A few months ago Paramacharya Sadasivanatha gave a whole lot of thought to what to put in the large blank area on the facade above the guru pitham seat, called simhasana, the holy spot established by Gurudeva as the seat of authority for Kauai Aadheenam, back in the 1970s. It was time for something new. After lots of noodling and discussion, the plan that you will see manifest in this post came to be.

Today was a bit of history-making at the monastery. After more than seven years of sculpting and molding and casting and welding work by artists and artisans, and blessed by Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami's presence, we installed the life-size bronze statues of Gurudeva and V. Ganapati Sthapati in their final places just 150 feet north of Iraivan Temple.

At 12:38 the arati commenced and at 12:42 the stainless steel bolts were lowered into the granite stone, a time we are told when Jupiter was just rising on the Eastern horizon.

This is the fulfillment of one of Gurudeva's sweetest visions, to give pride of place to the creators of the temple, those who envisioned it, designed it and those who patiently chipped away at the hard rock for almost thirty years now. The main statues are now complete and in the days and weeks ahead will be added to the oval platform, with a goal to have them all positioned for another special ceremony to be held during this year's Mahasamadhi celebrations.

Standing on this center stone, Gurudeva is sharing his vision of Siva's Temple in Hawaii with his architect, India's finest. The architect is bowing before the satguru, his hands held in the traditional mudra of humility which South Indians assume before kings and holy gurus. Under his left arm, he holds the architectural plans for Iraivan.

With the monks and members present and Dennis Wong lifting with the back-hoe, these two took their positions for the next thousand years, so that future pilgrims might have a glimpse of how the temple was manifest on a tiny island in the far Pacific Ocean. AUM NAMA SIVAYA! SIVAYANAMA AUM!

The Siddhidata Kulam monks are pouring a cement slab today, just one of the many tasks that this department looks over.

It's done! The golden-hued platform that will be the stage for a thousand years for our silpi bronze master works is completed. The 35-foot oval is nestled amid mature palm trees about 200 feet North of Iraivan Temple. At its center is the massive, 9-foot-long raw stone, quarried from the same mountain as the temple itself, but not carved.

This Summer the bronzes will one by one take their place on the stage, creating an outdoor workshop that pilgrims can explore to see how the temple was constructed.

The Ganapati Kulam teamed up with our grounds manager Doug Noggle and poured a nine-yard foundation for the future Bronze Memorial. The giant granite stone in the middle is going to be home for our Gurudeva centerpiece.

For some time now the monastery has been producing a small amount of commercial noni juice. This Noni Juice project is part of an initiative to support our mahogany, rosewood and koa hardwood forests while they grow. We have over 1000 Noni trees on our Himalayan Acres agricultural land on the other side of the Wailua River, which we harvest fruit from. The fruit is then washed and barreled, allowing it to naturally ferments itself into noni juice. This juice is then sent to a commercial bottler. Up until now the monks have had to rent a commercial kitchen for a day and haul thousands of pounds of equipment and product to and from that kitchen in order to create this juice.

But no more! Today (well, yesterday) we mark the official groundbreaking of our new noni processing building, unofficially known as "Hale Noni" meaning "House of Noni." Inside this building, which will be a licensed commercial kitchen, our monks will be able to perform the otherwise tremendous task of juicing noni, with ease! The process will be much more efficient and enjoyable.

Beginning with a Ganesha puja by Yoginathaswami, our monks performed a ground breaking on the North Eastern corner of the soon-to-be building and blessed the earth beneath. Jai Ganesha!

We've recently improved the small walkway around the Nepali Ganesha shrine at the monastery's entrance. Thanks to a generous donation, we were able to have the area around the shrine covered in quartzite. It's a big improvement over the rough path that was there all these years. Now Pilgrims can walk around Lord Ganesha in comfort. Aum Gam Ganapataye Namah!

Colorado -based master metalworkers Bobby and Kathy Page sent us these photos today depicting the final major addition to the bronze Iraivan Temple Builders' Memorial. This piece shows Selvanathan Stapathi marking designs on one of the temple's Tara pillars as another part of the pillar is worked on by Chinnaiya, a marvelous sculptor with unique gifts who spent several years on Kauai. As you may remember, sculptress Holly Young, who lives on the Big Island, made a casting of the actual pillar in Iraivan Temple to aid her in her work. This means the bronze pillar you are seeing here is an exact duplicate of the stone pillar in the temple, perfect in every detail.These photos show some of the assembly process of the bronze pieces. Bobby noted there is some duct tape on the architect's arm, there to steady tack welds while the final welds take place. After this, the piece will go to the gifted patineur, Debbie Bakel, for the chemical coloring of the metal surfaces which will make the realism come to life. After that, it will be shipped to Kauai. One of Bobby's observations when the monks visited Loveland last September is that one seldom sees a massive architectural work executed in bronze. People, yes. Dogs and cats, yes. But not architecture. That is one reason this masterwork, as we call it, evokes such awe! As a final note, there is still a major bronze piece to be done, which is the 2-feet-wide by 6-feet-tall by 9-feet-long Chola-style panels which record the names of some 15,000 donors around the world. It's a major piece, but this one above is the last one that shows the silpis at their tasks. Aum Namah Sivaya

Every few years the monks upgrade the monastery equipment in order to not be suffocated in maintenance nightmares. A new John Deere tractor has been purchased to help till the fields.

The Media Studio has finished constructing a traditional style Indian swing for guests to take their shoes on and off. Acharya Kumarnathaswami has crafted the bench portion while the rest was sponsored by devotees in California.