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Happy Ganesha Chaturthi!
Ganapati Bapa!…. Moriya!
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“Siva’s followers all believe in the Mahadeva Lord Ganesha, son of Siva-Shakti, to whom they must first supplicate before beginning any worship or task. His rule is compassionate. His law is just. Justice is His mind. Aum.”
–Gurudeva
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Bodhinatha is greeted by the priests of the Draupadee Ammen Temple in Rose Hill in Mauritius… Our TAKA reporter from Mauritius writes:
“The priests of the temples, Sivacharyas from India, were very enthusiastic about the visit of Bodhinatha to the temple. Bodhinatha is greeted traditionally with a kumbham.”
We have more from Mauritius and Singapore but Ganesha First! (of course)
TRAVEL NEWS! Bodhinatha’s next travel is September 8-23: Malaysia, Singapore and Mauritius. See travel page for more information.
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At the Aadheenam we held a quiet but blissful Ganesha puja in the temple this afternoon. A small group of devotees joined us. Dr. Bala Aiyer from Houston, Texas with his wife and some friends, our Kauai sishya and Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar his wife Manisha and son Manas, daughter Sonita and all the silpis who were given the afternoon off from their work…
Sadhaka Jivanandanatha is our pujari today. Yogi Japendranatha helping… we will give you excerpts from Gurudeva’s teachings on Lord Ganesha..
“Worship of Lord Ganesha sets the path of dharma. Go to His Feet. He alone can perform this miracle for you. He will release the mental and emotional obstructions to spiritual progress. He will remove the burdens of worldliness.”
Lord Ganesha is the first God a Hindu comes to know. As the Lord of Categories, His first objective is to bring order into the devotee’s life, to settle him into the correct and proper flow of his dharma–the pattern of duties, responsibilities and expectations suited to the maturity of his soul.
“As the Lord of Obstacles, He deftly wields His noose and mace, dislodging impediments and holding avenues open until the individual is set in a good pattern, one that will fulfill his spiritual needs rather than frustrate them. “
Lord Ganesha is also known as the Gatekeeper. Access to all the other Gods comes through Him. It is not that He would want to keep anyone from another God, but He prepares you to meet them and makes the meeting an auspicious one. This preparation can mean lifetimes. There is no hurry. It is not a race. Ganesha will faithfully bar access to those who do not merit a divine audience and an ensuing relationship with the other Deities whose darshans are faster. Should a devotee gain unearned access and invoke the powers of other Deities before all preparations were concluded, karma would accelerate beyond the individual’s control. Worship of Lord Ganesha, however, may begin at any time.
Ganesha is the ubiquitous God. There are more shrines, altars and temples for Lord Ganesha than for any other God. Ganesha bhakti is the most spontaneous worship and the simplest to perform. It requires little ritual. Just the ringing of a small bell at the outset of a project before His picture or the burning of camphor or the offering of a flower is enough to invoke His presence and protection.
Manas Kshirsagar and Tandu Sivanathan carry the palanquin of clay Ganeshas in the procession to the river.
“Throughout India and Sri Lanka, there are small, unadorned shrines to Ganapati under shaded trees, along country roads, at bus terminals, along footpaths and in the city streets. His blessings are indeed everywhere. Helping Ganesha, whose powers of mind outreach the most advanced computers we can conceive, are His ganas, or devonic helpers. These ministering spirits collect the prayers of those in need, ferret out and procure the necessary information and bring it before Lord Ganesha’s wisdom.”
If you want to get acquainted with the Gods, first get to know Lord Ganesha. Take a picture and look at it. Put a picture of Lord Ganesha in your car or in your kitchen. Get acquainted through sight. Then come to know Him through sound by chanting His names and hymns. This is how you get acquainted with your personal Deity. You will get to know Him just as you know your best friend, but in a more intimate way, for Ganesha is within you and there ahead of you to guide your soul’s evolution.
As you get acquainted with Him, Ganesha then knows that you’re coming up on the spinal climb of the kundalini. He will work with you and work out your karma. Your whole life will begin to smooth out.
We can see that coming up through the lower chakras is quite an ordeal. But once the individual goes through the fear chakra, he comes to Lord Ganesha’s feet and enters the realms of memory and reason, clarity and understanding. It is at this point in the unfoldment through the chakras, which is a journey of consciousness, that he would begin thinking of others and seek to benefit them more than himself. From here on, the path of spiritual unfoldment is not as ominous as it was before. There are no threatening areas, except that it is possible to fall back into lower consciousness.
The Gods are the controllers of these force centers within man. They live in the innermost areas of form. To enter the muladhara chakra, the aspirant must go through Lord Ganesha. And when the aspirant progresses to the manipura chakra, Ganesha will introduce him to Lord Muruga.
When the devotee has proven himself, the Gods begin to take notice. We meet a God as we go up through the chakras above the muladhara. We meet an asura as we go down through the chakras below the muladhara. A God appears as each higher chakra breaks open. As the muladhara opens and awareness comes through it, we encounter Ganesha. When we experience fear and anger, we meet and are influenced by the asuras of fear and anger. In the chakra that governs confused and selfish thinking, we meet and are influenced by the asura who rules this realm. Descending to the still lower chakras of petty theft, fraud and stealing, grand larceny, murder and violence, we would meet professionals in these areas.
When you meet the God or asura of a particular realm, it would always be a conscious meeting, but you may not always see the God or the asura. His presence would certainly be felt. Some symbol would appear, such as an image of Lord Ganesha, or of Lord Siva. A lot of people are open to Sivaness now and see Him through His images.
If you are in the temple worshiping Lord Muruga, the mantra Aum Saravanabhava obviously has a total overall effect. If you say “Aum, Aum, Aum” in front of Ganesha, Ganesha becomes conscious of your presence.
Manas swims out into the pool with the palanquin of Ganesha’s and then overturns it and they all return to the source.
The sweet auspiciousness of this moment must be experienced to be known and understood, and even then you cannot tell what it is… Lord Ganesha’s blessings through all manifest form….
Gurudeva’s spiritual center in the island country of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean near South Africa
We now take you to the events of the first day, September 16th, in Mauritius. With captions from our reporter there.
“Bodhinatha was invited to give a talk at the Draupadee Ammen Temple in the town centre of Rose Hill. It is one of the oldest temples of the island and has been innovated with tall gopuram. HH Gurudeva Sivaya Subramuniyaswami gave samaya diksha to his first group of Mauritian devotees in this temple years ago…”
Bodhinatha arrives at the temple around 6.30 pm. and is greeted by the priests (picture at top).
Then Bodhinatha led the procession around the temple with musicians playing the nageswaram and tavil.
Bodhinatha and the devotees went into the temple where a brief arthi is performed by the priests to the temple deities. There is one swami from the Divine Life Society, from India who stayed close to Bodhinatha in the temple.
After the arthi, Bodhinatha is invited into the temple Mandapam where His Holiness is introduced to the devotees by Kulapati SK Moorghen who coordinated the whole event with the Temple committee. His kutumba too did a wonderful seva on that day.
The two young boys, Vamadeva and kirtideva in short sketch based on the story of the Saint Nambi Nandi who had a miraculous encounter with Lord Ganesha at the temple when he was a child.
The children in a dance during the sketch…
Bodhinatha’s talk on that evening was on Hindu Unity. Here is an extract:
” The nature of this Hindu unity is that it is based on solidarity rather than sameness. It cannot be based on sameness as the followers of the four denominations do not hold identical beliefs and follow identical practices. On many points they differ. Therefore, the unity is based on solidarity, coming together on the beliefs and practices common to all Hindus while acknowledging that in many ways we differ. This is why Hindu Solidarity is called a unity in diversity.
There is an ancient Greek proverb which says: “United we stand; divided we fall.” The point this proverb is making is that a group, any group, is stronger when it is united and therefore better able to handle the challenges that face it.”
After the talk devotees came up to prostrate at the Feet of Bodhinatha for His Blessings…
There was quite a good number and they had to line up in the Mandapam…
This couple are unexpected guests from Australia at the Rose Hill Temple. They learned from TAKA about Bodhinatha visiting Mauritius and immediately took the flight to this island. Venkataraman and Prema Iyer are from Adelaide, South Australia and they have been on pilgrimage to Kauai Adheenam. They are attending the Ganesha Chaturthi celebration at the Spiritual Park.
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
With Singapore Sishya
We step back in time to Bodhinatha’s stay in Singapore…
Bodhinatha gives this short report for his day of September 14th.
“Lunch with members and devotees on the top of the hotel, the 8th floor Italian restaurant, a newly opened restaurant with a great view of the ocean, islands and passing freight ships.
Afternoon meetings with Hindu Centre teaching staff, first with Sivakumar Saravan who is coordinating it all and then with three of the teachers.
Evening program at the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple (Sri Lanka Ganesha Temple). It was a day for a special programme so there was a great deal of youth singing and dancing first and then my talk. Excellent quality cultural programme.
Om Namasivaya,
Bodhinatha
Sivakumar Saravan write from Singapore:
“In the evening, amidst a light drizzle, Bodhinatha arrived at the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple. This temple which is largely managed by the Sri Lankan Tamil community always make it a point to host Bodhinatha when he travels to Singapore. The
temple has a very dynamic youth committee that is working very hard to strengthen the Saiva faith among the Hindu youth community in Singapore. Another interesting point to note is that the temple has an oduvar (temple singer) who sings the Natchintanai
very well.
The temple is successfully running many programs for the children. Here the
children are performing a dance for Bodhinatha. This was part of a half an hour
cultural program specially dedicated to Bodhinatha.
After the cultural show, Bodhinatha gave a talk on how to encourage the youth to attend the temple. The talk was very well received and some of the youth present
told us that they felt inspired.
After the talk, Bodhinatha presented tokens of appreciation to all the participants of the cultural show.
There was a long queue to receive vibuthi blessings from Bodhinatha. This is
usually the highlight of the day as many of the devotees cherish the opportunity to
have darshan of our Satguru.
A group photo with the participants of the cultural show and their teachers. The Hindu culture continues to be preserved in Singapore by many dedicated teachers.
A nice ‘Free Literature’ booth was setup at the back of the temple hall.
More than 100 people visited our booth to take away some free literature. Some of them left their names behind so that we can mail them more literature in the near future.
More photos and captions from this day from Saravananathaswami…
Reviewing student/teacher Hindu religion lesson plans with sishya Sivakumar Saravan in the afternoon. Sivakumar teaches children at the Hindu Center.
The other children’s class teachers from the Hindu Center in Singapore arrive to meet Bodhinatha for the first time and receive his counsel. They face the challenge of keeping the kids’ calm and attentive, and sometimes get a little frustrated. Bodhinatha assured them that their teaching is definitely sinking into the childrens’ subconscious minds even if they do not pay full attention consciously, and the teachings will provide a pattern of dharma for the children to rely on once they’re grown up.
A light dinner at the end of the evening, chatting with Kulapati Dohadeva (second from left) and the temple Secretary (far right) about the current and future activities of the temple.
Easan Saravan, son of sishyas Sivakumar and Lavanya. A new generation of Hindus is on its way, guided by the Kailasa Parampara! Jai Ganesha!
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transcription begins
Date: March281999
Title: Friends and How to Choose Them
Category: Relationships
Duration: 5 min., 49 seconds
Date Given: March_28_1999
Given By: Gurudeva
Today at Kauai Aadheenam. It is the 28th of March. Greetings, everyone! We are very happy in cyberspace to speak with you in our ashram in the air.
We have a question here from Chitravelu Gunasekaran in Kuala Lumpur. “We have a picture of Lord Siva meditating and many are asking, “What is Lord Siva meditating upon?””
Well, Lord Siva is the Creator, Preserver and Absorber of the entire Universe. Sometimes, we say Destroyer of the Universe. Mahapralaya, that is when Lord Siva brings everything into Himself. So, He sustains the Universe as Ishwara, absorbs it as Rudra and creates it as Maheswara. It takes a lot of meditation to do that!
Siva has created all the Gods, Krishna and Radha, Goddesses Lakshmi and everybody and all the souls of all the people. Your soul, Chitravelu, is created by Lord Siva. It is a shining ball of light, living within a physical body, astral body, mental body. It is right there. It is superconscious.
You can explain this to all of your friends or tune them in to our Cyberspace Ashram.
Gloria, from Oregon, asks “I would like a Hindu name. I want to convert to Hinduism but I am not of any religion.”
Therefore, you cannot convert to Hinduism. You have to adopt Hinduism as your religion and you would be very, very welcome. Please send us your address and we will send you a beautiful Hindu name. What we need is your exact time and date of birth, and place of birth to choose just the proper, astrological name for you. Everybody has a tone and that tone is the exact time and place of their birth. There is a Sanskrit name for you, which we will look up. We are very happy that you are interested to go to a Hindu Temple and we will try to find one for you. So, please communicate with us. We do need your name and address so that we can send you beautiful things through the mail. We call it snail-mail because it goes so slow now.
Another question has come up about choosing friends. You want to choose friends that you are intellectually, spiritually able to communicate with. Not people who are attractive physically or emotionally exciting. Those friends will come and go throughout your life. They are really not friends, they are acquaintances.
Friends should help one another, uplift one another, stand by one another and you do not need a lot of friends. If you are a popular person, you could have a lot of acquaintances and a few friends. If you are a student, you are going to school to study and not to make friends. You want to come out the other end as a professional, a good educated person. Then you can make lifetime friends. Socializing too much interferes with study and often making lots of good friends can lead you astray. There are many things in the world today that you can stray off into and wind up without an education and therefore, no career.
We want to encourage everyone to get on the big boat and come to Anchorage Alaska, with me. We are leaving in June from Vancouver and going to Anchorage, Alaska. We are going to be together, we are going to do seminars, have classes, study meditation and we are going to install a beautiful Ganesha deity in the first Hindu Temple in Anchorage, Alaska, and even in the state of Alaska. It is coming up at the end of this voyage. Just a little bit time left to enroll, it is coming up very fast. It is called ‘Innersearch Alaska’.
What is ‘Innersearch’? What does that mean? It means searching within yourself for your true nature, for your true identity, for your true roots. Innersearch Alaska. Come on board!
We will be talking to you again tomorrow and then after that a 3-day retreat this time. During this time, we take time to reflect on what we did and what we are going to do, endeavoring to purify our lives, live in the moment of the eternal Now. When we are living Now, that is a wonderful place to be. No worries about the future and no regrets about the past. We’ll be seeing you in the gnana.
Aum Namah Sivaya!
transcription ends
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