INSIDE THE WEST'S FIRST JAIN TEMPLE

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Inside the west's first Jain temple

by Tom Mack; pictures by Alex Hannah

Worshippers at the city's Jain temple are hoping to spread their message of peace and non-violence as they celebrate their silver jubilee.

The distinctive temple in Oxford Street, Leicester city centre, opened 25 years ago this July.

The celebrations began on Monday when two visiting nuns from India joined in with a special day to celebrate one of the temple's founders – Shantaben Babulal Shah – who died 15 years ago.

Her daughter, former temple president Smita Babulal Shah, said: "Our religion is about avoiding violence – not just violent actions, but also violence in our words and our thoughts.

"My mother would not even pour hot water down the drain because she was worried about the tiny creatures which lived in the drain. 

"She always wanted to spread the message of non-violence to the wider world.

"Her work here has created a temple which caters for most of the sects of Jainism.

"We have five different areas for the five main sects and we are very keen for more people to come."

Jainism is a religion with similarities to Buddhism and Hinduism and started in the Gujarat area of India.

It became a formal religion in 527 BC before dividing into many different sects, but all followers share a commitment to the reverence of all living things.

Monday's special celebration included a conversation with the two nuns from India on the subject of peace.

Smita said: "The whole session is about peace – individual peace, family peace and universal peace and how we attain it."

Retired GP Dr Ramesh Mehta is the chairman for the temple.

He said worship at the temple, which is mostly in Gujarati, with some English, would appeal to many other people in the city.

He said: "We want more people to know they are welcome to come to the temple every day and not just people who are already familiar with Jainism."

Smita said: "We regularly have visitors from all over England and one man comes once a month from Dublin.

"Our temple here was the first Jain temple in the Western world and we have tried to make a contribution to the city and the county.

"As a small minority community, we have come a long way."

JOY FOR BABA'S DEVOTEES

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Joy for Baba's devotees

Up to 7,000 people are expected at the opening of a temple in the city centre today.

The Shri Shirdi Sai Baba temple, at the grade II-listed Guild of Disabled building, in Colton Street, Leicester, is the second of its kind in the UK and follows the teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi, a Hindu guru who lived from 1835 to 1914.

Worshippers from the organisation's temple in Wembley, London, have been preparing for the big day and expect many people from other Hindu temples around the Midlands to attend.

A temple management spokesman said: "Our organisation began in London in 2010 and this is our first venture in spreading Baba's message around the UK.

"The message is about treating everyone politely and humbly, helping the needy and having trust and patience.

"Part of our work will be sharing food with the poor and the hungry in Leicester. We have a kitchen here and people coming to the temple will also bring food to share.

"Word will spread fast."

One devotee who goes to the Wembley temple and who is staying in Leicester to help with the new temple's opening, said: "The building is awesome. We've had to put a lot of heat in to bring it alive but it's amazing for me to be here and be part of it.

"Because it's a building designated for worship we can feel free to say our prayers to our hearts' content."

Another visitor from London, helping with the final preparations yesterday, said: "It's a beautiful building and very spacious – it will be very good to see Leicester people able to enjoy themselves here.

"We are expecting thousands of people, brought by the teachings of Baba."

He said the temple offered a new twist on traditional Hinduism for followers of the faith.

He said: "I go to the London temple and I've also been involved with Baba and his teachings in India.

"In Hinduism there are hundreds of gods and teachings and it's like lots of schools teaching the same subject, but different teachers have slightly different messages. With Baba's teachings the focus is on patience."

The temple spokesman said: "Baba says trust and have patience and you will get results.

"A lot of people have experienced this working in their life and that's why they want to come."

The Guild of Disabled building, completed in 1909, is believed to have been the first building in Britain, and possibly the world, to be designed to be wheelchair-friendly.

Stuart Bailey, chairman of Leicester Civic Society, said: "It's always good to see new uses found for old buildings and I'm very pleased to hear the temple is opening. We look forward to them doing further work on the building – it needs cleaning up on the outside but they have done a lot."

EDUCATION SECRETARY TO VISIT LEICESTER'S FIRST FREE SCHOOL

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Education Secretary to visit Leicester's first free school

Education Secretary Michael Gove was due to officially open Leicester's first free school today.

Mr Gove pioneered the free school concept and will visit Krishna Avanti, in Spencefield Lane, Evington, to unveil a plaque at the site.

The Hindu free school, which was set up by the Avanti School's Trust in September 2011, takes pupils from all faiths but has a Hindu ethos.

Some £4.5 million was granted by the Department for Education to the trust to buy and develop the school in the grade II-listed building, formerly occupied by Leicester Grammar Juniors.

A contribution of £200,000 was also made by the trust.

Mr Gove said: "Free schools such as Krishna Avanti are helping to raise standards across the country.

"Krishna Avanti provides an inclusive education with a special Hindu ethos that is rightly popular with parents and I'm delighted to have this opportunity to meet the staff and children."

Krishna Avanti was created under the Government's new education agenda where parents, charitable groups and others can bid to set up a school, providing they demonstrate the ability to do so.

Although free schools don't have to follow the national curriculum, Krishna Avanti does.

It is funded via the local education authority in the same way as most schools, but money goes directly to the school and no cash is retained by the city council for central services.

Three free schools in London are also run by the trust.

Leicester East MP Keith Vaz will also be at the site for its official opening.

John Simpson, chairman of the trust, said: "We're pleased Michael Gove and Keith Vaz have accepted to formally open Krishna Avanti.

The trust now has four schools in its family, each of which are committed to providing a distinctive high quality education."

Mr Vaz said: "I'm delighted that despite his busy schedule, Mr Gove is coming here. I want to pay tribute to Krishna Avanti, who worked long and hard to acquire this school, and for the land to remain as an education site. This is a symbol of what makes Leicester so special."

Finishing touches to the school were made at the end of last year. It now has two new classroom blocks added to the building and a worship hall which doubles up as a dining area.

A large plaza has also been created. The grade II-listed building has been repainted throughout and new carpets added.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 3: HINDUISM 101

At 1500 we've scheduled the fourth of ten public meetings for Inter Faith Week, under the series title, "Communities of Faith or Belief in Leicester". We're putting on two talks per day in the Adult Education College (or, more precisely, in the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, which is part of the Adult Ed College).

This should have been a Beginners' Guide to Hinduism - or Hinduism 101 - but our scheduled speaker pulled out and we've been unable to secure a substitute. Were it not for the fact that I'm speaker for the occasion. I go up to the College / Gallery to see if anyone has turned up to listen to the talk. The stalwart Marion Kennedy has, so I advise her that it's not on and apologise.

The photo above is one of two images representing the Hindu community in the Favourite Faiths Photo exhibition, launched this week at the People's Photographic Gallery. The picture is from the celebration of Annakut at Shree Sanatan Mandir, Weymouth Street  (sourced from Kiran Parmar, reproduced with permission).

FAITHS FILM FESTIVAL FINAL FIVE

This morning the schedule for the film festival at Phoenix Square during Inter Faith Week is made public. Phoenix Square’s November brochure is published online (printed version to follow in two days). I've been particularly keen to see the finalised programme, so that I can get the details into the flyer that we’re having printed this week, listing our main activities during Inter Faith Week.

So, how does the final programme for Leicester's first Faiths Film Festival shape up against what I've been hoping for? At first sight, the result could be thought disappointing. But it ain't necessarily so.

When I first enquired about the possibility of Phoenix Square screening a short season of faith-related films at the same time last year, it was just a wish - and rather formless, as wishes tend to be. A couple of months ago, when making a more formal approach to Phoenix Square, I would have considered it a triumph to get five films on. At one point, I as discussing with Andy Jones (Programme Manager at Phoenix Square) the viability of showing as many as 14 titles: two per day throughout the week. As is the way with Leicester Council of Faiths, we were trying to represent each of our member communities equally. But as you can imagine, faithful reader, it's harder to find movies about, by or from some of those communities than others. I put out an APB, by email, social media and word of mouth, seeking recommendations for titles. Some of the suggestions were innovative, inventive, inspired – although some left me wondering if the respondents had ever been to the movies themselves or even knew what a feature film was. Sifting through a considerable amount of dross, there were a few nuggets of gold.

The ideal situation (from our point of view) would have seen two movies screened per day (half of them in Screen 2, which seats 120 and half in the Screen Room, which seats 30; half of them in English and half in another language with English sub-titles; half of them commercially proven and the other half more of a risk). Phoenix Square has whittled this down to a final five, as listed in the brochure.

I've learned a lot about how a cinema like Phoenix Square goes about its business. It's certainly not a matter of simply presenting a wishlist and expecting to get everything you want. The eventual choice was based on several factors, e.g.

• availability in suitable format for projection;
• having been passed by the British Board of Film Classification and granted an age certificate;
• ownership of current screening rights in the UK by a trading distributor (some of the proposed films have never been licensed for public screening in the UK, while screening rights for others have long lapsed).

So after all that, here's the final selection of films:

Sun 20: Little Buddha (Buddhist - obviously) 

Mon 21: A Serious Man (Jewish) 

Thu 24: Life in a Day (illustrating the Bahá'í principle of world unity) 

Fri 25: My Name is Khan (Muslim - with Hindu connections too) 

Sat 26: Lourdes (Christian)

I should stress here that the final choice was made by Phoenix Square – and in the end, they’ve gone with those films most likely to get patrons out of their homes on a cold dark November evening and parting with £7 for their ticket. Three of the five have been shown at Phoenix Square and deserve another go-round there.

I saw two of these films during their theatrical release (A Serious Man and Lourdes). I've already blogged about the latter.

We’ve been asked to write copy for the A4 cribsheets that are available free at the time of screening. On these we can say something about the relevance of the film to the respective faith communities, something about Inter Faith Week and something about the Council of Faiths. We were also offered, initially, the opportunity for an introductory talk about each film, of no more than three minutes in length. I haven't pursued this - so far.

I would like to find out if we can get a slide shown before each of the films, saying something like:

This film is being screened as part of Phoenix Square's Faiths Film Festival, presented in association with Leicester Council of Faiths, during Inter Faith Week.

A few too many "Faiths" in there? I'll work on it.

Phoenix Square's online brochure has a page devoted to the Faiths Film Festival. This web page has a slide show of still from four of the  movies, each with Leicester Council of Faiths logo added in the bottom right hand corner. That looks very nice. And there’s a paragraph of copy, written by me, linking the Faiths Film Festival with the Council of Faiths 25^th anniversary:

The third national Inter Faith Week is being celebrated from Sunday 20 to Saturday 26 November. Leicester has a positive and widespread reputation for the diverse and cohesive nature of its faith and cultural communities, so when Leicester Council of Faiths asked if Phoenix Square would host the first Faiths Film Festival – of course we said yes! This varied selection of movies showcasing faith, religion and belief also marks the 25th anniversary of Leicester Council of Faiths – which has been working to promote trust, understanding and cooperation among the city’s communities since 1986.

I hope that this is a success and that we get to do it again next year. Now it’s up to you, faithful reader. If you’re within the catchment area of Phoenix Square, then come along to one or more of these screenings during Inter Faith Week, show your support and enjoy a good film with our blessing!

FAITH TRAIL LINKS PLACES OF WORSHIP

From today's Leicester Mercury:

Faith Trail links places of worship

A walking route linking places of worship will be launched on Friday.

The Faith and Place Trail was compiled by archaeology students from the University of Leicester.

It is accompanied by a map that includes all places of worship in the city.

The trail was devised by second year students, with the help of the city's faith groups.

It takes in a selection of the places of faith which can be visited in the course of a few hours.

They include centres of worship for Bahá'í, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism and Sikhism, plus the Secular Hall and world arts gallery at New Walk Museum.

A university spokesman said: "The trail highlights how much there is to discover about Leicester."

University vice-chancellor, Professor Sir Robert Burgess, will be at the launch of the trail at New Walk Museum on Friday.

For details and the map, see: www.le.ac.uk/faithtrail

Pupils get an insight into beliefs at faith festival

Here's a positive article about faiths and young people on the local scene, from today's Leicester Mercury. This would appear to be a new initiative on the part of St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society. I'd not heard of it before, at least. Good on them for providing such a service.

Pupils get an insight into beliefs at faith festival 

Pupils had a chance to learn about seven religions in one day when their school held a faith festival.

Faith workers went into Mount Grace High School, Hinckley, to give the youngsters insights into the beliefs and customs of Bahá'í, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism.

The Religion and Belief Roadshow, organised by St Philip's Centre, in Leicester, gave youngsters the chance to try foods and henna and finger painting and try on clothing associated with the different faiths.

There were also stqalls showing relvant items, and opportunities to ask questions.

Assistant Head Teacher Tom Dunne said: "The whole school had been excited about this day for a long time.

"We want our children to have the broadest range of knowledge and understanding to become the active citizens of tomorrow."

Riaz Ravat, of St Philip's Centre, a multi-faith organisation run by the Anglican Diocese of Leicester, said: "Our main purpose is to generate fun on a subject which is often all too serious.

"We want to communicate the shared values of respect, acceptance and charity, which faith communities possess.

"This is a two-way process, however, so we have much to learn from the children."

Mindfulness & Morality 3: Hindu Perspective

I'm not able to attend the session on Mindfulness and Morality this evening as I'm at County Hall doing the "Religion and Media" presentation. This is the first of the "faith specific" sessions, on Hinduism. Kevin Commons has taken notes, which I reproduce here, just as he has sent them. That makes Kevin my first guest blogger!

There was a total of 19 people plus Ramesh Majithia (facilitator). Ramesh's introductory talk set out the following five pillars of Hindu ethics:

1. Reverence for self (the self is the image of the Divine)
2. Reverence for other (obviously, others are also the image of the Divine)
3. Reverence for the animal kingdom (God's creation)
4. Reverence for the plant kingdom
5. Reverence for the material kingdom

These obviously have implications for the environment and the ecology of the planet. He then described the 4 ashrams as life stage that guide moral behaviour. These are:

• age 0 to 25 where the focus is study and learning
• 25 to 50 where the focus is family life
• 50 to 70 where the individual starts to let go of attachments
• 70+ where the individual lets go of everything and becomes a sanyasin (homeless person)

He explored a few quotations from the Gita and Upanishads and told the story of Saint Jalaram, which provided the basis for his discussion item that had food and family life as its focus.

Raj's behaviour

Raj is 13 and is the only son. Rings mum one day from school that he will be late home and that they eat at the usual time of 6.00 p.m. Dad has a medical condition and has to eat at regular times. Raj arrives at 7.00 p.m. Dad had gone to rest upstairs. Mum has been waiting to eat with son. As son is warming up the food Raj says he wanted to eat pizza. Mum cannot persuade the son otherwise. Raj get the pizza out of the freezer and puts it in the microwave. the next thing is he sits on the sofa, switches on the TV to watch "Neighbours" and starts eating the pizza. Mum is stunned.

This story provoked a lot of discussion but certainly brought home the significance of family activities and the place of food within these.  Issues of Raj's lack of mindfulness of his mother and father's needs and the lack of respect for the food that seemed about to be wasted were well rehearsed.  However, Raj's mother's behaviour was also pointed out.  Why did she not eat with her husband?  Why wait for Raj since he had chosen to break the family routine.  One view suggested that this was Raj's mother's dilemma, requiring her to ask why Raj behaved as he did in a way that would seek to find out how he was seeing the world, rather than castigating him for his unacceptable behaviour.

If the key point was lack of respect for authority and, in a more general sense, the law, then the level of moral judgement in Kohlberg's terms seems to be at stage 4, the higher of the two levels of conventional thinking.

small request for The Big Questions

I take a call this afternoon at the Welcome Centre from Amanda Egbujo. She's a Producer with Mentorn TV, working on the religious affairs programme "The Big Questions", in which Nicky Campbell (photo above) hosts a series of religious, moral and ethical debates. The next edition will be broadcast live from Samworth Enterprise Academy in Leicester this coming Sunday (16 Jan). The show goes out on BBC1 at 1000.

The programme will focus in part on Islam as a guide for daily living. Amanda asked if the Council of Faiths could provide someone from another of the city's faith communities to speak about how their own faith guides them in daily life. She agrees that a Hindu or Sikh would be appropriate, being Leicester's next largest "minority" faith communities. If we're unable to offer anyone from either of those two communities, I'm sure she'll be happy to have someone from another faith background, as long as they can do the business on live TV.

I tell Amanda that if we are able to offer someone, then it would not be for purposes of argument, dispute or controversy – that the Council of Faiths is not in the business of promoting division or dissension between the faith communities. She told me she's happy with that.

When Amanda gives me her office number, I realise that she’s calling from Glasgow. She has a Scots accent and remarks upon mine (and my guid Scots surname). So I take the opportunity to tell her a wee bit about my having started inter faith work in Glasgow when I was 19 (!) and how I still keep in touch with how that sort of thing is going up there. Of course I ask her to read the blog – I’m sure she recognises that well-worn phrase (well-worn by me, anyway), “Not backwards at coming forwards”.

I’ve sent out an email asking for someone suitable to come forward; now waiting to see what kind of response will be forthcoming. By coincidence, at that very time on Sunday mornings (well, every other Sunday, including this one) I'm sitting in the cafe of TESCO, South Wigston, reading the Observer or marking assignments from my Open University students, after dropping off Harry at St Thomas the Apostle where he sings in the choir. That's only half a mile or so from Samworth Enterprise Academy.


Image Source Page: http://www.mentorn.tv/

AXIS BOLD AS LOVE

Shortly before midnight I receive an email from Manjula Sood (Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths) forwarding a message from British Hindu Voice - an organisation new to me. Their message is entitled "Insult to Hindu Faith - Hindu god images on shoes". At first sight this is utterly baffling - but after a moment's investigation, all becomes clear (if weirdly so).

18 September 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix, found dead in his flat at 22 Lansdowne Terrace, London. This anniversary is being commemorated in a variety of ways. Converse has produced a range of three special editions of its All Star training shoe, celebrating Hendrix in different ways. Two of them reproduce artwork from classic Hendrix albums ("Electric Ladyland and "Axis Bold as Love" respectively) while the other shows a detail from an iconic bandsman's jacket that Hendrix wore at some of his most memorable live performances.

Converse has made other shoes in honour of rock stars past and present, including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and The Who. None of those, however, has the associations that comes with the cover artwork of the second album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Axis Bold as Love" (released in the UK, Dec 1967).

According to Wikipedia, Track records art department had independently chosen to follow the contemporary fad for all things Indian to provide the album's cover, which has a photographed copy of a mass produced religious poster of the Hindu devotional painting known as Viraat Purushan-Vishnuroopam with a small, superimposed painting of the three members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience themselves by Roger Law (from a photo portrait by Karl Ferris) blended in.

It was 1967 after all; there was a fad for all things Indian; it was all part of the psychedelic mystical mix of the time. In more than four decades that have passed, Hendrix has, of course become one of the greatest icons of that whole period, adaptable to many diverse purposes - and the cover artwork from "Axis Bold as Love" has been one of the most popular images associated not only with Hendrix himself but with that whole cultural milieu. In poster form, it has adorned innumerable bedrooms, clubs and record shops for over 40 years. I hope that no one is going to go all retroactive and think any good could come from protesting about the album artwork at this remove! From the forwarded email, I don't get the impression that the correspondent from British Hindu Voice knows either the pop historical context or the cultural status of Jimi Hendrix (or, for that matter, the economic clout of Converse). But the least that can be said is that times have changed since 1967 and I think it only proper that something should be said about the reproduction of these images from this popular Hindu devotional painting - on a shoe, of all things.

JEWEL IN THE LOTUS

To the Quaker Meeting House, Queens Road, for a dayschool looking at correspondences between Hinduism and the Bahá'í Faith. This is led by Anupam Premanand, who has travelled here from Nivelles, Belgium (despite difficulties with the Eurostar service since the train crash outside Brussels earlier this week). Anupam came into the Bahá'í Faith in India some 19 years ago. He's a striking example of a phenomenon that often happens when people become Bahá'í, and after a while find themselves possessed of a deeper knowledge and greater love for the faith tradition into which they were born. The same thing happened to me when I became Bahá'í in 1979, having been brought up vaguely Protestant in the Church of Scotland.

Anupam has an infectious enthusiasm for the subject that conveys itself to everyone here today. There are more than 25 attendees, mostly from Leicester and its environs, a few from Nottingham.

While the Bahá'í World Centre in Israel has long sported buildings of architectural note and splendid gardens (recently named to UNESCO's World Heritage List in recognition of their "outstanding universal value" to the common heritage of humanity) it's the Bahá'í House of Worship in New Delhi that has arguably become the single most recognisable symbol of the Bahá'í Faith worldwide. The Lotus Temple (as it's popularly known) was dedicated to public worship in 1986 and has become a tourist landmark in India. Figures show it to be the most popular visitor attraction in the country after the Taj Mahal. Many people of Indian origin and heritage in Leicester have visited the Lotus Temple and have come away with a very positive impression of it. While that is undoubtedly a good thing, one may wonder how much such visitors glean about the history, beliefs and practices of the Bahá'ís themselves. Of course, a similar question may be asked of the Bahá'ís: how much do they know in their turn about Hindus and Hinduism - particularly in Leicester, where  Hindus are such a large and significant element in the local population? The purpose of this study day is to help the Bahá'ís understand and appreciate more about their Hindu neighbours: what they believe and how their beliefs impact on their lives. Bahá'ís are into finding correspondences between the world's religions as part of their programme for elimination of prejudice and building bridges between different cultures. This event is a good example of them doing just that.

Our day starts with an introduction to the religious and cultural diversity of India, and we see how the history and development of the Bahá'í community of India fits in that context. Since the earliest days of the Baha'i Faith, in the 1840s, some of its followers settled in India, having trading links with the city of Bombay (as it was then). Over the years, many teachers whose names are still celebrated in the annals of the Bahá'í community travelled the length and breadth of India, introducing the Bahá'í teachings to people of diverse backgrounds and interests. Up until the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were only a handful of Bahá'ís scattered around India, mainly in the north, mostly of Zoroastrian (Parsee) background. Indian adherents of Bahá'í would mostly have been educated people, living, working or studying in the major cities. However, after that period, the Bahá'í Faith became more widely known and better supported in the smaller towns and villages. In terms of numbers alone, India has the world's biggest Bahá'í community, at nigh on one-and-a-half million, although this pales into virtual insignificance when seen as part of that country's total population.

Now, many of the Hindu friends I talk with don't seem to mind the name, "Hindu" being used to describe themselves or their communities. But as I learned while writing the Council of Faiths leaflet on Hinduism, when it comes to the name of the religion they follow, many dislike it and prefer the term Sanatan Dharma - meaning the eternal path, way or law. Seeing this religion in that light helps Bahá'ís align their thinking with Hindus, as it brings out relations between the way the two religions see "progressive revelation" - a concept central to them both. Indeed, there are so many fundamental beliefs and practices in common between Bahá'ís and Hindus, many Bahá'ís have found (and, to go on the reactions here today, are still finding) that some of the more abstract teachings in their religion make sense when seen alongside comparable teachings in Hinduism. This is often to the surprise of many Bahá'ís who come from a background more influenced by the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and surprise most often grows into delight at recognition of the similarities.

Before the end of the day, Anupram has us learning a Bahá'í prayer in Hindi and chanting a key verse from the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit! When one of these songs is over, someone wonders if there are any recordings of it available; "As long as it's not that one" I pitch in. Well, the comment sounded amusing on my side of the room! Here's a photo taken in the garden at the Quaker Meeting House of some of the attendees at this study day. Anupram is second from the right:

During one of our breaks, I bump into a few members of a chapter of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) newly established in Leicester. They're holding their own meeting upstairs. In my job for the Council of Faiths I'm keen to establish, maintain and develop good relations with all kinds of religious and spiritual groups in the city, so I stop them for a chat. A little later in the afternoon, when their meeting is over, one of their number comes downstairs to hand out invitations that we might join them in their future day retreats or discussion evenings, which are held in the Quaker Meeting House. As their business is done for the day and they're in the process of packing up, I'm invited upstairs for a few minutes to tell them a little about the Council of Faiths and about my role with them. Positive contact is made today, and I come away with a phone number for follow up.