Convention
Venue
Westin Chicago
Northwest
400 Park Blvd.
Itasca, Illinois 60143
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Download
Forms
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ADVERTISE IN CONVENTION SOUVENIR
Advertise in “VSNA-2009 Souvenir”
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PUBLISH IN CONVENTION SOUVENIR
Publish your articles in “VSNA-2009 Souvenir”
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Vichara Ghosti
The Religious Committee of the VSNA Convention 2009 welcomes you to the “Vichara
Ghosti” - an invigorating discussion forum for the youth.
This year’s Vichara Ghosti theme is the significance of “Acharave Swarga” in shaping the
human self and its influence on the world we live in.
The Vichara Ghosti is a great platform to express our thoughts, dilemmas and share our concerns through a meaningful discussion that will help us look at the issues in a different angle.
Many times we hear anti-religious comments from people around us. For many people, these are enough to get a negative perception about religion, as they do not have deeper knowledge to understand them.
Some of the anti-religious comments we hear in our daily life are:
1. Religion is for the poor and ignorant.
2. Successful and wealthy people do not need a religion.
3. Religion has become obsolete. In olden days religion used to provide society with education, heath care and other social services. Now-a-days government and welfare organizations do this, therefore religion is becoming less relevant.
4. Religion is the cause of the world's problems.
And so on.
As we are evolving faster in this modern era, our world has changed dramatically. As technology has progressed, we have reached a stage where we do not believe in things if they are not logical and reasonable.
Our younger generation ask for physical proofs for every thing including the beliefs that we may have. In this modern world, we should not only strive to find meaningful explanations to our beliefs, but also to explain to our younger
ones the importance of practicing religion by showing its relevance to modern day world.
The religions of the world have many common teachings to offer, though their founders lived in different parts of the world and spoke different languages and never met each other. This itself should evoke enough curiosity that there must have been a strong reason for these religions to have emerged among the human species. Even in the most isolated tribal population in a remote forests, we find a religion.
Is it not possible for humans to live without religion?
Have they ever tried to live without one? Or can we now?
If we try to understand the origin of the religion, we will find answers to all our inquiries enabling us to understand it more than just a mere ritualistic following.
As we dig more into these ancient beliefs, we find the greatest treasure of humanity - "Dharma”. We need not read books to learn about the Dharma, just a serious thought on how humans survived all these years and how we became civilized people from those "cave dwelling apes" would unravel its mystery.
The secret of how the wild human animal transformed into a civilized being is hidden in this great concept. 'Acharave Svarga' is the highest Dharma, and it is this principle that has kept us alive and civilized all these years and will surely take us into the future.
During this entire discussion of the 'Acharave Svarga' philosophy, we will try to approach the religion
in a logical way, scientific way and try to understand it objectively like a scholar standing outside the religion, rather than a blind follower who is stuck in the religion but unable to understand it.
At the end of this discussion, we hope our youth will not only be able to understand the logical concept behind ‘Acharave Svarga” and appreciate the efforts put forth by our ancestors to civilize our society, but also that they will be motivated to adapt this concept in their daily lives, making our community the real “Svarga” that Basavanna strived to achieve.
Format of the program:
On stage, there will be two panels of participants – an adult panel and a youth panel.
The adult panel will have invited dignitaries and few religious committee members.
The youth panel will have 4-5 youths from VSNA chapters.
The adult panel members will speak on the theme and the youth panel members would share their opinion/experience on the impact of the “Veerashaiva Achara” on their American life.
Once the rhythm is set by these two panel of members, the young audience are allowed to
ask questions. The questions are answered once from the adult panel and once from youth panel members.
Please join us in this thought-provoking, stimulating discussion on “Acharave svarga” for our youth.
With Warm Regards,
Religious Committee
VSNA Convention 2009
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VSNA
GAME SHOW
For
the fist time veerashaiva children will indulge in fun filled education events
including Jeopardy and quizzes.
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Youth Retreat
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to compete in the TV show The Amazing Race? Or have you dreamed of becoming a secret agent in this lifetime? Stop wondering and make it a reality at this year’s VSNA 2009 Youth Retreat: “cHI-Life”.
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Business Forum
A unique opportunity to meet and interact
with business leaders from US and India.
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CME for physicians
VSNA convention in conjunction with
The Chicago Medical Society is offering
32nd Annual VSNA CME Conference 2009
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