We continue with the quiet celebration of our Satguru Bodhinatha’s Jayanthi in advance here, with gift giving again at lunch. This is a special surprise from Sheela Venkatakrishnan who noted Bodhinatha wearing a bright orange outfit and that a vest to match would be perfect. Indeed it was!

Ravi Naidu and Chaital came on a visit on their first year wedding anniversary. Ravi had stayed at Yogaville and learned of Gurudeva there through Gurudeva’s relationship with Swami Satchidananda. So they made a point of coming to visit this year. They are students of Isha Yoga… a form of kriya yoga.

The monks gave Bodhinatha a special cabinet he has wanted for his otherwise very sparse personal living quarters.

He likes to put his bedding all away in the morning, so, his little room is completely “actinic” during the day.

And other gift from the monks….

Another bright vest!

And yet more…

This outfit is for the cold trips to Canada and the east coast during the fall and winter seasons. The pants and shirt have a thermal lining.

An elegant Siva Nataraja in our publications building inspires us to quote from Gurudeva today:

“Having walked the San Marga through the charya and kriya margas, and having disciplined mind and emotions, the shishya is ready for the fourth merger into Sivaness. This is accomplished through art, calligraphy, drawing divine forms, writing out scripture in one’s own hand and depicting through drama, by learning and playing music, by having all bodily currents move into the rhythm of the sounds of nature, for nature is nada in the external. It has its own choreography, and this merger is with Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. It is also the merger with knowledge of all kinds, of language and mathematics, of the many sciences and arts.”

Iraivan shown in the Sun today, and bathed in the rain. As Mark Twain once said while visiting the island on his way to India, “If you don’t like the weather on Kauai, just wait ten minutes.”

“The fifth merger is deeper: endeavoring to penetrate the intuitive world, communing with nature, encountering the many dreams, visions and other mystical experiences that await the seeker of Truth. It is merger with the selfless life, of seeing oneself in others, and others in oneself, of losing the barriers that divide one from another, and the internal world from the external world. It is living a harmonious life with a heart filled with love, trust and understanding for all, desiring to give rather than wanting only to receive. The light that lights each thought picture when traced to its source is the sixth merger — the yoga of detaching awareness from that which it is aware of and being the light that lights the thoughts, rather than claiming identity as being the thoughts, then tracing this light of the mind out of the mind into the beyond of the beyond. Yea, this is the sixth way we merge into the Divine. The Lord of the Dance emanates His own lighting effects, does His own choreography, creates His own music and enjoys, as the audience, His own performance.”

Visitors hosted by Sivanadiya Satya yesterday.

“The seventh merger is into the nada-nadi shakti, that unrelenting sound heard as an inexplainable “eee,” of a thousand vinas being played simultaneously by Vinadhara, another form of Lord Siva, the maker of sound, the composer of the symphony. The nada is traced to its source, deep within the within, the city of a thousand lights and sounds, for sound is light and light is sound in this sphere of Satchidananda, all-pervasive oneness with all form, the Self flowing through the mind, untouched by it, yet sustaining it in a mightily mysterious way.”

He regales them with tales of Gurudeva’s majestic life and with details of life here in the monastery.

“The eighth merger with Siva is ParaSiva. Becoming and being timeless, formless, spaceless is the total transformation of the soul body, the mental body, the astral body, the pranic body and the physical body. It is the breaking of seals which subsequently makes changes never to be repaired. A new, an entirely new, process begins. It is the ultimate healing of all karmas, the ultimate knowing of dharma.”