Source: The St. Petersburg Times
ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA, June 29, 2002: In the classrooms of a small Episcopal church here, children are learning a philosophy that emphasizes respect for others, the virtue of looking beyond appearances and the importance of expressing gratitude to God. These children are not Episcopalian. They are Hindu, and are members of the Swadhyaya movement, a sect little more than 50 years old. On Sunday mornings, while their Christian hosts worship nearby, Hindus chant and study in adjacent buildings at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church. It is relatively common in the US for liberal Christian churches to provide facilities to Hindu groups until they are able to build their own temples and meeting places. Shastri Athavale, founder of the Swadhyaya movement, was born in 1920 in a village near Bombay, India. He is known to his devotees as Dadaji, which means “elder brother.” Athavale teaches that those who believe God is in others are able to develop a loving relationship with everyone around them. The benefit of their philosophy, Swadhyayees believe, is that social ills such as crime, prejudice and poverty are naturally reduced. Followers say that more than 20-million people, mostly in India, have been transformed by their spiritual leader’s principles. The St. Petersburg Swadhyayees, one of 350 groups in the United States, have met since the late 1980’s.