On June 4, 2013, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, the leader of Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii, gave the opening prayer for the session of the US House of Representatives as guest chaplain. At the request of the Hindu American Foundation, he was invited by Rep. Ed Royce of California, who gives introductory remarks following the prayer and pledge of allegiance. Satguru was the third Hindu to give the opening prayer at a session of US Congress, and the first swami. Watch the clip from C-SPAN below.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnXCq2eN4E0

Every few months the monks take part in Guruthondu Day, a rare time when nearly all of them are able to band together and work on one or two large projects. This time the focus was on the rapidly advancing solar project and on the tree planting at Himalayan Acres. The Solar panel racks have been fabricated and secured and the next step was installing the micro-inverters which control each individual solar panel. This system allows each panel to utilize the maximum sun exposure and transfer that power to Monastery. After the micro-inverters were installed, grounding wires are needed for each individual panel. The panel can then be secured to the Solar panel racks. One interesting aspect of solar panels is that from the moment the panel is exposed to the sun it generates electricity. Safety is very important as you can imagine. Recently the SK carefully transported the panels and hand carried each panel up three scaffolding frames to the second story of the Mini Mela and completed the roof installation. Now the main array is the gets full attention. With the day's help of so many monks, the panel grounding wires were mostly installed, and the SK estimated one or two weeks of work was done on this single day. Another group of monks spent the morning planting trees, joining the solar project in the afternoon, while another small group helped with the Media Studio renovation project. It was a productive and enjoyable day for everyone. Jai Bodhinatha!

All the monks send a big Mikka Nandri, Mahalo and Thank You -- to all the Saiva Siddhanta Church members in Malaysia for taking care of Bodhinatha and doing such a great job with coordinating and putting on all the events!

Satguru Bodhinatha and Shanmuganathaswami visited the home of Vijay and Umayil Eswaran in the hills of Petaling Jaya. They enjoyed watching the 24 minute Annual Update of the monastery and Iraivan Temple building progress on the iPad. After lunch they visited the Eswaran's new home a few hundred feet down the hill, which by the way, is the same hill upon which the Gasing Sivan Temple is located. Bodhinatha presented the Eswaran's with a wooden "Aum Sweet Aum" plaque for their new house, laser etched by the monks from a Kokee cypress wood tree. Their new "smart" home is full of state of the art equipment, and at the same time there are art pieces hundreds of years old, including some very old doors.

On May 11, 2013, Satguru Bodhinatha hosted an all day seminar in Singapore based on the Master Course trilogy. The seminar was given to 25 participants in four sessions with Shanmuganathaswami teaching the third session on color meditation. A summary of the 13 movies presentations, the core of the seminar, may be found by clicking HERE

"Darshan of the Satguru is the blessing of all wealth"

While Bodhinatha is in Texas we are catching up on some images taken during recent tours.

As Satguru Bodhinatha works constantly and actively within the Hindu World, visitors from all walks of life have an opportunity for Darshan during the "open house" or weekly public tour. Many leave with an experience they will not soon forget. Many with books that will give them a deeper understanding and appreciation of the worlds most ancient faith.

Guests are given a rare opportunity to speak with Bodhinatha and receive blessings.

Vancouver, Canada-- Satguru Bodhinatha attends morning kumbhabhishekam ceremonies of Sri Ganesh Temple on January 21-23.
He also gives a guest lecture at evening gathering of Jeffrey Armstrong's Vedic Academy of Science and Arts, 7--9:30pm. Tickets are available via their website.

We had run behind with posting Bodhinatha's Upadesha's. We are almost caught up. Satguru Speaks fans can click here to go to this audio catalog page for recent postings.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPyGKUdur8 On December 23, 2012, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, publisher of Hinduism Today, was an honored guest at the inauguration of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Chino Hills, California. He gave a rousing talk to an assembly of about 4,000.