Jai Ganesha!
Sadhaka Shankaranatha has been working on upgrading the Siddhidata Kulam’s fish tank. At the moment, he is carefully marking the precise measurements on the frame to ensure a perfect fit before cutting the wood for installation. Aum.
For about two years we have been fighting an invasive and destructive beetle called the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (CRB), or Oryctes rhinoceros. As the name implies, they are fond of coconut trees, but they also attack and can kill other palms. We have hundreds of mature palms in our gardens, and many of them are suffering from beetle attacks. A dozen have died and more are threatened.
Yesterday two experts surveyed our large palm collection, which includes hundreds of species, with the goal of developing a plan to reduce the beetle’s rapidly increasing population in the monastery. Their company uses steam to heat mulch piles that serve as breeding grounds for the larvae. The heat kills them before adults emerge and fly off to feed on palm trees. We have also been hiring a drone operator from Maui who has come twice to apply protective treatments to the rarest and most important trees. The Kauaʻi Invasive Species Committee (KISC) has helped us set up traps around the palms to capture the voracious insects. That is helping, but not enough.
Great damage has been done over the last two decades in Guam, where about 70% of palms were killed, as well as in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and now Hawaiʻi. Biologists are working intensively to deploy a virus widely considered the only long-term solution, but it has so far eluded them.
Invasive Beetle in Our Sacred Gardens Read More »
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.
“Many people think of the realization of timeless, formless, spaceless Paraśiva, nirvikalpa samādhi, as the most blissful of all blissful states, the opening of the heavens, the descent of the Gods, as a moment of supreme, sublime joyousness; whereas I have found it to be more like cut glass, diamond-dust darshan, a psychic surgery, not a blissful experience at all, but really a kind of near-death experience resulting in total transformation. The bliss that is often taught as a final attainment is actually another attainment, Satchidānanda, an aftermath of nirvikalpa samādhi, and a “before-math.” This means that Satchidānanda, savikalpa samādhi, may be attained early on by souls pure in heart. It also means that one need not gauge the highest attainment on the basis of bliss, which it transcends.“
The Final Conclusions For All Mankind, Part Five Read More »
Jai Ganesha!
We’ve recently begun sharing selected Hinduism Today articles on Instagram. From each issue, we’ll be choosing 4–5 articles, thoughtfully summarizing them into 10-slide carousel posts for easy and inspiring reading. Click to view the post, and please do share and like to help spread the message of Hinduism to the world. Aum 🕉️
Kanda Alahan from California is here to serve for a couple weeks in his expert woodworking capacities. His main task will be to install replacement kitchen island cabinetry in about a week that he had crafted back home. Before then, he and Kumarnathaswami are creating a new workbench for the tented area adjacent to the main woodshop. They’re making use of three glulam beams that we had left over from another project. They planed and sanded to make sure the beams are the exact same dimensions, then glued them together to form the wide workbench. Finally, a simple finish coat was applied.
Workbench Construction, Flower Cutting Read More »
Aum Namah Śivaya
Below are some photos from our recent celebrations of Mahasivaratri at Iraivan Temple. If you didn’t already see the full livestream you can watch it here.
Mahasivaratri 2026 Photos Read More »
