Loknath Amrutalayam ( Eternal Abode of the Lord of the world ) |
To restore the temples to their original role as socio-economic centers of the village, Swadhyay has taken a new initiative of non-sectarian temple-building called Loknath Amrutalayam. Built from locally available material and with voluntary labour of the swadhyayees, Amrutalayams are simple, semi-permanent structures without walls, but mostly with gardens around them.
Each village couple, irrespective of caste origin, gets a chance to work
as priest (pujari) for a few days in the year. Villagers gather in Amrutalayam
every morning and evening for prayers. A Hindu can recite the Geeta with the
same freedom as Moslem the Koran or Christian, the Bible. After the evening
community prayer, the assembly discusses individual and collective problems
and attempts to sort them out informally. It reviews the progress of Swadhyay
activities running in the village. At regular intervals the swadhyayee villagers
offer to God a portion of their earnings; they do so anonymously and voluntarily.
The collections so received are distributed to the needy as benediction (prasad)
of God , and the surplus is spent on infrastructural needs of the village as
a whole. |