Today at Kauai Aadheenam

It is always a joyous moment when our Satguru arrives home. His trip was certainly a “Dig Vijaya” (Victory Tour) for spreading his marvelous and practical messages on how to follow Hindu dharma.

All the monks gather to greet their Satguru…

Sadhaka Satyanatha performs the padapuja for the arriving holy man.

Jai Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami-ki Jai!

And welcome home to Shanmuganathaswami who has been putting the trip to good use for all kinds of outreach for the mission.

Bodhinatha writes of his last few days:

Om Sivaya, everyone,

Jai Ganapati.

August 29th early afternoon flight Chicago to Nashville. Keynote at Nashville Ganesha Temple on “Some Practical Suggestions for Hindu Families and Temples.” Over 100 attended and interest was high in the topic.

August 30th morning a visit to Ingram Periodicals, the national distributor of Hinduism Today to all the newsstands in USA and Canada, to discuss how to improve our copy sales through them.

Om
Bodhinatha

Some of our local concrete worker friends came on August 1st to pour a concrete and rebar foundation for the new entrance archway. It’s just behind the Nepali Ganesha shrine.

On the last day of August the silpis began the process of placing the foundation stones for the new arch gateway at the monastery entrance.

Mixing mortar by hand and wiggling the stone into place with a bar. The placement and leveling of these foundation stones are mission critical for the arch. Stay tuned as the project progresses to a beautiful now entry to Kauai Aadheenam.

It was Gurudeva, once again, who led the way. The book that tells the compelling stories of his spiritual visions is the first one that Himalayan Academy officially launches in the epub format, ready for you to read in your iPhone or iPad.

To access it, you need the iBooks app. Just go to the App store on your iPhone or iPad, download the free app and you will be able to purchase the ebook.

This is how it looks on the iPad.

As technology progresses, it gets closer and closer to the spiritual realms. Imagine having hundreds of books in your hands, easily accessible. It’s not the Akasha, from which Gurudeva read many times, but we are getting there.

If you have not seen this book yet, you are missing a rich description of a mystic’s inner life. We have never seen any book like it.

It is illustrated with colorful pieces by the late S. Rajam of Chennai.

Gurudeva’s experiences began even before he learned to talk.

Vintage photos make the book even more appealing. This is Gurudeva’s passport when he went to Sri Lanka to meet his guru, Yogaswami.

Realizing the self in the Jailani caves.

On Friday, Acharya Arumugaswami and Yoginathaswami went to the Kauai County Farm Fair. The annual fair is the biggest event of the year for the island, with some 40,000 attendees (out of an island population of 60,000). Here Yoginathaswami meets Tsajon, a jewelry dealer on Kauai.

We meet Bill Cowern, Kauai’s largest tree farmer.

And Les Milnes, our neighbor

Jothi Sendan and his mother, Valli run a booth for Jothi’s tropical flower business.

Some of the exotic flowers Jothi is selling. There are dozens of others merchants at the fair selling everything from flowers and orchids to solar panels.

Yoginathaswami admires Roy Oyama’s first-place cabbage.

Fruits and vegetables give a sense of Kauai’s bountiful potential.

Blue ribbon to locally grown asparagus.

Excellent eggplant.

The bonzai exhibit is always a special feature of the fair as Kauai has a number of outstanding bonzai growers, famous even in Japan. This is a miniature suriname cherry tree, with fruit.

An extraordinary lei made of cloth ribbon.

bonzai

A banyan bonsai. The word just means “tray planting.”

And one of the top trees of the fair.

The fair is a favorite of politicians, coming as it does just before elections. Here our monks are with Kauai’s mayor, Bernard Carvalho (left) and Honolulu’s ex-mayor, Mufi Hannemann, who is running for governor of Hawaii.

Guests crowd under the Banyan Mandapam to hear a short introduction to the illustrious Kailasa Parampara before setting out to see Iraivan.

It appears like the monks have a hundred full time gardeners!

A stop under a canopy of tropical shade guests hear a little about old souls and young souls, karma, all pervasive divine energy, and the core edict of Hindus; Ahimsa.

In less than an hour we are already getting close – riding on the sacred energy flow of Kauai Aadheenam.

Oh wonder of wonders!

Ajit and Sanhya Kulkarni and Pushpa and Ashok Nalamwar were among the happy souls who joined us today.

This couple from New Mexico read an article about the monks three years ago in the Albuquerque Times and stashed it in their travel folder. When they arrived on Kauai this was their first stop.

Stepping back in time we have a series we did not run of the kodimaram form being placed into the hole in Nandi Mandapam foundation. It had been built several weeks ago by Arumugaswami and Sadhaka Satyanatha. Here it is being picked up by our forklift

It is eight feet tall, showing how deep the is the opening.

Moving into place

The stone at bottom is placed directly in the earth. This opening passes through the foundation and then the silpis dug also through the compacted gravel, finally to reach Mother Earth where they place the stone. This form will sit right on top of the stone.

The top must be level with the foundation.

Quickly the tent is moved back in place before the next shower passes by.

A few days later the space all around outside the form was filled with slightly over seven yards of concrete.

Hitesvara Saravan gets up early every morning and transcribes Bodhinatha’s and Gurudeva talks. Thanks to him we are able to bring you Bodhinatha’s talks and transcripts together. He lives on the Big Island and on the lava flow gravel land of his small estate he does magical things with plants. Here a photo of a lotus from his garden.

Almitra Zion top row center of photo assisted Gurudeva by traveling to AK in 1987 to locate and help negotiate the purchase of the Sphatika Lingam which will be the central icon of Iraivan Temple. Almitra has written the account of this experience and has recently made the book, Crystal Journey, available as and e-book. You can download it at her website: www.thegreatcentralsun.com. She is donating $4 of each book ordered to help build Iraivan Temple, "Where the world comes to pray…" pictured with Almitra are her son Sequoya on the top row left and friends that joined her for a tour today.