Today Bodhinatha was in transit and then satsang. He writes:

“Today we flew from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, were met by a medium sized group of members at the KLIA Airport. In the evening we had a satsang at Appasamy Kuppusamy’s home. Most members were able to attend, including visiting Deva Rajan and Easan Katir, so the house was packed.”

Meanwhile we are drawing on the collection of photos Sannyasin Arumugaswami has sent us. We have two more sets from the last days in India in Chennai, Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry. Arumugaswami tells the story:

“We proceed on our trip report from South India. Be advised we had two photographers, myself and Mu Devrayan, so in some cases we will go back in time with the second set of photographs.

“We had many meetings in Chennai. Here is Brahmachari Ramanachitra from the local Chinmaya Mission greeted Bodhinatha at the hotel. He has spent many years in Jaffna, and knows all about Yogaswami and our line of gurus.”

Here we are at the Ideal Resort in Thanjavur, a wonderful colonial-style resort, unfortunately too small for Innersearch, just 30 rooms.

We’re back into the Saraswati Mahal Library, some of which you’ve seen already. Here Dr. Sabharatanam is checking their catalog for useful manuscripts.

An assistant is sent to retrieve a bundle from these tall cabinets. It was no easy task sorting through the bundles on each shelf looking for the right one.

Here is Krishna Yajur Veda.

These are huge cloth sacks of palm leaf bundles.

An example

The librarian shows some leaves

This is more from the book of fabrics. These are actual piece of cloth.

We spotted this method of fertilizing a coconut tree at the Ideal Resort–they dig a trench half way around each tree and about 8 inches deep, put in fertilizer and then re-cover.

As we drove back to Pondicherry from Thanjavur we had to record this awful road in central Mayiladuthurai. The pavement had just disappeared, and we were left with dirt and potholes. Most of the road between Pondi and Trichy is pretty good, but this section wasn’t!

We’re a bit out of order in the photos, jumping ahead to our visit of the carving site in Mahabalipuram for the stone elephants and Hanuman for Iraivan. This is the clay model made for the stone elephant hold the globe.

The Hanuman is propped up against a pile of stones and has four silpis working on it at a time.

Here the silpi is working on the leg of the stone elephant.

Another view of Hanuman in progress.

This is the clay model of Hanuman. In his raised left hand will sit a marble version of Iraivan temple.

Not everything at this worksite was “chip, chip, chip.” This giant rock saw was cutting the slabs into neat pieces with ease.

The carving site had this field of Siva Lingams near the entrance.

Now we’re back in Chennai for two days of meetings. This is Nellaiappan, our liaison officer for Chennai and his wife, along with son-in-law and granddaughter.

This is Selvanathan Sthapati, who is assisting with various aspects of Iraivan temple along with his family and two of the silpis coming to Kauai in the next batch.

Jiva Rajasankara, wife, sons and daughters-in-law.

Pethuraja family has come all the way from Rajapalayam.

This is the entire Yuva Kendra of Chennai Chinmaya Mission, some 35 youth let by Prasanna. We had an 1.5 hour discussion on the marvelous programs of the Chinmaya Mission. Bodhinatha remarked that the Mission had achieved “critical mass” with regard to their youth programs. Their two-year service program for youth was possible because they had enough centers and teachers. The youth would go for four to five months training, then serve in one center or another for the next 15 or 16 months. One after another testified how the experience had completely changed their lives, making them aware of themselves as a spiritual being with a spiritual purpose. Asked if they had come into the mission because of their parents, they replied, “It was the other way around,” meaning that their parents joined the mission after the youth became involved. It was a very encouraging meeting, showing that the Hindu youth of India have the potential to develop into a powerful spiritual force in their own right.

S. Rajam meets with Bodhinatha. He’s 81 years old and going strong. He has contributed a great deal of art to our publications over the years, including each cover of Gurudeva’s Master Course trilogy.

Gunalan family arrives. Here the two older daughters sing for Bodhinatha.

Gunalan brought his set of Tiruvadi for Bodhinatha to bless.

Here’s the whole family.

Adi Sankara and Anjeeni. Adi is taken graduate training in music for six more months before returning to Mauritius. He sang Natchintanai for Bodhinatha.

We had a two hour meeting with a group of historians and Indian academics brought together by Dr. Kalyanaraman of the Sarasvati Research Centre, Chennai. It was a lively meeting on issues of Indian history.

The ancient mountain range of Kauai, ever fascinating and changing…

Back home on Kauai, he silpis posed for this photo of them setting the tops of the Tara Pillars. We will make some giant copies and send them home to their families. It’s cool clear on Kauai and our silpis are full of happy smiles.

On the 23rd, we drive to Thanjavur, which is a nice drive with good roads, except for the sections where there is no road surface at all–just dirt and potholes. It reminded us of the roads on Himalayan Acres… It had been raining very hard throughout this area for the past several weeks–evidenced by the extensively flooded rivers and rice paddies. However, it all cleared up upon our arrival. This photo is taken at the Saraswati Mahal Library, part of the Tanjavore Palace. It houses an immense collection of palm leaves.

Mu Devrayan, our photographer for Hinduism Today, accompanied us on the trip for four days. Here he is checking his camera settings prior to taking pictures of a leaf. In January he will return to the Institute for a week-long trial shoot of important manuscripts.

This is a chart at the Saraswati Mahal Library showing the evolution of the Tamil Alphabet.

This is a closeup of the first vowels. From what we saw in the demonstration in palm leaves, the alphabet change to a more rounded shape because that was easier to scribe on the leaves. Difficult to do sharp corners.

A bundle of leaves

Here we are talking to a resident pundit who is able to still scribe the leaves. Here he is explaining how it was done.

A sharp pointed stylus is held in the right hand, and set in a notch cut in the thumbnail of the left hand. The right hand applies pressure, the left thumb guides. With practice, one can write very small and very fast.

He demonstrates the method.

The tool also includes a knife for cutting the leaves to shape.

The sample–the first two words of the Tirukkural–as

“Akaa mutal…”

A is the first and source of all the letters. Even so is
God Primordial the first and source of all the world.

The leaves and tools. The middle tool is also used to scribe, but we did not understand quite how it was used.

Here one of the librarians explains their collection.

This is a book of fabrics, with actual samples.

The library is quite extensive, much larger than the Pondicherry collection. However, it does not contain any significant number of Saiva manuscripts.

There are many Vaishnava manuscripts, also other scriptures, medical texts, even land records.

These are three-foot long leaves which are land records.

After we left Pondicherry, we returned along the coast road, which naturally took us to Chidambaram where we enjoyed a personal archana at the same time the spatika lingam puja was taking place. It was a powerful spiritual moment! Here we are with Anantanatarajan Deekshita and his son Gurumurthi. In back are Manikavel and his wife.

A cool and bright tropical day on Kauai, so we took a walk over to the Orchid Mandapam. On the way we spotted a new garden one of the monks created this retreat. It is called “Anthurium Arcade.”

It has seven mounds defined by a square of coconut tree trunks. In each mound is a GIANT anthurium. Well, they are not that big today as they were just planted, but in the years ahead each will be taller than a man. This is just a few feet away from Umbrella Ganesha.

Nearby rests a turtle. Wait, that’s not a turtle. It’s the famed and oh-so-rare, never-saw-that-before Turtle Vine from South America. Officially, it is known as Dioscorea macrostachya and is a member of the yam family of plants.

Mr. and Mrs. Shah arrived yesterday and said they worshipped Siva through fire. This morning they chanted Sri Rudram together in Kadavul during the puja then took their traveling yagna pot to the orchid mandapam to perform an hour long ceremony.

Ghee is offered into the fire after each chant. We took a few seconds of video so you could hear their sacred verses. The chanted the famed “Mrityunjaya Mantra” over and over again for one hour, while making their offerings to Agni.

Bodhinatha and Arumugaswami were in Singapore today… meanwhile Arumugaswami has sent some photo collections and we step back now to the 20th in India at the beginning of their mission there.

Arumugaswami writes:

After bit of rest on arrival in India, they met with people hotel lobby. Here is Shankar Nathan (right) we and talked about augmenting Hinduism Today digital edition with video. One idea is to develop short one or two minute pieces for each article, a kind of video summary. Another is to augment articles with audio, for example, if the article mentions vedic chanting to provide a button to play vedic chants, which could go on while the person continued to read the article. We talked about making 10 to 12 minute video versions of the feature articles, based on video we had shot. This is a more complex project. Shankar Nathan is working also on a short Hinduism Today commercial. Altogether, there were a lot of ideas discussed, all within the range of possibility.

We also met that evening with Srinivasan, who is the former head of the Saraswati Mahal Library at Thanjavur, which we will visit shortly.

November 22 we proceed to Pondicherry in the early morning, whizzing down at a 100 km an hour. It was 20 km outside of Chennai before we saw our first cow, which used to roam the streets of Chennai but are now banished to the countryside. We checked in to our hotel and headed for the French Institute. Pictured here is a paper copy of a palm leaf manuscript. Several thousands of these were done about 30 years ago by NR Bhatt, mostly. They are of Saiva Agamas and other scriptures. They are in very neat Devanagiri script, having been copied over from the Grantha script. They are rapidly falling apart, being acid paper and much less durable than the palm leaves. The Muktabodha Indological Research Institute had worked for many months at the institute earlier in the year photographing these manuscripts.

Dr. Sabharatanam, an expert on the Saiva Agamas, came with us to the Institute. Here he holds a small bundle of leaves. There are several dozen styles of the bundles.

From left to right, Nelliappan, Arumugaswami, Dr. Sabharatanam and Ganesan of the French Institute staff examine some leaves.

Here is a copy of the Sukshma Agama.

There is a massive conservation effort underway at the Institute. These bundles have been given new boards and strings. This is a simple job, but must be done with utmost care to neither damage the fragile leaves not mix up their order.

Ganesan explains the paper manuscripts to Bodhinatha.

This is an example of the paper manuscripts.

The working area of the French Institute for the palm leaf collection. Here an expert works on replacing the outside board between which the leaves are bound.

The French Institute sits right on the ocean. The precarious preservation of the leaves became clear to us as we visited. Had the tsunami waves followed a slightly different pattern, the Institute could have been damaged. There is also an extreme danger from fire for the dry leaves.

Our team is joined by Sambhanda Sivachariaya. He has worked for 30 years at the Institute in preservation and cataloging of the collection. Cataloging is another tedious job that requires expert knowledge of Sanskrit and Grantha script to read the manuscripts and make an index of what each bundle contains.

The Institute has several other large departments in addition to the manuscript collection. This is the photo archive, containing hundreds of thousands of photos of South India religious sites. These are cataloged and available for use. The photo department is working hard to get their catalog and the photo collection into the computer and on the web.

Here is a set of leaves that has been coated with lemon oil and is drying before being repacked. If you look closely, you’ll see this set is suffering from considerable damage.

At home on Kauai, today began an new phase with homa and a very busy tour day. Yogi Jivanananda performs the rites today.

Paramacharya Palaniswami presides over the homa.

Bodhinatha’s seat with his Tiruvadi…

Monks chanting Sri Rudram.

Paramacharya give a talk after the homa.

Our photographer surveys some small features inside Kadavul. This multi-bell set give a marvelous sound during pujas.

Stain glass inlays in the ceilings representing the chakra associated with that part of the temple.

Over 100 people today for the phasely tour, in two groups of more than 50 each!

The first Sunday of each month continues to draw more and more devotees to the worship of Lord Ganesha at the Spiritual Park of Saiva Siddhanta Church, Mauritius. For November it has been another memorable event for many…

Many small Ganesha are brought by devotees to be blessed by the shakti of Lord Pancha Mukha Ganapati during the ceremony. Devotees take their murthis home immediately after the ceremony to be lovingly placed on the shrine altar.

A group leads the bhajan….

Many devotees come early to find a seat inside the Mandapam…

They all sing the devotional songs..

The inside group now consists mainly of women….

A few sishyas …..

The kulapatis are seated on the four sides to conduct the Homa…..

As usual hundreds of written prayers dipped in ghee are sent into the homa fire…

One lady giving a testimony….. Her family has been sponsoring the food for this homa.

Kulapati Manon gave a talk drawing from the Yamas and Niyamas…

Lord Ganapati and Satguru Bodhinatha overseeing the whole event.

After the ceremony food is served to all devotees….

….While a group of sishyas help with the cleaning inside the Mandapam.

Bodhinatha wrote from Chennai saying they had completed a day long series of meetings there.

The Innersearch team offers some thoughts for you to ponder today:

Bodhinatha and Saravananathaswami are generating ideas for our coming Innersearch travel-study program, 2008> They are giving special attention at this time to the three “retreat” periods of several days each, along the way. There, the participants will enjoy congenial accommodations in pleasant surroundings, relax, go for walks, meditate and take all the time they need to put into practice what they are learning. Especially attractive will be classes on meditation by Bodhinatha during those beautiful days.
The journey includes Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Malaysia and India. Seehttp://www.himalayanacademy.com/innersearch/

A small group of visitors today… enjoying the temple gardens on the way to Iraivan Temple.

Shama shows them Dakshinamurthi under His banyan tree.

Twenty dancers from Hawaii are taking a journey to India in January. They are all part of the hula halau of Roselle Bailey, second from the right. Five of them came today to connect with the temple, write prayers for their journey and visit Iraivan.

Roselle explores the stone ball in the lion’s mouth.

Dawn is charmed, too. They will dance in Madurai, Tuticorin, Chidambaram, Pondicherry, and perhaps at Rameshwaram. There will be Indian folk and classical dancers on stage, too, making for a cultural exchange between the countries and their peoples. They were off to practice all afternoon after their tour with Palaniswami.

Here is Bodhinatha in Mahabalipuram on the last India Innersearch, an appropriate photo to accompany the latest update from the mission team who are in South India today. Bodhinatha writes:

Om Sivaya, everyone!

Jai Ganapati.

Today we drove from Pondicherry to Chennai, making three stops. The first was at Auroville where we were wonderfully hosted. Our visit included an hour-plus meeting with their teachers on the broad subject of teaching spirituality to their students. Their most common message was that they do it by the teacher’s example which includes no corporal punishment but handling problems by discussion.

Next we stopped in Mahabalipuram at the carving site of the Hanuman that will be installed near Iraivan, being sculpted under the direction of silpi Thurai. It is moving forward. Also, one of our three elephants, also partially done, had been moved to the site for us to view. It is usually at another site.

Third stop was the BAPS Swaminarayan Tsunami reconstruction of a fishing village of 150 homes. As is usual for all BAPS projects, it was well done,

Now we are back in Chennai at the GRT Grand with a private area for all the many darshan sessions planned over the next Sunday and Monday.

Om Namasivaya,
Bodhinatha

Another beautiful day at Kauai Aadheenam. The Ganapati Kulam detailed their work today. Many things happening in the publishing and media world. Top of the list are new content additions to the web site, preparations to launch the Digital Edition 2007 January issue of Hinduism Today and getting a really beautiful Book Four of the children’s course ready for the printer.

One item that has long been in the works is finally seeing the light of day… it is called “Kauai’s Hindu Monastery,” a 40-page booklet that has been transported to our web site as a new introduction to the monastery and its diverse areas of service… check it out here:

All About Kauai’s Hindu Monastery

Ratnam and Lakshmi Jeedigunta flew from Detroit to visit with their daughter, Aparajita, who is a student at the University of Hawaii on Oahu. Then the whole family flew directly here to attend the 9 a.m. Siva puja at the Kadavul Temple, followed by a tour of the beautiful Iraivan Temple and grounds. They were profoundly moved by their visit and plan to come back again.

Aruna and Venkat Kommu arrived with their two young children, Vasanth and Veena from San Francisco. They had been teaching their children a Siva prayer when they met a couple who directed them to this Siva temple. After enjoying the Abhishekam and touring Iraivan Temple, they confided that they felt extremely blessed to be here at Siva’s Feet.

This is the Jodhpurkar family from Virgina. Jeetendra, his wife Madhavi, daughter Mohini and son Kanha. It was Kanha’s 6th birthday today and he had an archana during the 9am Siva puja in Kadavul Temple. The family had a great visit and hugged the rudraksha trees. Madhavi teaches children’s classes at their local temple and is using some of our Himalayan Academy pamphlets, like “Ten Questions about Hinduism,” as teaching aids.

A photo and video tour of our Sacred Rudraksha grove today. On each tree a few leaves will turn bright red, then fall to the ground. Looking closely, you can see the Blue Marbles, which are the fruit surrounding the seed.

This Nepal-style Ganesha guards the entry to the grove, which is open daily from 6am to 6pm.

The trees have amazing roots, which rise out of the ground to provide lateral support.

There are several hundred trees on the property, America’s only Rudraksha Grove. Watch our movie to get a sense of what it’s like inside the Grove, with millions of holy seeds covering the ground and various colored lichens living on the trunks of the trees.

And now a silent video to walk through

Other than our regular monthly Ganesha Havana, the Spiritual Park continues to host visitors who privately come to worship at the Ganesha Mandapam everyday.

One major project this year regarding maintenance of the premises is the reconstruction of the Ganesha Bridge, a few metres from the Mandapam.

The old bridge used to be covered with pine planks but due to the large number of visitors crossing it the planks gave way and had to be removed. It has been decided to rebuild the bridge with concrete.

Church members are there to give a helping hand in pouring the concrete.

The bridge has to be very strong. Thick reinforcing steel rods are being used…

The work is being done professionally under the supervision of Master Course student Ramsamy Pillay, who is a building engineer.

Later ,when all concrete works are completed, the bridge will be entirely covered with wood to integrate its look into the natural surroundings of the Park. Work continues on this construction and karma yogis are welcomed to help….

The concrete has now been poured….

Back to another activity of the Park…. The children studying Bodhinatha’s Saivite Hindu Religion series on Saturdays there, have had their end of year test in the quiet atmosphere of the Ganesha Mandapam…

The children had to answer 47 questions based on Book IV of the Saivite Hindu Religion course, a special text for young ones to learn their religion.

They had to concentrate all alone and remember what they have learned from Bodhinatha.

Here is Lunadosha Valaytan immersed in the questions…

A group is being briefed by Ariadassy regarding the questions to be answered. The smaller ones are doing the test orally.

Here is one question from the objective tests section for you to try… Have you found the right answer?

Tolerance means that we …………….
A. show to others that our religion is better than theirs
B. accept all religions to be the same and mix them together
C. criticise all religions that are different from ours
D. recognise and respect religious beliefs that are different from ours.

Here is Bodhinatha at Chidambaram with his traveling party and Dikshitar priests. Arumugaswami writes:

“Here’s one photo for today, taken after our puja at Chidambaram with Anantanataraj Dikshitar and his son Gurumurthi. Overwhelming powerful vibration at the temple, indeed, the center of the universe!”

Bodhinatha writes:

“Today we returned to Pondicherry with a stop at Chidambaram. Timing was perfect for a long archana while the spatika lingam abhishekam was occurring at the same time. Very uplifting.

“Then a meeting at the French Institute with the head of the manuscript department. We developed a plan for a one week shot in January of key Agama texts to be selected by Sabaratnam.

“Then off to ICYER, Swami Gitananda’s Ananda Ashram for an evening satsang with questions and answers.”

For ever so long, we have longed for a better way to search our vast site. Daily we struggle to narrow in on some obscure fact, verse, chapter of a Gurudeva book. Today we installed a special search field provided by the ever-creative, nearly-omniscient Google. The field is at the bottom of our home page.

When it worked, one of the monks offered this: “Wow! Oh-my-God.” This is another example of “all our needs will always be met.” We had struggled with so many options and had an HT DIG engine that was OK, but was high maintenance and not very fast. Now the engineers at Google have provided, free of cost, exactly what we (and all of our TAKA visitors) need. This searches ALL of our domains and is lightening fast. Check it out next time you want to find a little-known gem on any of our sites.

Kalepi is a Tongan living on Kauai. He has become known as one of the island’s finest craftemen in building walls of the pourous lave rock which is called Moss Rock locally.

Kalepi will be collecting (hand-picking) the best Moss Rock on Kauai in the months ahead. This will be the rock used for the Iraivan plinth, which measures four feet high and 482 feet long. It is the black mountain on which the white gem called Iraivan will sit. We found a place among the tropical plants for him to stockpile 40 large trucks of stone.

Something new was heard at Iraivan site today. Instead of the chink-chink-chink of the silpi’s chisels on the white stone, we heard, for the first time, the kling-kling-kling sound, like that of a bell. The silpi’s are working on the Tara pillars which are made of black stone, not white like the rest of the temple. The sound is so different, all were smiling and we were asked to capture it for you to hear. The first part of this video shows two clips, one of white stone being carved, one of black. See if you can discern the difference.

The black stone is much harder too, so there was extra effort going on as the giant stones were shaped. Plus, the shards which break off are much sharper, almost knife-like, and can cut the arm of the sculptor if he is not cautious. There are four Tara pillars in Iraivan temple, at the center. Each has three ieces, so you will see many blocks in the video. They are deeply fluted, as the video shows toward the end. This kind of sculpting is no longer done in India with granite. It is just too hard to achieve. But as you will see, worth the effort to bring this elegance into the 21st century. Here is our movie of the Tara pillars being carved today.

And a closing reminder today:

The above is just a picture to remind everyone of the updates on our video page

Here are some photos taken of Bodhinatha arriving at the airport in India.

He was greeted by Gunalan and Lalitha Ponniah and Adi Sankara (behind the camera) and his wife.

Here they are off to the hotel in Chennai.. This was a few days ago…

Yesterday and today they are on the move between Pondicherry and Thanjavur where they visited the famous Sarasvati Mahal library to look into Agama texts there.

Speaking of Agama texts: here is a marvelous quote from the Ajita Agama.

“This God of Gods, Sadasiva, is the cause of everything. Parasiva is established as His cause and is told to be Supreme; It’s nature is beyond mind and speech, therefore not described here. Therefore That which is the material cause is only Siva, who is three entities. Arising eternally from Parasiva, Lord Sadasiva is devaketana, “banner or leader of the Gods.” — Ajita Agama 27-30

Bodhinatha and Arumugaswami are on the move in India, having gone to Pondicherry.

With the indefatigable help of Prof (retired) Manickavel in Chidambaram and Sheela Venkatakrishnan in Chennai our “behind the scenes” Natchintanai songbook work is progressing well. Three goals of the project are to provide an easy transliteration that will still enable fairly good pronunciation for non-Tamil speakers, a literal translation to help visualize as you sing, and eventually, standardized tunes on the web.

For those who have been singing Natchintanai, and not knowing exactly what you are singing, it’s so wonderful to be able to follow along: here is a short sample. Note that we are not attempting to make the literal translation grammatically perfect, but to follow as closely the original order of Tamil words which will also help learn the Tamil and “see it” in the Tamil way…

Sollu Sivamey
Say–Oh Siva!

sollu sivamey sollu sivamey
Say – Oh Siva – say – Oh Siva

sugambera maarkkam ondru sollu sivamey
to get happiness – way – one – say – Oh Siva

vellum pagaiy oliya sollu sivamey
winning – enmity – to destroy – say – Oh Siva

veyru porul illaiyendru sollu sivamey
another – thing – not there, thus – say – Oh Siva

allum pagalumara sollu sivamey
night and – day, to disappear – say – Oh Siva

anbey sivam endru sollu sivamey
Love indeed – Sivam – thus – say – Oh Siva

kallung karaiyak kavi sollu sivamey
stone even – to melt – poem – say – Oh Siva

kaayamey kohyilendru sollu sivamey
body indeed – temple, thus – say – Oh Siva

allalattru vaala vali sollu sivamey
without sorrow – to live – way – say – Oh Siva

agam piramaasmi endru sollu sivamey
I am – Brahman – thus – say – Oh Siva

ellavarkku nallanendru sollu sivamey
to all people – good, thus – say – Oh Siva

ellaam sivan seyalaay sollu sivamey
everything – Siva’s – action only – say – Oh Siva

nillaathiv vaalvendru sollu sivamey
stops not this – life, thus – say – Oh Siva

neeyum naanum ondrendru sollu sivamey
you and – I – one, thus – say – Oh Siva

pollaappu ingillaiyendru sollu sivamey
evil – not here, thus – say – Oh Siva

putthadiyohm naangalendru sollu sivamey
new servitors – are we, thus – say – Oh Siva

kollaamai perithendru sollu sivamey
non-killing – is noble, thus – say – Oh Siva

koosaamal evarmunnum sellu sivamey
without hesitation – before anyone – go – Oh Siva

nallohr naduvirukka sollu sivamey
good people – be among – say – Oh Siva

naamey anaitthumendru sollu sivamey
we indeed – are everything, thus – say – Oh Siva

ullaasamaay engum sellu sivamey
joyfully – everywhere – go – Oh Siva

unmai muluthum endru sollu sivamey
truth – all that is – thus – say – Oh Siva

kallaarkkung gathiyendru sollu sivamey
uneducated people even – refuge, thus – say – Oh Siva

katti manatthaiyaala sollu sivamey
tie up – to rule the mind – say – Oh Siva

Bodhinatha and Arumugaswami are stationed in Chennai at the GRT Grand business hotel. They met with Dr. Srinivasan, former director of the Saraswati Mahal Library in Thanjavur mainly discussing details about the library, its collection, staff and projects. Then they met with a video team to discuss future video projects for Hinduism Today. And are handling lots of emails before going off to the next leg of the journey which is a trip to Pondicherry. A primary goal of the journey is the continue search for the Agamas.

Arumugaswami will be sending photos from the trip when time allows. Here are a few light-hearted travel shots.

Our flight to Japan took us right past Kauai, so we got this unusual picture of nearly the entire island. It is evident from the air how much of Kauai is inaccessible wilderness area, nearly the entire central part of the island.

We arrived in Tokyo to 40�F weather and rain. Fortunately, we did not have to venture outside.

Here in Taiwan Bodhinatha is heading for the gate.

We found this very Chinese saying posted in the galley of our China Air flight to Singapore, “speak softly, work gently,” which seemed good advice for just about any job.

Another beautiful morning begins, as the light from the East slices through the darkness below the mountains….

Out at Iraivan this Tara pillar lies in wait for being raised up. The rains bring a two-tone effect. We are looking at the top (we think…) which has a square notch to receive the stone which will go on top.

Here is the protrusion on the stone that will be placed on top.

Meanwhile this past retreat was Iraivan day. Everyone was busy doing things for the temple. Yogi Japendranatha did a great upgrade to the Iraivan temple fundraising video, adding some of the time lapse shots and upgrading to recent footage don’t miss it below. It is only about 6 minutes long.

Our regular Sun One Homa was performed today by Yogi Japendranatha and presided over by Paramacharya Palaniswami in Bodhinatha’s absence. We will let the photos tell their own story.

It was tour day today… we have about 20 or so in both the 9 am and 11 am group.

Yesterday Bodhinatha departed for India with Sannyasin Arumugaswami. He left the Aadheenam late afternoon, overnighted in Honolulu and then departed early this morning for Taiwan.

The monks see them off.

Speaking of traveling, interest is building in the 2008 Innersearch. About 8 people have already paid their deposits, about 50 have said they will come for sure and we have another large group of prospects. Don’t delay!

Bodhinatha and Saravananathaswami are beginning to plan the schedule and the content of the classes on meditation that Bodhinatha will give during Innersearch travel-study program, 2008, as they travel to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the amazing million-strong Thai Pusam celebration there, and then on to India and the vibrant home of our Gods and devas. See the Innersearch site. l It is unusual for Bodhinatha to plan so early, more than a year in advance. But he and his Innersearch staff are inspired by the high interest shown in this program already (eight people have applied and many more are planning are to do so shortly). In the video below, Bodhinatha shares some preliminary thoughts on the nature of the classes he will conduct.

Dawn being captured….

Mean while it was a quiet day at the Aadheenam as we all bask in the aftermath of the auspicious events of yesterday… some how the raising up of the pillars brought the shape to Iraivan Temple to a new level for everyone. We are going to give you two more videos today to keep you busy during our coming two-day retreat.

We start with the unloading of the giant jalakom stones from the containers, a few days ago.

It’s a magical morning. Iraivan Temple golden Vimanam catches the first rays of early morning light.

And below is a time lapse video of the raising of the yalli pillars. We have a longer version of the event coming soon.

Yesterday a lady from Japan arrived, with an unusual request. She wanted to play her “Singing Rin” for the monks. She did not speak a word of English, Indivar Sivanathan helped her to arrange an “out of this world” performance. She plays these bowls in Shinto temples in Japan and wanted to make this offering.

Her name is Sadomi.

Sadomi set up her bowls in the Orchid Mandapam, overlooking the Wailua River…

We have a short video as well as 5 minutes of high quality audio from her half our performance.

See this web page for more about this “new” instrument

Listen to this! I think you will agree it will take you into a profoundly meditative state. Click to open the audio in a separate window.

You feel like you have gone to another world after listening the Singing Rin.