We begin Sun One today of a short 4-day phase. Bodhinatha was in bright form this morning.

At lunch he said that he calculated this year he would be traveling 120 days… 1 day out of 3 on the road in 2006!

Sadhaka Jivanandanatha performs the homa this morning to start our phase.

Many, many guests came this morning. Three Hindu families were among them.

The Subramanian and Lakshminarayanan families visited us today from New Jersey and New York.

They attend a temple in Albany run by Kumara Swamy Dikshitar who had conducted the 1985 kumbhabhishekam for our Kadavul Temple. He told them they must definitely visit us when coming to Hawaii so they finally did so today.

Someone has given Shanmugam, Six-Faced Murugan, a huge bright garland.

This B. R. Sharan and his wife from Mumbai. She was ecstatic saying: “We are from India, we worship Shiva. While I was fasting, on Monday as we normally do, we were in Los Angeles. When we told someone we were going to Kauai, on that day of worship of Siva I heard about your temple here… and now we are here. I feel it was God’s Grace who directed us.”

Mrs. Sharan is in the Mumbai fashion industry and Sharan is in the world of media and marketing in Mumbai. They offer to help in anyway they can. Sharan has a lot experience writing for publications so, we may find a place for him in our Hinduism Today work.

On our retreat days, the stewards meet to go thru a long agenda. One of these meetings each quarter Bodhinatha and the stewards meet with the Pillaiyar Kulam to review the progress and plans of Hindu Heritage Endowment. This picture was taken on the way to Hanalei.

When it was founded in 1994, Gurudeva set these meetings in Princeville on the Hanalei Bay. Only HHE meetings are held here, four times a year for the past 12 years.

There is a lovely hotel at the edge of the bay where we gather.

On May 12 Deva and Gayatri Rajan, visiting from California, were invited by Bodhinatha to join the meeting and learn how HHE is doing.

The meeting comprised three and a half hours of educational presentations about the many ways HHE is serving the Hindu community around the world, from orphanages to temples, from publications to monasteries.

An amazing rainbow heralded the beginning of the meeting. You could almost reach out and touch it.

Deva and Gayatri learned a lot, they said, and were a bit amazed at the level of detail it takes to manage the 65 funds of the Endowment, and its $8.1 million.

An it was Aubrey’s birthday yesterday. We bought a big Stone Ice Cream cake to celebrate.

Happy 19th birthday to Aubrey.

Over on Himalayan Acres this retreat Arumugaswami, Natarajnathaswami, Sadhaka Adinatha and Durvasa Alahan worked on the five-acre organic noni plantation we are developing. This picture shows a pipeline being laid along the top edge of the field. Behind the cameraman is a reservoir which will supply water via a pump. The noni, a medical Hawaiian plant, will be planted in plastic mulch with drip irrigation. On the right of the picture you see the year-old Honduran mahogany trees which were planted as an experiment. This valuable hardwood tree is doing very well, gaining four to eight feet its first year. Sadhaka Adinatha is preparing a three-acre planting of these trees also fed by this same pipeline.

We continue with photos from Bodhinatha’s recent trip to Texas. Sadhaka Tejadevanatha captions the photos.

Lord Muruga’s Vahana, the peacock, greets Bodhinatha at the Barsana Dham temple and gardens in Austin Texas, 1.5 hour drive from where Bodhinatha is staying in San Antonio

This peacock is following Bodhinatha to the Gopeshwar Mahadev Shrine.

Barsana Dham is quite vast with several guest quarters, ponds, gardens and shrines nestled through the 200 acres

Prem Sarovar pond

The main temple, Shree Raseshwari Rani Temple, is undergoing renovations

squash garden

This road leads to a small hill just behind the temple

As you can see the view is spectacular

Down below is Barsana Dham

The temple from an arial shot

Entrance to Barsana Dham

Bodhinatha taking in the beauty

a field of wild flowers

just breath taking

a small stream flows through the property

This is a peach orchard

Here is a large barn on the property.

More to come tomorrow.