Here is Bodhinatha arriving at the airport in Malaysia, being showered with flower by the devotees..

At the Aadheenam today, the monks have been out cleaning all day. The rains stopped finally, and we had a lovely moon, stars and a bit of sun today. Much work going on to clean up from the storm and flooding and of course each monk working on his area. We don’t have servants here, so each one does his chores, cleaning the bathrooms, taking care of laundry, fixing and repairing, and washing away the mud.

Paramacharya Palaniswami put together this striking retrospective series on Gurudeva’s visit to New York to be present at the United Nations millennium gather of religious leaders. We are leaving some of these photos in wide format today.

Today we received two portraits of Gurudeva never seen by anyone, including us. They were taken by a photographer who was at the United Nations in August of 2000 when Gurudeva was invited to represent Hinduism. The photographer was capturing the spiritual leaders for a book on peacemakers. Of course, he was enamored by Gurudeva’s remarkable presence. He sent the photos as a gift to the monastery.

Gurudeva joined the unique event, called the United Nations Millennium Peace Summit, along with religious leaders from all the world’s major faiths. For the first time in history religious leaders spoke in the Security Council chambers. This photo has dozens of swamis in orange robes in it. Gurudeva is on the right, toward the front.

Here he is with Dr. Sharma, a leader of the temple council in London.

Gurudeva was invited to speak to the 1,200 religious leaders, and gave a wonderful talk on “For World Peace: Stop the War in the Home.”

He was given the UThant Peace Award for 2000, and he is holding it here in front of the UN building.

A reception was held for him in New Jersey and many came to congratulate Gurudeva on his award.

He also gave a book presentation at Borders.

He loved to present his books to people, to introduce them to the mystical path, to the divinity within them. Introducing them to themselves, he would say. He did it again in Memphis on his way home.

There was a pada puja in Lancaster, California, at the Sunder family home.

All the Sri Lankan community came to congratulate him.

Gurudeva told everyone about the UN Summit. And about Siva.

So, we thank our photographer for these two portraits, something we will treasure forever.