Blog Archives
Gurudeva views the Pacific from on high on Kauai. The inner color of the akasha, that was so immediate and real to him, seems to have come to life in the bhuloka…
ANNOUNCEMENT: Sadhu Paksha begins tomorrow. The temple will be open daily from 9-12 pm as usual, but the monks will not be hosting any guests and no tours will be conducted through the monastery grounds and Iraivan temple site, until April 13th.
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
Click to read for Details.
Click here to read
Gurudeva’s statement on September 11th
We had an extremely “filled” three day retreat as we were honored by the presence of the wonderful Swami Chidananda Saraswati from Parmarth Niketan in Rishikesh. Affectionately known as “Muniji,” Swami is one of the world’s pre-emininent Hindu leaders and a beloved brother of ours who loved Gurudeva dearly and met him on many occasions at various global forums. Swami was on his way through from the mainland after a world tour on his way to Australia and back home to India. He came to Kauai to pay his respects to Gurudeva and Bodhinatha.
Cybertalk: Bodhinatha reads from and gives bhashya on today’s Master Course
lesson of the Day from Gurudeva’s trilogy, Dancing with Siva, Living with
Siva and Merging with Siva. Lord Ganesha is the God of time and memory. He
helps stabilize us by keeping us from falling below the muladhara chakra at
the base of the spine, where He lives. Gurudeva recognized the need for a
foundation of bhakti in those who meditate seriously. Worshiping Ganesha in
a sincere way helps us stay in the higher chakras and remain calm
emotionally and mentally. Talking about how we are the soul and all of these
wonderful high philosophical points is great but we also need to take a look
at our weaknesses and shortcomings and work to improve them. Ganesha is like
our dance teacher, and he helps us maintain harmony, which is very important
on the spiritual path.
Living with Siva talks about monastics being the leaders of Hinduism and
those responsible for the perpetuation of the faith. More monks will be
needed in the monastery to keep it going well into the future, of course. To
conceive and raise a monk for the monastery is a meritorious act that all
devout Saivite families are encouraged to take on.
Merging with Siva lesson is on maturing the soul body. The soul body
develops and gets stronger as it matures. What surrounds the soul body, such
as the mental, emotional, astral and physical bodies, all come and go, but
the one thing we take with us from life to life is our soul body, because
that’s the real us.
Cybertalk Ends”
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Bodhinatha will be happy to hold “Prasnottara Satsang” — “Questions and Answers” over the telephone with any Hindu religious societies, Hindu youth groups, Radio talk show hosts etc. All you need is a phone with a speaker and an enthusiastic audience. Arrangements may be made in advance by sending email to Sadhaka Mahadevan
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Saravananathaswami shows Muniji and one of his devotees, Dr. Patel from Kentucky, rudraksha’s at our Rudraksha forest.
Muniji on top of Muruga Hill. He is an outstanding orator and has a special talent for delivering the core of Sanatana Dharma to the modern generation.
We have taken him to the temple site.
Muniji declared to monks that Gurudeva’s work and this monastary was like the “falls of Ganga” from which is flowing to the whole world the streams of Hindu culture.
The silpis are working on course number eight.
Muniji’s institution, Parmarth Niketan, is right on the river Ganges, so he has a special connection with the sacred river and an appreciation of our own “Wailua Ganga” which is flowing full after recent torrential rains that broke into sunshine just after swami arrived.
This morning was Sun One and what an auspicious day it was. Mr. and Mrs. Mirchandani from Honolulu came to concecrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Here they offer grains to the sacred fire.
The couple also renewed their wedding vows in a private ceremony after the the homa.
Aum Agniye, svaha!
The Purnahuti.
Bodhinatha worships the sacred fire.
Dr. (Professor) Rao who accompanied Muniji also (see below) said: “Yagna… not everyone realizes it means consecration or offering, and one that should benefit all…”
Bodhinatha “ties” up Mr. and Mrs. Mirchandani with a shawl wishing them another 30 years of happily married life. They later said that this was one of the most memorable events of their lives.
Then, following the homa another auspicious new beginning transpired when the 60th birthday blessing was given to Dr. Shan Sunder. Here the sacred water that was blessed in the Kumbha during the homa is poured over him.
Dr. Sunder said: “I came to Kauai to celebrate my 60th birthday here and to take a spiritual bath….”
“I didn’t expect this… it *really* was a spiritual bath!”
Here is the whole family together. Wife, Thilaka, . Lakshamanan “Lucky” on the left works in the world of high finance in New York, and Thushanthan, “Anthan” an IT professional working with a company that supplies services and consulting on web and internet matters to Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. and Mrs. Mirchandani renew their wedding vows privately, overlooking the Wailua River.
The Muthyan family living in Vancouver, Canada, originally from South Africa. Grandma on the left still lives in South Africa and while visiting her family asked them to take her to Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, where she has dreamed of visiting for a long time.
Muniji started the “India Heritage Research Foundation” whose flagship project is the massive “Encylopedia of Hinduism” Dr. K.L. Seshagiri Rao, Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia, is the Chief Editor of the project and at age 74 is still pushing the project forward, with dedication and enthusiasm. A long time friend and reader of Hinduism Today, here he consults with our editors, Paramacharya Palaniswami and Sannyasin Arumugaswami, picking their brains for ideas and input, which he later said “will take me a week to digest.” It was a joyful meeting as he has not been to the Aadheenam until this visit.
This is the Suresh Anne family and a relative from Flint, Michigan. Originally from Hyderabad, they attend the Kasi Sri Viswanatha Temple in Flint. They reported that the temple is holding weekly classes for children in cultural arts and Hindu literature. The young girl in this photo, Lajari, is enjoying learning kuchipudi dance. The family was quite impressed with the Iraivan Temple site, Mrs. Anne commenting that she had never in her life seen a temple being carved like this, with hammer and chisel.
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Date: November_05_1998
Title: Mentoring
Category:
Duration: 7 minutes
Date Given: November 05, 1998
Today at Kauai Aadheenam. November 5th. We began the day, awakening at 3:45, as usual. So wonderful to breathe the morning air. It has something different in it than later on in the day. Try it some time, if only for a minute before you go back to bed. This is a time to perform sadhana, to get the most out of your meditation.
Well, then we had a beautiful fire puja invoking God and the Gods. We welcomed formally Paramacharya Bodhinatha and Sivanadiyar Nilakantha, back from a two-month journey to India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Mauritius. They had a wonderful time.
We still have two mathavasis, these are monks, in California fundraising for the Iraivan Temple. They are very successful.
Today we want to talk about ‘Mentoring’.
We feel that every young person needs a mentor. This means someone to show them what the world is like. A mentor is like a private tutor or a friend who is an adult. I had several mentors when I was growing up.
Young people need to go to factories. They need to visit the county jail and talk to the warden. They need to go on a cruise ship. They need to go into kitchens in a restaurant, to see what that is all about. Their questions need to be answered. They need to be taken to big hotels and shown how the rich live. They need to be taken to the slums and shown how the poor live. They need to be taken on the streets at night, to see how the street people live. They need to be taken here, there and everywhere.
One of the trainings we have for our mathavasis is to go to court. The low court, the medium court, the high court, appellate court; listen to trials. They have to go to funeral parlors and look at corpses. They have to broaden their mind and find out through observation what life is all about.
Are we doing this to our children in our homes, all of you in Cyberspace, looking in to our Ashram today? Probably not. Probably, mother is too busy with her occupation working for other guys and Dad is too busy in his occupation working with his secretaries. The home is like a hotel. But not like a hotel because there is no staff. Coming home is chaos and the children are in the middle of that chaos. They are growing up, with one part of their brain developed and the other part of their brain, brain-dead. One part is creative and the other part keeps track of what has been created.
We have to reverse the situation. We try to do this here at Kauai Aadheenam. We have young men coming from our church families. We are in our third generation now. They are coming for six months and they are visiting our five family schools. They spend about one month in each school. Surely they use their talents and help a little bit but they are observing how ‘Hinduism Today’ is created, how a cow is milked, how a garden is planted, how money is budgeted. We are on a cash basis. We don’t run up debts, we don’t run up bills, we don’t make a credit card charge that we do not have money in the bank, a month before to pay for it when the bill comes in – and that money is gaining interest. How about that! Is that good management!? They learn that. They learn how to receive a guest, how to entertain a guest, how to feed a guest, how to perform holy sacraments and ceremonies within their own home, how to give a talk, how to speak out, how to sit quietly for a half hour or 45 minutes or a hour during our morning meditations, how to chant in Sanskrit, the food-blessing chant. They learn all these things quite naturally in an informal, non-threatening way. We don’t have any serious classes. People aren’t lined up in front of teachers. Everyone is helping everyone else, especially the young people.
Mentoring is an important part or the most important part of education because real learning is through observation and then developing what has been observed from within oneself. Real education is not simply memorizing from a book and then repeating it back. What kind of a person does that create? A robot person? An emotionally immature person? Yeah, you got it. That’s what it creates. Think about exposing your young people to bring out the great potential of their soul, rather than forcing them into one position or another even if it does not suit their nature.
Well, I’ll be seeing you. Meditate on this subject of mentoring or caring for the next generation, so we have a better world tomorrow. I’ll be seeing you in our familiar place which is right here, through your computer screen.
transcription ends
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MORE UPLIFTING THINGS |
Innersearch 2002 in Hawaii!
Our next Innersearch Travel-Study program will be held right here on the island of Kauai in the summer of 2002. It’s the first such program on the Garden Island since 1974! From July 17 to July 22 we will enjoy daily classes with the swamis, join in the annual Guru Purnima festival, be inspired by local culture, explore the lush tropical island in exciting and non-touristy ways, and more. Be prepared for a wonderful spiritual experience in paradise with meditations, seminars and sacred ceremonies at the Siva temple of Kauai’s Hindu Monastery. Many have applied already, and there is a limit of 50 participants, so we recommend everyone apply as soon as possible. Interested? Please request an application from pilgrim@searchbeyond.com |
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3. Visiting KAUAI’S HINDU MONASTERY |
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From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.
