♪♪ ♪♪ Manjunath Lakshmipathy: Hinduism is the most open-ended beautiful religion that has no restrictions on how you worship and what you worship.

The practices and rituals can be as easy as a meditation or a yoga.

And you meditate and pray for the abstract Supreme Brahman or you participate in a ritual such as the abhishekam or other things.

You can do both and you can achieve the same success.

That is the beauty of Hinduism.

♪♪ Manjunath Lakshmipathy: This temple was built in 2005 with the thought of having a place of worship for the Hindus living in Central Iowa.

♪♪ Manjunath Lakshmipathy: And when we were looking around for a spot, one of the significance of this place is because it has a river around it behind the temple.

All temples that are constructed in India have a river or a lake or a pond around them.

And all temples also face east as the sun comes up and the source of energy is received directly into the temple.

♪♪ Manjunath Lakshmipathy: And when you come into the temple, you see the tower that is located on top of the building.

Each tier is an elevation of our spiritual journey, starting with the lowest tier explaining about how we mortals look up to the God as our savior.

Manjunath Lakshmipathy: And then as you go up the tiers, there are the Gods that are set up in the front, as you seek their permission to go to the next level.

In the spiritual journey, Hinduism advocates the God to be both abstract as well as manifested in the divine form as well as the human form.

There are several manifestations of God in Hinduism and those manifestations are what you see in our temple as deities.

(chanting) (chanting) Janakiram Akella: So tonight is a very special day.

It is called Maha Shivaratri.

Maha means grand, shiva is Shiva, ratri means night.

So the belief is that at the stroke of midnight, Shiva appeared in front of the world as a force of energy, not that he got created out of anything, he just appeared.

And we are celebrating that.

(chanting) Janakiram Akella: And usually we follow all night chanting and people fast for the occasion.

I am fasting today.

I haven't eaten anything from morning.

And Shiva, we feel, likes water, bathing.

So all night long they are going to cool him down, calm him down with water and then do bhajans, meaning meditation chanting, of our sculptures and it's very powerful and vibrant.

(chanting) Manjunath Lakshmipathy: And we are going to do a showering process called abhishekam today.

The abhishekam involves materials such as milk, yogurt, honey, sugar and ghee.

Most of these products come from the cow.

The cow is a sacred animal in Hinduism.

The way we use this abhishekam, we do use the divine energy, preserve the divine energy.

And that energy comes out as a positive energy to the visiting devotees.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

♪♪ (temple visitors speaking to each other) Viren Amin: The community is the reason we exist here.

We have many celebrations, celebrations of festivals and special days.

India especially it's a very amazingly diverse community.

Every state has its own native language and its own native rituals and customs.

But that brings strength in diversity.

That is what we all believe in.

Viren Amin: Holi is celebrated in different parts of the country and in slightly different ways.

Some parts in the north it's welcoming the spring.

And in some places it's just spraying colors, colored water and colored powder just for a lot of community fun.

Viren Amin: When I was little I was very surprised to read that the founding reason for that is for that one day everybody forgets about different socioeconomic status, color of the skin, all the differences people have and they all merge and with the different colors on them nobody would recognize the differences in the skin color or how they look, where they come from, they are poor or rich.

So that is the biggest part that I like about Holi.

♪ (music and chanting) ♪ Janakiram Akella: Everyone is equal and that is the most important philosophy of Hinduism, oneness of the world.

The slogan you actually see when you are coming in, you see, I see God in you.

That is what it means pretty much, if I can see God in you and you see God in me, pretty much we can't fight because you are the same as me.

So that is the oneness that we strongly believe in.

(chanting) Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Janakiram Akella: There were so many times when I came to this country about 20 plus years ago, I was alone.

Back then there weren't many Indians around.

So during that time I had a lot of times of loneliness.

And when I came here a lot of people were like that.

And so I always tell people, religion is not to solve your problems.

Actually religion and the temple is a place where you can feel home in a way someone is listening to you whether it's God or your friends.

And I think that is what this temple gives me, that hope that tomorrow is going to be a better day than today.

That hope is what drives me to this temple.

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