Umanath Tiwari and wife, from Montreal, Canada, made arrangements for their pilgrimage to Kauai about 2 months ago and after their late arrival on the island last night, they were here this morning for the 9am Siva puja. They enjoyed having darshan with Bodhinatha.

Today was Chitra Padapuja… the ever powerful peak of feeling Gurudeva’s presence in the temple each month.

The Dandapani’s write from chilly Alaska:

“We had our Gurudeva Chitra Nakshatra Padapuja in our home shrine at 7:00am our time to be at the same time as it was in Kadavul Temple (photo attached).”

Mr. and Mrs. Tiwari out at Iraivan. Umanath said he first heard about us in the mid to late 1970’s and has been wanting to come here ever since. They both said this place is like heaven on earth. They invited Bodhinatha to come and visit their temple during his stay in Montreal later this year.

Anand and Charu with their daughters are from San Francisco in California. Anand says he always asks when he goes to a new place if there is a Hindu temple around and the concierge at the hotel on the island told them about us.

They were most impressed by the sanctity of our place, and the grandeur of Iraivan Temple. They also had a happy meeting with Bodhinatha.

Patrick Harrigan reports from Sri Lanka that he just revisited the temporary home rented to house the boys until their orphanage is rebuilt. He is working hard with the managers of the Thirunavukkarasu Nayanar Gurukulam to get the boys settled into their routines, an important thing for their peace of mind in the aftermath of the enormous destruction and death they recently experienced.

Here a group of younger boys meets for a class, sitting traditionally on the floor.

Worshipping together in the early hours of the day. Looking closely, you can see Gurudeva’s photo on the altar and his holy sandals below.

An elder in the village addresses the boys after their morning prayers and puja. They are being strictly guided in ways to deal with such a difficult time in their life, and Gurudeva’s teachings of “I’m all right, right now” are a practice for each of them.

Sun One.. we are back on the job after a full three-day retreat out of the offices…

This morning’s normal homa rites were deferred as tomorrow is Chitra puja. Kulapati Deva Seyon decorates Gurudeva’s shrine.

Beautiful antheriums…

Thank you Deva! A beautiful job…

We continue with the series of photos taken during the last crane lift last week… small murthi images being lowered down up from above onto an upper course of the vimanam… we will let the rest of these photos speak for themselves.

On the third day of our retreat some of the monks went on a hike on the north shore Napali coast. A drive to the end of the island road, then a four-mile hike into Hanakapiai Beach and falls and a four-mile hike out again.

It was one of those spectacularly beautiful Kauai days.

This spectacular falls is a short hike in from the beach.

The destination… our hike stopped here. While only four miles it was still a strenuous climb and a strenuous walk out.

Back down from the heights on of the beaches off the trail. We have a lot of respect for those hikers who go the whole way in to the Kalalau Valley. That’s a 12 mile hike on a trail that is rated number 9 difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10 by the Sierra Club.

A young couple who came to the temple over the retreat.

Today was the last day of a long six-day phase and full of guests. A huge crowd of tourists were here for the regular phasely tour and two devout Hindu pilgrim families to attend puja. It is Konanur and Arundati’s 48th wedding anniversary today. Here they are receiving a shawl blessing from Bodhinatha. Congratulations to both of you!

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 Tritya Tithi, Sun One, Saturday, February 26th.

Konanur and Arundati Janardan, and Sivaram and Revathi Krishnan were traveling together from Michigan and California, USA.

They have been resolved for a long time to visit us. As we walked around Iraivan Temple and the grounds, they were very happy to feel like they were back in India.

One couple just recently returned from a pilgrimage to Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri.

They enjoyed hugging the rudraksha trees, examining the new crop of blue fruited seeds coming…

paying respects to the original svayambhu lingam…

and to the giant Dakshinamurti.

Sivaram and Revathi Krishnan

And lots of tourist today… Hassan and partner…

This gentleman is from New York. He visited with his wife today and were part of our tour group. His wife was most interested in Gurudeva’s Master Course and will be purchasing the trilogy of books when they get back home in a few days.

Everyone is amazed by the temple…

Fifty bright souls today…

Bruce and DeAnn were among our many guests today. They enjoyed very much the tour of the grounds and spending some quiet time in the temple.

Matt and his wife, Kate, enjoyed their visit up to the monastery this morning. They are expecting a child in May. Congratulations to you both!

Our Mauritius reporter send news and pictures from our center there, prefacing his captions with: “
Here in Mauritius we have been going through quite an unusual rainy season that lasted for several days. The lakes and reservoirs have overflowed. Now the sunshine is back and Hindus are making preparations for the Maha Sivaratri celebration, mostly marked by the foot pilgrimage to the sacred lake, Grand Bassin. We bring you a few photos from the Spiritual Park, from a day without crowds.

“Lord Pancha Mukha Ganapati stands majestically amidst the wooden structure of the Ganesha Mandapam at the Spiritual Park. On a normal day the place is quiet and soothing for the devotee in search of peace of mind.”

A rare top view photograph of the murthi…

A new nice wooden ceiling now delicately covers this big granite murthi thus protecting it from any leaks during heavy rainfalls.

A serene atmosphere pervading the whole place….

However, ….on Ganesha homa days the placed is packed to capacity with devotees coming from all over Mauritius.

New blossoms in the pond under the Ganesha Bridge where visitors can see local Koi and guppies.

The Vanakkam newspaper publishes every month a talk of Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami. This month the Talk was entitled “The Power of kindly Speech”. Bodhinatha says: ” Words can hurt others, so it is always good to avoid harsh language, back biting and even teasing”, and quoting Gurudeva:” Think before you speak, and speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary.”

Kulapati Mardemootoo elucidated that talk for devotees attending the last Ganesha Homa at the Park.

Kulapati Siven Koothan (left) and Dr Vel Pillay, chief editor of Vanakkam Newspaper.

A few plastic tables have been purchased to be used during the Ganesha Homa.

Such tables are also of good use to display Hinduism Today newspapers and to sell subscriptions. Here Kulamata Saranamutha Pareatumbee is doing this seva.

The Mauritius Kulapaties at one of the COM meetings in the Dharmasala building.

A view point at the park.

Children of the Saivite Hindu Religion classes at the Spiritual park playing a concentration game with colorful balloons.

Brahmachari Vel Mahalingum washing the Muruga murthi.

The Government is now erecting a wall near the Muruga Mandapam. The work is under progress.

This is Shiv Cowlessur at his temple in Bon Accueil. This young man has dedicated a shrine for Gurudeva in the Temple.

Back home now on Kauai… we bring you more photos from yesterday’s stone lift.. and more next phase. Our photographers delivered 145 photos for TAKA today, so we will save some for later…

It was a very auspicious and joyful moment as all the stones needed to finish the vimanam were lifted into place yesterday.

Our sky team waits will the riggers work below.

It’s an easy lift after all the big stones … the corner Nandis are first to go up…

The flying bull….(smile)

Each corner gets two Nandis…

We will let the rest of these photos tell their own, obvious, story.

Patrick Harrigan sent a report from the Gurukulam in Eastern Sri Lanka today. He visited today with the German president of a company called “The Little Smile Association,” which has built a large children’s village in the area. Patrick took this photo of a few of the boys in their rented home where they are living until we can rebuild their Gurukulam on land farther from the sea. Patrick, a devout Murugan bhaktar, is working to get them on e-mail, too, so the orphans and the monks on Kauai can be in closer touch as we approach the reconstructions phase. Thank you, Patrick, for taking those long motor bike rides along through the devastated countryside to keep in touch with our 43 orphans. It means the world to them that you are there in person to pass along everyone’s love and eagerness to help.

Fund raising continues for the re-building of the orphanage. Visit the orphanage site for more info.

“Thou art not the elemental forces.
Thou art not the five senses
Nor the inner faculties of the mind.
Thou art Chit–Intelligence pure.
So said my Guru full of Love.
His utterance is full of sweetness.
Sankara Sankara Sambu.”

–St Tayumanavar. 1429

Congratulations to Kulapati and Kulamata Durvasa Alahan on their 30th wedding anniversary. Here they are at the temple after a blessing…

An interesting guest from California, Yogi Ramesh who teaches yoga in Hollywood. He describes his “Yoga of the Heart” to Sivakatirswami. He’s a married man spreading the yoga teachings in an unusual area of America.

Bill Peay and his work colleague, Deborah. Bill a long-time Kauai resident, has been a friend of the monastery for many years

The zoom lens on our camera takes amazing distance shots.. This is a very real look and feel for the river view from the monastery.

Our new “fish eye” lens..

We can do some interesting things with these wide angle shots…

The big excitement to day was the crane lift of the next course of the Chinna Gopuram.

Larry Conklin, crane operator, brought a young friend to experience the temple.

This is the last course before the gold-leafed dome is placed on the chinna gopuram…

This course forms the ceiling of the gopuram.

As Sadhaka Nilakantha pointed out.. this is a small milestone… Iraivan’s first ceiling stones.

“Down scope!”

OK, into position…

Easy… Yoginathaswami is always on hand and makes sure everything goes smoothly, overseeing and coordinating and translating into Tamil as needed.

… in place!

Next…

Unstrap…

Move him into place…

And, the final piece.

Easy… of course it will fit.. Sthapati has prefitted everything before hand on the foundation level.

Larry’s young friends never saw anything like this before!

Our ground team takes a moment while the crew above places the stone.

mmm. well, we thought it would fit, but it seems we have a two inch excess on this piece! what to do? bring in the skilled Sankaran who has to knock away the edge in short order.

This was amazing to watch… cleaving away the granite with clean precise strokes.

In no time at all the stone is almost ready to fit in place.

a look from the outside

After a very active monastery cleaning day yesterday, all the monks went back to their regular duties today…

Today, being Sun Four, the Siddhidata Kulam gave their report. Sannyasin Yoginathaswami detailed the Iraivan temple progress. Sthapati has set himself a mini “deadline” to finish the current stone setting in time for the crane to lift stones on Monday when we hope to put up about 19 small stones destined to go around on top of the snake course of the Chinna Gopuram.

In other areas, Sadhaka Adinatha described the kulams on-going maintenance routine which goes all around the property attending to various grounds task for the first part of the month and then they turn their attention to building, vehicle and machine maintenance for the second part of the month. Plumbing and water issues always seem to be an issue… Sadhaka Nilakantha says that the with the recent sunny weather and break from heavy rains, the garden is starting to produce well again and the vegetables in today’s lunch were all home grown. They are in the process of amending all the mounds, with minerals and other supplements… something they do every two years or so.

The team is working hard to finish setting all the stones on the “snake” course, that is on top of the sun shade course.

They need to be ready for the lift Monday…

The lovely cornice just below the snake course… our intrepid photographer climbed up onto the scaffold for a close view.

Our crane man, Larry Conklin will be gone for a week, so if the team misses their deadline, they will be left without much to do for a whole week.

Oh, Monday is tomorrow! Sthapati is putting a little fuel on the fire to keep things moving

A look down the side of the snake course.

Today’s photo shoots in the afternoon sun… the stones of Iraivan stand out in sharp light relief.

The Pillars of Iraivan.. coming to a coloring book soon!

One day we will all sit here and worship…

Bhadra pillar

Sages on the pillars

The lion with the ball inside his mouth that children cannot believe, “How did they put that stone ball inside his mouth!?”

Flag of Hindutva…

Standing up proudly in a brisk breeze

A totally awesome, fully in bloom, jade vine….

Today is Sun Three, the middle of the month, and it is “”Ashram Sadhana Day” for February. The entire monastery has been cleaning, cleaning, fixing, putting things in order… And *everyone* worked all afternoon just in Kadavul temple, cleaning the marble, scrubbing the Ganesha, Muruga and Nandi, the floors, ceilings, going behind everything, washing and sorting all the Deity clothes.

It was a great joy to clean the temple and the spirit of one big team, that comes when everyone is working on the same project is also very special…

We have no more pictures today… so, see you all tomorrow.

During our last retreat, we traversed a very auspicious day… February 15th, the 30th anniversary of Gurudeva’s vision of Siva, walking the lands of San Marga in the early morning of 1975. It was a life-changing vision, not only for us but for every pilgrim who will ever come to visit this sacred place — the Iraivan Temple that began three decades ago.

Gurudeva said: “It was in 1959 that my path led me to the Hawaiian Islands for the first time. In 1968 I returned to the islands on a vision quest, seeking and finding a place to move our international headquarters, there to live a contemplative life in harmony with the ultimate attainment of the Self within man. One early morning, before dawn, a three-fold vision of Lord Siva came to me. First I beheld Lord Siva walking in a valley, then I saw His face peering into mine, then He was seated on a large stone, His reddish golden hair flowing down His back. That was February 15, 1975.

“This was the fulfillment of the quest for a vision of what the future might hold, which led me and my followers to the lovely Garden Island of Kauai, held the most sacred of all by the Hawaiian peoples long, long ago. It is alongside the sacred Wailua River, leading to the top of Mt. Waialeale, that this place of pilgrimage is being built, a temple of kaivalya, granting freedom from the past and a vision for the future. The temple’s 700-pound 50-million-years-in-
the-making crystal icon is a kalpaka (spiritual wish-fulfilling) ever-giving Sivalingam. So many blessings await each pilgrim. None is ever neglected.”

Below is the Svayambhulingam Mandapam that is being built around the site of Gurudeva’s vision, sponsored by a devotee in Hong Kong. Preliminary engineering has started, soil tests have been made and in the months ahead the work will begin.

A walk through the Aadheenam grounds…

It’s just February, but the days are starting to get longer and we can sense the plants are “waking up.”

Nepali Ganesha at the beginning of the entrance to the the path to Kadavul temple.

Beyond this humble magic portal of ferns and banyan branches, a surprise awaits the visitor.

What is that we spy through banyan tendrils streaming down everywhere and rooting into the ground…

Oh! A big Siva temple, on Kauai!

and beauty on all sides….

Bodhinatha with the Madurai Aadheenam Kartar, January 2005.

A bright new phase began today with homa in the morning…

Sadhaka Jivanandanatha does the honors.

Our Kauai sishya, writing prayers…

Bodhinatha gave an inspiring talk today, drawing on the daily Master Course lesson and quote from Yogaswami on the nature of “knowing nothing,” as an indication of spiritual awareness.

He quotes Gurudeva:

“The intellect strengthened with opinionated knowledge is the only barrier to the superconscious.”

You might be interested to read the whole section in Merging with Siva

Today the Jagadeesh family visited us for the first time from California. B.V. Jagadeesh, his wife Anuradha and sons Karthik and Akshay were vacationing through the Hawaiian islands. Jagadeesh and his wife attended our 6am Siva homa and then later the whole family returned to see Iraivan Temple.

They were very impressed with the authenticity, the traditional aspect of Iraivan Temple.

It turns out that Jagadeesh is from a village in Bangalore area that he figures is quite close to the quarries where the Iraivan Temple white granite comes from.

The family was very touched to hear about Gurudeva’s powerful visions regarding Iraivan Temple, as they visited the original svayambhu lingam where Gurudeva’s vision of Siva took place.

Jagadeesh proudly announced to his sons that Iraivan will their pilgrimage temple throughout life. He said, “When we all pass on, this will be your temple to come to.”

Later in the morning a busload of elderly came on a tour with Larry Rivera, local musician and friend of the monks, who always comes here to sing the Waialeale Song on the look out over the river with the mountain in the distance.

Seshan and Radha Raj from Sunnyvale were among our guests today. Here
they are with their children Anand and Priyanka hugging a rudraksha tree.
They had met Gurudeva before in California but it was their first trip to
Kauai Aadheenam.

Michael and Catharine from Queensland, Australia are here to see our crystal
Sivalingam.

The sun shade over the Chinna Gopuram.

It is difficult to feel it from these photos, but these new pieces suddenly gave the gopuram its “grand entrance” vibration…

From the magical close up lens of Ganga Sivanathan… it is interesting to think, that Gurudeva often talked about color, the colors of nature and the colors of the inner world and… well, here it is!

Sunset…

“Darshan pours forth from within the unfolded soul just as fragrance flows from the rose–stronger at some times than at others because some devotees are more in tune than others. For them, the room begins to ring and vibrate. Some people are so sensitive that when a great soul comes to the same town, they feel his presence. This shows their inner attunement to the constant flowing power of the darshan. “

— Gurudeva

It is Sun Five, the end of the phase and our tour day guests are gathering at the entrance at 9 am… Wow! Looks like a huge crowd today.

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, Thursday, February 17th.

Indeed… perhaps 100 people!

Carving one of Iraivan stones

Sadhaka Dandapani queried the group on what brought them here… 75% said “Word of mouth…”

We will need to find a new game plan for the future… What will we do when it is 200 ?! (smile)

Our secret is out– this magical place in the middle of the Pacific is being found out…

Being Sun Five, the Ganapati Kulam gave it’s lunch report on this phases activities.

The April-May-June edition of Hinduism Today went to Missouri last phase and is on the press today. This means the publication team has their quarterly window open for other projects for a few weeks or a month…

Paramacharya Palaniswami has been working on getting new monks’ clothing made in India. He has been working on designs for new curtains for the Deity shrines in Kadavul, designs for wooden statues in from of Kadavul to replace the old “TIKI” torch lights on either side of the door and he has also been communicating with professional companies on the possibility of taking Hinduism Today to the internet as an on-line full color Digital Publication.

Arumugaswami wears many hats, when he is not acting as the Managing editor of Hinduism Today he will be the Land Manager for our 400 acres across the river and he takes the lead in content creation for our children’s course, the Saivite Hindu Religion Series.

He is working on the updating of Books One and Two of the Saivite Hindu Religion course. The illustrations are being redone by artist Manivel in Chennai. He is almost finished with Book One. The books are being reformatted without the teacher’s guide and supplementary material so they will be less expensive for the students. All the teacher’s guides and other material will go on the Internet.

Arumugaswami is researching additional games to be used with the Saivite Hindu Religion children’s course. These resource books on games are from a number of sources. One is Christian based (Unity Church) book surprised us with this title — “Celebrating My God-Self.”

Others are for teaching yoga and meditation and some just collections of common games with no religious angle. However, some can be adapted to a Hindu class on religion. The goal is to assemble a consolidated set of games which can be used in teaching the Saivite Hindu Religion course.

Natarajnathaswami has been working continuously for several weeks on artwork for the new color edition of Lemurian Scrolls which will be something truly amazing to see. He announced today he complete his task — 100’s of patterns, drawings, illustrations….background patterns..

These are tridents that will form the backdrop of some page in the book.

Sivakatirswami also announced the final touches of the newest online book “Dancing with Siva” . If you haven’t seen this yet… go for a tour of the online version later… it’s very beautiful. He also created some new web pages for our teachers to start submitting stories in our long term goal to collect teaching resources.

Here he is stopped by an interesting guest. This elderly gentleman is a top consultant for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His wife was proud to inform us of what she considered one of his most important life’s works which was to assist in the dissolution of apartheid in South Africa. Now he is a fund raiser for MIT. His wife promised to introduce the monastery to someone they know well back in Boston: Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web…

Not pictured are Ganapati Kulam members Acharya Kumarswami and Yogi Japendranatha. Acharya has been working on on Lemurian scrolls as well. Getting the book into our new page lay out program Adobe Indesign (Creative Suite version)… a big job.

Yogi Japendranatha has been do some research with turning the last edition of Hinduism Today into a single PDF file that we could deliver over the internet. The challenge is to get the entire edition into a single file, keep the file size down and still deliver a beautiful digital edition. Stay tuned for these developments… which are all going on in the back ground and will one day take flight in new directions….

The air is cool and dry and the river water clear and clean and quite cold… Those monks who are willing to brave it, get quite a rush jumping into the water which is about 13 degrees Celsius in the morning!

Silpi helper Chinnu at their residence… We have to really thank these
men for the sacrifice they have made to leave their homeland and families and come to Kauai and live like monks for two years, quite isolated. But we take very good care of them…

Today Bodhinatha met with the Hinduism Today team to discuss a new project on the drawing boards which will be a special edition of Hinduism Today called “What is Hinduism” with more pages, which would then be turned into a book. It was an initial planning session for something that will take a year of more to develop.

At lunch today the Siddhidata Kulam shared news. The big event was the morning stone lift of the sunshade stones up to the East Chinna Gopuram.

Sadhaka Tejadevanatha, Sadhaka Adinatha, and Adaicken on the ground team….

Small pieces incoming.

The giant scaffolding project done last phase proves successful as the aerial team of five is working up high around the top of the gopuram… safe and stable.

Sthapati, Sadhaka Nilakantha, Yoginathaswami, Sankaran and Karuppiah are topside, waiting while the ground team rigs the next stone.

A corner piece going up.

Larry Conklin on the crane and making sure everything is safe.

The “sunshade” forms the “eaves” of the temple, running along the outer edges of the roof…

Easy… down…

Ok and, down… now.. unstrap

“What’s happening up there?”

Another incoming stone…

A view from underneath the corner piece

Lovely, ornamentation…

More stone are prepared for the lift.

Sthapati on top, standing by…

Sankaran…

Karuppiah

The capstone…

Getting ready for the next stone…

OK here it comes..

Not too heavy…

The stones are place on shims and will be later carefully fitted by the silpis

Praful Patel and wife were back again today joined by their friends to
tour the grounds and also worship at the swayambhu lingam. They were amazed
at the progress that has been made on Iraivan since they were last here
about 2 years ago.