It was a quiet day today.

Last night Kauai experienced a major tropical wind storm with 50 MPH winds. So this morning we faced the usual damage here and there from fallen limbs, quick tents blown off their frames, trees blocking the road and leaves, leaves, leaves everywhere. A lot of clean up work went on today.

After all these years, we have learned to just accept these dynamic storms as part of our life. They certainly bring a lot of power and prana into the atmosphere!

We have no more photos for you today… so here is some of the exquisite art of S. Rajam that was used in Dancing with Siva.

The Selvanathan family’s last day at the Aadheenam. They meet with Bodhinatha.

Below you can see a video of yesterday’s stone lift.

A man in Sri Lanka performs an interesting seva. He creates Nandi flags and distributes these for free. It is his way of promoting our venerable Saiva faith and tradition. Thondunathan presents Bodhinatha with one of these flags.

Today was Chitra puja. The powerful, penetrating puja to Gurudeva was performed.

There is always a deep sense of love that permeates the room.

Bodhinatha and some of the monks chant Sri Rudram.

The picture in the “light box” of Gurudeva is him standing like a regal Aadheenam Kartar on the streets of India.

His legacy is vast and flows like a mighty river through world. Here is one testimony. He often talked of “study groups” that would pop up here and there to discuss Hinduism Today. Vivek Iyer from Minnesota recently sent this note to the web master:

“I don’t think any words can do justice to your most noble cause and values. I have never seen such a transparent and spiritual site as yours. I was brought up thinking of Hinduism as a series of rituals. On reading your book “What is Hinduism?” I was introduced to this wonderfully and beautifully written text about Hinduism. We have regular temple sessions called “Hindu Chintan Kendra” and are using your book to promote understanding of our faith. Each week one member of the group reads a chapter (in sequence) and explains the chapter to the rest of the group. We then have a free flowing conversation about different spiritual and practical questions as they come up. I feel truely enlightened at the end of each discussion. We are now up to Chapter 22.” Vivek Iyer….

Jai Gurudeva!

Darma Satgunasingam met with Sivakatirswami yesterday to talk about helping with our web initiatives.

A space just opened up on our 2008 Asian Odyssey for 1 person (a male to share a double occupancy room with another male). Here’s your chance to join Bodhinatha on this exotic adventure. A journey through ancient temples in Cambodia, mystical classes on meditation in Langkawi and Kerala, a devotionally drenched Thaipusam festival that is out of this world and a journey through south India to some of the most sacred temples in the world, joining in some of their grand sacred pujas.

If you are ready to go, please email Sadhaka Dandapani (danda@hindu.org) or call him on 808-822-3012, Ext 239. It’s on a first come first serve basis so don’t hesitate.

Check out the grand journey at the Innersearch Site

All eyes were looking upward today for a major stone lift at the Iraivan temple.

Roof beams finally going home to their destiny on top of Iraivan.

The Siddhidata Kulam rigging team on the foundation.

Larry Conklin the crane operator with his friend Roger Ferguson.

Roger is a project manager for a huge construction project at the local Kauai Community College.

Roger was amazed at what he saw today!

Selvanathan family and Thondunathan watching from below.

The tops of pillars with their potagai stones protrude up through the scaffolding that the Siddhidata Kulam prepared…

Silpi Chelliaya supervises the work.

Here comes another one.

Seven roof beams went up today.

Selvanathan Jothiswara family is on pilgrimage here from Ulu Behrang in Malaysia. Gurudeva was very close to the family. On the left is Selvanathan’s brother, Kanesh, who is in process of completing his medical training and looks forward to adding more support the Iraivan Temple Project.

Siva and Indranee Sivagnanaguru, originally from Sri Lanka, and now living in St.Paul, Minnesota, are here on pilgrimage. They have been long-time supporters of Iraivan Temple and also subscribers to the Hinduism Today magazine.

It’s Sadhu Paksha. The monks early morning routine in the temple suspended. Instead they rise and wander with nature in the early morning hours.

There are no public tours, but we have a few pilgrims who are here having made arrangement months in advance.

Sadhaka Dandapani’s mother and father helping with karma yoga, preparing vibhuthi packets.

At the Ganapati Kulam…

James and Louise Davis with their daughter Amanda during a special tour of the Iraivan Temple. Amanda has joined the Peace Corp and will be traveling and serving that agency in Thailand and Cambodia in January 08′ for 27 months.

A late afternoon photo of James and Louise Davis and their two children, Amanda and Max, with Paramacharya Ceyonswami outside the Kadavul Temple.

They visited the Aadheenam for the first time one year ago and purchased Gurudeva’s trilogy. The daily lessons had a positive life-changing affect upon the entire family and they all became vegetarians. They have returned here on pilgrimage and are deeply interested in the Saivite Hindu religion.

Visitors today included a Martial Arts monk, Kaung Nam Ching, from the Shaolin Temple in Chaing Mai Province, Thailand, with one of his disciples, Eric Bentencourt and a martial arts student from Kauai, David Michaels.

Rishi Thondunathan (center) with the Jothiswarar family from Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia; Selvanatha Jothiswarar, Kanesh, Theivigan, Kodiswara, Siva Jothiswary and Sellamah Jothiswarar.

In the background is the Wailua river and waterfall and, in the distance, the very beautiful Iraivan Temple.

Rishi Thondunathan has returned on pilgrimage to the Aadheenam. He is well known in the Tamil community and is teaching Gurudeva’s courses in Saivism at various locations around North America. He poses for a photo outside the temple with local devotees, Durvasa and Isani Alahan.

Bodhinatha meets with Shailesh Trivedi before he goes off back home to South California.

~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming two-day retreat,
until Navami Tithi, Sun One, Sunday, December 2nd.

Here on pilgrimage from St. Paul, Minnesota, are Siva C. Sivagnanaguru, originally from Valvettithurai, Jaffna, and his wife Indranee who originated in Batticoloa.

They have been contributing to the Iraivan Temple building for several years and have also subscribed to Hinduism Today magazine for many years. Their last trip to Kauai was in 2001, when only the temple foundation was in place, so they were amazed and delighted to see the progress since then.

A visiting family from California, (originally from Punjab, India). Jasvinder and Jasneet with their two daughters, Jahnair and little Jiya.

Jasvinder brought his family on the urging of a coworker and stated that he was “so impressed with the beauty, serenity and spirituality of this special place. We feel very grateful and blessed to be here and do want to come back again.”

Welcome to the Spiritual Park of Mauritius for our November Ganesha Homa. Lord Pancha Mukha Ganapati looks bright with all the garlands and flowers brought for Him by loving devotees.

Here is a Google Earth photo of the spiritual park in Mauritius. Directly on the edge of the river where it meets the ocean.

Below is a wonderful video done by the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation on the occasion of Paramacharya Palaniswami’s visit last year. It has been segmented into three YouTube episodes.

Adi Sankara leading the bhajan…

As usual every single seating space is occupied inside the Mandapam by early comers.

Today everyone’s mind is focussed on Lord Ganapati.

Outside, under the tarpaulin covered tent devotees are coming down the Ganesha Bridge with their offerings of fruits and flowers.

Devotees seated on the lava rock steps…Arnasamy (left) is from Belgium. He later gave a testimony saying how the Ganesha Homa started in a simple way and has turned into a real big ceremony…..

The sacred fire where thousands of written prayers will be burnt….

Kulapati Siven Koothan is presiding over the ceremony…

One testimony from a Chennai graduate in karnatic music..This is his first day at the Ganesha Homa and he is very impressed by the spiritual vibration pervading the place.

Kulapati Koothan reading a talk from our Kailasa Parampara’s teachings….

Some devotees would happily stay standing through the whole ceremony, happy to feel the darshan of Lord Pancha Mukha Ganapati!

Don’t miss the new link to Bodhinatha’s marvelous upadesha on the Body of the Soul, given on Sun one, that is posted today on the right side bar.

This is Dr. Vettivelu Maheswaran who visited with his entire family today. His father was Yogaswami’s personal physician for many years, and daily on his way to his clinic stopped at the Columbuthurai hut at 6am to give Yogaswami his insulin shot. Palaniswami recorded Dr. Maheswaran’s stories for the monastery archives, stories of Yogaswami’s naming all 8 of the children in their house, of what it was like to sit with such a great soul (“always uplifted us”,) and of how Yogaswami intervened in the Dr.’s career and made him change from a liberal arts track to a medical one.

Ganga and Jai Murugan with their daughter Gayatri are longtime devotees of Gurudeva and are here visiting on pilgrimage from Edmonton, Canada. Here they pose with Sivakatirswami outside the Kadavul Siva Temple.

Dr. Vattivelu Maheswaran’s son, Indran Subramaniam, with wife and two children, Eshan and Nesha, both four year old twins, and Meera Maheswaran.

Elizabeth Percival was an earlier devotee of Gurudeva’s and went on several Innersearch trips in the early 1970’s. She is very happy to be visiting Kauai and attended the daily pujas in the temple during her stay.

Another devout member of Indran’s family, Majeswari, who writes children’s stories and wishes to offer her writing talents for the children to the Aadheenam.

With just over a month before Innersearch, Bodhinatha and his editing team are working on the study guide.

Sadhaka Dandapani shows his family around the Aadheenam, a visit to our cows and Narmada lingam.

On left are brothers Arun and Darma, and on the right Sadhaka Dandapani with his parents, Satgunasingam and Nirmala.

Having a tour of the publishing offices of Ganapati Kulam.

Paramacharya Ceyonswami talking with Shailesh Trivedi at Kadavul Temple … as it turns out, it’s Shailesh’s sister, Shivali, who recently got married to Darma, Sadhaka Dandapani’s brother… small world.

It was also tour day today…

It was a magnificent day…

A view of the visitor’s tour group on it’s way to Iraivan.

It is very bright, mangalam day at the Aadheenam. We just went through the powerful full-moon retreat of Kartikkeya Deepam, followed by homa this morning and Ardra abhishekam today.

Sadhaka Dandapani’s family is here: mother, father and two brothers. The oldest brother in the family, Darma recently married Shivali. Bodhinatha blesses them with a shawl.

Darma and Shivali sit for blessing during our early morning homa.

Bodhinatha gave a deep talk on the nature of the soul and God-Realization. He spoke on Gurudeva’s Shum explanation of two ways to come out of Self-Realization, a quick way and a slow way. He described the various states of awareness one encountered in the process.

lAnnouncing! Fabulous 24-minute video of Thai Pusam is now online! For a heart-inspiring experience of authentic worship of Lord Murugan, don’t miss this fabulous video by Rohini Kumar Nair, long time devotee of Gurudeva in Malaysia! Watch it below. You can also click here to open a new web page to view hi-res versions.

Later in the morning Sadhaka Dandapani gave his family a tour of Iraivan.

At the Ardra puja we sing Natchintanai and bhajans while the curtains are closed after a very powerful abhishekam. Sadhaka’s other brother, Arunachala is a drummer.

The family meet with Bodhinatha after the puja.

We all wish Darma and Shivali a joyous life together in Dharma.

Meanwhile Brahmacharini Shama has been giving tours to many visitors. She writes:

“Visitors over the past few days included Shanmuga and Pranathi Sundaram from Hayward, California. In the center is Gail La Mar who has been visiting with her husband on pilgrimage; and on the right is Prabha and Prakash Roopani from Texas, both are originally from Mumbai.”

A truly beautiful sunny day with scattered feathery serras clouds wafting across a clear blue sky. A perfect day for the powerful Ardra abhishekam to Siva Nataraja in the Kadavul Siva Temple which was filled with pilgrims and devotees.

A small group of Hindu visitors later toured the Iraivan temple. Among them were Ganga Padmesh (far right) from Calif). who has been pilgrimaging here for the past 15 years) arrived with her niece and cousin, Chaya Prabhu from Calif., and Radha Gowda from Boston. Also present were Gaurang and Nalini Shah from Calif., and Sridar Rajakumar and Geetha Chandrasekar of Chennai. Also a young man from Seattle, Sooraj Ratnakumar.

All had heard about the Iraivan Temple either through the internet, family and friends or through the Aadheenam’s international magazine, Hinduism Today.

Sridhar Rajakumar and Geetha Chandrasekar in front of Dakshinamurthy.

We just received some photos from India where Jiva Rajasankara captures the burning ghee light on top of Annamalai on Krittika Deepam day…

The giant ghee lamp throws an incredible light at the top of one of the most holy places on earth.

It’s the last day of a short 4-day phase here. We are headed for another 3-day full moon retreat.

The Ganapati Kulam shared news of their work this phase. There has been a major push on assembling video in preparation for launching our own channels on YouTube. Stay tune for news in the weeks ahead. We also were pleased to have Professor Bajpai with us (see more below). The Hinduism Today January Digital Edition is underway and with the hard work of Andre Garzia in Brasil, it will also be releasing it’s own new media viewer for rich-media delivery. Palaniswami and Arumugaswami are preparing for their up-and-coming trip to a conference in Florida. Kumarswami is busy with the next insight section of Hinduism Today… and more….

~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming three-day retreat,
until Dvitya Tithi, Sun One, Friday, November 26th.

Today Professor Bajpai met with Arumugaswami for most of the morning. Together they worked on plans for the next Hindu History lesson.

Here he is with his wife who spent her morning wandering all through our gardens. He has a wealth of knowledge that we plan to put to work in the years ahead.

Tomorrow evening is the yearly event of the Full Moon in the star of Krittika, celebrated in India as the birth of Lord Muruga in the faraway constellation of the Pleiades (Krittika).
Vel Muruga!

Sun Three of a short 4 day phase. The Siddhidata kulam shared news of their work in the garden and on Iraivan Temple. The silpis are fitting roof beams carefully on the foundation of temple prior to them being raised up to the roof itself.

In Bangaluru, Selvanathan Sthapati is marking the actual size drawing for the ceiling of the Iraivan Raja Gopuram on plywood. This drawing will be later transferred onto the stones and the carving will begin.

Chidambaram Sthapati–our Bangaluru carving site Sthapati and Tangavelu Asari–senior ornamentation supervisor/carver are with him. These two experienced men will transfer this drawing and supervise the carving done by the silpis

Professor Siva Bajpai finally made his way to Kauai after having been working in close association with the swamis in our publications teams for twenty years. Sivakatirswami gave him a tour of the Iraivan Temple. He has come to Kauai with his wife Catalina (right) his daughter Anita Bajpai Peterson (left) and son-in-law, Brett Peterson.

Siva and Catalina are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this month. The family marveled at the intricacy of the temple carving work.

Professor Bajpai is one of the world’s foremost Indian historians. In his special area of expertise as a “geographical” historian, he was one of the three who teamed up to create the famous Historical Atlas of South Asia. Two decades ago the Ganapati Kulam tapped into his reservoir of knowledge to help generate the Hindu Timeline, which was published in Hinduism Today and later in Dancing with Siva. Sivakatirswami was his initial contact in the early days and now, 20 years later they finally meet in person.

In more recent times Professor Bajpai has been collaborating with Arumugaswami on the Hindu History lesson. We’ll have more about this tomorrow.

On the right is Nikki Nicholau and Bob Alstrum from Richmond, VA on a special tour of the Iraivan Temple. Also with them, visiting for the first time, are Pavan and Vasudha Chelpati from Michigan.

Here Pavan rolls the smooth granite ball around inside the Lion’s mouth. Carving Lion pillars (out of one piece of granite) is one of many amazing skills of the stone-carvers, especially since they carve a granite ball through the teeth inside the Lion’s mouth.

Pavan and Vasudha beside the Kadavul Temple pool.

Nikki and Bob pose beside the sacred Kalasa stupi stone that will eventually be placed on the very top of the Iraivan Temple Vimana Capstone.

Bob met and studied under Swami Satchidananda several years ago at Swami’s Lotus Center in Virginia.

A few more late photos arriving from the Golden Gate Mission of their successful program in Davis. Here, Susan Greenwald, mayor of Davis makes a presentation to some young performers.

The cultural performances were all inspiring.

Gurudeva’s old time devotees, the Burke family from Vancouver, Canada, who are “professional clowns” were kind enough to donate their time and expertise. Aubrey and his mother delighted the crowds and kids all day long.

Reports about them were that “They were sooooo funny! I laughed so hard I cried and thought I was going to burst open.”

Aubrey’s mother did face painting as part of her act.