Highlights of the Seventeenth Arya Maha Sammelan

July 19^th-22^nd, 2007, Richardson Hotel, Dallas

by

Dr. Kapil Mehta

“The teachings of Vedas are for all men in this world without exception, for all times and for all lands. They are not at all meant for any special land age or particular society”---Shri Bharatendranath in ‘Message of Arya Samaj to the Universe.’

I hope everyone who attended the Seventeenth Arya Maha Sammelan held in Richardson, Texas, enjoyed it as much as I did. Let me first thank all the organizers and volunteers for their hospitality and putting together such an outstanding program. Also, I wish to thank Dr. Bhushan ji Verma for entrusting me the task of summarizing the proceedings and highlights of this Sammelan. It gave me the opportunity to listen carefully to various outstanding Vedic scholars and speakers throughout the conference.

‘How to communicate Vedic values to next generation’ was the most appropriate and relevant theme for this meeting. Children of our next generation born and growing away from their country and culture, miss the luxury of witnessing their grandparents, uncles and aunts entailing Vedic values in their day-to-day life in one or other way. This brings additional responsibility for parents raising their families in this country. Indeed, it echoed during various presentations that parents need to serve as role models for their kids in implying Vedic values in their daily lives. We as parents first need to educate ourselves in order to satisfy the curious minds of our growing generation. Kids growing in today’s world are much more informed due to tremendous amount of information available at their finger-tips. Knowledge inculcates discussion to search for logic and rationale for believing in something. The major reason I personally was attracted to the Arya Samaj was the great rationale and logic-based teachings that our Vedas have to offer.

As rightly pointed out by Shri Bharatendranath ji in his book ‘Message of Arya Samaj to the Universe’, Vedas teach the universal truth. The religions of different human beings could be different but Dharma for all human beings is the same. Dr. Harish Chandra ji in his keynote lecture elegantly discussed Vedic definition of Dharma. Dharma is the principle of righteousness. It is the principle of holiness. It is also the principle of unity. Bhishma says in his instructions to Yudhishthira that whatever creates conflict is Adharma, and whatever puts an end to conflict and brings about unity and harmony is Dharma. What a great message! In today’s volatile world such definition of Dharma alone, that is portrayed in Vedas thousands of years back, could bring back the harmony and peace on this earth.

Dr. Shridhar Acharya ji in his lecture beautifully summarized the ten principles of Arya Samaj that are exclusively based on the Vedic values. He elegantly described the meaning of H(humanity)I(integrity)N(nobility)D(divinity)U(universal love) character. If these are the qualities that define a true Hindu then all human beings need to be HINDUS to lead purposeful life on this earth. Mr. Lawrence Browne’s lecture was fittingly geared towards the youth and he discussed and shared his experiences to make best of both the worlds.

Next speech was by Shri Sonerao ji. He emphasized the need for teaching Vedic values to kids during early years of life. He emphasized the need of personal contact to pass on Vedic values to the younger generation. Mr. Jai Agrawal shared the view that Vedic traditions and Vedic values can make significant contribution to global harmony and peace and they should be taught in schools and colleges all over the world. Mr. Jai Maha Dev ji started his talk with a beautiful flute recital reminding that simple things in life can be beautiful if played by rules and harmony. He discussed the strong message of essential Vedic values and emphasized the basics and basis of communication to our youth in very simple words as respect, cooperation, humility and Upasana. He stressed the need for staying on track in life and pay utmost importance to GOD in our daily life. His message for youth was to be fluid like Water, energetic like fire, strong like earth, free like Air and vast like sky. In his address, Dr. Balvir Acharya ji emphasized the importance of Vedic teachings to lead a peaceful, happy, and blissful life. He reminded the need to teach kids the Vedic values by actions and by being role model for them.

Ms. Arti Khanna shared with delegates the experiences and insight of running a highly successful DAV Montessori School in Houston. Mr. Rajesh Khosla made in his lecture some very practical suggestions for effective communication of Vedic values to the next generation. He suggested relating the ten principles of Arya Samaj to some role models of today’s world and to provide age appropriate education materials for teaching Vedic values to younger kids. He also emphasized the need to explain the reasoning behind every action rather than just performing the rituals. Finally, Dr. Sudhir Anand ji defined the meaning and ways to attain Moksha, the ultimate goal of all souls.

The main highlight of the Sammelan was the three workshop sessions to discuss a) defining ways to implement the DAV School curricula uniformly across North America; b) identifying ways to make learning of Vedic teachings simple and fun-loving for kids; and c) incorporating yoga, meditation and Pranayam in to the Satsang proceedings. The energy and intensity of discussions in these workshops were a testimony to the genuine interest and concern shown by the participants in these carefully chosen workshop topics. Stay tuned for a detailed description of the workshop outcomes with deliverables and specific action plans in the next issue.

The youth had a parallel program that had been designed with fun-filled activities interspersed with messages from various speakers that they attended jointly with the adults. They also went on a very interesting field trip accompanied by two distinguished speakers, who interacted with them during the trip. In a joint adult-youth panel session at the end, Ms. Swati Verma of Houston and Piyush Thapar from Dallas summarized the ‘Youth perspective’ of the conference and discussed their impressions about the Maha Sammelan. Listening to their views and thoughts, I am sure everyone who attended will agree that it was strong testimony that the meeting was a great success and effective in ‘communicating the Vedic values to the next generation’.

Every evening was a treat with sumptuous dinner and excellent cultural program that was presented by the youth and adults to entertain the attendees. The songs, dances, skits and mantra recitals by the youth were particularly heart warming as these showed that they were truly taking interest in and adopting our Vedic culture and values. We were also very fortunate to get to enjoy the religious and patriotic songs by one of the very talented artists from India, Shri Narinder Vashisht ji. He was so popular that we invited him to Houston for a repeat performance, which also turned out to be a hit.

Congratulations to all the organizers and the speakers for doing an excellent job. Thanks to our youth for their active participation.

After attending two consecutive Maha Sammelans (Houston and Dallas), I personally feel that Vedas have enormous amount of knowledge made available to us by great scientists of the ancient time, the Rishis. Teachings in Vedas have strong scientific base and therefore it should be easy to direct our younger generation to follow these values by satisfying their curious minds and answering their questions in a logic and rational way. To achieve this, first we must educate ourselves and have a good understanding of Vedic teachings and values. Learning and following these principles will enrich our lives and bring bliss (Anand) in our day-to-day life. In today’s world men and women are struggling for happiness and peace in life. Therefore, Vedic principles and values to lead a happy and purposeful life should be made easily available for the benefit of mankind using modern technology and media of communication.

- Krinvanto Vishwam Aaryam (Make this world noble)