Blog Archives
“Religious beliefs are manifold and different. Saivites, understanding the strength of this diversity, wholeheartedly respect and encourage all who believe in God. They honor the fact that Truth is one, paths are many. Aum.”
–Gurudeva
Rajan, Radhai and Vaishini from Cincinnati, Ohio. They will be meeting Bodhinatha again at the consecration ceremony of the Murugan Deity at the Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati on July 3rd and 4th.
Bodhinatha’s next travel is to Atlanta, Georgia, and Bethesda, Maryland. Please visit his travel page for more information.
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Click for most recent TAKA page with an Iraivan Temple progress update. |
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Our two guest families today in Kadavul Temple…
This beautiful wooden carving of Lord Nataraja over looks our courtyard.
Our guests enjoy having a discussion with Bodhinatha.
Suryanarayanan and Prema Iyer from New Jersey. Suryanarayanan is actively involved in the running of the Venkateshwara Temple in Bridgewater, New Jersey. He was also one of the many Ritwiks who chanted the Sri Rudram for the Athi Rudra Mahayagnam that was organized by the Sringeri Vidya Bharati Foundation in Pennsylvania a few years ago, which was covered in Hinduism Today magazine.
The Foundation is under the auspices of Jagadguru Shankacharya, Sri Bharati Tirtha Maha Swamigal, head of the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka, India.
In front of the temple a painting project is underway spearheaded by our Ekadanta Kulam.
The area now being painted orange will be easily recognized as a “No shoes allowed” zone.
Many of our visitors are not familiar with the Hindu protocol of leaving footware outside these areas. So this will be a help to make it clear.
Shanti kitty watches the work in progress
Job well done!
It is a lovely color too and matches the color of both the swami’s robes as well as the “red dirt” color of Kauai’s clay soil.
An anonymous donor contacted Kalani Tropicals, run by Jothi Sendan here on Kauai, with instructions to create and deliver 10 huge floral arrangements to be placed here and there around the Aadheenam.
We place one of them at feet of Siva Yogaswami. We do not know who or why they were sent, but we send out our appreciations to you, wherever you are, for bringing this beauty into our lives. We put one also out at Iraivan next to the picture of Gurudeva who watches over the silpis as they work.
 The Remarkable Vision |
Iraivan Temple Progress Update |
Join this historic undertaking. Please contribute generously. Sponsor a stone today! |
| New Beautiful 2004 Calendar Now Available. Seeing out fast! | ||
Other TAKA pages with recent Iraivan images.
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Iraivan silpis tools…
A picture of one of the top course of the vimanam.
More black and whites for you today. They show of the carving very well.
The gomukhai, out from which will pour the sacred waters from the bathing of the Maha Spatika Sivalingam in the years to come.
The line of Gurudeva over the temple door.
A close up of ornamental work.
Iraivan from the west corner.
Upper courses of the main sanctum.
Here’s something interesting: another donor has offered several rings from his personal jewelry to be sold for Iraivan Temple. This one is particularly well done. It’s called a “Rolex” because of the distinctive design on the band. There are 7 diamonds. It’s fabulous. If you would be interested… contact iraivan@hindu.org
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Another lovely design, with a single diamond.
And a simple band…
Today’s Inspired Talk |
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Title: Parents Teaching Hinduism to Children, Part 1 Category: Family Duration: 9 minutes 47 seconds Date Given: April 29, 2004 Date Posted: May_21_2004 Given by: Bodhinatha |
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And click here for an Index to All Past CyberTalks. Study Gurudeva’s teachings
every day. Visit the Master Course site!
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 Sannyasin Saravananathaswami If you are experiencing any problems listening to the audio, please to go our Audio FAQ page and follow the directions there.
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transcription begins
Date: March_08_2004
Title: Hinduism is a Religion of the Now
Category: Hinduism and Tradition
Duration: 8 min., 57 seconds
Date Given: March 8, 2004
Given by: Bodhinatha
Good Morning! A special welcome to our guests. I give a short talk after the homa.
I was answering an email this morning from Bruce. Bruce wrote in and said he was interested in being a monk. So I sent him back part of today’s lesson, which is all about our monastic order which I thought was interesting. I get his answer on the day the lesson talked all about the monks. So I thought I’d read that and share that with you. This is written by Gurudeva, “My Saiva swamis, or Natha swamis, are distinguished by their orange robes, gold Natha earrings and three strands of rudraksha beads. They are the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, known as the Saiva Swami Sangam when they gather in ecclesiastical conclave. The Sangam does not follow the protocol of unanimous decision. Rather, it works in intuitive one-mindedness to carry out instructions from the Kailasa Peetam, our spiritual seat of authority, to better the Saivite mission and the individuals dedicated to its success.
These sannyasins are not looked upon as individuals so much as a integrated council, assembled and working in unison to perform a holy work as Sivanadiyars, servants of God Siva. Guided by the Satguru, the Saiva Swami Sangam forms the ecclesiastical body of our Hindu Church which works in a humble way to protect the purity of the faith among all Hindu sects, through inspiring publications and other means of encouragement. Specifically, our order’s mission is to protect, preserve and promote the Saivite Hindu religion as embodied in the Tamil culture, traditions and scriptures of South India and Sri Lanka.
Our monastic order follows the cenobitic pattern in which monastics live in community and work together toward common objectives. Sannyasins of this order are not wandering sadhus or silent contemplatives, known as anchorites. Rather they are members of a brotherhood working closely and industriously with their Satguru and with their brother monastics. At the time of sannyasa diksha, each has accepted the mission of the Kailasa Parampara as his own: to protect and perpetuate Saivism; to serve Hindus the world over; to provide, teach and disseminate scripture, religious literature and practical instruction; to promote temple construction and to exemplify the dignity and enlightenment of our Nandinatha Sampradaya. Living under lifetime vows of renunciation, humility, purity, confidence and obedience, these sannyasins are bound to fulfill their unique role in the Saiva culture of religious exemplars and staunch defenders of the faith. Their ideal is to balance outward service, Sivathoundu, and inward contemplation-realization, Sivajnanam, for a rich, fulfilling and useful life.”
That’s a nice writing, shared with Bruce this morning.
We recently had a visit from a metaphysical group of Billie Topatate who comes once a year. It is a group that has an interest in Hinduism but their main focus is on Native American traditions. But they enjoy coming very much and to them it’s a pilgrimage of sorts. They come here and get uplifted for the year and go back all renewed, just like Hindus would.
One of the highlights of their visit is that they get a talk from me and they look forward to that very much. I try and figure out a way to talk about Hinduism without using a lot of technical terms. Because we get into karma, dharma and so forth and slow it down, slow down the understanding of the process.
So every year I choose a different aspect of Hinduism to present in a simple way. This year I was talking about, Hinduism as a religion of the present, the present moment.
When this first struck me so seriously was a few years ago when I first started representing us at the Interfaith gatherings on the Island. We had a number of them. Some of them are a celebration for Martin Luther King’s birthday and the Season of Peace and Harmony. Others happened after 9/11. We had some gatherings on the Island to console and uplift the people of the Island. Others happened more recently.
One of the things I noticed in listening to the other presentations, which were Christian, Buddhist, Jewish and Bahai- was that most of it was focused in the past, talking about a historic person or events in the past. Totally centered in the past. If the past wasn’t there, they wouldn’t have a presentation.
Then I listened to my own presentation based upon Gurudeva’s teachings, and of course it is totally based in the present momen. There is no reference at all to the past. Talking about the present, living in the present. Not even talking about the future. If we behave ourselves this will happen to us in the future. We are not even talking about that. We are talking about the present moment and being in the present. Gurudeva calls that the Eternal Now, living totally in the present. Pulling the mind in from its tendencies to think about the past, to ponder hard feelings about the past, and misunderstanding about this and that. The tendency to worry about the future, what’s going to happen, what about this, what about that. Pulling the mind in from this ramification into the past and into the future, living in the eternity of the moment is really an important part of Gurudeva’s teachings and all of Hinduism.
Then I added to that a simple thought. Not only are we trying to live in the present, we’re trying to live in a spiritual consciousness in the present.
We don’t want to be involved in emotions of anger and jealousy. We don’t want to be stressed out, worried or fearful. We want to be in our spiritual consciousness, in our soul consciousness, in our divine consciousness that is within everyone of us.
So you put those two ideas together, living in spiritual consciousness in the present moment, without excessive thoughts about the past or future and you really get the essence of Hinduism. Because Hinduism is about a spiritual consciousness in the present moment.
To take that thought one step further, not only is it about a spiritual consciousness, it’s about deepening your spiritual consciousness. Going into a deep, a profound spiritual consciousness as you are able to in the present moment.
Or in another term, raising your consciousness. That is another way we look at it. The consciousness comes up and exists in a higher chakra, in a higher aspect of our inner self and when we deepen our consciousness we’re really fulfilling the essence of the Hindu religion. So that was my simple talk and they liked that.
It really stands out to, this movie ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is the suffering of Jesus and how it means so much to Christianity. Of course, it shows the essence of how it deals in the past and how the whole structure of the religion is based on historic events and not on the present at all.
Whereas Hinduism is very different. We don’t have to worry about the past, focus on the present and everything that is within it.
Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day!
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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. |
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From Our Gurus' Teachings
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