Bodhinatha presents Sthapati R. Selvanathan with a certificate in recognition of the work he is doing for Iraivan Temple.

This is Selvanathan’s last day at the Aadheenam. He has set up the work to keep our silpis busy for the next 10 months.

Pilgrim couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jai and Chandra Seecharran originally from Guyana, now living in Arizona, also met with Bodhinatha this morning.

A tireless sevak, Seecharran has been instrumental in getting temples started formerly Iowa and now in Arizona.

The Seecharran’s are also strong supporters of our educational literature program and work closely with Sadhaka Jothinatha to distribute Himalayan Academy Publications at special events.

Jai says, “These booklets are transforming some peoples lives. It’s really rewarding work to help make them available.”

After some weeks of being left outside to be refreshed by the sunshine and tropical rains, sitting by our stream, the green volcanic stone gifted by a 94-year old Choktaw medicine women is now resting inside Kadavul temple in front of the Maha Sphatika Lingam.

We take a short trip across the Wailua River to our 400 acres we refer to as “Himalayan Acres” or the “Kalepa” land.

To get there one has to cross this ford, which may be awash when the river is high, but if the water is not too high, you just drive through.

We have recently planted about 800 noni trees. The new orchard is protected from wild boar with an electric fence.

The new plants are doing very well.

The decision to expand our Noni orchards was made after three years of observing a small planting of about 40 trees that have done extremely well.

Some of the fruits on these more mature trees are gigantic!

If our future acreage of 800 tree produces like this, we will have 1000’s of pounds of fresh noni.

Our new plantation is being managed according to strict organic standards. A local distributor and processor of noni products has successfully opened up distribution channels in over 100 outlets on the mainland and says he can use all the organically grown noni that we can possibly grow! Here are healthy flowers that will soon be big fat fruits.

We are learning a lot about what it is like for farmers who want to work with nature but must also deal with the challenges of nature. One major challenge here in Hawaii, is Guinea Grass, a tall, aggressive, very tough grass that takes over large areas and has stems as thick as your fingers and hard as bamboo. Since we are “going organic” on this section of the land, we do not use any herbicides… The grass must be managed by mowing, weed-wackers and hand weeding.

It was tour day today. This family from California brought their aged grandmother. She was so surprised to find such a sacred place in the middle of the Pacific, far away, just like her mother land of Tamil Nadu, India.

We had about 40 forms of Lord Siva join us on each of the two tours this morning.

One man said he had been to sacred places all over the world, the pyramids, Cambodia, India, and he felt the spiritual power of Kauai Aadheenam and Iraivan were at the top of the list!