Bodhinatha arrived home at the Aadheenam from Michigan late this afternoon. We’ll post photos of his arrival on Sun 1. Our India team has two more days in Chennai and will then be off to Mauritius. Palaniswami sends us another slideshow from the Bangalore segment of their journey, show casing their visit with Sri-la-Sri Balagangadharanathaswami who has been instrumental through the years in supporting the Iraivan carving site in India.

More news on Sun One of next phase.

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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 Dvitya Tithi, Sun One, Friday, May 4th.

Today was Chitra, and the monks performed the traditional pada puja honoring our beloved Gurudeva. Sadhaka Tejadevanatha and Sadhaka Satyanatha were the pujaris.

We have a nice treat for our TAKA readers today. Inspired by Google Earth and a new feature available in Photoshop CS3, our monks implemented a navigation system for our photos that can take you closer to Iraivan or to Gurudeva’s tiruvadi. Click on each of these links to go to the photos. Zoom in using the controls under the photo, and wait a little to see the image become clearer. You can also just click and hold down on the zoomed photo and then drag to scroll it around.

Iraivan Temple

Siva as Dakshinamurti

The pillars of Iraivan

A current view from Iraivan’s entrance

Gurudeva’s tiruvadi today after the pada puja

Bart and Anne Walton who live on Kauai come often to worship at Kadavul. They are devotees of Ramana Maharishi and the Ramana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai.

Senta Karuppiah arrived for the morning puja with his wife Umaa and 4 yr old son, Praveen. Senta is a longtime subscriber to our international magazine, Hinduism Today. Originally from Chennai, they now live in Fremont, CA.

Senta and Umaa enjoyed their first visit to the Aadheenam as little Praveen carefully investigated the Iraivan Temple, examining every nook and cranny, and communicated in Tamil with the silpis.

Down came the rain as one last photo was taken under a tented area. This will be the site of a 16 pillared building which will house the Kodimaram and Nandi

Carmel Hawn is a certified Apple service technician and handles the Aadheenam’s computer warranty servicing, making sure everything is working, coming to the rescue in rare emergencies and generally helping make sure all our machines are up and running. Thank you, Carmel!

She came for a last minute tour prior to returning to visit her parents on the mainland.

Carmel framed by the entrance pillars of the temple.

For more information visit the 2008 Innersearch travel-study program page.