Ekal Canada

Namaste Everybody: “Naye varash ki mangal bela, jan kalyan kare” Maha kavi Adesh.
We wish you, and your family a New Year of good health, strength, prosperity and happiness.

We bring you greetings from multitude of Ekal families in remote and tribal villages of India. Generous donations from many of you have made difference in their lives. Please do consider your new, or continued support for Ekal at this time of the year. It takes about $1.37 per day (Cost of cup of coffee), or $500 to operate an Ekal school of about 30 children for one year.

Another year has rolled by in the long chain of transmigration. As far back as the Indian calendar runs, It is the Vikram Samvat 2073; and Kaliyug Samvat 5118. According to the ancient Indian concept of time, time is cyclical. It is called “Kal Chakar” or wheel of time. It is eternally moving in concentric cycles of Day and Night, Week, Year, Yugas, Manvantar, Kalp and Maha Kalp. One Kalp (day and night of Brahma the creator) is 8.64 billion years. You can multiply it by 360 to get one year and further by 100 to get life span of Brahma or the total life span of this universe. There are unlimited universes, appearing and disappearing all the time. One human life-time is only a point on the circumference of Wheel of Time. And the process goes on till eternity unless we make a conscious break in this circle.

We are told in the Gita that selfless service is the easiest and most effective way. Baba Nanak Dev called it seva. Ekal Vidyalaya movement is probably one of the best examples of seva. It is run essentially by volunteers. About 60% of the collections are spent on teacher salary, 27% on teacher training and another 3% on teaching material. Most of the balance of 10% is spent on the administration and management of over 54,000 schools with enrollment of about 1.5 million children. ” Ignorance is sin; and sin is the root cause of all evils. Therefore let us gain knowledge .” Swami Vivekananda.

It is the time to reflect, and plan in an atmosphere of enjoyment, feast and festivity. Season’s greetings, and wishing you on behalf of my family and Ekal Vidyalaya the very best in the New Year,

Parshotam Gupta,
President,
Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of Canada