Here is Bodhinatha in New Zealand. It won’t be long before the next Innersearch leaves for India. It’s going to be a great trip.

At home the Siddhidata Kulam of two, Sadhaka Adinatha and Sadhaka Tejadevanatha reported on their activities.

Sadhaka Adinatha explained about his 20 miles of Mahogony trees initiative. He’s not kidding. He has engineered the layout of 20 miles of plastic mulch through which Mahagony trees are being planted directly by seed. In the end there will be 10,000 trees growing! They will an endowment for the future monks.

Mrunal, Padmaja and Pooja Patel with Ceyonswami saying their farewell as they are about to leave for their home in Texas. This wonderful family has been coming daily to the Aadheenam and has truly made this a pilgrimage place.

Chatting with Palaniswami…

Arumugaswami and Silpi Kumar at the Kauai Farm Fair last night, Sadhaka Dandapani behind the camera.

This is one of Kauai’s biggest events of the year.

We are thinking we should enter one of our 50 pound Mauritius pumpkins in next year’s contest.

Many specialty fruits we don’t even know what they are.

Another report from our two swamis, who are now in Chennai, but today we bring you the next segment of photos from the Malaysia trip.

Here is Yoginathaswami speaking at the main Maha Mariamman temple in Ipoh on Monday night.

About 80 gathered for the talk there in a huge hall.

Standing with temple representatives

Group photo with representatives from the Malaysia Hindu Sangam Ipoh Branch at their office after dinner

Late Monday night we drove all the way back down to Kuala Lumpur. The next morning, we went to Batu Caves to worship Lord Murugan. They’ve done a wonderful job of renovating the temple recently. Each of the shrines is now clad with fresh polished granite tile on the inside, making them look like new. After visiting the temple, descending the steps and enjoying the giant Murugan statue out front, we went next door to the Divine Life Society ashram. Swami Guhabhaktananda, a long-time friend of Kauai Aadheenam, is the head of the ashram and the Society in Malaysia. As usual, he was in high spirits, and we had an animated conversation.

On Tuesday night we had satsang with Saiva Siddhanta Church members and Himalayan Academy students at Kulapati Gunasegaran’s home in Kepong.

Kulapati Dasan performed the pada puja for Bodhinatha, with Gunasegaran’s help. He did an excellent job.

Many members were there. To our surprise, they are quite the experts at chanting Bodhinatha’s 108 Sanskrit names! Anyone who has tried to chant these names knows how long and complex many of them are.

You can see the latex flowing from this tree into a little cup that is tied to the tree. When it is dry, it is really springy and stretchy. Feels and smells just like a latex medical glove! The little marks are a record of the tapping; white for a month, yellow for six months, red for a year.

Yoginathaswami and Senthilnathaswami spoke to the group about the mission in Malaysia. Everyone was so happy to see and talk to the two swamis from Kauai Aadheenam. It was like a big boost for them all for another… hopefully not too long… before some swamis come again to uplift, inspire and teach. The bonus of the night was that everyone had a chance to touch and put a little of their prana into a gold coin that is going to be placed in the avudaiyar (five-metal pitham, or base) for the big Crystal Lingam of Iraivan Temple. The two swamis will be attending the casting of a portion of the avudaiyar in India on August 26 evening.

On Wednesday, Kulapati Silvarajoo took us on a botanical outing. There is a strip of highway along which there are many nurseries. For our plant lovers at home and elsewhere, we took some photographs of some of the more special plants we saw.

This is one we think we may not have in Kauai.

Walking through these nurseries was just like walking through the Aadheenam. We felt so much at home.

Yoginathaswami liked these giant pots. They are quite high quality, and very inexpensive. We are considering purchasing some for our gardens at the Aadheenam.

This yellow lotus blossom has… hmm… I think there are 1,008 petals in there!

Here is a Buddha’s belly bamboo with very short segments, bulging out much, much more than the variety we have at the Aadheenam.

One of our stops was a shop specializing in water feature design, including all the pumps and filtration. Some really great ideas were stored away in our minds for future Aadheenam garden development.

Amongst a veritable sea of orchids, this tiny one with its rumpled petals caught our attention.

What on Earth is that?

Next, Silvarajoo took us across the street to the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia. This is a government research facility and plantation of 3,000 acres of rubber trees. It’s the largest single commodity institute of its kind in the world.

Silvarajoo works at the institute. His family has been involved in rubber for several generations. He took us up close and personal with a tree, showing us exactly how the bark is removed so that the latex flows in the optimum fashion, how not to break the cambian so as to not hurt the tree. He really knows a lot about this!

Kulapati Silvarajoo told us all about the rubber tapping process. This tree has been tapped for almost five years.

Gurudeva planted many seeds in his lifetime. Many of these were in the form of Ganesha murthies given out to communities here and there through the world to start their temple.

In Arizona, the temple society there has finally gotten their land and Chellappa Deva sends us these photos of their bhoomi puja.