Namadwaar Anniversary Celebrated with Prayer, Giving and Classical Performances

MANVEL, TX: The basis of Indian culture is to recognize divinity in everything—in prayer and worship; in people, in nature, in places and in objects; and also in work, vocation, charity and art—and to offer these actions and their results back to God.

Global Organization for Divinity (G.O.D.) strived to do just that for the third anniversary celebrations of its Houston Namadwaar Prayer House. And it appeared that the heavens too were pleased as it was a perfect, pleasant afternoon for the outdoor celebrations on Saturday, March 30.

Humanity and Divinity are inseparable. This being one of the tenets behind G.O.D.’s mission, several community projects as well as charitable-giving programs are conducted by G.O.D. throughout the year. As a special commemoration of Namadwaar’s third anniversary, G.O.D. was privileged this year to present a substantial donation of medical supplies to Houston Area Parkinson Society and of food and clothes to SEARCH Homeless Services, in the presence of chief guests, Honorable Mayor Delores Martin of Manvel city and Dr. Sulabha Hardikar, retired physician and active community member.

Following this, a number of cultural events were presented as an offering to the Divine:

An entertaining musical play was staged by young children who are part of G.O.D.’s “Gopa Kuteeram” Indian heritage program. Kids from Cypress, Pearland and other parts of Houston along with a few visiting children from Dallas, sang, danced and playacted an interesting incident about Lord Panduraga and Naraharisonar – that conveyed the message that God is one and that one should not hold any bias or animosity towards different forms of the one God.

Surabi Veeraragavan, a talented Bharatanatyam dancer, gave a graceful, expressive and majestic performance of three pieces that depicted various leelas of the Lord where He saved and protected His devotees. The performance was truly moving and held the audience spellbound. The songs that Surabi danced to were composed by His Holiness Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji of India, who is the inspiration behind G.O.D. The songs for this performance were sung by Uma Ranganathan and accompanied by Deepa Ramachandran on violin and Karun Salvady on mridangam.

The final cultural performance of the afternoon was accomplished singer Vaishnavi Narasimhan’s classical Indian vocal concert. Ably accompanied by Deepa Ramachandran on violin and Vijay Ramamurthi on mridangam, Vaishnavi enthralled the listeners with her rich rendering of Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji’s compositions. Her melodious voice wonderfully brought out the beautiful meanings of the songs, even as she enhanced the rendition with superb classical improvisations.

Thara Narasimhan of Hindus of Greater Houston, who was a special guest at the event, gave a short talk appreciating all the artistes and their performances including the little children of Gopa Kuteeram. She also congratulated Namadwaar on completing three years of service and expressed her appreciation and support for G.O.D.’s activities.

At the end of the program, a Prayer for Peace was conducted by Sriram Ramanujam where he compared the Namadwaar to a “Divine Name Bank”. Divinity manifests itself in any place where God’s name is chanted continuously. And hence, he said (repeating his Master’s words), that a Namadwaar was akin to a bank. When we deposit a few “Names” (chants) in it, we reap huge dividends in the form of Divine Grace and all our prayers are fulfilled. Everyone then took a minute to silently offer their own personal prayers, and the Divine Names of God were then sung in unison.

Other highlight events during the prayer house’s weekend-long anniversary celebrations were 12-hour continuous chanting of the Divine Names on Thursday and Friday with prayers for peace in the neighborhood, city, state, country and the entire world. There were also discourses by Sri Narayanan Sathiamoorthy of Boston, MA and Sri Ramaswamy Subramaniam of Susanville, CA on Saturday.

On Sunday, G.O.D. was joined by other Houston organizations and together they conducted a Nagara Sankirtan (chanting the Divine Names on the streets) in the streets around Namadwaar in Pearland/Manvel area.

For more information about Namadwaar or Global Organization for Divinity and its activities, visit www.godivinity.org, email houston.god@godivinity.org or call 281-402-6585.