Bodhinatha flew off from Honolulu this morning after some minor delays as China air waited for the typhoon in Taiwan to move along… as we write, he and Saravananathaswami have probably arrived and are preparing for a night’s rest before going on to Singapore.

END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming three-day retreat,
until Dvitiya Tithi, Sun One, Saturday, September 4th.

Of course we everything to our illustrious line of Gurus from Sri Lanka and back to India and back, back in time to the Himalayas…

Here is Siva Yogaswami who lives always in our hearts and minds. One of Gurudeva instructions to his devotees was to always learn and sing the songs of Siva Yogaswami. These songs, called Natchintanai, contain within them all the teachings of Saiva Siddhanta…

In fact, we are working on upgrading our Natchintanai booklets and if there is anyone who has a copy of Natchintanai, who would like to help by doing some data entry, please send a memo to studyhall@hindu.org

Being the last day of our phase, it was tour day… this visiting gentleman takes a try at stone carving. He really puts a firm hand to the task, which is exactly what it needs.

One of the silpis working on finishing ornamentation that crosses over a joint between two stones.

Our tour day visitors… for the first time in years, the entire tour group was caught in a Kauai shower blessing. Arriving at the Aadheenam, skies were bright and clear… then suddenly on the way out, it rained for 15 minutes… and everyone was drenched! But, it’s warm and fun and refreshing…

Checking out the Rudraksha trees next to the temple.

The thin fruit around the Rudraksha seed is astringent and slightly sweet, very unusual.

Later in the afternoon Sivakatirswami gives Brahmacharinis Shama Kumaran and Lila Shakti Devi, and Kulamata Isani Alahan an orientation to the transcription software that he has created to allow remote users to access our server, download talks from the GITA library (Gurudeva Inspired Talk Archives.

They will be joining our growing team of transcribers who are all working to bring the heritage of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami’s teachings, as-yet-unseen jewels “hidden” in sound files… forward for future generations.

Paramacharya Palaniswami is working on designs for Iraivan’s Namasivaya steps (into the main sanctum) which are carved in Bangalore and just waiting for the letters to be carved in.

For many years we have not had access to well designed Indian language font faces. But now, thanks to Mac OSX, we finally opened up our ISM-GIST CDCC package of ISCII fronts from India and found that we were able to load the Windows True type fonts without difficulty.

Of course the keyboard layout is different, but using glyph palettes we can pick and chose characters. There were 205 beautiful Tamil fonts in the package! Here is “Namasivaya” in several different Tamil fonts.

(If anyone can send us an ISCII Inscript Keyboard for the Mac, we could really use it. The “Indian Language Kit” that Apple used to sell, seems no longer available. Please write studyhall@hindu.orgif you have any information on where we can get this for OSX.

And for yet another look at innovations here… The monks have received some new software and are Beta testing it today. Click on this link to view a panorama… (Quicktime Required) This image is a panoramic 360 degree photo taken in front of the courtyard where the monks eat together each day at noon. You can click inside the image to pan and see the Wailua River below the monastery and the path leading to Iraivan Temple. It’s rough, but that’s what beta testing is all about. The Ganapati Kulam publications building is there, too, under the mango tree (just barely can see the roof and windows in all the foliage), where this photo was stitched this afternoon.