Bodhinatha at Guru Purnima last June…

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TAKA Factoid:

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A: As many of you may have noticed, if you bookmark TAKA in your browser, you will book mark this specific day. For example, if you book mark today and use the book mark later you will return to November 7th. But, there is a solution! 😉

Enter the following in the URL box at the top of your browser “http://www.gurudeva.org/taka/” but, *do not* hit enter or return… Before you hit Enter or Return, drag this URL into your favorites. Now, this book mark will always take you to today’s, current page. The key is that the URL should end with “…/taka/” and have nothing more after that. If you know how, you can also edit any TAKA book mark and delete this last part: “past/2004/November/November_07_2004/.” “http://www.himalayanacademy.com/taka/” will also work.

The second day of Gurudeva’s Maha Samadhi Observances began with a homa.

Yogi Japendranatha is our homa priest today. We have a small group of devotees here from Canada, the mainland USA and Malaysia.

Bodhinatha give a wonderful talk today… his conclusion:

“In summary, our Maha Samadhi Observance will of course honor Gurudeva’s major achievements during his lifetime. But even more importantly it will focus on the ways that Gurudeva continues to live on. In our talk this morning we mentioned three:

First: that Gurudeva continues to live on by his influence from the inner planes.

Second: that his influence continues to live in the lives of all who continue to put into practice his teachings.

And third: that Gurudeva’s influence continues to live as the core mission activities he began influence the lives of thousands worldwide.

A final thought. Often I am asked by pilgrims about Gurudeva, many of whom mention that they feel his presence strongly. The comment I like to make is: “It always feels like Gurudeva is in the next room. “

Om Namasivaya — Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami

Everyone comes forward for vibhuti after the homa.

Potriyan Sivanathan moved from the Ganapati Kulam today into the Ekadanta Kulam, for his morning duties. Here he is helping Saravananathaswami sort out Master Course student worksheets. He is also helping out with TAKA photography during his stay and took all the following photographs.

We were blessed with sunshine today. It was as if the devas knew that an important lift of stones was going to happen and they took all the rain away.

We haven’t seen the clear top of Waialeale like this for several months!

Paramacharya Palaniswami begins a special project of video interviews of devotees who tell how Gurudeva influenced their lives. Here we have Mr. and Mrs. Senthivel. Mrs. Senthivel says that the one time Gurudeva talked to her completely transformed her there after.

Devotees were invited to watch the stone lift from a distance.

Here we are out at the temple site under the Rudraksha trees on the west side of the temple.

Today was a big life of six giant roof beams.

Tandu Sivanathan from Kauai and Toshadeva Guhan from California

The silpis have been working on the ends and surfaces of these beams for many weeks in preparation for the lift.

These beams form cross pieces from the main sanctum out to the pillars and from one pillar to the next.

Later on, another layer of stones will span these beams to completely cover the temple in one solid roof.

Another one coming in…

Our lead men, Shanmugam Sthapati and Sannyasin Yoginathaswami

The work moves steadily but slowly. These huge beams need to be perfectly in place and now, with the help of the crane, is the time for adjustments.

Moving stones around on the foundation …

Larry Conklin watches, happy to see his crane put to such a high-minded use.

Don’t hesitate to call him for your lifting needs. He is considered a top operator on Kauai.

It was a spectacular morning at Iraivan.

Final adjustments….

One more step forward for Iraivan.