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This screen saver picture of Gurudeva was designed by Rakesh, one of Gurudeva’s devotees in Trinidad who helps with the computer work of Pundit Narendra and Ashwinee Ragoonanand in Trinidad who are great missionaries of dharma in that country and who have been distributing Hinduism Today and Gurudeva’s books there for many years.
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
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Bodhinatha sent news from Mauritius saying that all was going exceedlingly well there. After several days having private meetings with all the sishya of Saiva Siddhanta Church, the public events are underway at our Dharmasala. Here he arrives on the property. In the back is Rajiv Malik, our Hinduism Today correspondent from New Delhi who is on hand to do articles on Mauritius and also to get to see another side of Gurudeva’s mission first hand.
Cybertalk: Welcome to the Jivana Ritau! Why did Gurudeva give us the three ritau system? Because he liked variety, change, for everything not to just remain the same all the time. The focus of the Jivana Ritau is on putting the teachings into practice in our life, to become more cultured. Culture is refining and not expressing the crude tendencies of the instinctive mind.
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Att the Aadheenam today we were overjoyed to be visited by one of our long time friends from Chicago.. On the left, Dr. N. Janakiraman and his wife Vatsala who made a pilgrimage here with his brother (on the right) Dr. N. Radhakrishnan and his wife who are visiting from Chennai..
Dr. Janakiraman is a founding member of one of America’s great Hindu temples: the Sita Rama Temple in Aurora, Illinois. After reading TAKA take a trip to the temple web site to see how strong it is. Dr. Janakiraman was a guiding force in the early days and while on the board of directors kept in close touch with Gurudeva for guidance. At times when there seemed to be no way forward because the group could not come to a consensus, Dr. Janakiraman asked the group “Well, if we cannot come to an agreement among ourselves, then let me put this to you: will you all agree to do whatever Gurudeva tells us to do?” Everyone said yes. Gurudeva’s response to the group about what do to next was simple “Start the worship! I am sending you an image of Lord Ganesha…. when it arrives start pujas immediately, thereafter everything will work out..”
It just so happened that at that time (1982) Deva Seyon (in the middle) was living in New York having recently arrived back from India Innersearch where he had ordered a very large, four-foot tall granite image of Lord Ganesha. Of course after it arrived the Seyon’s kept it i their home, but it was “just too powerful!” And they asked Gurudeva what to do with it… and it was just a day or so after the Chicago community had asked their question to Gurudeva who asked the Seyons to pack up the murthi and send it to Chicago. Although the community felt they weren’t ready for it, they had already agreed to do whatever Gurudeva told them to do and so when Lord Ganesha arrived at the airport, he was opened up and received his arati, After that the temple grew from one success to another.
Dr. Janakiraman is now retired. his wife Vatsala is very active in temple matters and works with the education of young teenagers at the temple.
It was a gorgous day on Kauai. Third from the left in this photo with hat in hand is Emmaline Jordan. Emmaline is a Master Course student and has been attending the Meenakshi Temple in Texas. Today she fulfilled her long time dream to make a pilgrimage to Kauai Aadheenam. She is from Houston and traveling with her Houston friends, Sheyrl and George on the left.
The Janakiramans and Radhakrishnans meet with Sthapati at the temple site.
Back to us, taking pictures is Mahalingam and his wife Mina who were here yesterday for the Ganesha Chaturthi puja. They are friends of one of our long time temple donors R. V. Subramaniam. Mahalingam is a semi- retired professor of chemical engineering of Western Washington State Universtiy where he was part of a small hindu community in Pullman Washinton. He and Mina now live in Seattle.. They returned today and joined the families from Chicago to do what Gurudeva has recommended to everyone — hug a Rudraksha tree and let the tree heal your heart.
A visit to the San Marga Swayambhu Siva Lingam
Dr. Janakiraman has been in touch with our monastery for over 25 years and has been helpful at various times with different articles for Hinduism Today. Here he touches base with Paramacharya Palaniswami at our publications office.
At the temple site the silpis were involved in some very difficult work today, moving some long large stones in tight spaces way above the foundation. Here they are sliding the stone off the forks of the forklift onto large wooden beams. This was the last really long beam to be brought up for this course.
On the “farm and land” development side of life, we recently sold both our small John Deere tractor and our 26-year-old, 1976, Ford 3600.. In their place we purchased a single new tractor: a John Deer 5000 series, 52 horse-power, tractor with a four-in-one bucket with large front wheels and four-wheel drive. Today he gets his vehicle blessing.
Paramacharya Ceyonswami performs the puja.
The Siddhidata Kulam has the tractor decorated with holy ash marks and flowers.
The keys to the tractor are placed on the hood and arati is performed.
The puja tray with limes that are placed under the wheels of the vehicle.
Yoginathaswami drives over the limes and the blessing is over.
Our old tractors were not powerful enough to take care of the needs we now face on our 450 acres of land. it’s primary use will be the traditional one of pulling the large mower/shredder that we have used to mow our pastures for the past 30 years. And also to run the roto-tiller to prepare soil for planting. Four-wheel drive we will be able to go places that we were unable to before and the wide wheel base makes it much safer and more stable than the Bob Cat. Wtih 52 horse power under the hood this John Deere can also put the new 4-in-1 bucket to great use. It can serve as 1) a small bull dozer, 2) front-end loader 3) grapple 4) and scraper/cutter.
Gurudeva’s spiritual center in the island country of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean near South Africa
The banner at the entrance of the Spiritual Park at la Pointe, Rivi�re du Rempart welcomes Bodhinatha to the Park for the monthly Ganesha Homa usually held there on the first Sunday of every month.
Once Bodhinatha alighted from the car a host of devotees rushed forward to welcome Him and the monks. The weather was fine with the sun shining brightly in the tropical blue sky. A perfect day for a Guru/sishya spiritual meeting.
Bodhinatha is comfortably seated in the Ganesha Mandapam where majestically stands the beautiful black granite Pancha Mukha Ganapathi who is smilingly blessing all those present.
The Mardemootoo and Pallanee kutumba coordinated the Ganesha Homa on that Sunday. Here members of the two kutumbas are burning the notes of the devotees and making offerings while everyone is chanting mantras to Lord Ganapati.
Kulapati SK Moorghen coordinated the vratas and dikshas on that occasion. It was a busy day for all the membership and an event one would not forget so soon.
It was an opportunity for many to take vratas and receive dikshas on that day from the Satguru. Here Sivakumaren and Kavita Mardemootoo are receiving their Vishesha diksha from Bodhinatha. This diksha or initiation marks the sishya’s formal entrance into the Sri Subramuniya Rishi Gotra, and into confirmed membership into Saiva Siddhanta Church.
Here is one young lady, Niroshnee Peruman taking the Bhramachariya Vrata. A sacred cord is being tied round her waist by Bodhinatha.
Some devotees were happy to take took their vegetarian vratas like Adi Sankara and his wife.
Many young boys too took their Brahmachariya vrata on that day vowing to uphold chastity until marriage.
The main island MBC Television called at the Spiritual Park to interview Bodhinatha on parenting. This interview went into the main evening news item on the same day.
After the ceremony, Bodhinatha had lunch at the Dharmasala offered by Kulapati Periatumbee. Later on their way back to the bungalow accomodations in Grand Bay, Bodhinatha and the monks stopped at Kulapati Rajen Manick home for a brief visit. Here he is with Kulapati Rajen Manick and Kulamata Premila and their two children, son, Kartikeyen, and daughter Sivarathna.
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transcription begins
Date: July_08_2002
Title: Vows (Parampara) Part 3 of 4
Category: Hinduism and Tradition
Duration: 6 min., 50 seconds
Date Given: July 4, 2002
Given by: Bodhinatha
Parampara Vrata is very interesting and again we may not fully cognize all the depths of it. Of course we know it means studying Gurudeva’s teachings, not studying somebody else’s teachings. That is easy, Parampara Vrata. As it says, it is control of mental and philosophical ramifications, which is control of the intellect. Giving loyalties to a lineage. Precludes all extraneous training and requires closing off intellectual inroads to all other lineages, not reading their books, not taking their courses.
Gurudeva has a nice description of this. “This commitment is a total focus demanded of the sishya by the sishya himself, so that learning of one unique path may mature past intellectual states into completely experiential knowing.”
In thinking about this, I remembered a conversation I had with a Hindu doctor, a few months ago. A young Doctor from Canada, very interested in spiritual life and he was a bit disappointed with the way his profession was working out. It wasn’t all he envisioned it to be when he started Medical School in his younger days. It wasn’t as fulfilling as he thought it would be. One of the reasons was, the patients didn’t follow his advise. He would give very sound advise and they would not follow it and therefore they would not improve. Usually when you go to a doctor, you get advise like – eat less fatty foods, that is a common one, exercise more and take certain medicines. Of course, what usually happens? You usually don’t do it all. Well, you go at it a little bit. You cut back on the foods for a while. But exercise? That takes too much time, I don’t have time to exercise. Medications? Well, as soon as they run out you let them go, too much trouble to keep them in stock and take them at all.
So, after a few months you are not following what was suggested at all. You just gradually back off of it and of course, the medical problem does not improve. So you get concerned about the medical problem and you try another doctor and they give similar advise. Maybe a little bit different, different kinds of exercises, different kind of diet restrictions, different medications. You follow it for a while, slack off. A year later, the problem is still there. You go to a third doctor. This is what people do. Consequently, they are getting different advise but they are never fully applying it to their life and consequently, the problem is not solved.
This is like the spiritual path and it is very easy for people who are wanting to have a spiritual life, to do the same thing. They start studying these teachings with this Swami. It is going along just great. Really, really fascinating. There is all this new intellectual material they are learning and so forth. But then they are asked to do a few things and some of the things they are asked to do, they don’t like to do. So what do you do? Well, you start another study. You go over to another Swami over here, another set of intellectual teachings. You learn it, it is very fascinating. You get up to the point of having to do things you don’t want to do and again you don’t do them. Just like going to the doctor, you don’t do what you are supposed to do. Consequently, jumping around from study to study, without making full progress.
Gurudeva describes the New Age in that way. “They are committed to being non-committed!” I am sure we have all heard him speak to many New Age people in that way. Stop shopping around, choose a path and follow it. You can’t really make progress, if you just dabble here for a while, for a few years and then just over here and dabble there for a few years and go over there. You are not really going to make any spiritual progress. You are just entertaining the intellect. You are refusing to refrain the intellect from ramifying.
That is the essence of the Parampara Vrata, which harnesses the intellect. Of course, as the intellect is harnessed in his spiritual studies, it tends to ramify less in other areas as well. Just automatically carries over. We don’t jump around in other areas unnecessarily ramifying but are naturally focused more on what we should.
In thinking this through, I remembered the analogy with the doctor here. It reminded me of Markanduswami’s description of Yogaswami. Maybe some of you have had the privilege of hearing him. He even used the phrase, in describing Yogaswami. Of course, Markanduswami’s every word was talking about Yogaswami, that was his discipline. He would never talk about himself or anything else, as a matter of fact, the weather or whatever. “Yogaswami said this … Yogaswami did this.” He would put it in this phrase. He would say, “Yogaswami would give a different prescription to everyone who came to him.” Just like medical advise, we were talking about, different prescriptions. Specifically what Markanduswami said is, “He gave to each who came a different prescription. He could tell the difference between an M.A. and a kindergarten student. He gave to each according to the advancement.” Then he lists some of the prescriptions. “Realize the Self by yourself. See God everywhere. See everyone as God. Be like water on a lotus leaf. Do meditation. Do service to others.”
transcription ends
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Innersearch 2003-4 in India!
We just completed the July 17-23 Kauai Innersearch, 2002. Bodhinatha will lead the next Innersearch to India, between Dec 2003 and Jan 2004. We will visit Bangalore and the Iraivan Carving Village, and settle in the South in Tamil Nadu, Click on the above for details on what will be an inspiring journey to our holy land of Bharat! |
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From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.
