Wednesday marked the 194th pada puja that we've performed for Our Gurudeva since his Great Departure on November 12, 2001, which was 5,301 days ago. Nirvanis Tejadevanatha and Nilakanthanatha officiated the worship as monks, resident guests, and local shishya attended.

Namaste everyone, here are some photos from our Chitra puja on April 16. We worshiped Gurudeva's holy tiruvadi and received his blessings for another month of sadhana, discipline and strength.

Today we celebrate Gurudeva's Siva Vision Day, calculated by Revathi nakshatra in the month of Kumbha. It is today that we worship Siva at the Svayambhu Lingam, to which Gurudeva's vision lead him. Just before sunrise, monks and devotees walked through the darkened gardens, to the Lingam Square to enjoy a short puja and meditation.

Here is the story of Gurudeva's vision, as told in these excerpts from The Guru Chronicles:

In the early hours of February 15, 1975, lying on a tatami mat in his Ryokan room, Gurudeva was having one of those profound sleeps that is neither awake nor full of dreams. In that clear space above physical consciousness, the 48-year-old satguru experienced a threefold vision that would be the spiritual birth of the great Siva citadel called Iraivan Temple and its surrounding San Marga Sanctuary.

I saw Lord Siva walking in the meadow near the Wailua River. His face was looking into mine. Then He was seated upon a great stone. I was seated on His left side. This was the vision. It became more vivid as the years passed. Upon reentering Earthly consciousness, I felt certain that the great stone was somewhere on our monastery land and set about to find it.
Guided from within by my satguru, I hired a bulldozer and instructed the driver to follow me as I walked to the north edge of the property that was then a tangle of buffalo grass and wild guava. I hacked my way through the jungle southward as the bulldozer cut a path behind me. After almost half a mile, I sat down to rest near a small tree. Though there was no wind, suddenly the tree's leaves shimmered as if in the excitement of communication. I said to the tree, "What is your message?" In reply, my attention was directed to a spot just to the right of where I was sitting.
When I pulled back the tall grass, there was a large rock--the self-created Lingam on which Lord Siva had sat. A stunningly potent vibration was felt. The bulldozer's trail now led exactly to the sacred stone, surrounded by five smaller boulders. San Marga, the "straight or pure path" to God, had been created. An inner voice proclaimed, "This is the place where the world will come to pray." San Marga symbolizes each soul's journey to liberation through union with God.

That vision must have wrought profound changes in Gurudeva's interior world, for it certainly was the seed of profound changes on the outside. Immediately he embarked on a long journey that would bring Saivism deeply into the lives of his followers and build not only a temple to honor his life-changing vision, but a traditional aadheenam like the great ones he had visited in South India just three years before.
Gurudeva had observed there was no such temple/monastery complex in all of the West for Hindus and threw himself into its creation. With no authorities to guide, he searched within for the systems of spiritual and material management and crafted an astonishing set of procedures and flows to guide every aspect of his several institutions, and to inform the monks' lives and relationships.
By the spring of 1987 Gurudeva's vision for Iraivan Temple was evolving from a mystical revelation to a real-world plan. Working with sacred architects in South India, he was defining its physical form, establishing the principles of its creation and considering the style of the massive stone edifices built during South India's Chola Dynasty a millennium ago. The big question was still pending: What form of Siva would inhabit the inner sanctum? It was a meditation that continued for months, for he knew the relevance of this decision. It would define the temple more than any external style. It would be its life and essence, the most holy and powerful force around which all else would circle.
One day, in an early-morning vision in his private quarters, Gurudeva saw the future, as he would later say. In fact, he often said, if you want to know what you should do, do this: In your mind, travel into the future, and from there look back and witness what happened. The present-day decision will be obvious.
In this vision of the yet-to-be, Gurudeva saw a massive crystal Sivalingam shining brightly in the sanctum of Iraivan Temple, radiating out to the world. It was a titan among crystals. In fact, it seemed in this first seeing impossibly large, fantastical and beyond reality.
The Agamas say one can worship this Great God Siva in the form of a Lingam made of mud or sand, of cow dung or wood, of bronze or black granite stone. But the purest and most sought-after form is the quartz crystal, a natural stone not carved by man but made by nature, gathered molecule by molecule over hundreds, thousands or millions of years, grown as a living body grows, but infinitely more slowly. Such a creation of nature is itself a miracle worthy of worship.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=323o-1QfXoI

Happy Mahasivaratri!

Yesterday our monks observed the Chitra Nakshatra with our monthly padapuja to Gurudeva. In the early morning, Satguru, the Mathavasis, local members and visiting pilgrims all gathered in Kadavul Temple, facing Gurudeva's shrine and granite paduka. Natyam Nandinatha and Nirvani Nilakanthanatha performed a beautiful abhishekam, pouring milk, yogurt, honey and other prana-filled offerings over Gurudeva's holy sandals, invoking a divine and uplifting atmosphere full of Gurudeva's blessings.

We recently received these images from devotees in the UK of their recent padapuja to Gurudeva during the chitra Nakshatra. Om Namah Sivaya

"Satguru darshan opens psychic seals in the devotee by moving his awareness out of an area that he does not want to be in. Similarly, a blowtorch changes the consistency of metal. The satguru is like the sun. He is just there, radiating this very pure energy like the sun evaporates water. The satguru hardly does anything at all. It is the seeker who opens himself to the great accumulated power of darshan which the guru inherited from his guru and his guru's guru, as well as the natural darshan he unfolded from within himself through his evolution and practices of sadhana and tapas."

This morning the monastery begins a new phase following a two-day retreat. It also happens to be the Chitra nakshatra, so a padapuja was performed for Gurudeva's granite Tiruvadi in Kadavul Temple. Natyam's Mayuranatha and Rajanatha performed the abhishekam. Jai Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami! Om Namah Sivaya.

As promised, here is Side B of the 1977 cassette that Gurudeva requested be prepared and distributed to all his devotees. In this short piece he briefly describes the purpose of Saiva Siddhanta Church and then leads us in the repetition of the Twelve Beliefs of Saivism. Join him as he requests us to affirm the great truths of our ancient religion. The Twelve Beliefs of Saivism

Magical divine synchronicity happened these past few days. We have been meditating on key knowledge that is missing in the mind of youth today. One of these is the understanding of the Three Worlds. Background discussions with our team on creating short digital illustrated educational modules on this subject have been in progress for weeks. Out of the blue Vayudeva writes: "I found this old cassette of Gurudeva, from 1977. Side A is - 'This is Religion' and Side B is 'Beliefs of Saivism.' " Side A is actually all about the Three Worlds. We looked into our archives and there it was! Gurudeva gave these two talks in 1977 and then he commissioned a professional to edit them, add vina music, reproduce on cassettes and distributed them to all his devotees. We did not have the software or tools to do this ourselves in those days, so he must have felt it was very important to get this message out. We are happy to bring you this new treasure from Gurudeva's audio archives -- a vision dear to his heart that he hoped to pass on to all. His message is renewed and will live on. Stay tuned for Side B tomorrow.

Three Worlds - This Is Religion