Mary Beth Harnett, from Ohio, arrived on Kauai yesterday and made Kauai Aadheenam her first destination. She enjoyed the tour of the grounds and seeing the progress on Iraivan. She also had a wonderful meeting with Bodhinatha.

Today was the Chitra Pada Puja…

Sadhaka Nilakantha is the pujari, assisted by Yogi Japendranatha.

There was complete silence the later part of the puja when the Sri Rudram chanting finished…

“This, our Land where loving devotees sing his praise,
This, our Land where Lord Siva is pleased to take his abode,
This, our land stands revealed in its fullest stature
By our Guru, who melts us all in the web of his Love.”

–Siva Yogaswami

“Know the Self and be wise,
yea, by the light of wisdom, be ye wise.
In the undifferentiated plenum, behold
The Supreme Brahman in thyself and myself.”

Siva Yogaswami

Final Arati… Jai Gurudeva!

Mary Beth (right) was one of the 2004 Indian Odyssey Innersearch participants and here she is with her friend from Australia, fellow Innersearcher, Ganga Sivanathan.

Ganga is a registered Master Course student of Himalayan Academy and Mary Beth reads the lessons by email. Today they get a chance to meet Saravananathaswami who handles communications with students.

Being the last day of the phase, we had a good crowd of guests. Here one man takes his turn carving a spare stone.

About forty guests today braved very wet weather…

Our monks are learning the new camera. Also we put on Ganga’s macro lens for some close ups… We have picked the best from all the “practice” photography and will let you view the following without caption and simply enjoy the beauty of Kauai Aadheenam.

We are off for a two-day retreat. See you all again on February 3rd!