Jai Gurudeva!

Yesterday we observed our monthly Chitra padapuja for Gurudeva. In the early evening, monks and local members gathered to honor Gurudeva and receive his blessings. Sannyasin Mayilnathaswami and Nirvani Tejadevanatha performed the abhishekam as other monks chanted Sri Rudram. Upon completion of the Rudram, the rest of the puja continued in silence. Aum Namah Sivaya.

"We may say that love is the heart of the mind. Anything that comes before you in life can be conquered through universal love, a force which is a demonstration of the soul." Gurudeva

For those who are subscribed to the Master Course trilogy daily lessons, you'll notice that the first audio narration appeared in yesterday's Merging with Siva lesson. For a while it will be Gurudeva's digital voice clone narrating, then it will switch to his late 1990s personal narrations for some time.

After we finishing creating narration for Merging with Siva, we'll proceed to the other books.

To subscribe to the Master Course daily lessons and other inspiration on email, go here-- https://www.subscribepage.com/hinduism

It could not have been planned in this day of uncertain shipping schedules. The remarkable bronze murti of Gurudeva left Colorado and flew to Colombo, Sri Lanka, arriving in time for Thondunatha to guide it through customs and drive 6-7 hours north to Jaffna just time time for the 75th anniversary of Gurudeva's initiation by Yogaswami on the full moon day in May, 1949. Devotees were in awe of the propitious timing. The murti was taken first to Nallur Temple for darshan of Lord Murugan, then to Yogaswami's Ashrama in Columbothurai for a reception and abhishekam. Read Thondunatha's note to Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami for the story from Jaffna.


Dear Bodhinatha,

On Tuesday, Vaikasi Visakam, Gurudeva arrived in Jaffna. That evening, we escorted Gurudeva to the Nallur Temple, and subsequently to Columbuthurai Yogaswamis ashram to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Gurudeva's initiation by Yogaswami on the full moon day in May 1949.

The priest performed a wonderful abishekam to both Yogaswami's Thiruvadi and Gurudeva. Everyone present felt the strong spiritual presence of both Yogaswami and Gurudeva. Holly Young did an exceptional job creating the statue. Thank you so much, Paramacharya, for coordinating the creation of Gurudevas statue for Alaveddy.

Gurudeva is now resting in Alaveddy, awaiting the arrival of the other gurus. It truly feels as if Gurudeva has returned to Jaffna.

Love,
Thondunathan

This morning we celebrated Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami with our monthly pada puja during the Chitra nakshatra. In Kadavul Temple Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and his monks gathered with local members for an abhishekam. While the monks chanted Sri Rudram Sannyasin Tillainathaswami and Nirvani Tejadevanatha performed the puja, pouring pranic substances such as milk, honey and citrus over Gurudeva's black granite tiruvadi. Following a final arati, the event ended with each attendee prostrating before the shrine. Jai Gurunathan. Aum Namah Sivaya.

We are inching closer to adding Gurudeva's original audio narration of certain Master Course trilogy lessons to the online text version. After that we will use his new digital voice clone to narrate the rest. First we are cleaning up his narrated lessons of Merging with Siva from the late 1990s, which total around 130. We also went back to some old videos taken of Gurudeva narrating some lessons from Dancing with Siva, and are now extracting audio from that to clean up and use. In these videos Gurudeva often spontaneously expanded on the lessons before and after narration. We might add these videos to our YouTube channel in the future after editing them. Below is a short sample from a video where he speaks more after reading a lesson.

Jai Gurudeva!

Recently we observed our monthly Chitra padapuja for Gurudeva. In the early evening, monks and local members gathered to honor Gurudeva and receive his blessings. Yogi Dayanatha and Nirvani Tejadevanatha performed the abhishekam as other monks chanted Sri Rudram. Upon completion of the Rudram, the rest of the puja continued in silence. Aum Namah Sivaya.

"Look to the satgurus, who have themselves met and overcome the challenges that still lie ahead for you. Look to them and ask them to help you to look within yourself. Much of the mysticism which is the greatest wealth of Hinduism is locked within these masters, who in our tradition are known as the satgurus, the sages and the siddhas." Gurudeva

It's something we didn't foresee happening this soon, or perhaps not at all. Our founder, the late Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, always intended to record himself speaking the edited and published version of his Master Course book trilogy lessons comprising three 1,008-page books--Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva. However, his life of service and sadhana was quite busy, and taking the time to properly audio record already-published material was not a top priority. In the final years of his life, he recorded over a hundred lessons from Merging with Siva. He had the monks set up a high-end recording station and every afternoon he would spend an hour or two reading the lessons. He did this for some months. And then, rather suddenly in 2001, after returning from taking 72 Innersearchers through Northern Europe, he learned that it was time to release the physical body. Siva's Will Be Done. We created an audio CD of a few chapters from those Merging with Siva recordings, and contented ourselves with that and Gurudeva's other spontaneous audio talks for a number of years. Now and then we attempted to replicate his voice, but no one could make it work. So we waited. Just last year, AI capabilities took off. Over a year ago we saw articles popping up about voice cloning AI systems. Feeling that it would be good to research a potential fulfillment of Gurudeva's original intention, we looked into it. After trying out a few AIs, we found the ElevenLabs model to be quite promising. It wasn't excellent at the time, but their model has been evolving rapidly, and the results now are quite impressive. We have been able to replicate Gurudeva's voice to the point that it sounds so accurate those who hear it and who knew him are stunned. This is only possible because, fortunately, we have good quality recordings of Gurudeva speaking over 100 Merging with Siva lessons. We fed a couple hours of those recordings into the AI. We now have a voice clone that can speak any block of text that we feed into it. Though the voice is technically artificial, we feel the shakti is still present because it is created with the exact tones and style of his original voice. We plan to gradually create audio files of all the Master Course trilogy lessons, linking them in the web pages and daily lesson emails. Then we'll continue with Gurudeva's other books. One challenge is the use of Sanskrit words sprinkled amongst English. The AI English-language model we use is not able to recognize diacritical marks or long and short vowels to pronounce all the Sanskrit words correctly. Fortunately, ElevenLabs allows us to upload a lexicon text file of individual word replacements. When the AI is voicing a block of text, it checks this file to see if the spelling of any particular word in the block is changed, and then speaks out the changed version. We change the spelling to make it sound more phonetically correct. For example, when the word "jñānī" appears in a Merging with Siva lesson, we change the spelling to "yaanee," and then the AI pronounces it correctly. This is a slow process, as we have to experiment with various spellings until the AI gets it right. We are gradually building the lexicon now. We are firmly committed to ensuring that this digital voice is used exclusively for reproducing what Gurudeva actually wrote or said. Crossing this line would not only be confusing but also unjust to all parties involved, including Gurudeva himself. Enough theory. Below, we are pleased to share a sample of Gurudeva's digital voice reading from Merging with Siva, lesson one. As the AI model gets more refined, we expect the quality to increase even more.

Om Namah Sivaya

Recently we celebrated our monthly padapuja to Sivaya Subramuniyaswami during the timing of the Chitra nakshatra. Sannyasin Tillainathaswami and Sadhaka Vatshalanatha performed the puja while other mathavasis chanted Sri Rudram. Local members and devotees brought an abundance of beautiful flowers and enjoyed the peaceful darshan of Gurudeva.

"It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating" - Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Jai Gurudeva!

The Gurudeva app has now been released for Android users.

Visit the Google Play Store to find it for your device: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.himalayanacademy.gurudeva

Long ago, the first mobile app Himalayan Academy produced was a rather simple concept: random photos and quotes from Gurudeva to keep you inspired. Long had this little app been enjoyed by those who knew about it, and long has it been in need of some updates to its code and interface. Over the last few weeks our team has been rebuilding it and yesterday we released the version for Apple iOS and it is also released for Android.

You can get it for iPhone here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gurudeva/id1031437551

And Android Here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.himalayanacademy.gurudeva

Or if you already have it installed, simply update the app.