Message from the President

Dear Devotees,
(Namaste).
It is a great privilege and honor to be blessed with the opportunity to serve as the President of this great temple ìEktaMandirî for the year 2017. By the grace of Lord Balaji and blessings of Goddess Mahalakshmi, I will do with the best of my ability to serve the temple with utmost devotion. I would like to sincerely thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support.

Devotees and Volunteers are a great resources and act as an integral part of operations of our temple. Many of the daily operational tasks of the temple are routinely done by our devotees and volunteers and I salute you for all your dedication and generous support. To name a few, Kitchen Volunteers who prepare Mahaprasad on Sunday, more than 100 Vidya Vikas teachers who educate our youngsters, Hundi volunteers every Sunday, and many other volunteers without their help, it will be very difficult to serve the needs of our temple devotees. I humbly request all the devotees to treat and respect fellow devotees, priests and staff with politeness, courtesy, dignity and maintain temple etiquette. We are one big family and our strength lies in unity.

For the first time in many years the New Year fell on a Sunday giving the opportunity for many of the devotees to start the New Year by
visiting the Temple. Our New Year celebrations started with the Ganesh Homam followed by Abhishekam and Archana. We had a large number of
devotees who attended the temple on this special day and the following day. There was a constant stream of devotees who visited the temple
throughout the day and our volunteers did their best to keep the devotees happy with their visit to the temple and I sincerely thank all the devotees for patiently waiting in line during their visit. One week later we celebrated Vaikunta Ekadashi starting at 6:30 AM with chanting of Lord Venkateshwara Suprabhatam followed by Uttara Dwara Darshanam and Balaji Abhishekam. Many devotees chanted Vishnu Sahasranama continuously until the evening. One week later we celebrated Bhogi/Lohri Puja and Andal Kalyanam which was well attended by many devotees. In February wecelebrated Vasant Panchami with Vidya Vikas school kids and conducted Goddess Saraswati Puja.

Upcoming events for the next two months include Mahashivaratri celebrations, Holika Dahan and Holi Celebrations with Anand Bazaar. For the first time, we will be celebrating Shiva Parvathi Kalyanam and Maha Mrutyanjaya Homam as part of Shivaratri Celebrations. Holi/Anand bazaar is always very colorful and provide an opportunity for all of our devotees to taste the food from various parts of India. Please take this opportunity to showcase the food from your region of India or any other parts of the world. Other major upcoming events include Ugadi, Ram Navami, Sita Rama Kalyanam, Durgasthami Havan and Kavadi celebrations.

Last year, we had celebrated the 25th anniversary of Prana Prathistha for Shri Mahalakshmi, Shri Ganesh, Shri Ram Parivar, ShriRadha Krishna, Shri Shrinathji, Shri Durga Maata and Shri Ayyappa Swamy. This year we will be celebrating 25th anniversary of Prana Prathistha for Lord Venkateshwara also known as Balaji, Shri Shiva, Shri Vitthala and Shri Kartikeya. We are planning to celebrate Lord Balaji
Brahmotsavam on May 19th-21st. This is a major event and we are planning to bring priests and ìLaddu Prasadamî from Tirupati for the
auspicious occasion. We need your generous support for all the upcoming events to make these events a grand success.

One of my main goal for this year is to make sure that all pujas and events are performed to improve devotee experience at the temple. It is always satisfying to hear when a devotee mentions that they had a very positive experience at the temple. We are very fortunate to have a group of priests who are one of the best in the entire country, and they are very knowledgeable and scholarly. I welcome all the Executive members and Board of Trustees who are nominated for 2017 year to serve the temple. It will definitely be a great year with all your help.

I am humbly requesting your continued generous financial support and volunteer support to keep our temple as a vibrant place and work as a
family. Once again my sincere thanks for all your help, encouragement and support.

Satyanarayana Bodla
President, D/FW Hindu Temple Society