This is part six of a radio interview conducted by Loni Petranek with Gurudeva. The interview gives an overview of Gurudeva's worldwide mission. Today Gurudeva shares with Loni about the San Marga Iraivan Temple and the crystal lingam which will be the temple's central icon.

Unedited Transcript:

Loni: It is a very special temple. It is really going to be quite beautiful.

Gurudeva: It is going to be really beautiful! It is going to have five golden domes, real gold leaf, at thirty-five feet tall, beautifully hand-carved in India. It is half-finished now. We have set up a village for the last nine years in India, where we have had nearly a hundred workers, working daily creating this temple. It is the largest temple that has been made in India this century. It will be shipped stone by stone here, starting this year. Next year in July, we will be putting the stones on to the temple. The building department calls it 'the gravity building', because it is held together by gravity.

Loni: Is that right? How interesting! Now, who designed this particular temple?

Gurudeva: A very famous architect called Sri Ganapati Sthapati from Chennai, that used to be called Madras, in South India. He designed it. But it is of an ancient design, about a thousand years old from the Chola dynasty. So, just to look at the temple is a spiritual experience. You don't have to understand anything about it and the accomplishment of bringing it here is a spiritual experience also for us.

Loni: The journey. Yes, it is not the destination, but the journey.

Gurudeva: We found out this, the tons and tons of cement that we have recently poured, without any cracks at all, is 18% crystal.

Loni: Wow!

Gurudeva: Been mined here on the island. We were really surprised at that.

Loni: Down on south shore.

Gurudeva: Yes, on the south shore.

Loni: That is wonderful. Speaking about crystals, you have a very special one here. Also, I know a lot of people come to Kauai to actually see this.

Gurudeva: Actually, it came to us on the day of the 'Harmonic Convergence', years and years ago and brought its own congregation from many countries to see it. It is seven hundred pounds, about three and a half feet tall, six-sided, a perfectly formed crystal. Probably the largest one in the world. We haven't seen a larger one. Nobody has told us there is a larger one. So, as of today, it is the largest. It is going to be the central icon in the new temple.

Loni: Now, people that may not be familiar with gem stones, crystals etc. It does play a special significance in Hinduism?

Gurudeva: Yes. This particular one is a wish-fulfilling crystal. You make a wish. The crystal amplifies the wish, takes it into the inner world, the devonic beings in the inner world help fulfill the wish. Of course, it has to be a good wish because, they don't do bad things.

Loni: Not on Kauai, that's for sure!

Gurudeva: Not on Kauai, or anywhere.

Loni: We won't allow that.

Gurudeva: We won't allow that.