Our phase began today with homa and Bodhinatha’s regular Sun One talk…

Aum Sivaya, Svaha!

Dr. Ramana Rao, his wife and daughter visited from London today. Accompanying them was Dr. Rao’s niece Deepika, and her daughter.

It was their first visit here and they heard about us from Dr. Rao’s brother, Narayanan, who was on the Europe Innersearch with Gurudeva.

The Hindu Temple of Orlando president, Mala Karkhanis, and devotees give Satguru a grand welcome, as he arrives in the limo with Sadhaka Haranandinatha.

Devotees chant the Guru Mantra as the Arathi is passed.

Bodhinatha is brought around to the homa tent, where as many as 10 different homa pits are going at the same time, all eager devotees offering their bhakti to the devas and Mahadevas.

All the devotees were invited to sit and offer their prana, energy, into the sacred fire.

Priests and devotees came from all over the USA to the Maha Kumbhabhishekam events.

Here is one of the Saiva priests from the Hindu Temple of Atlanta chanting the Vedic mantras.

Meanwhile here is Kailash Dhakshinamurti by the one of the booths we had set up that featured our informational Hindu literature for anyone who came by to read, sign up for and receive for free at home.

Kailash answering some enquiring minds. Several hundred non-Hindus came for part of the weekend event, part of a concerted effort by the temple to relate to the local community.

Meanwhile, Satguru Bodhinatha gives a beautiful talk on the importance and significance of temple worship inside the Chinmaya Centre mission on the temple grounds.

The devotees were full of questions and enquiries about temple worship.

Our carving village in Bangalore is a special place, really more of an ashram than a village. Just last week a European photographer documented the amazing craftsmanship there. Another, little-known side of it is Artha Enterprises. This is a business which our site manager’s two sons, Senthil and Thurai, have started. That’s Senthil on the right standing at the sanctum doorway at the consecration ceremony a few days ago.

As you know, they came with their parents to India from Malaysia over ten years ago, and they are now graduates building their own careers and about to be married, both on the same day.

Today we received from them photos of an uplifting project. They have just completed their first plaster temple for Jindal Steel Plant,some 400 km from Bangalore. It is common for large corporations in India to build temples for their thousands of workers. The entire temple from drawing, executing the work, statue, door frames, kodimaram and landscaping was done by Senthil and his team.

These are done simply, with plaster masons, but it is still beautiful and we are enormously proud of them for helping Iraivan all these years and now using their learned knowledge in such a fine way.

The Kumbhabhishekam was held on 16-6-2005. They did so well that twomoretemples are in progress and two additional confirmed orders for JainInternational College, Bangalore.