Today Sadasiva Kurukkal with family and friends visited Kauai Aadheenam from Vancouver, British Colombia, as part of their pilgrimage to the Subramanya Temple in Fiji, where they are all from originally. He brought his five month old baby for blessings from Bodhinatha.

It is a very happy, beautifully-dressed, devout and easy going group. They sang bhajans energetically in Kadavul Temple during the 9am puja, then excitedly toured Iraivan Temple and surrounding grounds.

The climate and plant life here is similar to that in Fiji, so they all felt right at home.

At the Iraivan Temple foundation several of them gleefully tried out chipping some granite stone.

It was a very memorable visit and one of the older men in particular said that he was very moved by the feeling he had being on the Kauai Aadheenam property, how all worrisome thoughts about family, duties, etc. just disappeared.

He said he has visited so many temples in India and elsewhere, but never felt a vibration like he did here.

Hugging the Rudraksha trees will sooth the heart…

Dakshinamoorthy

Everyone comes for a joyous satsang and darshan with Bodhinatha.

In the 80s, Sadasivam Gurukkal was brought to USA by Gurudeva along with Tirthadeva Gurukkal who is still serving in Fiji. They were young men then, about 19… They were both taught puja at the Aadheenam and then sent to San Francisco for further training by Pundit Ravi Chandran and have become successful priests and spiritual leaders in their communities. The small Murugan temple in Vancouver has over 200 families connected with it. They all visited the publications building to see the high-tech side of the monastery and were given some small gifts.

It is inspiring to see such extended family unity!

Om Prakash and Veena Bajaj continued their pilgrimage today. And had darshan with Bodhinatha this morning

When we took them to meet Bodhinatha, the first thing they did was to perform a miniature pada puja (foot washing) for Bodhinatha!

It was a sweet occasion.

Bodhinatha always enjoys a good conversation with pilgrims. He told us all at lunch today that Prakash performs a 4 hour puja in his home each morning and another 3 hour puja in the evening: 7 hours of worship and sadhana every day!

Later they toured our publications building and talked with Paramacharya Palaniswami.

Venkatakrishnan and his wife, Jayshree, continue their week long pilgrimage here at Kauai Aadheenam. This morning Venkatakrishnan met with Bodhinatha. He came prepared with his list of questions which Bodhinatha insightfully answered.

Devi Gibson meets with Bodhinatha. It is her last day on Kauai with her father.

Prakash and Veena Bajaj visited us today from New York, originally from Delhi. They are great Siva bhaktas and Mr. Bajaj performs hours of puja and other religious sadhanas every day.

He was proud to show us his cell phone which contains dozens of photos of Siva murtis, other Gods and swamis in India.

They had printed out our website’s Visitor’s Info pages and looked forward to spending lots of time on the monastery grounds.

They very much enjoyed slowly examining the different parts of Iraivan Temple like the artwork on the pillars, lion pillars,…

…then exploring the new rudraksha seed crop …

..and hugging the tree, …

…then visiting the original Swayambhu Lingam which they were in awe of …

…then doing pradakshina to Dakshinamurti

…and finally performing abhishekam for the Narmada Sivalingam.

They said “Siva is just everywhere, in the stones, the plants, the trees, everywhere.”

A walk down to Bali Hai falls where the Narmada stream that flows through our Aadheenam (actually an incredibly well engineered irrigation channel created nearly a century ago…) pours into the Wailua River.

It’s a magical place…can you see the deva face behind the waterfall?…hmm…a lot going on inside there.

to watch the waters flow to the sea,

bouncing and rolling over the rocks …

as if full of joy to know their eventual destination…

the inevitable, glorious, guaranteed for all beings, all souls…

Merger with Siva.

[Bodhinatha pictured in Kuala Lumpur at a festive luncheon provided by a loyal supporter of Iraivan Temple…]

Bodhinatha has been quite active. Yesterday he went to a the monthly meeting of the fledgling Interfaith Roundtable of Kauai… (name still under discussion) which has met now 4 months in a row. Then today he joined the Kauai Action and Planning Alliance group for their monthly meeting. He follows in Gurudeva’s footsteps, keeping in touch with the local community and offering his wisdom when needed.

Today at the Aadheenam it’s very quiet. When the trade winds stop, there is a stillness everywhere. It was also Ardra Puja today and the magnificent milk and yogurt abhishekam of the six-foot tall Lord Nataraja was performed… a sight that is rare and amazing.

The Pillaiyar Kulam made their announcements today. They work in the world of accounting and distribution and promotion of the teachings. One of the projects has been an emailing program that works from our database to send out emails to people who have contacted us. Muruganathaswami reports that the web sales have gone up and there are lots and lots of orders for the educational pamphlets and booklets that Bodhinatha has been putting forward.

If you don’t know about these.. Go to our store to see the growing line of useful Hindu educational tools!

Paramacharya Palaniswami walking the path with guests…

Silpi helper Kumar… always bright, in a good mood, energetic, a real jewel!

Terry Parish works on landscaping for the Aadheenam.

From across the valley… our publications building… who would believe the amount of technology that is behind the doors of all the Aadheenam work places?

Iraivan, shines with radiance in the mid-morning sun .

In the distance, in the Orchid Mandapam, a young Hindu husband and wife couple, have gone off to sit in meditation after the puja in Kadavul. From this spot you can look out over the Wailua River Valley….

Palms planted years ago are showing their largesse. now. Some now have giant trunks over two feet in girth and reach up 30-40 feet…

Vinadhara under the ferns…

(from yesterday) Sarma and Ambika are visiting from San Jose, California, with their friends. After a tour of the grounds and of Iraivan Temple they met with Bodhinatha. They began their meeting by beautifully singing two bhajans for Bodhinatha.

They had many questions for Bodhinatha which included the education of young
Hindu youth.

Sudarshan and Anitha are visiting with Sarma and Ambika. It is their first visit as well. They too had many questions for Bodhinatha bringing out some very insightful answers from him.

We should install a secret recorder as some of Bodhinatha’s best upadesha’s are heard in these answers to young Hindu visitors.

The two couples chat with Siva Katirswami outside. They are amazed at the beauty of the Aadheenam, which is in full bloom now as spring is all around us. A rare anthurium hangs in the basket, with its pong, drooping leaves.

Paramacharya Palaniswami’s sister, Devi and father, Homer Gibson… having a wonderful family visit together. Both attended the morning kulam breakfast meeting today, seeing the publication’s team at work, then enjoyed a tour of the grounds (including the rarely visited Bali Hai waterfall), and then lunch. In the afternoon, they came for a special tour of the monastery vegetable garden, with dad sharing his years of expertise on tomato growing with the monks. Devi brought ice cream in the afternoon as a sweet gift to the hard-working mathavasis. She commented yesterday on Paramacharya Ceyonswami’s chanting during puja in the temple each morning: “He has the sweetest voice, the most perfect voice for chanting. I can’t think of anything else when he is chanting.”

Pictures from Malaysia from a recent Chitra Puja and Purnima Havana, held at the home of Kulapati Murugesu….

We conducted Padapuja for Gurudeva followed by Havana.

it was a very auspicious day for the first feeding of Parvathy Ponniah.

A new soul has joined our midst from the Devaloka…

Shishya Lalitha Ponniah feeds her daughter with solid food for the first time.

Blooming sishyas of Saiva Siddhanta Church… Sishya Uma Kuppusamy with her daughter Shivani.

Sun One arrived again today with a blissful morning homa and a many Hindu guests all through the morning (pictures tomorrow of the guests)…

Meanwhile the news of the day was yesterday’s crane lift of stones for the next Chinna gopuram of Iraivan

It was Sunday afternoon and Larry Conklin made time on his schedule to come to the temple site. Our ground team here rigging a big beam.

A picture perfect Kauai day.

Up and up and up…

Over the top of the scaffolding braces…

and down…

Our team is getting quite adept at this whole process.

Of course Sthapati never ceases to be amazed…

He is all smiles to watch a process take place in two to three hours that might take days and day in India.

As usual, the stone are place on wooden shims to allow for fine tuning the placement later.

Our Siddhidata Kulam has spent hours and hours getting the scaffolding up. It is very strong and safe. You feel like you are standing on really solid second story of some big building.

Devi Marks and her father are here, sister and father of one of our monks… they are visiting the Aadheenam to be with their son and brother, Palaniswami.

Second beam incoming…

Our ground riggers, Sadhaka Adinatha and Sadhaka Nilakantha send their pranams to all the gracious and generous temple builders who are supporting Iraivan and making it a reality.

Mr. Gibson is 85 years old and a veteran air force pilot of the 2nd world war. Despite his age he has a memory for names that amazes everyone… He can tell you who his friends were, by name, 60 years ago…

Devi went on the last Innersearch to India and has been a long-time devotee of Gurudeva and the teachings of the Kailasa Parampara. She has faithfully been reading the lessons from Gurudeva’s trilogy without fail. Mr. Gibson has some great tales about flying over the Alps into Italy, and more in North Africa… He was last on Kauai eleven years back, so there is much that is new for him to see this time.

Now for all the small pieces…

It is so uplifting to look up, heart and mind looking skyward as Iraivan takes shape…

The time lapse location shot for the day…

Larry’s crane has quite a reach!

It was a smooth and successful day… and now the silpis will to to work on assembly and later the gold leaf dome will be raised in a few weeks or sooner.

Meanwhile, in India Jiva Rajasankara is busy settling empty container acquisition and preparing to come to Kauai with the next team of silpis to replace this team which has been here for two years.

It’s Sun Five and the Ganapati Kulam gave their phasely report. They wrapped up the final editorial production on the July Issue of Hinduism Today which has gone off to the printer. The team is now turning to other projects that are in the works: Book 4 of the Saivite Hindu Religion Course, Dancing with Siva in Tamil, scoping out articles and educational pieces for the next issue, working on some top secret plans to take Hinduism Today to the Web in a new cutting edge format, working with artists on commissioned work for future publications, pushing ahead on a new edition of Lemurian Scrolls, plans to recruit some young brilliant talent from Brazil for web work.

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 Dvitiya Tithi, Sun One, May 9th.

Being the last day of the phase, we had our usual tour group… Shanmugam Sthapati gives a brief presentation.

It’s really fascinating…

This lady tries the polishing chisels which are used to smooth the surface.

A big group today…

Rama and Sarojini Ramanathan are visiting from Pennsylvania. The last time they were here was 10 years ago. They were very impressed with all the changes that they saw. Sarojini’s father is Mr. Sabapathipillai who was one of the founders of the Highgate Murugan Temple in London. Gurudeva had given him a Ganesha statue many years ago to help begin the temple.

Sun Four… the Siddhidata Kulam shared the phasely report. They have been very focused on the Iraivan Temple with containers arriving and getting up a new tent over the next Chinna Gopuram. The also shared news of the “Great Pumpkin Experiment” which is the planting of various varieties of pumpkins and squash in the rich areas behind the compost piles. Several new varieties are doing well. One is vulnerable to the fruit fly, but we may try covering them with paper bags…

Nilakantan and his wife Sankari are visiting from Chennai, India.

It is their first visit to Kauai Aadheenam and they came today after being told about us by their friends.

Here they are worshipping Dakshinamurthi.

Shanmugam Sthapati gives them a tour of the temple. He is always happy to meet people from his home city.

Plucking bilva leaves.

Offering bilva leaves to the Swayambhu Lingam out at San Marga.

Here’s Amma hugging a rudraksha tree. Something she wanted to do she said. They know all about us through watching TAKA on the web.

With containers arriving the logistics puzzle of where to put all the stones is top of the list.

The always fascinating Lion with the ball in his mouth.

Sections of the Tara Pillars

Our team wears masks to ensure they don’t breath dust from the container as the fumigation gas is quite toxic and permeates all the wood.

The siplis will have no dearth of work now!

You can see the new tent over the North Chinna Gopuram…

Another annual crop of rudrakshas….

Water lily…

Yes! Our Amorphophallus paeoniifolius has come into full bloom… this single blossom is over a foot tall and just as wide. It is one of the family of what are also known as “Voodoo Lilies.” Besides it’s incredible shape, in the evening it gives off it’s famous fragrance: the smell of a rotting carcass, powerful enough to knock you over. It’s just awful! Smile… we are not kidding you… it’s true… small wonder it is called the “Voodoo Lily.”

Sun Three brought more wonderful guests who met with Bodhinatha…

This is Surender Talwar and his friend Brad from Houston. They arrived on Kauai last night after having visit the Ashram of Anandamayi Ma on the island of Kona.

Surender gave Bodhinatha a very unusual gift of a five-headed Hanuman….

Surender has a beautiful store in Houston. He has for many years carried Hinduism Today magazine and sells our books there and has been advertising in Hinduism Today for many years.

He imports fine art and murthis from India and also gets commissioned pieces done in South India, very much like we do here at the Aadheenam. If you are looking for a big murthi or other artifact, Surender can get the job done. He also has a very big spiritual heart and is planning to help support projects on San Marga. He also sings very beautifully. Visit his web site: http://www.hindugods.net

Marlene Carter has darshan with Bodhinatha a few days ago on her departure day. Marlene is a Level One Master Course Student who has been here before and came again this year for a 9-day pilgrimage, coming to the temple every day for worship, study and meditation. She also helped with the gold-leaf work on the temple doors.

Srinivasan and his wife Sudha are visiting from the mainland. They were told about us by Srinivasan’s work colleague who reads Gurudeva’s Master Course daily lessons online everyday. He said you have to visit the aadheenam if you go to Kauai.

So they came and they said now it is clear in our minds how the ancient temples in India used to be with all the beautiful gardens surrounding the temple.

Our camera went for a walk this morning…

This frond of orchids is blooming in incredible numbers…

Paramacharya Palaniswami sets up at his “timeline” view point, just northwest of Iraivan, under the Rudraksha trees. Here he catches the on-going story of Iraivan… Today’s special event is the inspection of the latest container of stones by the Department of Homeland Security and Agriculture.

Actually, the contained arrived yesterday, was opened early this morning and some items removed, allowing the fumigate to escape and air out.

Ceiling beams and more pillar parts.

A giant fan is run in front of the container. The “Ag Department” is very strict, if they find a single flying creature or living eggs of beetles in the wood, then we have to seal up the containers, send them back to Honolulu and fumigate them again, which is a great expense.

Fortunately these are from India… the quarantine on wooden things from China is even more serious… they will force you to send the container back to China! Some wood boring foreign beetles have escaped and destroyed entire forests in the US. So, it is a serious matter.

Silpi team at work…

As the inspectors approached the main sanctum of the temple their radiation detectors started beeping!

Is it weapons grade plutonium! No! It seems that some stones will occasionally emit some kind of radiation.

Vignettes of Iraivan to close our day’s view from Kauai….

Bodhinatha stands to worship before Siva’s sanctum and for darshan before going with his editing team to work on publications this afternoon. Monks always seek the darshan and blessings of the Gods as each task is approached.

It’s Sun Two at the monastery (sort of our Tuesday) and Saravananathaswami gave us an update of his work in the Ekadanta Kulam during the lunch-time sharing. He has completed the distribution of Satguru Purnima annual rededication forms to all the sishya around the world. Another interesting project has been his work to send special meditation study materials for those who have had the initiation of Vishesha Diksha.

Bodhinatha would like to help these senior initiates to further their spiritual life by following along with the same monthly meditations that the monks perform at the Aadheenam. So they will be meditating on the exact same inner subject and on the same day (someties at the same moment) as the monks who are meditating together each day in the Guru Peedam at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery.

Early this morning after our 90-minute pre-dawn puja and meditation a team of monks gathered to install the second refurbished door of Kadavul Temple, on the right. They really look fabulous! The Kauai members spent many long and joyous hours on the doors, putting gold and copper leaf on them, and sealing them from our tropical weather. It was an amazing push, which Gurudeva would be proud of. Gold leaf work is going on in other areas, such as the 108 Tandava statues inside of Kadavul. Amazingly, to confirm the energy behind this Sivathondu thrust, the family team cooperated to gold-leaf 12 of the Siva tandavas. how manyis that? Well, it too a small team 3 months to do 11, so 12 in one day counts as a worthy accomplishment. More to be done in the days and weeks ahead, til all 108 are completed.

In one of the messages Gurudeva received from Lord Ganesha many years ago, Ganesha said: “Glint, Glitter and Gleam your temples… clean them well…..”

And so it is being fulfilled today…

A zoom shot from the main Aadheenam over to Iraivan….

Over the years our fish population has diminished and today we restocked the main stream ponds with a new delivery of Japanese carp engineered by Paramacharya Palaniswami.. . These famous fish are known as Koi, the prized Japanese carp. Their bright colors are fascinating ,and they make a great visual picture for pilgrims enjoying the 25 or so ponds and pools on the property. These are all very little fishes, only a few inches long. When mature, they can be 2-3 feet long!

We tried for a close up but all the little ones swam under the lilies….

One day they will grow big and fat like this big Amma Koi.

The monster flower is starting to show…

This is about a foot tall now… stay tuned… we have more to tell in the weeks ahead.

Each of our Church missions has some very unique forms of karma yoga. Here on Kauai our Wailua Mission members have the opportunity to plant trees… This past weekend they took Honduras Mahogany tree seedlings started by Sadhaka Adinatha and planted them on Himalayan Acres, just across the river from the temple.

Trees are turning out to be very easy to do. Today they put in 250 trees.

These will provide an endowment for the future monastic Order when they are harvested. The lumber can also be used to build beautiful shrines and structures at the Aadheenam. Of course we will leave many trees and these perhaps will help make up for the trees being cut down in Brazil.

All this land was cleared for sugar cane over the past century and we are turning it back into a beautiful wooded landscape.

Today we are experimenting with planting trees when they are still quite young. They are more vulnerable, but they will also take better root if they are put into the ground early

Sitara Alahan with a big smile…

The plastic mulch layer suppresses weed and helps with moisture retention.

Each one gets a bit of fertilizer, some hydro gel and a personal watering…

Firming the soil is very important so that not too many air pockets are left around the roots, which will then fill up with water, and also to make sure the little seedling doesn’t fall over.

The team….Deva and Tara Katir, Durvasa, Isani and Sitara Alahan, Aran Sendan and someone behind the camera….

A small blessing and good wishes. We always pray after the plantings for some rain. If you plant and then get scorching sun for a week, you may lose some trees. But the devas blessed the little mahogany’s with several days of rain afterwards so we are sure they will make a good start.