It is very bright, mangalam day at the Aadheenam. We just went through the powerful full-moon retreat of Kartikkeya Deepam, followed by homa this morning and Ardra abhishekam today.

Sadhaka Dandapani’s family is here: mother, father and two brothers. The oldest brother in the family, Darma recently married Shivali. Bodhinatha blesses them with a shawl.

Darma and Shivali sit for blessing during our early morning homa.

Bodhinatha gave a deep talk on the nature of the soul and God-Realization. He spoke on Gurudeva’s Shum explanation of two ways to come out of Self-Realization, a quick way and a slow way. He described the various states of awareness one encountered in the process.

lAnnouncing! Fabulous 24-minute video of Thai Pusam is now online! For a heart-inspiring experience of authentic worship of Lord Murugan, don’t miss this fabulous video by Rohini Kumar Nair, long time devotee of Gurudeva in Malaysia! Watch it below. You can also click here to open a new web page to view hi-res versions.

Later in the morning Sadhaka Dandapani gave his family a tour of Iraivan.

At the Ardra puja we sing Natchintanai and bhajans while the curtains are closed after a very powerful abhishekam. Sadhaka’s other brother, Arunachala is a drummer.

The family meet with Bodhinatha after the puja.

We all wish Darma and Shivali a joyous life together in Dharma.

Meanwhile Brahmacharini Shama has been giving tours to many visitors. She writes:

“Visitors over the past few days included Shanmuga and Pranathi Sundaram from Hayward, California. In the center is Gail La Mar who has been visiting with her husband on pilgrimage; and on the right is Prabha and Prakash Roopani from Texas, both are originally from Mumbai.”

A truly beautiful sunny day with scattered feathery serras clouds wafting across a clear blue sky. A perfect day for the powerful Ardra abhishekam to Siva Nataraja in the Kadavul Siva Temple which was filled with pilgrims and devotees.

A small group of Hindu visitors later toured the Iraivan temple. Among them were Ganga Padmesh (far right) from Calif). who has been pilgrimaging here for the past 15 years) arrived with her niece and cousin, Chaya Prabhu from Calif., and Radha Gowda from Boston. Also present were Gaurang and Nalini Shah from Calif., and Sridar Rajakumar and Geetha Chandrasekar of Chennai. Also a young man from Seattle, Sooraj Ratnakumar.

All had heard about the Iraivan Temple either through the internet, family and friends or through the Aadheenam’s international magazine, Hinduism Today.

Sridhar Rajakumar and Geetha Chandrasekar in front of Dakshinamurthy.

We just received some photos from India where Jiva Rajasankara captures the burning ghee light on top of Annamalai on Krittika Deepam day…

The giant ghee lamp throws an incredible light at the top of one of the most holy places on earth.