Detroit Free Press

GANGES -- The morning mist settled, a breeze rustled the leaves on the trees and calm descended on Ganges, even as people bustled around setting up chairs and tents Friday for what organizers say will be one of the largest gatherings of Hindu holy men in recent U.S. history.
 

This isn't the Ganges of India, the sacred river that flows through a country where 80 percent of the population is Hindu. This is the Ganges of Michigan, a rural village south of Holland where a 100-acre spiritual retreat is the only visible link to an Eastern faith tradition.
 

The Vivekananda Monastery & Retreat is the gathering spot for a three-day conference that began Friday, bringing a monastic order of swamis, traditionally considered the holiest of Hindu men, into contact with lifelong devotees, scholars and non-Hindus.
 

"I'm extremely excited just to be able to physically see all the swamis and to listen to their talks and see everybody in their own spiritual journey," said Anjali Shete, 29, a computer programmer from Farmington Hills. "This is a great privilege."
 

The conference is devoted to a particular philosophy called Vedanta, which recognizes all religions as valid and says everyone is potentially divine. The retreat center's namesake, Vivekananda, introduced Vedanta to Americans during an 1893 visit and later founded a monastic order devoted to its ideals.
 

The 16 visiting swamis will meditate, discuss the future of Vedanta and meet with attendees in small groups. Organizers had registered 500 for the conference but said more are expected.
 

Some, like Janet Poole of Naples, Fla., came with an outsider's interest in the Vedanta philosophy and Hinduism in general. She was raised a Baptist, going to church every Sunday. But a recent visit to a Vedanta center in Chicago sparked her interest enough to bring her to Ganges to meet with the swamis.
 

"I've never been to anything like this before. I'm like a sponge trying to pick up what I can," Poole, 35, said Friday. "This is the first time I have an awareness that there's more to life than what I was raised with."
 

Two of the swamis traveled from India for the conference. The rest came from Vedanta centers around the United States and one in Canada. They met at the Chicago center, which runs the Ganges retreat, before traveling as a group to Michigan on Friday.
 

Swami Brahmarupananda, who serves a center in Washington, D.C., came to the conference to lead a discussion on the relevance of Vedanta, which is rooted in ancient texts and philosophies, in today's tech-savvy world.
 

Technology makes the ancient ideals even more significant, he said, because it emphasizes how connected humans can be on a global level. "It reinforces the age-old truth that we are all interdependent; we are all one.
 

"Technology is value-blind, though. A sense of good and bad is not inherent in technology. That's why our beliefs assume a greater importance in the new millennium."
 

Nahaveer Khetawat, 53, who drove from his home in Troy for the event, said the philosophies of Hinduism are eternal but must be adapted to suit people today. That's why swamis and their interpretations are so important, he said.
 

"It means everything to be here," said Khetawat, who worships at the Bharatiya Temple in Troy.
 

The Troy temple now has almost 1,000 official members, up from 350 in 1990, thanks mostly to a growing presence of Asian Indians in Michigan. Between 1993 and 1998, India was second only to Iraq in the number of immigrants it sent to Michigan, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
 

The United States is home to about 1 million Hindus, Shete said, and many more Americans embrace Hindu ideals without realizing it.
 

"Americans are true Hindus, because it's not a religion, it's a way of life: Follow your own path, but don't hit others'," she said.