Sadhu Paksha Day Three….

We bring you our bovine friends…

This is Hana… She a Holstein and gives a lot of milk each day…. that is her calf in the back… little Anuradha. And behind her in the shade is our other calf, Nandini.

For those who were at the Aadheenam during Anuradha days after birth you may recall she had some congenital problem with one of her forelegs, and could hardly stand up and actually spent the first six to eight months of her life on her knees. She could barely walk. Had we not encouraged her, she would have been very content just to lie down and give up.

In the real world dairy industry they would have “put her down” and sold her for veal. But the monks said “No Way!” and we nursed her slowly back to health. We are happy to say that today, after being out on the open fields, our initial physical therapy efforts (we used to physically pick her up and put her on her feet, several times a day, day after day…”Walk Anu! You can do it!”) all worked. Her legs are now strong and she walks around proudly like any other little calf.

This is Chaturthi. She was also raised by the monks and did not mix with other cows much in her early life. As a result she tends to think of herself more as a human… maybe she was in a previous birth and is taking a break from all that karma with a quiet life as a cow. Very intelligent, she will immediately walk up to you and say Hello, and check you out, stick her head inside the utility vehicle… “Did you bring any alfalfa today?”

Chaturthi has not the slightest fear of humans and is ever ready to have an eye-to-eye….

Sadhu Paksha Day Two…

A quiet, beautiful clear fall day at the Aadheenam…The monks rise and instead of going to the temple for arati, go out for a walk here and there, like wondering Sadhus, find a place to meditate… thus the term Sadhu Paksha… We also begin work on our annual Vasana Daha Tantra during this period.

We step back in time to the silpi outing when the silpis were taken to the amazing Na Aina Kai Botanical and Sculpture Gardens created by Joyce and Ed Doty. Na Aina Kai is a “must see” for those who enjoy gardens.

We have followed the progress of the garden through the years and it has come a long way… we will let the pictures speak for themselves….

One of the outcomes of the trip to the Na Aina Kai gardens was the gift of four mature Rambutan trees that were being removed from an area where the Doty are going to expand the gardens. These were trimmed and dug out and we brought them home on our trailer yesterday and this morning with the help of contractor John Anderson, who has been doing work at the Aadheenam for decades… the trees were planted…

Getting them out of the trailer was a logistical challenge to say the least.

This one is in … now for water and mulch!

Rigging up the next one…

Four trees were successfully planted… These were fruit bearing when taken down, so we hope to see fruits even as early as next year.

It is Sadhu Paksha, Day One… quiet at the Aadheenam. We bring you some photos take during the retreat…

Noni is a tropical fruit with some marvelous medicinal properties. The monastery is growing a few trees. The odd-looking fruits are placed into jars in the sun, and the juices that ooze out help keep us healthy.

A cactus called “frosted cookie.”

Bromeliads in a pot decorate the path the Iraivan Temple.

This is the “timelapse” angle. Whenever any new change happens, the monks take a photo from exactly this spot (there is a permanent shelf attached to a Rudraksha tree trunk to assure consistency. When the temple is complete, this series of hundreds of photos will provide a timelapse movie of the work. Seven years of progress will be seen in just a couple of minutes!

Here is Shanmugam Sthapati and three of the carvers walking back to their quarters for lunch.

Climbing down from the tower.

Siva as the Silent Guru watches from nearby.

A visitor brought an AUM bag into the publications building. SO of course Palaniswami captured it. He has collected sacred aums for decades and has made a CD with many hundreds of them, of every kind and shape and style imaginable.

Here Bodhinatha meets with Sri Balagangadharanathaswami of Adi Chunchanagiri Mutt. The swami was recently featured on the cover of Hinduism Today for his outstanding religious and social work in Kerala. More picture of the Bangalore portion of Bodhinatha’s trip at the end of today’s TAKA.

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 Dvitya Tithi, Sun One, Friday, December 2nd.

We had quite a huge number of guests to join us on a very sunny, spectacular Kauai day, the tour day and end of our phase…

Here are John and Sally Renn who visit our monastery every year and love Gurudeva’s teaching about raising children with love and positive discipline. They are here for a little over a week and enjoy coming up to the temple in the mornings.

Guests try their hand at carving granite.

A demonstration of polishing stone, where the chisel actually has a flat end with hatch marks that pulverize the surface of the stone to a smooth finish.

A few photos from the stone hoist the other day… Our team on topside, with safety hard hats on to make sure no one gets knocked on the head by the corner of a stone in the air or the ball on the end of the crane cable.

Larry Conklin is really an expert now at handling these pieces.

Rigging a roof beam ground side…

Now we are in South India. This is a shrine to Gurudeva set up at the Bangalore carving site.

Bodhinatha stands in front of one of the newly completed jalakam “windows” which grace Iraivan Temple’s front entrance. The second one of these broke when it was turned over and has to be redone–a lot of work!

We inspect the broken stone.

This is the yalli entrance pillar of the rajagopuram.

This is the plaster full-scale model of the yalli pillar which is made prior to starting to carve the granite.

Another journalist meeting, this time with Choodie Shivaram, at right, accompanied by her husband (to Arumugaswami’s left) and her mother and father. Choodie has many great ideas for stories. In just two weeks, she is going to Tiruvanammalai to cover the great Sivalaya Deepam festival there.

Choodie’s a popular journalist in Bangalore. Her children are studying at the university.

Bodhinatha and Yoginathaswami discuss temple building issues with Jiva.

Choodie and her family with Bodhinatha.

We pay a visit to Sri Jayendra Puri, successor to Sri Tiruchiswami at Kailash Ashram. The ashram is going along very strongly. We had an excellent breakfast here!

This is the silver throne made to hold the sandals of Sri Tiruchiswami in the great hall at the ashram.

Our group leaves the great hall. We also visited the Rajarajeshwari temple here, both for worship and to inspect the stone carving. The Sri Chakra temple here, where Sri Tiruchiswami’s samadhi is, is made of polished black granite, very impressive.

Now in Chennai, we meet with artist Manivel (far right), his wife, his son Arumugam and daughter Vimala. Manivel works nearly full time producing art for our publications.

We didn’t bring our Kauai weather to Chennai, it was already there. Torrential rains had caused havoc across Tamil Nadu. The airport was closed to take offs when we landed, and our plane took a scary swerve partway down the landing strip, which was very wet. The front door of our hotel, the Hilton Trident, was sandbagged to prevent the foot-deep water in the entryway from entering the lobby. Out the back, one could not see the swimming pool as the entire area was under a foot of water.

This is a hand-paint
ed murthi of Gurudeva produced in Chennai. We saw it while visiting Nellaiappan’s new home. He is our liaison officer in Chennai.

Here Nellaiappan and his daughter, son-in-law and 6-month old baby visit with Bodhinatha.

S. Rajam, the famed artist and singer of Chennai, presents Bodhinatha with a book on astrology which he illustrated. Many of his paintings grace Gurudeva’s books.

Sheela Venkatakrishnan with Bodhinatha in Chennai.

Here we meet with Dr. Abirama Sundara Sivacharyar (talking to Arumugaswami), a professor at Vivekananda College in Chennai. He is helping us with the translation of the Agamas. At the right, next to S. Rajam, is Shanmugam Sivachariyar, Sambhamurthi Sivachariyar’s son. He is just completing his PhD in Sanskrit and will also help with the Agama project.

Here we visit an orphanage attached to the Mylapore Siva Temple. Is is partly supported by Hindu Heritage Endowment.

Here with Bodhinatha, is the Gunalan, his wife Lalitha and daughter Premila, sishya from Malaysia who are now living in India.

This is Anantha Krishnan of Chennai, one of our Hinduism Today correspondents. He lived in New York for 18 years, but has returned to Chennai to take care of his aging parents.

On our way out of India, we had a few hours in Delhi and stopped at the Swaminathan temple. This stone temple was built by the South Indian community and designed by Sri Ganapathi Sthapati, architect for Iraivan Temple. This is the highly ornate gomukai stone, which is the drain for water from the abhishekam inside. The entire temple was a marvelous demonstration of the builder’s skills.

We close this phase with some visions of what we see here every day… the gifts of Lord Siva in nature.

Oh! almost forgot.. one last piece of news:

The sayings of the Saiva Saint Tayumanavar are finally up on the web. These powerful devotional hymns, composed 300 years ago, are still alive in the hearts of millions. It is hard to find a clearer vision of Lord Siva, at once devotional and nondual. The entire 1,447 verses are here! Siva Yogaswami himself memorized many of Tayumanavar’s verses.

Here is Bodhinatha in New Delhi. Sri Swami Pragyanand came to visit Bodhinatha at the Oberoi Hotel where we were staying.

This is the view of the Akshardam Temple as we drive up to it in Delhi.

Another distance view. The temple built on flat farm land adjacent to the Yamuna River. Security is tight, the long entrance road included a sharp turn past a machine gun manned by several army soldiers.

Bodhinatha is greeted by Brahmavihariswami, the young swami at the center and Swami Atmaswarupdas, head of the London temple, at right.

We are taken for a private meeting with Sri Pramukh Swami Maharaj, head of the BAPS Swaminarayan organization. He is past 80 now, but in reasonable health, good spirits and very clear mind. A powerful vibration encompassed the room.

We pose for a group photograph. Shanmuganathaswami, at far left, Yoginathaswami to Pramukhswami’s left and Arumugaswami accompanied Bodhinatha on the swift nine-day trip to India.

Bodhinatha addresses a huge crowd of 15,000 people in the evening. It was for this event that we rushed to India immediately after the completion of Mahasamadhi celebrations for Gurudeva in Kauai.

A not very clear view of the group. It started to rain quite hard during Bodhinatha’s talk, and he joked about bringing Kauai’s weather with him. He said, don’t worry, the weather will change in a few minutes, and it did, much to everyone’s relief, as the tents were not designed to handle much water.

Bodhinatha is presented a commemoration of the event.

One of our objectives on the trip was to meet with and encourage our journalists.

The group included, starting from the left side of the temple, Mr. Bhardwarj, husband of Prabhakar, who is just visible behind Amit Kumar, photographer at far right. To the right of Arumugaswami is Madhu Kishwar, to his left MP Mohanty from Orissa, then Palaka Malik, daughter of our Delhi correspondent Rajiv Malik (you can see his head just behind Bodhinatha). We’re enlisting Palaka as a youth correspondent.

This is Madhu Kishwar, founder of Manushi magazine and one of India’s foremost advocates for women’s rights. You’ll see her in-depth analysis of issues from time to time in Hinduism Today.

Mr. Bhardwaj is an engineer, and lived with his wife a long time in Kenya. Now they live outside Delhi.

MP Mohanty has just recently recovered from health problems and is back on our team.

Palaka impressed everyone with her analysis of youth issues.

This is Mrs. B.M. Sinha, wife of our late correspondent for Delhi.

Prabha Bhardwaj has filed several stories from Kenya and also written about Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu and Kashmir State.

Amit Kumar has done a number of photographic assignments for us in Delhi.

Bodhinatha explains to the group his vision for Hinduism Today.

Part of the trip was “business,” and here Shanmuganathaswami talking with Sanjay of CNA distributors in Delhi, who handle our India subscriptions.

Sanjay was very well informed, and told us we could save a great deal of money on postage by mailing from India to adjacent countries, rather than directly from the US.

Sanjay and his father and uncle, who started the business.

RP Jain of Motilal Bannarsidas, the foremost publisher of reigious books in India. Aside from an absolutely delicious lunch at his joint family’s home, we discussed several publication issues. They had just printed the Ajita Agama, which is the only Saiva Agama in print. As well, they said they could find the large bound edition of all four Vedas published some years ago in Delhi. This is only in Sanskrit, but is a fine book.

This is Ravi Jain, who handles the printing of our books with Motilal.

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Following this visit, we went to the Udayan Care girl’s orphanage in Delhi, and met with the caretakers and girls. They are doing an impressive work.

This is Sheela Venkatakrishnan’s brother, Shreekant, and family with Bodhinatha.

Bodhinatha has been spending time with his editing team reorganizing some areas of our web site… you can see their excellent work at our newly “renovated” Publications page.. just click on the link on the right…

He is also working on the Study Guide for the next Innersearch which is just 30 days away! (There’s still room if you want to come…)

It’s Sun Three and our Pillaiyar Kulam was the featured monastic group at today’s lunch. Talaivar Shanmuganathaswami (right) here with Muruganathaswami.

Shanmuganathaswami reported on the amazing efforts of his team here’s a short list of the many things they all told us about today:

• Managing and mailing out Hinduism Today to the web guest book, which is signed by 200 people each month.
• Preparing renewal mailings for Hinduism Today
• Managing the Mini-Mela Gift shop and online store
• Keeping up all of Gurudeva’s books inventory and distribution
• Accounting for all our non-profit corporations and Hindu Heritage Endowment
• Advance arrangements for events promotion with booths at events
• TV advertising in India
• Sending out our annual holiday gifts to Island folks and associates
• Preparing the daily mail (sometimes 100’s of pieces…)
• Programming our main database and related accounting modules

And that’s just what is happening this week!

Sadhaka Jivanandanatha is our accountant and also a computer wizard… he has been hard at work programming a new accounts receivable module which ties into our data base. He also has the daily duty to handle the Mini-mela sales.

He also loves to sing Natchintanai, does homas in the temple, and is a great retreat day cook!

Of course they have help from dedicated sevaks both here on Hawaii and around the world. They want to thank the Deva Seyon family and Shama Kumaran for all their work on Hinduism Today mailings and data entry! Thank you!

The Pillaiyar Kulam always has some fantastic artifact coming in from their orders for the Mini-Mela. They enjoy keeping some of the more exquisite pieces in their work area to ponder for a while before they go on sale.

This beautiful Pancha Ganapati is from Rajasthan… a typical white marble, painted piece. It is absolutely stunning. ContactSadhaka Jivanandanatha if you are interested in this one-of-a-kind artifact.

Here we are at the daily Ganapati Kulam meeting. It is held at 8 am sharp, without fail every day. Acharya Kumarswami behind the camera.. and there is, left to right, Arumugaswami, Natarajnathaswami, Sivakatirswami, Yogi Japendranatha, Tyler who is helping the GK this phase, and Paramacharya Palaniswami…

Tyler is a joyful soul with a big heart, sharp mind and strong will. He fits in here like “milk and milk.” We all send our “alohas” out to his mother Rhonda if she is looking in today… Tyler is just fine, as you can see from that broad smile…

Tyler helped this morning scan photos from Sri Lanka that you will see below, from the Thirunavakkarasu Gurukulam Orphanage…

Sadhaka Jothinatha of the Pillaiyar Kulam, who overseas and inspires the event promotions, sends us these photos today with captions:

“Tireless sevak Dr. Nigel Siva of Washington DC (right), displayed Hinduism Today and various Hindu teaching aids printed by Hinduism Today at the recent Deepavali Mela organized by various local Hindu temples. With him is his fellow team member, Vayudeva Varadan.”

Members of Siva’s family also helped. The “booklets” displayed are quite popular–Hindu Primer, Visiting a Hindu Temple, How to Raise Children as Good Hindus, My Friend, Lord Ganesha, and more. These are especially appreciated by parents, teachers and seekers because they are simple and clear and they catch the essence of Hindu beliefs, practices and customs. These booklets can be had at www.himalayanacademy.com/teachingtools/

Off now to the gardens. Each day Siva provides a new experience in his Garden of LIfe. Here is a flower from the amazing Venezualian Rose. And more below as our camerman wanders through the grounds.

It’s a clear beautiful day… Sadhaka Dandapani takes a short walk… He has just completed the graphics layout and page set up of Bodhinatha’s Study Guide for the next Innersearch. As the day come closer for departure, as Innersearch coordinator he is busy as
ever!

A rare flower from our giant bromeliad. It has been growing for seven years under the Bilva tree by Kadavul Temple, and last week decided to blossom. This is the flower, which is about 30 inches high today. It will grow to seven feet and last for a full six months. Botonists will recognize it as a cross between B. imperialis and B. vinacolor.

The Thirunavakkarasu Gurukulam in Batticaloa sends these pictures of their Jayanthi day celebrations for Bodhinatha’s birthday.

It’s Sun Two and the Ekadanta Kulam reported on their activities. Saravananathaswami shared news on the Kauai Aloha Endowment that Gurudeva envisioned. The endowment gave out its first two grants to worthy causes on Kauai. It is Gurudeva’s vision manifesting for our island neighbors!

Ben and Gail LaMar, from California, are our guests this week. Gail just completed the Level 1 of Gurudeva’s Master Course Correspondence Course and is about to enter Level 2. Congratulations to you!

The news from Iraivan is the delivery of four containers of stones. These arrived from Bangalore this week, and the teams here have been several days unloading them.

Lots of roof beams in this shipment.

Yoginathaswami does the careful work of unloading with the forklift.

As the Talaivar of the Siddhidata Kulam overseeing the silpi work, he prefers not to delegate this mission critical job. One mishap and a stone that took a few years to carve might need to be done again. In his book, this just isn’t ever going to happen.

Our primary builder on the right with Silpi Chellaiya, who has been working on Iraivan Temple for 13 years, since he was just a young boy. They watch the stones coming out of the containers…

On Himalayan Acres, our 407- acre parcel across the Wailua River, Sadhaka Adinatha continues the long-term initiative to plant trees on what has been previously covered with sugar cane for decades. Here is is planting a grove of Nara Trees, one of the premium woods of the world.

The land will be immensely enhanced to finally have trees growing here again, after 150 years of sugarcane harvesting which takes a toll on the soil.

These Nara trees are the national trees of the Phillippines. They have the unusual behavior that logs remain alive and you can stick them in the ground like giant cuttings and they sprout… Sadhaka looks closely at some new buds from the cuttings that were put in the ground just three weeks ago.

Guinea grass is everywhere. It is a wild grass that is powerfully invasive, and a lot of work goes into controlling it… mowing is an important maintenance job.

The Kalepa land, (we call it Himalayan Acres) is a beautiful place to be… not a single man made sound can be heard (when you turn off the tractor)…. perfect peace.

Our two task forcers, Potriyan from Malaysia and Tyler from Tennesee, enjoy joining the team on the retreat days for an outing in nature. Sixteen-year-old Portiyan is standing next to a mahogany tree that is doing very well.

Here is Tyler next to a Koa tree. It’s the finest and most prized tropical wood grown in Hawaii.

We also have some successful Noni trees… These fruits are highly medicinal and used in the islands to boost the immune system and stop a cold or a flu “dead in its tracks.”

Though small, and only two years old, these Noni trees are already bearing lots of fruit. Tylernatha walks along the rows and picks ripe Noni to take back to the monastery.

Bodhinatha giving out vibhuti to Acharya Kumarswami after his upadesha in the temple following our morning homa.

It’s a quiet day at the Aadheenam… but things are progressing well on all fronts. Over the retreat, four more containers of stones were unloaded at Iraivan…

At lunch, it is always the Lambodara Kulam that give news on Sun One. Paramacharya Ceyonswami related news about the on-going search to find a large piece of rose quartz to serve as the based for the Maha Spatikalingam in Iraivan… and Sadhaka Haranandi told us about recent contributors to Iraivan.

This lucky little lady enjoys the homa and poses for our cameraman….

Arumugaswami has been working today with our young Task Forcer, Potriyan Sivanathan to scan and create PDF of some Agamas. These are in grantha script, but we are very happy to finally put some of these sacred scriptures on the web. The complete gamut of Saiva Siddhanta and most especially temple worship is contain in this literature from ancient days.

See the new additions to our book site here.

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 Dasami Tithi, Sun One, Friday, November 25th.

Our neighbour Greg Smith with his partner Stephanie.

A big tour group today, the last day of our phase…

Christie (middle) and her mother Jenna were among our tour day guests this morning. Jenna lives on Kauai and Christie works as an engineer with Nortel Telecommunications and spent the last 1 year working in Bangalore with Sadhaka Dandapani’s brother, Darmaguhan.

More containers have arrived from Bangalore… airing out the gas used to make sure no insects from India come along with the stones…

Our two dynamic task forcers, Potriyan and Tyler… they both have a wonderful spirit, very energetic, focused and are really helping us a lot. Potriyan sends his love back to his mother and father in Malaysia and Tyler to his mom, Rhonda in Tennessee…

Tirtha Yatra

Mini Innersearch in Jaffna

Among the most important public service that the Sri Subramuniya Kottam provides is pilgrimage to far away temple for devotees in Kopay and surrounding communities. The Kottam has been providing this service since its founding 25 years ago.

During the last pilgrimage 143 devotees, mainly the elderly and children participated. The Kottam hired three buses that took devotees to four historical temples in Jaffna. Because of the distances and cost, these devotees do not have any other means of going to these temples. Two of the four temples are in fact off limits to devotees because they are in the high security military zones. The Kottam had to get special permits from the Sri Lankan army to go through the military check points to go to these temples. It has been almost two decades since our Kottam devotees visited these temples.

The pilgrimage starts with a puja to Gurudeva at his Tiruvadi Shrine in the Subramuniya Kottam early in the morning. After securing Gurudeva’s blessings the devotees hop onto the buses and the pilgrimage starts, going from temple to temple, enjoying pujas and the darshan of the Lord in various forms. By late evening the pilgrimage finishes with the buses arriving back at the Kottam. The temple puja cost, traveling cost and lunch are provided free of charge to the devotees by the Kottam. This is an important public service of the Kottam. Currently the Kottam manages to provide these pilgrimages twice a year. These pilgrimages are a great source of joy for the elderly of the community. It is hoped that in the future the Kottam will be able to provide this service more often.

Speaking of Innersearch… only about 40 days left! to departure! We have 10 or 12 seats left just for you…

Come join Bodhinatha on a remarkable journey to New Zealand and Australia… as Gurudeva says:

“Once we have the idea and have caught the vibration and have released awareness from that which it is aware of, we are on our way in our innersearch for the ultimate goal, inwardly.”

And that is the goal of Innersearch.. by traveling with the satguru, the mind is automatically released from the things that normally tie your consciousness down during life, and free to soar within. Go to the innersearch site for more info and contact Sadhaka Dandapani today!

http://www.innersearch.com

In the deva writings that speak about atmosphere in the monastery… they say “the feeling of ‘nothing is happening here….” should permeate the atmosphere.

Well today indeed this is the case. We bring you two art selections of Yogaswami and a series from Skanda Shasti that we have kept here for some time from Kulapati Sadhunathan’s camera…

Here is Yogaswami with a student who has brought his schoolbooks to be blessed.

Yogaswami called walking “the king of exercise” but from to time devotee who owned a car and he also enjoyed a ride….

Sadhunathan writes:

Today was Skanda Shasthi – Palani murthy in front of the sacred homa fire.

Homa blazes

Paramacharya Palaniswami offers Tyeif prayers from the devotees to the fire.

Muruganathaswami chants Sri Rudram in the background

Monks chanting

Sadhaka Jivanandanatha performs the homa, Sadhaka Nilikantha in the background.

Adding ghee.

Prayers to the devas

Upon turning to ashes in this world, they materialize in the inner world, where devonic helpers pluck them from the air.

Lots of prayers!

The shrine of Lord Muruga was beautifully decorated with torch ginger flowers, heliconia, and star of India

The abhishekam is about to begin

Devotees enrapt

Men line up on the right, ladies on the left.

Water, milk, ghee, curds, honey and chandanam are poured.

Bathing the lord with milk. His eyes wink at us!

Darshan builds

After the puja, the devotees sat motionless in meditation, pulled deep within by the power of Shakti Vel.

Lord Muruga

Radiating bliss

Every visit, we must give our pranams to Palani in the side shrine now.

Prashadam was served after puja.

Leonora and Shama enjoying some breakfast. Leonora is an artist.

Isani, Uma, and Tandu

Aran