May 2015

Do you have questions about estate planning? Planned giving? Your will? Each month, we feature new articles and interactive features. We also share news about the charitable endowments under the umbrella of Hindu Heritage Endowment.

The Hindu Heritage Endowment Administrative Fund's primary purpose is to subsidize the accounting, administrative and operational expenses of HHE (fund #36)

Q&A: Take a Closer Look at Your Financial Plans

When making a long-term life plan, it’s important you know the fine details of your finances and estate. As you learn more about your assets, you eliminate future risk for loved ones inheriting your estate. Be sure to share your plans with the people you care about. Here are the questions—and answers—to preserve what you are planning on passing on. More...

Find a Gift That Works for You

If you would like to make a gift to support the long-term future of Hindu Heritage Endowment, you'll want to start by assessing your goals and wishes. To see which planned giving options suit you best, try ranking these benefits in order of importance to you: More...

Should Estate Planning Be Called Life Planning?

When you hear the phrase "estate planning," what comes to mind? Something that's done by railroad and hotel tycoons, perhaps? Maybe that reference is a bit dated. More...

The Dangers of DIY Wills

Not only can your do-it-yourself will be worth less than the paper it is printed on, it can cost your family far more in taxes and legal fees after your death than you ever would have spent having it properly drafted in the first place. See how one man's family discovered just how expensive preparing your own will can be. More...

Science and Religion Agree: Giving Is Good for You

The wise ones knew it all along, but now scientists have proved it to be true—giving is good for you.

"Giving affects our brain chemistry," reports Arthur Brooks in The New York Sun. It induces endorphins that produce very mild euphoric sensations... Charity also lowers the stress hormones that cause unhappiness.

"Generous people were found to have dramatically lower levels of the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine in their brains. The bottom line is that giving is not just good for your favorite cause; it’s good for you, too. For relief from stress and depression, it’s probably more cost-effective than whatever your doctor might prescribe. And it’s not illegal or fattening..."

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Hinduism Today's founder, taught that "You can’t give anything away but that it comes back to you, in one form or another, tenfold. That is the law." He explained that the door that opens within you when you give is the same door that lets abundance in. When you have cracked open that one door, it is cracked open. When you leave it open wide, it is open wide. The guru was giving us a great gift with those words.

He established the Hinduism Today Production Fund as a channel for those who would share the magazine's vision, and want to keep it alive and thriving. We invite you to join those noble ones and keep that door to good fortune flung wide open by giving generously to the Production Fund.

If you have given before, please give again. An especially potent way to give is to include the Fund in your estate plan. Estate planning offers many varied ways of giving, some of which you will find to be just right for you, even beneficial. They can lead to substantial tax savings, for example. See our website www.hheonline.org and click on "ways to give" for a clear and simple overview of planned giving's many opportunities.