Blog Archives
Sutra 1 of the Nandinatha Sutras
Life’s Highest Purpose
Siva’s followers strive for God Realization as the first and foremost goal of life. They learn to dance with Siva, live with Siva, merge with Siva. Deep within, they discover their eternal, immortal oneness with God. Aum.
Here is Bodhinatha in Chennai with Innersearcher, Shren Moodley from South Africa. Shren has been reading Gurudeva’s works on the internet and felt this would be a perfect opportunity to make his first trip to India. Having been born a Hindu in South Africa, this made it a special “roots” pilgrimage for him. He was enthralled with India and even thought of perhaps moving to India one day, where he could live in a completely Hindu world.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
Click for most recent TAKA page with an Iraivan Temple progress update. |
||||
It is Ashram Sadhana Day at Kauai Aadheenam. All the monks are out cleaning. The Ganapati Kulam were hard at work in the archives from the past. We got a new container and it was outfitted inside with shelves and lights and air-conditioner. Today we moved into it all our precious archival materials: back issues of Hinduism Today, 1000’s of photos in binders, videos, reel-to-reel tapes (some with talks by Gurudeva given as early as 1959) and samples of printed matter that go back 40 years.
We had temporarily stored all the archives in the library. Acharya Kumarswami and Paramacharya Palaniswami go through things that we have been keeping since the days of Virginia City and before… moving them around from place to place through the years.
Sannyasin Natarajnathaswami working on the team.
A great deal of what was in storage is no longer needed and completely obsolete. Here Sivakatirswami delivers boxes to a holding area where we will send them out for recycling.
A walk down the path from the monastery takes you to the Kodimaram (flagpole pillar) at the end of Kadavul Temple.
And then to the “Banyan Mandapam” which is a gathering place and area for information displays for the public
At the entrance to Banyan Mandapam, an exquisite wooden sculpture of Tiruvalluvar.
And of Lord Ganesha..
 |
Himalayan Academy Travel Study Programs |
Images from the Recent 2004 Indian OdysseyJanuary 19, 2004 – February 5, 2004 Bangalore, Madurai, Tanjavur, Chennai and |
Here is Innersearcher Usha Kiran Shastri from Oregon. Usha originally hails from South India with friends in Bangalore area. With her background in India she was a great strength for the Innersearch, helping to buffer the “culture shock” that some of our first timers might be going through. Usha has a joyful, dynamic, bright spirit that also contributed greatly to the overall uplifting vibration of the whole group. Thanks for coming with us Usha!
Moving, moving, moving, in groups… a daily experience for us all… here we are at Pillaiyarpati with all the young men in the Gurukulam priest training…
Arriving at a hotel. It’s check-in time! OK, everyone hold on a minute while Sadhaka Dandapani and our great tour guides take care of everything and just pass out the keys. This usually comes after a bit of tiring travel and checking in always comes with a big sigh of relief. “Great! We are finally here.”
Michael McNeil from Atlanta, Georgia is on this Innersearch along with his sister Ariel. It’s his first trip to India and he was a real trouper. He went on with his sister to Dharmsala after Innersearch to be with the Buddhist monks there.
mmm… not sure exactly where this is… but a typical scene, getting down from the bus and making a move to the next temple… This looks like the pretty town of Chidambaram.
A shot of a previous Innersearch with Gurudeva. Some where in India, early in the 1980’s
Gurudeva in a temple hall. From the looks of the architecture, it is probably in Malaysia.
No Audio Today
|
Take this opportunity for an adventure. Close your eyes and click to get a message picked at random from the vast audio archives of our Satgurus’ discourses |
And click here for an Index to All Past CyberTalks. Study Gurudeva’s teachings. Visit the Master Course site! |
| FULL INDEX OF 650+ CYBERTALKS
 |
|
Study Gurudeva’s teachings.
|
transcription begins
Date: February_21_2004
Title: State of the Church 2004
Category: Saiva Siddhanta Church Activities
Duration: 7 min. 15 seconds
Date Given: January 5, 2004
Given by: Bodhinatha
Good Morning, everyone! Happy to have such a large gathering this morning. Glad so many of you were able to come to join us to celebrate Gurudeva’s Jayanthi.
Carrying forward in Gurudeva’s tradition, on Jayanthi we give a State of the Church Address. The idea is to give a preview of what is coming up in the year ahead, what we are focusing on, what we are not focusing on. I would like to read that to everyone.
I want to review the last two of them, this is our third State of the Church Address.
In 2002, the focus was on bringing in new members. About thirty in all came in, in 2002. Finishing the Master Course Trilogy in hardcover. Issuing Level One in the new Academy Master Course Study. Continuing the jointing and carving work on Iraivan Temple. Visiting our members in Mauritius, Malaysia, Singapore and California, at least once. That was 2002.
2003, our focus was on issuing Level Two of the new Academy Master Course Study. Finishing our first small book, in quite a while, ‘Yoga’s Forgotten Foundations’, which the printer will finish in the next few of weeks. Moving ahead with Saivite Hindu Religion Children’s Course Book Three. Printing a pocketbook size edition of Dancing with Siva, it is really small in case you haven’t seen it, good for plane rides. Continuing the jointing and carving work on Iraivan Temple. Organizing the 2004 India Odyssey Innersearch. And again visiting our members.
That is 2002 and 2003, in review.
2004 focus.
One of the main focuses for the coming year is on Japa, the Panchakshara Mantra and Samaya Diksha. In fact we have dubbed 2004 as the Year of Japa. This is because we will be giving Samaya Diksha to members who qualify, starting on the India Innersearch in January and later on in the year in Mauritius, Malaysia, Singapore, California and even here if some qualify here, that come here.
To help prepare our members for receiving Samaya Diksha, we have created a special 6 month preparation course which has been mailed out to all members who indicated that they wanted to receive diksha this year. So far, we have 29 members who have asked to prepare, that is a nice size group.
A second focus for the Year of Japa is for all members who have all ready received samaya diksha to bring themselves current. Which of course means doing an extra 108 repetitions of Aum Namah Sivaya for every day that was missed since you received diksha, I am sure no one here is behind, everyone is current? Or at least, will be by the end of this year. So we want to get current if we are behind in our diksha.
For publications, our focus for the year 2004, producing a new version of the ‘Know Thyself’ booklet, which leads into the Master Course study and talks about the Guru Parampara. That will be nice.
For the Saivite Hindu Religion Children’s Course, we will print Book Three and move forward on Book Four. We are going to produce a pocketbook edition of Merging with Siva, same size small.
For our teaching program, our major teaching program for 2004 is, of course, the India Innersearch in January. We have some 90 participates, including staff which makes it our largest program ever. 90 people and we have planned a balanced program giving equal emphasis in the three areas of Master Course classes, Temple and Ashram visits and Cultural Events. So it is a nice balance.
There is also the possibility of a week long student and member retreat in Malaysia in December. It is still in the planning stages and depends on the members there volunteering to coordinate it.
For travel, our usual Ganesha Chaturthi journey to Mauritius, with stops in Malaysia and Singapore is all planned out and we are just buying our tickets. We go that far in advance in our ticketing. We also have a trip to Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada scheduled for June which corresponds with the annual festival of the Mahaganapati Society there in Alberta.
The trip to Toronto and Montreal is still in the planning stages for August. We are going to California, but we haven’t set our date yet.
The most recent trip is we have received a verbal invitation from the President of the Atlanta Temple, Dr. Raghu who was here recently on pilgrimage, inviting us to be the chief guests at the Pranapratishta for their new Siva temple for Memorial Day Weekend. They are opening a Siva temple, as a completely separate building from their Vishnu temple that they already have. It sets a nice pattern, having two temples with a little distance between them, for Siva and Vishnu.
The last area is our Aadheenam property. Our main activity in developing our property is, of course, the Iraivan Temple jointing, it is a big project. The good news is the Sanctum will definitely be finished sometime soon, after Tamil New Year- April 13th, we will have the Capstone in place. It is going to look beautiful for everyone. And we hope it will be gold leafed before it is put in place as well, to make it even nicer.
Also for Iraivan, we re starting a Capital and Endowment Fund Raising Campaign with the goal of raising 13.6 million dollars in six years. This is an inspiration and being coordinated by Deva Rajan with the close help of Easan Katir, Dr. Shan Sundar and Surya Kumar, all of whom are major donors to Iraivan.
Also we have our parcel across the river, our 400 pica parcel, Himalayan Acres and our focus this year is on planting additional trees. Lots of trees are needed for fences, wind breaks and future fruit production.
That is our coming year, in short. Thank you for listening. The Year of Japa!
We already got all our prasadam and vibhuti from Gurudeva. So, I won’ t repeat that and I will excuse myself.
Aum Namah Sivaya.
transcription ends
|
MORE UPLIFTING THINGS |
Color Trilogy Complete! We are happy to announce that the new edition of the enormously popular Dancing with Siva is now available in hard back with all new color artwork. It’s truly an amazing and beautiful work, with more art than any of the collection. This completes the fulfillment of the vision that Gurudeva had of his Master Course Trilogy being produced in full color. In addition, Bodhinatha is taking pro-active steps to bring Gurudeva’s teachings out in a new forms that can be broadly disseminated in the mass mind. With this in mind we, are also pleased to announce that the Dancing with Siva pocketbook is also available. Keep the three-pound book in your shrine room, and take the little one with you on the airplane or subway! How little? It’s just 3″ by 4.5″ — truly pocket-sized, and just over half an inch thick. Yet it is a full 375 pages, containing ALL of the 155 sutras. Available now at our online store. The complete Trilogy is being offered at a discount. |
|
|
View the fabulous full-color PDF’s of the latest edition of Island Temple Magazine, and order copies if you don’t have one. | |
|
1. SIGN OUR GUESTBOOK and receive a FREE GIFT |
||
| 2. Newest Book: DANCING WITH SIVA — Pocketbook | ||
|
3. Visiting KAUAI’S HINDU MONASTERY |
||
|
4. Contribute to THANK YOU, GURUDEVA FUND |
||
From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.
