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SSYM: DigitalThis year, as lockdown commenced, our beloved Mandir was closed off for public safety. This led to the cancellation of our weekly Yuvak Mandal sessions. During this difficult time, by the grace of our Maharaj and His Santos, we saw the launch of ‘SSYM: Digital’ in the UK on 27 March, which turned into 24 weeks of inspiring and moving sessions.

The sessions covered a range of both Satsang and life topics and ranged from combatting inner enemies, pursuing happiness, overcoming stress and anxiety, and understanding the value and Mahima of Maharaj and His Santos. The sessions left us in awe, and we were reminded that in this technological era, we could still be intimately connected with Maharaj even in unpredictable times.

Every Friday gave us the opportunity to reflect on both our Satsang and personal lives - not just alone but together, and became a chance to bond with our families. One of the Q&A sessions with Santos was especially insightful, as we got our personal questions answered, with real life examples and with reference to our scriptures. As word got around, people from all over the world also tuned in regardless of the time difference, and it was then that it felt like SSYM Global rather than SSYM UK!

Alongside the Friday night sessions, we also had additional sessions on Saturday night which involved fun filled competitions on Kahoot, Quiz nights, and inter-Mandir competitions such as Maharaj’s Apprentice. One of the highlights was an online “Escape from Yampuri” session in which teams had to solve puzzles and riddles virtually to escape from the Yams!

Even though the Covid-19 pandemic caused a halt in many of our lives, SSYM Digital was one of the positives to come out of the current climate. Without our Yuvak Mandal Santos, the seva of haribhaktos and the Rajipo of Maharaj, it would be fair to say we would not be as strong in hope, moral and Satsang as we are now. A major thank you to all of the souls that helped make this happen.

Click the image below to see the highlights reel of SSYM: Digital

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SSYM: Digital 2SSYM Bal Mandal 4Virtual patotsav 6SSTW Takeaway 8Leela corner 9SSTW Charity 10Cheesecake recipe 12Gujarati School 16

Bal MandalWith the whole world being presented with uncertainty in these current times, one thing we are certain about, is ensuring that our future remains bright! Our 7-12 year old kids have had it tough this year, from being told they have to stay indoors for months on end, to not knowing when they’ll return back

to school. Most importantly not being able to attend mandir regularly with their fellow young Haribhaktos. A huge change in their young lives, that potentially could have devastating effects on their personal and spiritual development. With the help of SSYM Digital and the blessings of our Yuvak Mandal Santos, we were able to continue our weekly Bal Mandal sabhas virtually.

With a dedicated team of individuals specifically made for our

Bal Mandal, we are able to produce and deliver exciting weekly sessions so our youngsters can still enjoy Satsang with their friends from the comfort of their own homes. The sessions vary from each week, as the kids are taught a variety of topics, not only teaching them about Satsang but also educating them about other important topics in life, such as “Woman Empowerment” and “Responsibility”. Along with having insightful sessions filled with lots of learning, we also host regular fun-filled activities such as Games Nights, Kahoots, Virtual Treasure Hunts and much more!

Finally, we want to say a massive well done to our Bal Mandal kids! They have done so well in such an unforeseen and difficult situation, but Maharaj and His Santos are very proud to see them joining the weekly sabhas and interacting the way they do. We pray at the holy feet of our beloved Ghanshyam Maharaj that we get to reunite in Mandir again very soon. Keep it up kids!

If you would like to get involved with any of the Yuvak Mandal or Bal Mandal activities, email us on: info@sstw.org.uk

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Virtual Patotsav This year’s patotsav was one to remember as it was all organised virtually, yet we still felt the presence of our beloved Ghanshyam Maharaj in our homes.

We were truly blessed by our Bhuj santos who recited the divine Ghanshyam Leelamrut Saagar, which was also catered for the younger generation with the balance of Gujarati and English explanations. It can be said without a doubt that we were all missing the darshan of Ghanshyam Maharaj but the vaktas truly took us to Chhapaiya as we experienced the mystical Leelas first hand.

On the first evening, we were in awe as our youngest generation delivered an inspiring performance of our nitya niyams ranging from aarti, stutis

to leelas and dhun. We sincerely appreciate the sheer amount of work that went in delivering this performance which included more than 50 Bal Kendra students, so a big kudos to the parents and teachers involved.

Thereafter, we had a cracker of a night where the santos stole the show by presenting a fun and interactive Kahoot quiz for the under 14s. The kids were eager and raring to go as we had a whopping 200 teams as they battled it out to be the sole champion!

Midway through the week, we had one of the most anticipated sessions, a Vachanamrut Podcast, which was based around the concept of ‘Shoorvirpanu’ where our santos explored the depths of what shoorvirpanu meant on a physical, emotional and practical level.

It was positively inspiring as the talks from swami gave us a great boost in our satsang endeavours and further helped us pave the way to select our chaaturmaas niyams.

On Thursday evening, our Willesden yuvatis of all ages came together to participate in our ladies cultural evening. From organising to editing, everything was executed in-house by our yuvatis. The evening started off with Prarthna followed by the story of Karniba which made us feel the value of nishkaam bhaav that Karniba had for Maharaj. In return, Maharaj gifted Himself in His entirety to Karniba. Our yuvatis

expressed the words of Brahmamand Swami’s kirtan, ‘Gopi Banigaya Girdhaari’, through a garbo followed by a dhun where over 100 female devotees participated, ranging from the age of 1 to 80.

We were also fortunate to hear our Guru, Mahant Bai’s aashirwad where she expressed her happiness on our sanskruti programme and told us to keep firm faith in NarNarayan Dev and continue to flourish. Her powerful words have given us strength to get through these tough times.

On Friday evening, we had our SSYM Maharaj’s Apprentice - Bhajan Karjo Biju Kai Nahi. The apprentice task was based on the words of our late Mahant Swami Hariswarup Dasji. Simple words that carry a much greater meaning. The task was for all UK mandirs to create a video regarding the allocated niyam. The criteria, rules and points had to be highlighted in the video. Collectively, tremendous efforts were put in by all the mandirs, this was evident on the night and touched many people’s hearts as they were all very inspiring. We saw so much talent in all our mandirs and although all the mandirs deserved to win, it was Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Oldham who came first. This task was about learning from these videos, taking something away and to implement this in our lives.

Our last evening, we had our bhajan show and we were blessed to have Dhyanswaroop Swami and Raghavmuni Swami on stage. The live show filled our homes with soulful bhajans performed by our talented singers and musicians, and we just couldn’t get enough.

On the last day of Patotsav, our beloved Santos performed Abhishek on Ghanshyam Maharaj. Although it was a different experience in witnessing Abhishek at home, it was still just as special. This is also the day when the doors of Willesden Mandir opened for darshan after lockdown and we got to do darshan of our beloved Ghanshyam Maharaj after 105 days. The darshan we were all longing for, and it couldn’t have been on a better day; our Ghanshyam’s birthday, and the auspicious day of Guru Purnima. It was just meant to be.

Although we couldn’t quite come together as one community in person, we did in spirit which gave us this blessed opportunity to help lighten these dark times with new hopes and aspirations. We had the opportunity to nurture our soul and strengthen our bhakti and this would not have been possible without the dedication and continuous work of our esteemed santos.

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Welcome to SSTW Takeaway, a new initiative whereby Haribhaktos are able to order fresh, satvik and delicious fast food every Sunday! Ordering is easy, and involves sending a simple Whatsapp message to us, where our dedicated team will place your order. Your order will be ready for collection from the Mandir car park on Sunday evening, and we have a variety of pick up times for your ease, making your appetising Sunday night dinners even more simple!

Our delicious and tasty menu varies from week-to-week, so there is always ample choice of mouth-watering foods to choose from. A couple of our favourites include pizza, burgers, crispy bhajiya, pau bhaji, and don't forget dessert - cinnamon doughnuts and cheesecake!

The delicious food is made at Mandir by our hardworking volunteers, who fully comply with COVID-19 regulations, so you can trust that your takeaway is pure and clean.

If you would like to place a takeaway order, please Whatsapp us on 07590620556 with a message stating you would like to receive the menu. Thereafter, each week you will receive a message with the weekly menu and all you have to do is reply back with your order!

Leela CornerOne day Ghanshyam and His friends went to a village called Pirojpur, to Anada Tarvadi’s garden. In the garden there were many different types of fruit such as guava, ramfar and oranges. One of the villagers from Tinva was on his way to Pirojpur and saw Ghanshyam with all His friends in the garden eating all the fruits. The villager went to Anada Tarvadi and informed him that Ghanshyam and His friends were eating all the fruits from his garden. When Anada Tarvadi found out, his son and a few other villagers angrily went into the garden with sticks and yelled at Ghanshyam, “You and Your friends have been stealing and eating all our fruit and today we have caught you!”

All of Ghanshyam’s friends were frightened, but Ghanshyam told His friends not to worry and to stand behind Him for protection. Suddenly, Anada Tarvadi’s younger brother, Ragunadan, aggressively entered the garden with a stick, shouting and cursing. When Ghanshyam saw Ragunadan, He wondered how they could get away. Ragunadan came closer to them so Ghanshyam decided to turn His friends into parrots and made them fly away, with one ripe fruit in their beaks, to a mango tree at Khapatalavdi. Ghanshyam also disappeared with all the fruit in His hands. Seeing this, the villagers were confused and shocked, they asked “What happened? Where have they

gone?” They started looking for them but couldn’t find them. Ragunada then said “believe it or not, Ghanshyam has turned all of His friends into parrots, they flew away and then He made Himself disappear too!’’ They all talked amongst themselves about how Ghanshyam has done many leelas and came to the conclusion that He is the God of all Gods. Anada Tarvadi then went to Dharamadev’s house and told him what happened. After disappearing from the garden, Ghanshyam went to His friends at Khapatalavdi and turned them back to their normal human forms. They all sat down under the mango tree and enjoyed the fruits together.

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We entered 2020 with the distinct objective of further expanding on our work carried out last year which included initiatives such as distributing cooked meals, supporting local food banks and helping underprivileged children. Little did we know what lay in store for us. As the pandemic struck, it brought everything else to a halt, but the demand for crucial services and help shot up dramatically, along with the need to accelerate our plans and quickly mobilise an army of volunteers to help execute this. What was keeping us apart from friends and loved ones, helped bring together an entire community.

During these testing times, the SSTW Charity Team has evolved rapidly to better help our community. We have

grown to be able to adequately cover the key areas in London which serve the temple community. We have established more partnerships with organisations who can now turn to us when they need assistance. The selfless dedication of our volunteers meant that over 750 hours of personal time was put towards for various initiatives and programmes.

From March 2020 we helped over 150 local families with support calls providing shopping and medical necessities. We worked with over 15 local and national charities and provided essential supplies to local food banks. We also helped distribute cooked meals and delivered fresh fruit/vegetables to local care homes.

The team had the privilege to support GOSH with children’s toys for their dedicated youth wings.

With the norm unlikely to return anytime soon, SSTW continues to support many local food banks and organisations providing cooked meals for the homeless.

Our aims of supporting all souls and pleasing Swaminarayan Bhagwan and all His devotees could not have been possible without your incredible support and donations. An incredibly big THANK YOU for your generosity!

If you’d like to get involved, please do get in touch by emailing us at charity@sstw.org.uk

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Ingredients

1. Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature.

2. Line the bottom and side of a baking tin with baking paper (7inch springform cake tin or loose-bottomed cake pan are recommended).

3. Wrap the outer surface of the cake tin with foil such that no liquid can seep into the tin.

4. Combine the crumbled biscuits and melted butter. Press the mixture down firmly into the lined cake tin and smooth down. Bake for 8-10 minutes in the oven at 180°C. Remove after 10 minutes and cool down completely.

5. Preheat the oven at 180°C.

6. Whip the double cream and sugar until soft peaks are formed.

7. For the cheesecake filling, add cream cheese, condensed milk, corn flour, vanilla essence, salt and lemon juice into a mixing bowl and mix together using an electric whisk until well combined and the mixture turns into a smooth batter

8. Fold the whipped cream into the smooth batter.

9. Pour the cream cheese filling over the baked biscuit crust, and smooth the top

Method

Tag SSTW in pictures of your cheesecake on social media!! #HomemadeFoodalwaystastesbetter #SSTWRecipes

Cheesecake (homemade edition)

For crustCrumbed homemade biscuits – 1 ¾ cups (175g)Melted butter (ghaared) – ¼ cup

For fillingHomemade cream cheese – 2 ¾ cups (500g)Homemade condensed milk – 1 cup (380g)Double cream (ghaared) – ½ cup (240g)Icing sugar – ¼ cup (50g)Vanilla essence – 1 tablespoonSea salt – 1 pinchCorn flour/starch – 2 tablespoonsLemon juice – ½ teaspoon

Ghaared = filtered through a cotton cloth as per Shikshapatri

10. Place the cake tin wrapped in foil into a high edged baking tray.

11. Place the tray in the middle of the oven and fill the tray with boiling water so that it is halfway up the foil-wrapped cake tin.

12. Bake for 90 minutes until the top is golden brown and the edges shrink from the edges of the cake tin. At the time of baking, the cake will rise to some extent and it will come down later. This is normal.

13. Switch off the oven and leave the cake pan inside for 1 hour.

14. Take out the cake tin carefully from the tray and let the cake cool to room temperature.

15. Unwrap the foil and put in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

16. Remove from baking tin and baking paper.

17. Top with fresh strawberries and drizzle with chocolate/carob sauce.

18. Serve chilled to Maharaj and enjoy the prasad!

This delicious guilt-free sweet will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

To enjoy it best, remove from fridge at least 15 to 20 mins before hand.

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Recipe Notes

a. Ensure all the ingredients are at room temperature to avoid cracking the cake top.

b. Don’t skip the water bath.

c. Baking time may vary depending on your oven but it usually takes a minimum of 60 minutes. Check the cake for browning on top and shrinking of the edges after 60 minutes.

d. When you remove the cake, there may be a little wobble in the middle and that is expected. It will firm up as it sets.

e. You can top the cake before serving with fruit preserve/jam, whipped cream, chocolate/carob ganache/sauce, fresh fruits, homemade caramel sauce or naked and as it is.

f. You can add flour coated blueberries into the cream cheese batter and bake as above.

g. You can use the recipe above to make mini tartlet cheesecakes, adjust baking time accordingly.

Homemade cream cheese (1 cup/120gm)

IngredientsWhole milk (full fat/jersey milk (gold top)- ghaared) - 4 cups (1 litre)

Lemon juice (or half a teaspoon of citric acid) - 2-3 tablespoons

Salt - ¼ - ½ teaspoon

Method

1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the milk on med-high. Stirring constantly until it turns to rolling simmer

2. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the lemon juice/citric acid 1 tablespoon at a time, in 1-minute intervals. Continue stirring constantly.

3. Continue cooking until the mixture curdles. Stir constantly till the mixture has separated completely, this should take just a few minutes. There will be a green liquid on the bottom and thick curdles on top, similar to paneer making process. Remove from the heat. This should happen within a few minutes.

4. Lay a sieve with a thin cotton cloth over a large bowl. Pour the curd mixture into the sieve. Let it strain and cool for about 15 minutes.

5. Transfer curds to a food processor and process until curds have come

together and are totally smooth and creamy. It will take around 3-4 minutes. Keep going if your cream cheese is grainy.

6. Add salt to taste.

Recipe Notes

a. The amount of cream cheese yielded depends on the quality of milk used and the acid agent used to curdle the milk.

b. If the cream cheese is grainy, blend more until completely smooth.

c. For the cheesecake recipe, you will need approx. 5 times the cream cheese recipe using 5 litres of milk

d. This cream cheese can be used in no bake cheesecake recipes too.

Homemade Condensed Milk (1 cup)

Ingredients

Full fat milk - 2 cups (450ml)

White sugar - 2/3 cups (142g)

Method

1. Add the milk and sugar into a small, heavy bottomed saucepan.

2. Heat it on a low heat until the sugar

has dissolved.

3. Once all of the sugar has dissolved bring the mix to a simmer over medium low heat. Do not stir once the mix starts to simmer otherwise it can crack and crystalize.

4. Gently simmer for roughly 35-40 minutes, or until the milk has darkened to a creamy colour, has reduced by half and thickened slightly. You may notice some foam forming on top, gently skim it off with a spoon. (If there are sugary bits hanging around the rim of your pot don’t stir them into your condensed milk, this can also crack your mix).

5. When ready, remove from the heat and pour into a jar to cool. Let the condensed milk cool completely before putting on the airtight lid. Note, it thickens up a lot after a few hours in the fridge.

6. Store in a jar in the fridge and it will last for 6 months.

Recipe Notes

a. The condensed milk when ready will measure 1 cup. Multiply ingredients to yield desired quantity.

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Gujarati School Gujarati school started in 1975, throughout the years we have grown exponentially. We were one of the first mandirs to produce our very own Gujarati textbooks which till this day are still being used globally around the world. Not stopping there, we further continued to expand our educational curriculum by branching into teaching other key subjects such as Sanskrit, English and IT, along with initiating the very successful Baal Kendra classes for our future generation.

This term we have added another integral class to our armoury and that is Indian Classical Music, which is one of the core foundations of our Hindu Sanskriti. We are very proud to announce that we have acquired some of the finest musical teachers within the country to help train and guide our young and upcoming students within the fields of Tabla, Bansuri & Singing.

In the current climate both Gujarati School & Baal Kendra are trying their utmost to help ensure the safety of all our students, teachers and parents as we continue upon our educational mission and be that beacon of light for our community.

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