The Vivekananda Vidyapith Academy of Indian Philosophy and Culture is a school in Wayne, New Jersey. It is a non-profitable organization created in 1976 that teaches Sanskrit; Indian & Hindu Philosophy; teaches the life of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi, and Swami Vivekananda; and more to grades Kindergarten to 12. Vivekananda Vidyapith takes its philosophical inspiration from Swami Vivekananda, a nineteenth and early twentieth-century teacher and explorer of Vedanta, or Indian philosophy. The Vidyapith’s closest sister organization is the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York City. History In 1976, Dr. Mahendra Jani was studying for his doctoral degree in mathematics at CUNY, and his wife, Dr. Vandana Jani was teaching at Kean College. They lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and regularly attended services and classes held by Swami Adiswarananda at the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York. During that time, they held prayers and scripture-study classes with a few families on Saturday evenings in friends' houses in Jersey City. Soon, the need arose to occupy the children of the families, including their son, during these sessions. Mrs. Jani took the children to a separate room and engaged them in instructional activities. At the end of the classes, children presented what they had learned. After a couple of weeks, both Vandana and Mahendra Jani decided to hold separate classes for children on Saturday mornings and provide them with a "character building education." Both of them prepared a curriculum, and in September 1976, started classes for children on Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in their one-bedroom-apartment in Elizabeth. There were seven children on the first day. Soon, more and more adults valued the opportunity to bring their children for instruction, and the idea for an ongoing cultural educational program for children started. After one year, the Janis moved to Jersey City, where the majority of students who were attending the program resided. In 1979, the Janis rented a large basement apartment in order to facilitate more children. They incorporated the Vivekananda Vidyapith that same year. When the owner of the house sold the property, the Janis were forced to move to a house in Woodland Park, New Jersey. As participant families continued to grow in number, the corporation started to look for a facility to house the Vidyapith in 1988. After a two-year search, they found the current house, situated on approximately one acre of land in Wayne, NJ. They rented the