UK : Hindu Temple in Pelham hosts yoga and meditation classes

Hindu Temple in Pelham hosts Swami from India to lead yoga and meditation classes as part of nine-day celebration
Saturday, October 11, 2008
GREG GARRISON
News staff writer
Inside the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center on Chandalar Drive just off Valleydale Road in Pelham, a visiting family from Nepal walks through and stops before a statue of a god, placing bananas as an offering and bowing prayerfully.
The temple includes a variety of statues honoring various deities. The resident priest conducted a ceremony at the statue of Durga, a goddess at the center of a nine-day festival, the Durga Puja, completed on Thursday.
"It's nine nights of worshiping God as mother," said Swami Adhyatmanandaji, 64, president of the Sivananda Ashram in Ahmedabad, India, a branch of the Divine Life Society.
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Swami Adhyatmanandaji visited last weekend to lecture and lead yoga and meditation classes at the Hindu Temple in Pelham.
The practice of Hinduism, Swami explained, focuses on eliminating vices such as lust, greed, anger, desire, vanity, jealousy and hypocrisy. "Each of us has an enemy within us - ego," he said.
The swami arrived in Chicago in August and said he will be traveling across the United States through Nov. 13, teaching Hindu methods of yoga and meditation for stress relief and relaxation.
"Yoga is total harmony with the world," Swami said.
"So many people spend all day typing on computers, and they have aches and pains. We teach flexibility exercises, relaxation, pure breathing exercises and how to have harmony with one's self."
That requires stepping out of the rat race, he said.
"Stop seeing, sit in silence, enjoy your real being," he said. "Religion is a discipline. It's not a dogma or ritual."

http://www.al.com/religion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/living/12237129604510.xml&coll=2