This early morning marked our first short Guru puja to honor Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami’s 25th annual Mahasamadhi (Great Departure) period. The actual Mahasamadhi day, with the main puja conducted by Sivasri Kumar Gurukkal, will be on November 6th in line with Chitra nakshatra. The next issue of Hinduism Today magazine with also feature a article on Gurudeva’s life, in celebration of 100 years since his birth.
Here is a early morning upadesha from Gurudeva in 1998–
Preparation for Transition
Description: Gurudeva talks about karma and reincarnation, being greatful for both happiness and sadness. An invitation was received from the Ford Foundation to attend a conference on AIDS to present the Hindu view. Gurudeva discusses the Hindu view concerning knowledge of impending death as being a blessing a great reward. Vasana daha tantra is explained.
As Gurudeva loved to say when traveling, “Up, up and away!” This is the 17th year of our digital fund appeal. It begins November 1 and ends December 31. Like Wikipedia’s annual appeal, our Digital Dharma Drive provides the resources to publish our spiritual works in the year ahead, in an increasingly post-bookstore world.
Imagine this: One day in 1984, Gurudeva is driving through picturesque Kapaa Town on our small island of Kauai. He spots a new computer shop, the first on the island to offer Apple computers, and directs the monks to stop so we can go inside and see what’s up. What we discover will change our lives for decades to come.
Inside, Gurudeva is introduced to the first Macintosh, with its mind-bending 128K of memory, little monochrome screen and curious device called a mouse—all housed in sleek white packaging. We had never seen anything like it. With the boldness that characterized his entire life, he bought one on the spot, and we carried it out to the Jeep. After a week or two exploring MacPaint and MacWrite, he clearly saw how this little machine could empower his monks. Soon, he bought a Macintosh for each of us.
Fast forward to 1997, when the digital waves of the Internet washed ashore on Kauai. Gurudeva was all in. “Let’s start a daily journal!” he proclaimed. And just like that, Today at Kauai Aadheenam, affectionately known as TAKA, was born. One of the pioneering daily monastery journals on the Web, it has been a fixture of our online presence ever since. How’s that for keeping up with the times?
Now, nearly three decades later, another technological revolution is transforming our small publishing team’s work. In just the last three years, artificial intelligence has given us efficiencies we never imagined possible. We are still discovering ways to put this remarkable technology to work—creating short instructional videos, proofreading manuscripts, assisting with Sanskrit and Tamil translations and, perhaps most dramatically, producing artwork at a pace once unimaginable.
Not long ago, creating an illustration for one of our books was a months-long undertaking. We would conceive an idea, sketch it out with detailed descriptions, email our instructions to an artist in Tamil Nadu or Kerala, wait weeks for a preliminary rendering, suggest revisions and then wait another two months for the finished canvas to arrive—all at a cost of $400–500 per piece. Today, a digital image can be accomplished in less than a minute, at a cost of under a dollar! For our recent book Tayumanavar’s Songs to Siva, we created dozens of illustrations in just a few days. What an evolution!
Digital publishing has brought equally remarkable changes. Remember when printing a book meant a substantial investment up front, followed by the challenges of warehousing, shipping and managing unsold inventory? Today, print-on-demand technology allows us to make books available through Amazon without those initial printing costs. And our digital books, magazines and other resources can reach readers around the world almost instantly.
Of course, there is something timeless about holding a beautifully printed magazine or book. We still cherish that experience. But digital publishing has its own special advantages: searchable PDFs and ePubs, instructional videos, audio recordings and a growing library of Hindu resources available wherever an Internet connection can be found. Our Hinduism Today app, available for iOS and Android, puts the magazine into the hands of readers worldwide, free of charge.
Now imagine Gurudeva (1927–2001) seeing the fruits of today’s digital age. With a simple touch on a mobile device, his teachings reach seekers in every corner of the world, without costing readers a penny. His voice, recreated through AI, is heard as devotees explore his Trilogy while commuting, tending to their families or sitting quietly in their home shrines. He always loved high-tech, not as an end in itself, but as a powerful means of sharing timeless spiritual truths. Surely he would be delighted to see how the tools he first placed in his monks’ hands more than four decades ago have evolved, carrying his teachings to seekers around the globe. The technology has changed beyond anything we could have imagined in 1984. The mission has not.
With much aloha and warm greetings during the 2026 holiday season,
The Editors Kauai’s Hindu Monastery Himalayan Academy Publications
We’ve turned one of Satguru’s Publisher’s Editorial articles into a visual storytelling video using AI! We animated the images with AI and edited them into a video using Adobe Premier Pro and After Effects.
We adapted the article’s content into a visual narrative while staying true to its original meaning and message.
Check out the video, and feel free to share your feedback!
For the best viewing experience, watch it in 1080p!
Opening spread of the Insight on Raising Children.
Magazine in Moscow and Experimental Videocast
Two stories today about the magazine. The first is to share an experimental video podcast we made to see if it would be useful to present a summary of each issue in AI-created video. We would benefit from hearing how this plays for you. The 3-minute video can be played below.
Also, today we received the PDF of the 36th issue of Hinduism Today that the team in Moscow has published in the last ten years. It’s a small miracle that in the midst of all they are experiencing they can consistently translate, layout, print and distribute the magazine, keeping the international production values intact. Good job, everyone!
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.
“Japa is the prelude to rājayoga. Japa links Siddhānta with Vedānta through the repetition of the mantra Aum Namaḥ Śivāya—or Aum Śaravaṇabhava for the uninitiated. Those who are initiated into the sacred Pañchākshara, Aum Namaḥ Śivāya, have the advantage, because the repetition of this mantra will make them eventually see directly Śiva’s perfect universe, and they in themselves will become a blend of Vedānta and Siddhānta. The unitiated are in preparation, using the mantra Aum Śaravaṇabhava Aum, thus quieting their minds, realizing the all-pervasiveness of Śiva and seeing that the natural state of the mind—when all karmas are temporarily suspended—is Satchidānanda, is peace, is bliss. Therefore, japayoga is the prelude to rājayoga and all other forms of sādhana. “
It’s been a few weeks since we hired a team consisting of excavator, backhoe tractor and chainsawer to remove the many downed tree trunks and branches from the hurricane. Except for a few days break to complete another job, and weekends, they’ve continued to plow their way through the property, and seem to be close to completing what their equipment can reach. One of the highest priorities for cleanup was to get the water ditch flowing properly again, and that was completed over the last few days. Large piles of debris dot the property, where they will slowly decompose. The team is now doing the last major clearing, which is along the line of swamp mahogany trees where the sawmill and all the wood piles are.
