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Summer Sadhu Paksha, Day 9

Gurudeva with his team of Siddhidata Kulam members, Talaivar Sannyasin Yoginathaswami, Sadhaka Nilakantha, Sadhaka Tejadeva. They are also joined now by Sadhaka Adinatha (not pictured) who together are responsible for the maintenance of our monastery lands and also the management of many details with the construction site of the Iraivan Temple.





Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
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Bodhinatha calls for news from everyone during lunch. On the board on the right is the current standing of the fund-raising for Iraivan temple. Just under 12 million to go!


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The third container of the current shipment arrived today and what an excitement it was as there was a pillar inside which you see being extracted from the container here.




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And more useful things in the back



Bags of coal for the forge. Unfortunately these all have to be discarded as we found out they absorbed the poisonous gasses used to fumigate the containers, and would now be a health hazard if burned. If any of our Taka readers have access to coal on the mainland, please send us a note.



Kenneth “Teddy” is our driver from Kauai Commercial who brings the containers from the dock. He is also an ace forklift driver and has been unloading the temple stones from the beginning of their arrival here. He has a soft touch and has become very adept at taking directions from the silpis and working with our team.



The Federal Department of Agricultural is on hand to inspect the contents. There are some serious beetles from Asia that can chew up whole forests and officials are very watchful. Fortunately we had done an excellent job of fumigation and no insects were found.



Here is the pillar. We will bring you some close ups in the days ahead. Some of the panels have been highly polished and were pretty amazing to see.



These are sample slabs of rose granite which will be used for the temple floor of the main mandapam. We wanted to take a look at how they would be. The final slabs will be four or five and have a soft cushioned edge to them.



This is a ceramic deepa lamp, ready for our next festival.


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transcription begins


Date: May_09_2002
Title: Yamas and Niyamas Part 1
Category: Yamas and Niyamas
Duration: 6 min., 32 seconds
Date Given: May 05, 2002
Given by: Bodhinatha

Good Morning, everyone. Happy to have Narayanan and Sheela with us this morning. Swagatham!

This morning focusing on the Yamas and a little bit on the Niyamas. Before thinking through what I was going to say, I thought I would start out with the first Yama. Start there with Ahimsa, reviewing that. Then, as I looked at all the beautiful material Gurudeva had written on the Yamas and Niyamas, I realized that, that wasn’t really the beginning. That we needed to step back and take a look at the concept of the Yamas themselves before we jumped into the first one. So, this is kind of an overview on the Yamas. Of course, in our teachings we emphasize that man is a divine being. Man is a soul, a spiritual being. At the essence of that soul is God Siva. At the essence of our spiritual being, not only are we spiritual, we are also one with God at the depth of our spiritual being.

Of course, that is our core teaching and Gurudeva says that so beautifully in the phrase, “”Man is not man. ” Who is man then? Man is God. “Man is not man, man is God.” That is the beautiful spiritual teachings.

However, it is important also to be grounded in other realities. We are a soul but where is our soul? It is inside our physical body, it is in there, not standing alone. It is not sitting up there in the Sivaloka in the Third World, blessing us all. It is encased, it has a physical body around it. So being in a physical body, we not only have a soul, we also have an instinctive and an intellectual mind which we need to work with. The phrase that Gurudeva uses is the three phases of the mind, which reminds us that there is the three-fold nature we are dealing with here. The instinctive, the intellectual and the superconscious or the soul. We have three phases of the mind.

When we talk about the Yamas, they are related to the instinctive area of the mind, the part of us that acts like animals. In that sense, the meaning of Yama which is restraint, to restrain, is very helpful. These are tendencies that the Yamas focus on. Tendencies, such as the tendency to harm someone, the tendency to lie, the tendency to steal. They are a part of the instinctive nature and which needs to be controlled.

When you think of controlling the instinctive mind in Hindu imagery, the classic image is a charioteer. In fact, we just looked at one of those paintings the other day. It has five horses up there in the chariot and the charioteer has all these reins and is reining in the horses. It is a nice picture we just looked at. That is the idea of controlling something. We need to harness it, we need to rein it in. We don’t want to let it run wild. We have to harness the energy of the horses. That is represented by the reins. If you let it run wild, the chariot will go too fast and turn over, uncontrolled. So we have to harness it, control it, direct it.

In thinking about that I remembered something that I had forgotten, which is the usual way. Cognizantibility, you remember what you remember. Then you forget what you have forgotten! Not normal speech. You remember something you forgot. In this case, I remembered that Gurudeva, in the past, had certain of his sishya learn horse back riding. That doesn’t sound too unusual. But he did it in the spirit of their learning to understand and control the instinctive mind. That is what he said, “By doing this, you will gain a better understanding of how the instinctive mind works and how to control it, just by learning to control a horse through the reins.”

So, that is an even more contemporary example, you know. The charioteer sounds a bit in the past because we drive automobiles. But we still ride horses one at a time. So we can see just in thinking about that how that would work. You gain a sense of the animal. First, you are a little afraid of it and then you gain a sense of how to work with it and how to control it through the reins.

That is very similar to the concept of working with our own instinctive forces. First, when we blow up in anger we don’t say, “Wow, how did I do that?” We are a little a bit afraid of our tendency to get angry. But after a while, just like the horse, we learn how to rein it in so that we have controls on it. We can control that force so that it doesn’t run away with us.

transcription ends

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Innersearch 2003-4 in India!

We just completed the July 17-23 Kauai Innersearch, 2002. Bodhinatha will lead the next Innersearch to India, between Dec 2003 and Jan 2004. We will visit Bangalore and the Iraivan Carving Village, and settle in the South in Tamil Nadu, Click on the above for details on what will be an inspiring journey to our holy land of Bharat!

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