Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami reads this chapter from his book Merging with Siva

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. Today is December 6, Sunday here on the beautiful Garden Island of Kauai.

We have a pilgrim here from Texas who has been listening to 'Today at Kauai Aadheenam' and 'Merging with Siva', the daily lessons. He is an engineer, a middle-aged gentleman, married. He said, "Here I am. I have come on pilgrimage. I was so inspired listening to you, Gurudeva, give these daily talks, reading 'Merging with Siva'. I could not help myself. I got on an airplane and am here for three days." Walking the beautiful lands, finding his inner self.

We are all here on Earth to find our inner self. We all know that there is enough of our outer selves. It is in abundance. Television, cement jungles, homes in disarray, contention, argument, deception. This does not occur within nature and our 51 acres here at Kauai Aadheenam is all nature. We live in a jungle. We are growing a jungle and in the jungle you can find no deception, you can find no argument. One tree does not argue with another tree. You can sense Siva's ever-present, all-pervading force in plants, animals, birds, here and there and everywhere. If you were to look and try to find a place where Siva isn't, it would be impossible.

Lots of wind and rain today. We had a beautiful fire puja to create the foundation of Iraivan Temple and each time we hold this ceremony, it rains.

Natyam Thondunatha is transferred to our Pillaiyar Kulam, which is the Kulam for raising funds and for a careful expenditure of those funds.

A very important day too, because Surya Kumar and Ford Graphics each sent $25,000 yesterday which is $50,000 in all, for the foundation of Iraivan Temple and we are half-way there in cash! A few more $25,000 checks and boom-dunk, the foundation of Iraivan Temple will be poured. A 3-foot slab about a 100 feet long and about 40 or 50 feet wide. Think of it. 100 cement trucks and it must be poured in one day.

I gave a talk this morning to the congregation about - don't go into lethargy in religious life and think God and the devas and the Gods are going to do everything for you, simply because you ask. You yourself have to put out energy. You yourself have to put out willpower to fulfill your destiny and then the Gods, the devas, the angels, the inner-plane beings and also outer-plane beings who are not thinking about themselves will turn their head around and seeing your efforts will help you on your way.

Many people pray for money. Money is a commodity. It is merchandise and then they sit back and wait for it to come, for their business to improve without doing anything to improve their business. How about that! The business fails and they wonder why the Gods have forsaken them. My goodness! A certain amount of reason, certain amount of common sense and intelligence tells us that we too are devas, we too are angels, maybe potential Gods, who knows! But, here we are at this particular stage in our evolution and we have to do our part with greater effort to make our dreams manifest and of course, we need a clear concept of our future and, to succeed, the six P's. Puja and prayer, a purpose, a plan, persistence and push. That is what, I said this morning, should have been there.

Well, today is another day we talk together in cyberspace and I am looking at you and you are looking at me. We are enjoying the feeling of darshan. We'll see you again tomorrow, which will be December 7.

A very wonderful day to you and a wonderful night! Have beautiful dreams. The next lesson I am reading for you from 'Merging with Siva', the next four or five lessons, are all on dreams. You will enjoy them. You will get to know yourself better, that secret self that you experience when no one is watching.