“Thou art not the elemental forces.
Thou art not the five senses
Nor the inner faculties of the mind.
Thou art Chit–Intelligence pure.
So said my Guru full of Love.
His utterance is full of sweetness.
Sankara Sankara Sambu.”

–St Tayumanavar. 1429

Congratulations to Kulapati and Kulamata Durvasa Alahan on their 30th wedding anniversary. Here they are at the temple after a blessing…

An interesting guest from California, Yogi Ramesh who teaches yoga in Hollywood. He describes his “Yoga of the Heart” to Sivakatirswami. He’s a married man spreading the yoga teachings in an unusual area of America.

Bill Peay and his work colleague, Deborah. Bill a long-time Kauai resident, has been a friend of the monastery for many years

The zoom lens on our camera takes amazing distance shots.. This is a very real look and feel for the river view from the monastery.

Our new “fish eye” lens..

We can do some interesting things with these wide angle shots…

The big excitement to day was the crane lift of the next course of the Chinna Gopuram.

Larry Conklin, crane operator, brought a young friend to experience the temple.

This is the last course before the gold-leafed dome is placed on the chinna gopuram…

This course forms the ceiling of the gopuram.

As Sadhaka Nilakantha pointed out.. this is a small milestone… Iraivan’s first ceiling stones.

“Down scope!”

OK, into position…

Easy… Yoginathaswami is always on hand and makes sure everything goes smoothly, overseeing and coordinating and translating into Tamil as needed.

… in place!

Next…

Unstrap…

Move him into place…

And, the final piece.

Easy… of course it will fit.. Sthapati has prefitted everything before hand on the foundation level.

Larry’s young friends never saw anything like this before!

Our ground team takes a moment while the crew above places the stone.

mmm. well, we thought it would fit, but it seems we have a two inch excess on this piece! what to do? bring in the skilled Sankaran who has to knock away the edge in short order.

This was amazing to watch… cleaving away the granite with clean precise strokes.

In no time at all the stone is almost ready to fit in place.

a look from the outside