Blog Archives

"Serve Him by praise, by the action of the hand, by touch and sight, by the power of the mind and soul, and such dedicated work will take you to the supreme goal of Siva"

"There is one thing that man implores of Siva, which is to serve Him unto aeons as His bondsman. This pledge of eternal service can only be fulfilled with His Grace, and so by ceaseless contemplation can Siva blossom in the hearts of the devotees."
No Audio Today

Be surprised!
Take this opportunity for an adventure.
Close your eyes and click to get a message
picked at random from Gurudeva's vast audio archives

One of Gurudeva's great teachings is the "Five Shaktis of Lord Ganesha" which manifest in successive circles of harmony starting from within the family.

1. Harmony in the Immediate Family,
   First we establish harmony in the home and then a deep power emerges...the yellow Shakti of Lord Ganesha.
2. Harmony Among Neighbours and Distant Relatives,
   Upon the foundation of harmony in the home we build harmony with our neigbours and distant relatives. and a second begins to emerge in our lives, Lord Ganesha's Blue Shakti.
3. Harmony, Honesty and Integrity in Business and Society
   With the foundation of harmony and love in the family we establish positive, honest harmonious relationships in all our business and social affairs, Lord Ganesha's third, Red Shakti begins to flow.
4. Inspiration, Creativity and Love of God, Arts, Religion
   On this foundation of harmony in our lives the fourth, Green Shakti of Lord Ganesha begins to flow and our hearts and minds are filled with creative and religious inspiration. Worship, the temple arts, music, dance, drama and all forms of higher creative and religious expression begin to flow.
5. Overflowing spirit of giving, service, philanthropy, generousity
   With the power of harmony, religion and creativity as a foundation the comes the Fifth Shakti, the Orange power of over flowing love of God, the desire to give whatever we can, in donations, in time, energy in selfless service.

These Five Shaktis of Lord Ganesha must be strong in our lives to proceed surely on the path of sadhana.

Then we can come to the Sixth Shakti of Lord Muruga. The Electric Actinic Light Blue power of spiritual aspiration, inner vision and dedication needed to undertake the sadhanas of purification, meditation and eventually God Realization.

Kulapati Shyamadeva Dandapani and Kulamata Peshanidevi Dandapani, Kauai residents who have been working joyously these past two weeks taking care of all the pilgrims coming to Kauai from around the world. On the right two innersearchers, Judie Cohen who just arrived from Sacramento, California and Ariel Lewin, from Atlanta, Georgia.

Here is Kulapati Deva Seyon who also lives on Kauai greets Satya Palani (left) at the temple. Satya is Sadhaka Jivanandanatha's father and has been on the island for sometime visiting the monastery.

This is Savitri Palani, Sadhaka Jivanandanatha's mother who is here also with her husband Satya, getting to spend some quality time with her son, and also taking time from their busy life in Califonia to contemplate the higher things of life. That's what pilgrimage is all about.

Vickneswaran Kandaswamy is originally from Malaysia. He is here from Illinois. He has been studying in the US and is staying on to get a solid background of work experience here before taking his next step in life. He has known Gurudeva most of his life since he was a young boy.

One of our pilgrims, Dr. Sunder, was very generous to take all of our pilgrims out for lunch yesterday. The feeding the devotees of the Lord is a great honor.

On the far left is Kulapati Murugesu Kandasamy from Malaysia. On the right with beard is Kulapati Kantharaja all the way from Germany and just behind him, Erasenthiran from UK, along with a number of devotees from mainland USA and Canada.

Satsang with others of like mind and spirit is one of the great gifts of spiritual life.

Study Gurudeva's teachings. Visit the Master Course site!

transcription begins

Date: October_22_1998
Topic: Accept a Better Life
Category:
Duration:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. October 22, on the beautiful Garden Island of Kauai. (And,) I am seeing you and you are seeing me; we are together.

Today we had a 'Talaivar Meeting'. What is a 'talaivar'? It is the coordinator of a 'kulam', the chairperson, of one of our five schools. All of the five 'talaivars' meet, once a phase or once a week, with each of the other four. These schools are remarkable schools preparing a young man who comes here, for either married life or monastic life. He spends 6 months, sent by families of our Church members from all over the world. They are almost always born in Saiva Siddhanta Church. How does that happen? Well, in 1999, we are celebrating our 50th year. That means, we have three generations and are moving on to the fourth.

The young man goes through each of the kulams for one month or more. First, he goes through the Lambodara Kulam. That is the school that takes care of milk and milk preparation, the cows, raising funds for building Iraivan Temple with the goal of 50000 a month, cooking, feeding everyone, doing all of the pujas and training newcomers in Sanskrit chanting, proper pronunciation and so forth.

The next school is the Ekadanta Kulam. It manages all of the Church and Himalayan Academy, preparation for becoming a member of Saiva Siddhanta Church, maintenance of members, emergency maintenance, and ongoing activity such as festivals. We have two large festivals a year, one in July and one in January and several small ones throughout the year.

The Pillaiyar Kulam is another school that manages all the finance, subscriptions for 'Hinduism Today', selling books, and all the business and purchasing.

The next kulam is the Ganapathy Kulam. It is a very intense school, creates 'Hinduism Today'. It edits and puts together all of our major publications. Big room, filled with computers.

The last school is the Siddhidatha Kulam, which handles the gardens and grounds and hiring of workmen, planning building projects and will be managing Iraivan Temple, when it is finally, stone by stone, put into place. We will be having workers come from Tamilnadu and Bangalore, Karnataka state, India, to live with us for a few years to finish up this beautiful half-crystal temple. You might know that crystal is half of what granite is or granite is half-crystal.

So, this one big family lives in an unthreatening environment. Every room, every office is just like a big comfortable home. Young people grow up and go through these 5 schools and are ready to enter family life, knowing how to run a budget for their home, knowing how to perform proper puja and ceremony with the right pronunciation of Sanskrit chanting, how to cook and take care of animals and also many, many other things.

Also today, our Sannyasin Arumugaswami has sorted out all the books in our library to make room for more, because books are being sent to us daily, from readers of 'Hinduism Today', and we give all the books that we do not use or cannot use to the local Community College, as a gift from our institution to theirs.

On the Island of Kauai, there are two large institutions. One is Kauai Aadheenam and the other is the Naval Base, which we visited recently. Our beautiful Garden Island has got these two institutions; should get together and get to know each other. So, we had an appointment arranged with the Commander of the Naval Base. We found out that they have about 25 or 30 permanent people there and employ about a hundred more. Well, we have 25 or 30 permanent people here at Kauai Aadheenam and we have full-time employees of a hundred more. Only difference is, our employees are in India and other parts of the world. We made a partnership between us and the Naval Base to work on video-conferencing together. So, perhaps soon, we will be able to look at you and talk to you and you will be able to look at us and talk to us. When some big event happens some place in the world, that video-conferencing is a better answer than travelling.

Today, we are going to talk about suicide.

Have you ever wanted to kill yourselves and get over a big problem, in a quick way? Probably so. Most people have but that is no solution. Let's look into the life of someone who put a gun in their mouth and pulled the trigger, and shot off their head. Sounds gruesome, happens everyday. The children, Hindu children, fearing being beaten by their parents for failing an exam, often on their way home to their parents, stop off at the local { } shop and buy a bottle of { } and drink it down and die.

This happens all the time. Beating in Hindu homes is sort of a way of life, as it is in homes of other religions. We are running a campaign to stop that. A successful campaign. If you would like literature that we have, on raising children with love, write to us and we will send it to you. No charge.

Back to the subject. Anyone who commits suicide, is taking the responsibility of all the karma that he is to go through in this life, into his own hands. On the other side, he finds himself in the limbo state. The karma is being lived out within his own mind, without other people around him. Sort of like what it would be, if he were in solitary confinement. Then, guess what happens? When he reaches the time of his natural death, he reincarnates into a new body and goes, picks up the karma that he would have gone through at a certain stage in his life, like around puberty time and begins to live through that karma all over again. So, we can see there is no escape.

Suicide is not the answer. You don't get out of anything. You get into something much more. Now, you don't have to take my words for it. Ask others. This is general knowledge in the mystical, occult community.

Now, how do mystical people know these things? They can be in their physical body, and in their astral body. They can go and see what is happening to those people who committed suicide, where they are in consciousness, what they are thinking. Those people are at one of the bardos, or shall we say, solitary confinement within themselves in the astral plane, that they put themselves in, when they drink that { } or when they put a gun in their mouth and shot their head off. Sounds gruesome, but it happens everyday.

So, suicide is not an answer, not a solution. It is the creation of more problems. What is the answer? What is the solution? The answer is - change the way of thinking. Tell yourself that problems are good. It is good to have a problem. It is good to deal with a problem. It is not bad to feel bad. It is not the end of the world to be distressed, to be unhappy, to have all kinds of negative thoughts against others of the community. These are all no reasons for taking one's own life, because you do not take your own life. You give yourself a worse life on the other side in the astral world, before you reincarnate again and live out the karmas again.

Therefore, bear your karma cheerfully. Carry your karma. Carry your experiential patterns - good, bad and mixed - with a little smile on your face and seek good company. Be with people who are positive. Join a group and share your problems with your group. There are many groups right here on this island that you can join.

Now, I don't know who I am talking to. But, I see a few faces out there, that look like they have a veil over them. I can't quite see them. I only see noses poking out, and a chin or two. I know you are unhappy. I know you are distressed. Find a group that you can talk to. Tell them your problems. Hearing yourself speak out your problems will most probably, make it look a little bit smaller because most of the group will have worse problems and yours will look pretty tiny to you.

Bear your karma cheerfully. Carry your burdens, even if they have you down on your knees, and all the forces of the Universe will come and help you. Don't give up.

How is that for a wonderful talk! You can tape this talk. Put it on tape recorder and play it to friends, who are in distress and are getting just a little bit suicidal.

Well, I will be seeing you in our familiar place and we will be talking about something else tomorrow. There is a lot to talk about, when you talk to those who visit Kauai Aadheenam, our Cyberspace Ashram, from Italy and India and Sri Lanka and all the European countries -the list goes on and on and on. We have a little index in our computer, which lists all those who enter the Ashram, from the countries and the cities that they live in.
transcription ends

MORE UPLIFTING THINGS		Innersearch postponed Due to the horrific tragedies of September 11th, Himalayan Academy has indefinitely postponed the Canadian Innersearch scheduled to leave next July. Please be assured, we will re-schedule the Innersearch, but only when the present insecurity around the world settles down. Until then, if you are planning to go on a future Innersearch program with Gurudeva, continue to set aside a little income each month in a special fund. www.innersearch.org
	Check our children and youth section for new items for the young and young at heart!
1. SIGN OUR GUESTBOOK and receive a FREE GIFT
2. Newest Book: HOW TO BECOME A HINDU
3. Visiting KAUAI'S HINDU MONASTERY
4. Contribute to the THANK YOU, GURUDEVA FUND