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Here is Sadhaka Tyaganatha performing a puja three years ago at the point on the Iraivan Temple foundation where the temple sanctum has now risen up. The garland you see is the exact point over which the Maha Spatika Lingam will be placed. Sadhaka Tyaganatha is in Mauritius now where he just performed an inspiring Ganesha homa for the giant function held at the Spiritual Park there yesterday.
Meanwhile we want to thank the person who sent a $1,001.00 donation to the temple via our web interface! Very much needed and appreciated to help complete this grand edifice. You too can help in big and small ways. Get your 2003 all color wall calendars now before they run out and the proceeds will go to Iraivan.
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
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Everyone is extremely impressed in Mauritius with the crystal clarity, simplicity and practicality of Bodhinatha’s talks. Rajiv Malik said over the phone yesterday: “Swami’s talks are being very well received. Two thousand people were present and you could hear a pin drop as he spoke!”
Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami called in today and left the traditional “travel voice mail report.” saying that the mission was going well; Bodhinatha’s health and that of all the monks was great, and they will be shortly flying off back to Malaysia and Singapore and will see us in a few days at home.
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END OF PHASE NOTICE: This TAKA concludes our five day phase and will remain here until Sunday evening, September 15th.
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Cybertalk: Bodhinatha is preparing a talk for his trip to Mauritius on the topic of parents as the first guru of their children. He is also preparing a talk on God Siva for the people of Grand Bay in Mauritius, as he will be talking at a Siva temple there. He gives us highlights of these two talks here.
Cybertalk Ends”
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Tour day brought a diverse group of seekers and tourists along side a group of Yoga students who have come to Kauai with Larry Payne, a well-known yoga teacher in Southern California and now a leading author in the field of books on yoga for the mainstream public.
The ever fascinating discovery of sacred rudrakshas.
But the real action is in Mauritius and pictures have come through today that are from the story we put on TAKA yesterday.
Gurudeva’s spiritual center in the island country of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean near South Africa
Bodhinatha is received with honors and musicians and a pathway of flower petals on arrival at our Dharmasala in Riviere-du-Rempart, Mauritius.
Our eleven-acre spiritual park by the sea is a treasure. Don’t hesitate to put Mauritius on your travel map of the future. A land of beauty, of dharma and anbu (love) and kindren Hindu souls….
The traditional pada puja for the arriving holy man.
Bodhinatha goes within during the Ganesha Homa.
Our Pancha Mukha Ganapati Mandapam –Sacred Hall of the Five-Faced Ganapati — is a magnificent structure as is the giant murthi that adorns the center, carved in India and sent to Mauritius… another of Gurudeva visions to make a Spiritual Park there
The Mandapam held some 300 people and in the mango grove around it, 2,000 were counted present. Everyone said that Gurudeva’s vibration came through in a very powerful way.
Everyone sits back for cultural performances.
A sea of heads….
Our youth did an outstanding job helping and serving and putting on a great show.
Another view of the crowd. It is a lovely venue with the crystal clear remarkably brilliant blue Indian ocean off the north eastern shores of the island that is referred to as the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean.”
A good look at the structure or the Mandapam.
The State Bank provided this giant banner. It is a wonderful characteristic of the country that many large business institutions will generously contribute financing for Hindu events.
Our ladies serving in the Hinduism Today booth.
Himalayan Academy Bookshelf is well stocked with Dancing with Siva, Merging with Siva, Loving Ganesha, Positive Discipline books, Saivite Hindu Religion Course for children and brochures to promote a formal study via the Master Course.
We don’t have official captions for this photo set, but we suspect this is a volunteer at a cultural booth whose skills in the art of culinary decoration are amazing. Possibly this man is associated with our member Moogam Peratumbee who is a top chef in the country and has proved himself a master of hotel catering, organizing and education… which has led him to establish his own culinary institute.
These appear to be sculpted vegetables! Mauritius boasts some of the finest hotels in the entire world.
Our property is at an auspicious “sangam” where the river Rempart, passes by us on the south edge of the property to spill into the sea to the east. A virtually never ending constant wind blows in towards us over the property.
Female sharks will move up the river to bear their young in the less salty waters. And the vision that Gurudeva had here was of himself in the river being approached by a shark and Lord Ganesha standing on the land sending him a message to just rub the nose of the shark….
On our property we have some small ponds and fountains. Here we have a “model” shark in the water to remind us of Gurudeva’s vision. The children are feeding the small carp fish that live in the pond.
Our team of players getting ready for their drama presentation.
Young ladies give a Bharata Natyam presentation of various mudras
Hatha yoga demonstrations are always a favorite presentation.
A skit depicting a story from the Saivite Hindu Religion Children’s Course.
VIP’s from the government of Mauritius were on hand to offer their felicitations to Bodhinatha and congratulations to our Saiva Siddhanta Church members.
It was a joyous day for all and a demonstration of the strength and fulfillment of Gurudeva’s life and work in the hearts and lives of our sishya and their families and now, the next generation! Jai Gurudeva! Jai Bodhinatha! And, Jai to all the sishya in Mauritius! Pranams to you all from the monks at Kauai Aadheenam and the other members around the world for the great work you are doing.
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Date: July_27_2002
Title: Guru Purnima Talk on Karma Management Day 1 Part 1
Category: Karma
Duration: 8 min., 51 seconds
Date Given: July 18, 2002
Given by: Bodhinatha
Well, this morning we may be setting our Guinness Book of Records here for the most people in Kadavul Temple, at least in a long time! Usually, when we have our Homa ceremony to begin our week, and give our talk after our ceremony, we just have a few people here. But because the talk goes on the Internet, I always visualize everyone who is listening on the Internet around the world, which creates a large audience. Also, I speak to them. But this morning, there is enough of you here! I don’t need to do that. I will just focus on everyone here, it is a very large group.
We are talking on Karma, specifically Karma Management and as we talked about last night, we were comparing that to Stress Management. I will repeat that because a number of you present here this morning were not there last night.
The teachings of Hinduism are often secularized. Meaning, they are drawn on in situations that makes them look like they have nothing to do with Hinduism. The most popular example of that is, still, Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga is an integral part of Hinduism but somehow it has been separated and secularized. So, people are studying Hatha Yoga all throughout the Western world and they feel it has no connection at all with Hinduism. How in the world was that achieved? Kind of amazing! It has become much more popular. We have our own local barometer, which is Kapa’a town. Today as you drive through Kapa’a, which you will as part of your excursions, look around and you will see many, many signs advertising Yoga classes, big signs. There must be four or five different Yoga studios in Kapa’a. Something that, thirty years ago, was not there, of course, when we first moved to the island. It is a new phenomenon and Kapa’a reflects it. Of course, if you went into any of the Yoga studios there wouldn’t be any connection to Hinduism, right? This is Hatha Yoga, nothing to do with Hinduism. But of course it does, it is a Hindu practice. But it is used quite often these days in stress management.
That is why we are talking about it. It is an effective technique. It has become a technique for managing stress. A traditional Hindu practice, Hatha Yoga is taken out of its Hindu context, secularized and used to manage stress. No one thinks twice about it these days. Well of course they do, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with Hinduism!
So, today we are taking a similar approach to karma, Karma Management. Who knows? In the future, this might catch on! We could be starting a trend here today, so that institutes open up in Kapa’a thirty years from now, Karma Management Institutes. “Of course, it has nothing to do with Hinduism. No, Karma Management, has nothing at all to do with Hinduism. It is a secular technique that comes from somewOur ladies serving in the Hinduism Todas? We might be starting that trend.
Our idea is that these principles can be applied, of course by Hindus, but by anyone. Just like Hatha Yoga can benefit any one, so can the principles of Karma Management benefit our lives.
About two years ago, we gave a talk at the local Junior College on Hinduism. Professor Lydgate there, teaches a World History class and as part of it, every few years he has us drop in and explain Hinduism. So we asked about karma, explained about karma and asked for a definition of karma. One of the students said, “What goes around, comes around”, which is an accurate definition of karma, of course, and in the person’s own words which shows they understand the principle.
Karma has become very popular in Western movies and on television. You hear it mentioned all the time. It is mentioned in a correct way which is good. It is not misunderstood. It is clearly understood and becoming more and more a mainstream concept in the West.
However, understanding karma correctly is not the end goal. To draw an analogy to nutrition, someone can study nutrition in school and get A’s on all their tests, be an expert in nutrition and still eat junk food three times a day. Possible, right? Why would that be? Because they have not applied the knowledge that they have learned about nutrition to their daily life. It is just an intellectual subject that they can do well in.
Karma can be the same, in that, even though we understand the intricacies of karma perhaps we are not applying it to our daily life. Therefore, we are missing out on how it can really benefit us. Because if we don’t apply it, it is just one more intellectual subject that we understand correctly. But, its true benefit comes when we can apply it, change and improve our daily life.
We can look at the study of karma as a three-step process. The first step is alleviating any false concepts we have, correcting anything that we are not understanding correctly. There are a number of false concepts about karma and we will look at one of them this morning. Once we get past correcting the false concepts, we want to learn the correct intellectual concepts and again we will look at a few of those this morning. Then finally, we want to apply this knowledge to our life and change the way we interact with life, into a more wise approach. Taking this knowledge of karma, changing our life and living more wisely.
All of that can be summarized in one beautiful quote by Gurudeva. “It is easy to study the Law of Karma and to appreciate it philosophically. But to realize it, to apply it to everything that happens to you, to understand the workings of it as the day goes by, requires an ability to which you must awaken.” That means, it is not self evident. It is easy to miss applying it.
So, we want to think about that as we go through these ten principles of Effective Karma Management, which help us apply it in a systematic way.
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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.
