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END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming two-day retreat,
until Prathama Tithi, Sun One, Monday, August 13th.

Bodhinatha and Shanmuganathaswami send this brief summary of their visit to Phoenix, Arizona. Their visit to this Southwest corner of the USA was to meet with Chellappa and Banu Deva, Rajendra and Subhashini Poonjolai, Vignesh and Darshini Sukumaran, Munnu and Rajni Bajpai, Chowdary and Radhikadevi Koripella and other members of the Hindu community of greater Phoenix.

Their visit include an evening at the Deva’s residence in Mesa where the priest of the Maha Ganapati temple and Chellappa performed a pada puja for Bodhinatha. Bodhinatha gave an inspired talk followed by a question and answer session.

Bodhinatha and the group visited the Ekta Bharathiya Mandir, now in construction, and then proceeded on an inner outing to the New Age community of Sedona Arizona where they enjoyed the beauty and peace of these sacred lands of the Southwest, USA. They were impressed with the change in the flora and landscape along the way as the scenery changed from Barrel and Saguaro cactus to red rock formations to pine trees and bubbling streams. This is an area which is conducive to reflecting on the sacredness of life and a land which has been in the highest esteem of the native American Indian tribes of this region. Gurudeva, Bodhinatha and all the monks have always been close to our brother Hopi, Apache, Pima, Comanche and other tribes.

Our small band of pilgrims visited the home of Jai Seecharran and his wife chandran who immigrated from Guyana many years ago. Jai was instrumental in building a temple in Des Moines, Iowa, and when he moved to Phoenix to be near his family, he collaborated with other like-minded Hindus in the area to build the Ekta Bharathiya Mandir. While visiting the Seecharran home various topics were discussed such as vegetarianism and the four denominations of Hinduism.

The video below also includes our first evening in Maryland, Satsang at the home of Nigel Siva Subramaniam along with other devotees of the Murugan temple in the area.

Shanmuganathaswami sends this series of uncaptioned photos.

A shot from yesterday’s quarterly meeting of the Ganapati Kulam where they strategize the future of publications and media development.

Yogi Jivananandanatha informs us that you can eat virtually all parts of the lotus, so what is a feast for the eyes will be come a feast for the table in the years to come when they are out of control and need to be thinned out.

Puna K. Dawson (center/back) is Resident Services Manager of the Mutual Housing Association of Hawaii. She is well-known to the Swamis for her wonderful charitable work. Today she arrived with thirty-five other selfless souls who have given of their free-time to help build affordable housing for two thousand five hundred needy people on Kauai and Oahu.

Our guests enjoyed a special tour of the Iraivan Temple and nearby lotus ponds filled with beautiful yellow and pink, larger than life, lotus flowers. A quiet moment in Kadavul Temple and then off to a meeting for their next charitable project.