearance might be "politically motivated -- he wants to be known."

Zed, 54, who was born in India and handles public relations for the Hindu Temple of Northern Nevada, declined to elaborate about his purpose.

"Everyone can use prayer," he said, later issuing a statement that called Friday "a great day for Washington and historic day of honor for us (Hindus)."

Hari Vilas, spiritual leader at the Vedic Cultural Center, which plans to open a new temple in Sammamish in June, said a Hindu prayer was appropriate.

"Rabbis give commencement prayers. So do Catholic priests and Protestant ministers," he said. "You might have a Buddhist, might have a Muslim. So why not a Hindu? It emphasizes the multicultural and religious freedom aspect of this country."

The lieutenant governor's office schedules clergy to pray in the Senate. Most of the time, senators ask if their clergy or ones from their district can give the prayer, said Brian Dirks, spokesman for Lt. Gov. Brad Owen.

Occasionally, clergy request to be scheduled , as was the case with Zed, who wrote to state officials in August.

Zed sounds as if he's "kind of on a mission," Dirks said. "That's fine with us. We certainly welcome diversity in prayer requests."

Prayers should not last longer than two minutes, refer to specific legislation or require participation. Clergy are not required to submit the texts of their prayers for approval.

Zed's prayer, which ran nearly four minutes, included portions of three ancient Hindu scriptures: the Rig-Veda, which dates from about 1,500 B.C., and the Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord). He spoke in Sanskrit, a sacred language of Hinduism, then translated in English.

Before praying, he met with three Senate pages who are Hindus of Indian descent. Curren Mehta, Jyoti Cossette and Anisha Kalidindi said Zed's prayer filled them with cultural pride.

"When he said it, I felt very inspired," said Mehta, 14, an eighth-grader at Odle Middle School in Bellevue. "It shows a different side of the world, different sides of life."

Cossette, a 16-year-old home-schooled student from Redmond, agreed: "This prayer really opened up eyes."

Some people think Hinduism is "just a religion where there are some vegetarians," said Kalidindi, an eighth-grader at Northwood Middle School outside Renton. "They get confused."

Zed has recited prayers to the state senates in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. He is scheduled to pray before lawmakers in Oregon Tuesday and in Arizona next month.

He opened a session of the U.S. Senate in July at the invitation of Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Three protesters in the visitors' gallery were arrested and charged with disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. A conservative Christian organization in Mississippi questioned "why the U.S. government is seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god."

Why Hindus worship more than one god is "the question I get asked the most," said Shreyas Limaye, a graduate student in industrial engineering at the University of Washington. "We don't have multiple gods. We pray to one God" represented in multiple forms, with prayers running like "water from rivers and lakes to the same ocean, if done by a pure heart."

Still, Zed said he was careful in his prayer not to mention any Hindu gods.


HINDUISM
Hinduism is the world's third-largest religion after Christianity and Islam with an estimated 800 to 900 million followers. About 90 percent live in India and 2 million to 3 million in the U.S.

Hinduism encompasses a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices.

Hindus believe in one supreme God, referred to as Brahman. The gods and goddesses of Hinduism, representing various aspects of Brahman, may number in the millions.

Under the doctrine of karma, enjoyment and suffering in this life are caused by one's good or bad deeds in a past life.

The cycle of birth and rebirth continues until the soul achieves liberation through knowledge, meditation, devotion or good works.


PRAYER EXCERPT
"We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.

"Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality....

"By devotion to selfless (work), one attains the supreme goal of life."