It has been another busy day full of guests at the Aadheenam. Before we share guest photos we bring you:

Siddhidata Kulam Phasely News

Sadhaka Adinatha, the acting Talaivar while Yoginathaswami is in India, told his many activities.

• The team has completed installation of the water faucets inside the Ganesha and Muruga sanctums of Kadavul.
• The garden project of digging out several years of dirt that develops from mulching
• Some repairs of the copper OM plate on the shrine of Nepali Ganesha at the front entrance.
• Work was done on our hot water pressure washer which is used to clean all the Aadheenam walks.
• Inventory of all plumbing parts.
• Continuing the process of measuring all our buildings which will be entered into a CAD program to maintain diagrams for all the land and buildings. It will show all the water lines, electrical lines and more.

Sadhaka Nilakantha shared his news

• Weeding and roto-tiling our ginger and tumeric garden.
• The on-going work of managing our vegetable garden.
• Chicken control measures, which consist of catching them and transporting them to more appropriate locations.
• Huge citrus harvest… lots of oranges coming in at this time of year.

Sadhaka Tejadevanatha

• showed us his welding work that he has done on some new grates being placed at a water tunnel under the sidewalk near the entrance of the monastery. When he was on his “Sojourn in the World” he was trained in welding and this has been a valuable asset now in his service.
• He told us about the “special water” that the silpis need for their blacksmith work. It seems that the stream water when used to prepare the chisels make the tips soft, so every three days he takes a tank of tap water which the silpis say results in harder chisels. One of the mysteries of temple building.
• He also does a lot of the office work for the kulam, accounting, etc

Task forcer Tandavan has been helping in the garden and harvests food, cleaned all utility vehicles, some office work and more.

Ravi and Sheela Rahavendran with their children Aarti and Mayuresh are here on pilgrimage for a week from San Diego in Southern California.

As you can see from their smiles, they are very happy to be here.

They are following the Master Course Correspondence Study Level One and intend to become formal sishyas of Bodhinatha.

They have been participating in satsangs with our small group of sishyas and devotees in San Diego, including helping to organize the recent donor appreciate reception in San Diego in October.

This is Ravi.

Sheela

Aarti

And Mayuresh.

The family enjoyed a tour of the property.

The Koi fish are always a fascination for everyone.

Some belated photos from yesterday. Guests hosted by Brahmacharini Shama Kumaran, who writes:

It is delightful to see so many Hindu families visiting the Aadheenam during this vacation time. Today Neel and Nandini Sundararesan arrived from California with their 2-year-old son, Saahil.

Additionally three families arrived from Oahu for their first visit to the “Hindu Temple on Kauai.” Srinivasa and Shobha Nalla and their 27 month old baby, Abhiram. Also Kiran and Suneetha Edukulla and their two children, Ashrith 10 months and Shreya, 4 years of age. They were accompanied by family members from Hyderabad, India, Mahadev and Vijaya Meela with and Vijaya’s brother, Sanjay who is attending the University in South Virginia.

Bharat Thakkar and his wife Hina arrived with their family Ram, Milan and Ami, all from Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. D Patel from the Mainland also joined the group.

All six families attended the Siva puja in Kadavul Temple and were then given a tour of the Iraivan Temple. Everyone agreed that their pilgrimage to the Aadheenam was absolutely the highlight of their visit to Kauai. One family felt that the Iraivan Temple was better than any they had ever seen, even in India.

All six families in front of the Iraivan Temple sanctum. . .

In front of Dakshinamurthy

Kiran and Suneetha with their children in front of the Kartikeya Shanmukha deity under the sacred Banyan tree.

Shreya and Ashrith receiving the darshan of the deity.

Dharmaraj captures the mountain in the early hours of the day.

It’s the dead of winter on Kauai. As you can see, the tropical sky is crystal clear, and the air is a body-numbing 65 degrees (full disclosure requires us to admit that’s the low, and a balmy 80 degrees is the high today).

We visit the temple, entering from the river. This will be a staircase in the future, and will be the way the temple first reveals itself to future pilgrims.

We approach the Maha Mandapam, partially standing.

Handrailing stones.

This is the pillared gathering space.

There are 40 pillars in all, of three different designs.

Gurudeva watches from his world of light. This photo sits in the sanctum, letting all who visit know that Iraivan is the vision of our Gurudeva.

You may have seen the 6-minute video of this ornate sculpting that is going on, posted a few days back.

If not, it’s worth a look: go to this day on TAKA December 18, 2006/

This is Rajkumar, working on the”muttu” detailing. It means pearl in the Tamil language. He is carving hundreds of marble-sized spheres into the narrow face of one course. The team has about 50 feet of this to do and have completed 33 feet as of today.

That’s Sadhaka Haranandinatha with well-known western-born Vedic astrologer Bill Levacy. His popular book “Beneath a Vedic Sky” is probably the best introduction to Vedic astrology available. You can order from our eStore here.