It is Sadhu Paksha, Day One… quiet at the Aadheenam. We bring you some photos take during the retreat…

Noni is a tropical fruit with some marvelous medicinal properties. The monastery is growing a few trees. The odd-looking fruits are placed into jars in the sun, and the juices that ooze out help keep us healthy.

A cactus called “frosted cookie.”

Bromeliads in a pot decorate the path the Iraivan Temple.

This is the “timelapse” angle. Whenever any new change happens, the monks take a photo from exactly this spot (there is a permanent shelf attached to a Rudraksha tree trunk to assure consistency. When the temple is complete, this series of hundreds of photos will provide a timelapse movie of the work. Seven years of progress will be seen in just a couple of minutes!

Here is Shanmugam Sthapati and three of the carvers walking back to their quarters for lunch.

Climbing down from the tower.

Siva as the Silent Guru watches from nearby.

A visitor brought an AUM bag into the publications building. SO of course Palaniswami captured it. He has collected sacred aums for decades and has made a CD with many hundreds of them, of every kind and shape and style imaginable.