Blog Archives
Someone who meditates well also thinks well. He can flow through that thinking area of the mind and work out things through the thought processes. Someone who meditates has confidence in all departments of life. You can build that confidence. If you sit down to meditate, meditate! Don’t get side-tracked on anything else, no matter how attractive it may be. If the power builds within you, sit for a long time afterwards and let the energy absorb into the cells of your external body. Great energy is released from within. Don’t get up after your meditation and immediately run off to do something. Sit in silent stillness until that power subsides in a gradual and refined way.
— Gurudeva
Don’t Miss the Show! Join Us for the
Gala Cultural Iraivan Temple Benefit
Click for more Info…
Bothinatha arriving at the Spiritual Park for Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations… the 19th in Mauritius…
TRAVEL NEWS! Bodhinatha’s next travel is September 8-23: Malaysia, Singapore and Mauritius. See travel page for more information.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||
Click for most recent TAKA page with an Iraivan Temple progress update. |
|||||
Stepping back to finish up events of September 18th. …
The newly built Muruga Mandapam was inaugurated by HH Bodhinatha Veylanswami on Saturday 18th September. It was a memorable event for all those who attended. Despite the hot sun, the Mandapam was very cooling inside with the sea breeze blowing in.
The ceremony was short and simple. Devotees sang a few devotional songs to Lord Muruga and Bodhinatha was delighted to see that the Government was developing a waterfront a few meters from the Mandapam.
After the Muruga Mandapam opening, Bodhinatha had a meeting with those Mauritian students who have enrolled themselves with the Himalayan Academy to study through the Master Course.
It was an animated meeting when the students started to ask questions about the course and religious concepts therein. Bodhinatha is planning to focus more on teaching on his next visit to Mauritius.
Back to today’s event at the Spiritual Park. Today is Ganesha Chaturthi: Ganesha’s Birthday …. and a very large crowd is expected at the Ganesha Mandapam as from early morning… The members are already there to welcome the visitors. Everyone who comes worships at the little shrine at the entrance.
It is 9.00 am and an important guest is expected too. Here comes Bodhinatha…
Bodhinatha walked down to the Mandapam with the traditional musicians leading the way. …
At the steps of the Mandapam, everything is ready and the children are lined up with their basket of flowers.
When Bodhinatha arrives, the Satguru is being welcomed by a simple pada puja while the sounds of bells echo inside the Mandapam.
A special elaborated homa is conducted by a Sivacharya from India on this Ganesha Chaturthi celebration. Bodhinatha is invited to sit at the Homa. …more photos of this event in next TAKA.
Paramacharya Palaniswami and Sadhaka Dandapani
Mission to Mainland USA
Paramacharya Palaniswami and Sadhaka Dandapani spent two days in Arizona for Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations and one day with our members in California and are already on their way home…. we have a few photos from their trip that arrived just today… Sadhaka Dandapani writes:
~~~~~~~~~
This morning we toured a couple of nurseries and saw many exotic cactuses
and other unusual desert plants. Here is Paramacharya Palaniswami with
Chellappa Deva, a long time sishya of Gurudeva who lives in Arizona.
Sadhaka Dandapani stands in front of a giant cactus. Many of these big
cactuses are 30 to 40 years old.
We had a wonderful meeting this afternoon in the hotel with a few ardent
readers of Hinduism Today. They shared with us their love for Hinduism Today
and Gurudeva, and the impact Gurudeva has had on their lives.
Mr. Mahadevan, a lifetime subscriber to Hinduism Today, poses with
Palaniswami. Mr. Mahadevan reads Gurudeva’s Master Course daily and shared
with us his gratitude to Gurudeva for beginning a temple in Arizona. He had
many insightful questions to ask Palaniswami and all present enjoyed the
ensuing discussion.
Ashok and Sudha Chandrasekar joined us at the hotel this afternoon as well.
They last visited Kauai almost 14 years ago but have kept up with the progress at Kauai Aadheenam through TAKA and the monthly Iraivan newsletters. They shared with us that Gurudeva’s message to Hindus around the world to make the home shrine the most beautiful room in the house inspired them to do exactly that.
Chellappa Deva and his wife Banu Devi have been living in Arizona for quite a few years now. Long time devotees of Gurudeva, they were instrumental in getting the Maha Ganapati Temple of Arizona started. They cared for the two traveling monks from Kauai Aadheenam with much love and kindness. Thank you very much to you both!
Later that evening we attended an abhishekam, homa and puja at the temple.
After a 45 minute drive into the desert from our hotel we arrived at the Maha Ganapati Temple of Arizona. Besides the hills that could be see on the horizon there was nothing around for as far as the eye can see except sand and Ganesha. A very quiet and peaceful setting indeed.
Inside a small temporary structure sat one of the most beautiful Ganesha’s we have both ever seen. 4 feet tall and most elaborately decorated by the resident priest, Sri Visvanatha Sivachariar, Maha Ganapati has decided to make this another one of His homes.
The morning started off with a homa which was beautifully conducted by Sri Visvanatha Sivachariar with about 15 men chanting along with him.
Next came an elaborate abhishekam to the utsava murthi of Maha Ganapati which Sri Visvanatha Sivachariar invited Palaniswami to conduct.
While Ganesha was being decorated Palaniswami addressed the crowd sharing with them Gurudeva’s message of “Hinduism – the greatest religion in the world”, building temples and a few other topics. The beautifully decorated Ganesha was then paraded around the temple to the site on the new temple.
There was much joy, chanting and singing amongst the crowd as the young men carried Ganesha.
Ganesha makes his way to the new temple site for the Bhumi Puja ceremony.
Sri Visvanatha Sivachariar does a special puja to bless the site where the new traditional style temple will be erected. About 500 people attended this sacred ceremony.
A late afternoon flight and late night arrival in San Francisco and our team was up for satsang held this morning at Jothi and Deepa Param’s home.
Kulapati Easan Katir performs and arathi to Gurudeva.
Members and students singing Natchintanai.
Kartikeya and his sister, Venita, offered a beautiful instrumental piece to Gurudeva.
Casey Collins, a young man who lives in San Francisco, who has been reading
Gurudeva’s books for sometime now came to meet Palaniswami and share his
interest for monastic life.
Siva Markandu writes from Toronto
Jai Ganesha Vinayagaar Chathurti was celebrated as a grand festival in Toronto.
The local newspaper published a photo with Ceasar the elephant leading the chariot of Lord Ganesh around the temple.
Thousands of devotees attended the festival. The Lt.Governor of Ontario (Queen’s representative) was present and delivered a speech to all Lord Ganesh devotees.
The front page article appears in the Saturday’s edition of the Toronto Star. Swami, I couriered the prints as you requested but I am going to courier the Chaturthi photos to you.
What a feeling to wake up and see Kurukkal and Lord Ganesh in Canada’s main newspaper.
Pillaiyar powers at work.
Om NamaSivaya
Siva Markandu
No Audio Today
|
Take this opportunity for an adventure. Close your eyes and click to get a message picked at random from the vast audio archives of our Satgurus’ discourses |
And click here for an Index to All Past CyberTalks. Study Gurudeva’s teachings. Visit the Master Course site! |
| FULL INDEX OF 650+ CYBERTALKS
 |
|
Study Gurudeva’s teachings.
|
transcription begins
Date: February131999
Title: Mahasivaratri
Category: Festivals and Sacraments
Duration: 6 min., 5 seconds
Date Given: February 13, 1999
Given By: Gurudeva
Today at Kauai Aadheenam. It is February 13th. Happy Mahasivaratri to each and everyone! We are so happy today. It is a fast day here. That doesn’t mean the day is going to go by fast, it is going to go by very slowly because everybody will be up until after midnight. It means that we are not going to eat very much.
We have another group of Japanese devotees from Tokyo that just flew in. About fifty coming today to have an inspiring talk from me, answering all their many, many questions. This is the third group that has been here from Tokyo in the last three weeks. We’ll be very happy to see them.
We were talking yesterday about karma. There is a big confusion about fate and karma. Karma is not fate and fate is not karma. Fate is pre-destined action caused by something else. You have no control of it. It actually comes from the Abrahamic religions, not from Sanatana Dharma. Karma you do have control of. You actually do because dharma is the controlling element of karma. Right action, right speech, right thought controls karma. Even the worst kinds of karma that you have created in the past and are now facing in the future can be mitigated. That means, not actually eliminated, but eliminated enough so that they are gentle karmas rather than rough karmas as they could have been if they were not mitigated through prayaschitta, which is penance and through sadhana, which is performing a religious practice at the same time everyday.
Right action, that means doing kindly things, not mean things. Right speech, that means no back-biting. Right thought, no sexual fantasies, no mental arguments, no plans to hurt somebody behind their back or to their face. Because, what you think you might like to do to somebody else, you are doing that to yourself through somebody else at some future time. That is the way it works, and that is the way it works. Most importantly, daily sadhana harnesses the instinctive-intellectual mind and opens the door to superconsciousness. The key of proper sadhana is that, and you only have to remember one thing; one thing only. That it is performed at the same time. The exact time. No fudging. No telling yourself, “I can’t do my sadhana, it is six o’clock. I have to do it at seven.” It doesn’t work that way. The same time every day creates a habit pattern within the sub-conscious mind that is indelibly impressed there and that offers great control of the instinctive mind. Great control of the intellectual mind. Your instinctive mind and your intellectual mind are your tools of the soul to function on planet Earth and as you sleep at night on the astral plane.
If all of you in cyberspace who have been tuning in, in over 59 countries, if you are performing sadhana, and if you are performing sadhana now and again, here and there, at different times during the day, get it regulated so that it is a daily practice at the same time every day. Preferably in the early morning. I mean, you have nothing to do in the early morning. Get out of bed, take a bath, perform your sadhana. You’ve got the alarm clock to tell you to get out of bed. You’ve got your willpower to get out of that bed and take a bath and perform the sadhana. No excuses in the morning. Be sure that it is the same time every morning without fail. Now, if you don’t want to do sadhana on Saturday and Sunday and sleep in, that is alright. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, same time every day. We’ll talk more about this in our Cyberspace Ashram communications tomorrow.
Aum Namah Sivaya.
transcription ends
|
MORE UPLIFTING THINGS |
Color Trilogy Complete! We are happy to announce that the new edition of the enormously popular Dancing with Siva is now available in hard back with all new color artwork. It’s truly an amazing and beautiful work, with more art than any of the collection. This completes the fulfillment of the vision that Gurudeva had of his Master Course Trilogy being produced in full color. In addition, Bodhinatha is taking pro-active steps to bring Gurudeva’s teachings out in a new forms that can be broadly disseminated in the mass mind. With this in mind we, are also pleased to announce that the Dancing with Siva pocketbook is also available. Keep the three-pound book in your shrine room, and take the little one with you on the airplane or subway! How little? It’s just 3″ by 4.5″ — truly pocket-sized, and just over half an inch thick. Yet it is a full 375 pages, containing ALL of the 155 sutras. Available now at our online store. The complete Trilogy is being offered at a discount. |
|
|
View the fabulous full-color PDF’s of the latest edition of Island Temple Magazine, and order copies if you don’t have one. | |
|
1. SIGN OUR GUESTBOOK and receive a FREE GIFT |
||
| 2. Newest Book: DANCING WITH SIVA — Pocketbook | ||
|
3. Visiting KAUAI’S HINDU MONASTERY |
||
|
4. Contribute to THANK YOU, GURUDEVA FUND |
||
From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.
