Sun Three and it’s ashram sadhana day at the Aadheenam…. all monks out about about cleaning and working on upgrades here and there.

Stepping back to yesterday. It was tour day and we had over 160 people! The first tour had 100 or more and the second one was also huge.

Sarla Patil and husband from Mountain View, California.

They had wanted to get married at our temple but found out that is not possible because we are a monastery, so they married at Houston, Texas Meenakshi Temple and are now taking a belated honeymoon to Kauai to visit our monastery.

They’ve been wanting to come for a while because she and her parents have read Hinduism Today for a long time. Bodhinatha gave them a wedding shawl gift and also a gift of What is Hinduism book after they asked for guidance in their new married life.

A lovely group of visitors arrived for the 9:00 a.m. Abishekam and were then taken on a tour of the Iraivan Temple.

Our little group in front of the beautiful hand-carved granite Ganesha, (even the umbrella is carved out of the one piece of granite!)

Manikandan and Chelliah show on paper what they are about to draw and then carve above the Sanctum doorway “Siva Siva” in Tamil.

Newly weds Manish and Gita Shah, who plan to make their new home in Brooklyn N.Y., both feel that it was an “unexpected special blessing” to have attended the puja this morning and to see the building of this most sacred Iraivan Temple in progress.

Pravin and Varsha DeSai and Vinay and Mira Khanderia from Toronto, Canada were “very happy” and felt very privileged to be here. “Who would have thought there would be such a temple in Hawaii?” Vinay said. “Its wonderful!”

Gita Shah was only too happy to show the beautiful Mendhi patterns on her hands from her wedding ceremony just two days ago. “They only last about two weeks” Gita said. She also had them on her feet.

Within a matter of minutes Manikandan and Chelliah had copied “Siva Siva” from paper to stone. Next step is to carve this on the granite stone.

Little Arvind was totally fascinated by the stone in the Lion’s mouth and rolled it around and around and around for quite some time.

Surrounded by our Super Silpis, here are Kanchare and Sridhar with their two little ones, Arvind and Shruti. All originally from Chennai and now living in Sunnyvale, CA. Asked what he thought of the Iraivan Temple, Kanchare replied “unbelievable!”

Finally after much planning, the long awaited upgrades to the Aadheenam septic systems are underway.

The first is at the Information center office. The original system here was 50 years old! Now replaced with state of the art septic system. It looks like Grand Canyon in front of the office.