Taka Archives

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami was invited to attend the Montreal Murugan Temple Chariot Festival held in late August. The Montreal Murugan Temple was established in 1983 and was the first Saivite temple in the province of Quebec, Canada. The Chariot Festival was an elaborate event featuring several nadaswaram players and drummers, multiple priests, and thousands of devotees in attendance. The following four-hour video gives an up-close view of the sacred celebration.

https://www.youtube.com/live/rmExFDWicDM?si=Z-emPTZhRKs_oRyM

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Jai Ganesha!

This week, the monks of the Ganapati Kulam finished up a long term project to rebuild their office aquarium. With the help of Mayuresh, who was visiting for a few months, the monks built this custom aquarium stand out of rough koa wood, some tarnished copper panels and a giant bronze mandala (donated by Holly Young). It's a copy of the the same bronze chakra that resides on the back of Hanuman's neck at the rudraksha forest. The tank is made of five tempered glass panels, and the interior is filled with a papaya root-ball and plants from the previous aquarium.

The tank in its completed form

The Media Studio\

s older fish tank, which will now be repurposed for aquatic life elsewhere at the aadheenam'

The tank\

s stand all begins with local koa wood that we\'ve had around the wood shop for quite some time, waiting for the right project'

Assembly begins!

The bronze chakra with a backdrop of the oxidized copper

Amazing what you can do with enough care and patience

Off it goes to be installed

Next the aquarium is placed on top and the aquascaping begins. The sand and substrate is added, along with our papaya wood root-ball

A little later the plants and fish from the other aquarium are moved over to their new home

This tank can be viewed from three sides, so the aquascape has to be just right

Many little fish zip around in the 115 gallons of fresh water

They have their own little world

Aum Namah Sivaya

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Today while walking along the Path of the Saiva Satgurus we came across a bird sitting on the black granite murti of Satguru Yogaswami. It reminded us of a story he told that one day "I was in meditation under the Illupai tree and a bird came and sat on my head." The unspoken implication is that he was seated so unmovingly, drawn so far within, that the bird did not take him to be human, so rested on his head."

Silence, Summa Iru, was a major teaching of the Lion of Lanka. Yogaswami taught it often, urging seekers to quiet the mind more and more perfectly, a meditative exercise that proved a life-long sadhana for many.

When he established the upstairs meditation hall in the Sivathondu Nilayam, in the late 1930s, he had a sign installed with three short sentences that summarized his requirements for all those climbing the steps to the room. "All words are in silence. All doing is in silence. Everything is perfect within silence." He would nnot allow a single word to be uttered in that space.

Read more of this story by following this link to The Guru Chronicles chapter on Yogaswami. Click Here.

ChatGPT imagines the moment.

Today, August 22, a bird sits atop a meditating Yogaswami.

Yogaswami is unmoved by the intruder.

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Satguru is currently on a trip to visit Chicago, Montreal, Toronto and a couple places in eastern USA. This first set of photos shows some satsangs, home visits and home office blessings at a few homes of devotees in Chicago.

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Living on a small, remote, tropical island brings a greater potential for fluctuating power supply to our equipment. For more sensitive and expensive equipment it is important to have a backup battery that can immediately keep the equipment running if there is a brownout or other failure in the regular electric power supply. We spent part of this morning installing a new backup battery for our main Aadheenam data server called "Chola."

The first three photos show some of that process, and the other photos are a recent late afternoon in Iraivan Temple, and Iraivan Nandikeshwara after Pradosha Puja yesterday.

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Today is the first full day of our new season, the Jivana Ritau. Early this morning, monastics and members gathered in Kadavul Temple for a homa. Following the final arati they proceeded out the the Aadheenam's flagpole to fly the dvaja for the new season.

Excerpts from Saiva Dharma Shastras about the this time of year:
"Beginning with Hindu New Year in mid-April, three seasons of the year divide our activities into three great needs of humankind the learning of scripture in the first season, Nartana Ritau; the living of culture in the second season, Jivana Ritau; and the meditating on Siva in the third season, Moksha Ritau. Thus we are constantly reminded that our life is Siva's life and our path to Him is through study, sadhana and realization. In ritau one, we teach the philosophy; in ritau two, we teach the culture; and in ritau three, we teach meditation.

During Jivana Ritau, the rainy season, from mid-August to mid-December,Living with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Cultureis the primary text. The key word of this season is work. The colors are rust, copper-maroon and all shades of red rust for earthy preservation, copper-maroon for fulfillment and red for physical energy. The Aadheenam's flag pole flies the rust-colored dhvaja, symbolizing environmental care. Copper-maroon and all shades of red adorn our smaller flags. This is the season of honoring and showing appreciation for those in the vanaprastha ashrama, life's elder advisor stage. The focus is on preserving what has been created, manifesting goals and fulfilling plans made in the past. Inwardly the emphasis is on direct cognition and caring for the practical details of the external world. Practicality is a word much used this season."

The group raises the new flag

The day starts with a homa in Kadavul Temple. Paramacharya resides while Satguru is traveling

Next the group treks out to the monastery flag pole

The sun has only just risen

The flag from the previous season is lowered

The rust colored flag of the Jivana Ritau is then raised

Aum Namah Shivaya

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The 1,400-foot-long circular Path of the Saiva Satgurus has eight black granite murtis, each with a sign that speaks of the life, sayings and biography of that Satguru. The existing signs were printed some nine years back and have deteriorated some in the tropical climate and UV intensity of the tropics.

But technology has evolved, and we now have a high-tech printer in Honolulu who can print directly on aluminum sheets. The inks used are cured using UV light, which has the effect of baking the inks. They can also shape the signs with a CNC router. These signs will last for decades. We added a QR Code to each one that takes you directly to the page in The Guru Chronicles telling the full story of his life.

We put the eight signs out in the Media Studio today so the team could enjoy them all together before they go out into the gardens to be installed. Aum Namasivaya!

Gurudeva oversees the project.

One of the signs upclose.

All eight signs lined up on display.

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A few days ago was our monthly Gurudeva padapuja during chitra nakshatra. Enjoy some images, along with an upadesha Gurudeva gave in 1998 about listening to your soul.

Listen to Your Soul

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