Gokul and Priyanka Shanbag from Michigan were among our guests today. They are here for 9 days and plan to come up everyday they said. They were very much impressed by Lord Siva’s island home. After the tour they had a nice meeting with Bodhinatha. You will be seeing more of them in the coming days on TAKA.

END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming two-day retreat,
until Sun 1, Dasami Tithi, Monday, December 20th.

Priyanka rises daily at 4 am for one hour meditation, followed by two hours of hatha yoga. During the day she teaches Hatha Yoga.

Bodhinatha said it was rare to have such inwardly oriented pilgrims and he explained to them the meaning of some of the Shum portraits on the walls of the Guru Peedam..

Meanwhile the holiday season has arrived, it was a clear day and we can visualize, looking out over Waialeale today, the hundreds of pilgrims who are in the air, winging their way to Kauai as we speak.

Today was tour day and Sadhaka Dandapani thinks it was “the biggest ever” with over 80 people coming…

Chipping the stones of Iraivan is a big hit for everyone, especially these youngsters.

The temple looks quite awesome with the big new pillars in front.

Hug a rudraksha tree and let the tree heal your heart.

From all walks of life…

and, as expected, aside from he weekly tourist the December season of Hindu family pilgrims is here…

Today two wonderful Hindu families attended the 9am Siva puja and then we showed them out to Iraivan Temple afterwards. They are Upendran, Radhika and Archana Rajan family from Calgary, Canada. And the Subhash and Manju Mittal family from New Jersey, USA.

The Rajan family is part of a small community that received a Ganesha murthi from Gurudeva a few years ago as a first step toward building their own temple. Since then, the murthi has passed from family to family, being worshipped in their homes. Just recently the community finally purchased 50 acres of land and plans to build at least two temples on the land to accommodate the South Indian and Bengali communities.

The Rajans picked up back issues of Hinduism Today, copies of our popular 10 Questions about Hinduism pamphlet and other literature to take back and distribute in Calgary. It’s a small world. Manju Mittal turns out to be the cousin of Mr. Sunil Modi, the man who brings Swami Buaji to Kauai Aadheenam each year for Guru Purnima.

Both families really enjoyed Iraivan Temple, trying their hand at carving some stone..

Careful, don’t hit your fingers!

… then hugging our rudraksha trees to release their cares into the tree, visiting our Umbrella Ganesha…

Dakshinamurthi pradakshina (circumambulation)

Subhash (center) is an avid student of Gurudeva’s Master Course lessons. He’s been studying them for a few years and was proud to say that he has all 365 email lessons. He personally likes Merging with Siva the most because it is the most profound. He also buys extra copies of Dancing with Siva to give to friends as gifts.

Then we took them to perform their own abhishekam to our Narmada Sivalingam

Om Nama Sivaya!

Tomorrow, Bodhinatha, Sannyasin Yoginathaswami and Yogi Japendranatha depart for Honolulu, will be there overnight, then one night in Taipei and then arriving in Malaysia for a 6 day Himalayan Academy Study Retreat, entitled “Gurudeva’s Essential Teachings”

This is the image on the cover of the study materials packet.

The packet includes recent educational materials we have printed… “Visiting a Hindu Temple” “Karma Management” and more materials specific to the program: The Three Phases of Mind, Letters from Lord Ganesha, The Twenty Seven Chakras.

Yogi worked really hard getting all the materials together on time and the 85 participants who have signed up can look forward to a rich program.