Hinduism, the Greatest Religion in the World
With the release of the Jan/Feb/Mar 2020 Hinduism Today, also comes the Educational Insight Section as a separate booklet. Here is Gurudeva’s fabulous talk, first given in 1973, Hinduism, the Greatest Religion in the World it is still relevant in 2020 and on.
How to Say “Thank You?”
When we set our 2019 Digital Dharma Drive goal at $75,000 back in October, it was not a certainty that we would reach it by year's end. We hoped, but could not know.
Today we know that the goal was reached, and exceeded significantly. Our supporters around the blue sphere we call home sent more than $100,000, a number that will enable us to do some amazing things in the year ahead. We know this is an affirmation of Gurudeva's life and mission. As the slideshow we share today shows, Gurudeva gave unusual prominence to communications, beginning with publishing books and evolving into audio books, spiritual art, the Maser Course study, children's resources and more.
He would certainly be heartened by this unstinting response from hundreds if you who love his vision of a global Hindu family coupled with a strong affirmation of Saivite tradition--and who trust his small band of monks to carry that mission forward into the next decade.
Just saying Mahalo nui loa seemed paltry, so we want to give you something that might brighten your year. It is a link to our newest book, Loving Ganesha: Hinduism's Endearing Elephant-Faced Deity. This is a completely new edition, with new art and it's in full color for the first time. All these many years it has been in black and white only. We just this week turned the book into several formats: PDF, ePub and Kindle, and you can now be the first to download it to your favorite device. Please click the above link to go to the download options. (Note: the "web view" of the book is not yet updated.)
And know without a doubt that you have prodded us forward another twelve months by your generosity.
-The Monks of Kauai's Hindu Monastery
Tirukural – Chapter 3
The Greatness of Renunciates
Verse 27
A sadhu is seated on the mountaintop his right leg raised over a rock. The five senses of human consciousness are personified below him, senses he has perfectly controlled. Touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing.
You can access the entire text, in Tamil and English here:
Weaver's Wisdom
Verse 21
The Scriptures exalt above every other good
the greatness of virtuous renunciates.
Verse 22
Attempting to speak of the renunciate's magnitude is like
numbering all the human multitudes who have ever died.
Verse 23
Behold those who have weighed the dual nature of things and
followed the renunciate's way. Their greatness illumines the world.
Verse 24
He whose firm will, wisdom's goading hook, controls his five senses
is a seed that will flourish in the fields of Heaven.
Verse 25
Such is the power of those who subdue the five senses, that even Indra,
sovereign of spacious Heaven's celestials, suffered their curse.
Verse 26
The magnificent ones are they who can dispatch the most
difficult tasks; the insignificant ones are they who cannot.
Verse 27
Touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing are the senses--
he who controls these five magically controls the world.
Verse 28
Their own subtle sayings reveal to the world
the greatness of men whose words prove prophetic.
Verse 29
It is impossible to endure, even for a second, the wrath of those
who have scaled and stand upon the mountain called virtue.
Verse 30
Pious men are called the priestly ones,
for they are clothed in robes of compassion for all life.
Tirukural – Chapter 2
The Importance of Rain
Verse 11
In a lush green rainforest of flowers and fruits, birds, bees and various animals, a man is sipping falling rainwater with his cupped hands.
You can access the entire text, in Tamil and English here:
Weaver's Wisdom
Kural 11
It is the unfailing fall of rain that sustains the world.
Therefore, look upon rain as the nectar of life.
Kural 12
Rain produces man's wholesome food;
and rain itself forms part of his food besides.
Kural 13
Though oceanic waters surround it, the world will be deluged
by hunger's hardships if the billowing clouds betray us.
Kural 14
When clouds withhold their watery wealth,
farmers cease to ply their plows.
Kural 15
It is rain that ruins, and it is rain again
that raises up those it has ruined.
Kural 16
Unless raindrops fall from the sky,
not a blade of green grass will rise from the earth.
Kural 17
The very nature of oceans, though vast, would diminish
if clouds ceased to take up water and replenish rain's gifts.
Kural 18
Should the heavens dry up, worship here of the heavenly ones
in festivals and daily rites would wither.
Kural 19
Unless the heavens grant their gifts, neither the giver's generosity
nor the ascetic's detachment will grace this wide world.
Kural 20
No life on Earth can exist without water,
and water's ceaseless flow cannot exist without rain.
Donate: Tirukural – Chapter 1
Part I: On Virtue
Section I: Prologue
Chapter 1: Praising God
Chapter 1 (Verse 1)
The first four letters of the Tamil alphabet are seen here: A, AH, E, EE. This is the dancing Siva who creates. He is shown without ornamentation or man-made things. He is in all of nature, dressed with pearl necklace, simple cotton yarn sacred thread (poolnul). He is dancing over the world of birds, animals, plants and nature in her abundance.
You can access the entire text, in Tamil and English here:
Weaver's Wisdom
Kural 1
"A" is the first and source of all the letters. Even so is
God Primordial the first and source of all the world.
Kural 2
What has learning profited a man, if it has not led him
to worship the Good Feet of Him who is pure knowledge itself?
Kural 3
The Supreme dwells within the lotus of the heart. Those who reach
His Splendid Feet dwell enduringly within unearthly realms.
Kural 4
Draw near the Feet of Him who is free of desire
and aversion, and live forever free of suffering.
Kural 5
Good and bad, delusion's dual deeds, do not cling to those
who delight in praising the Immutable, Worshipful One.
Kural 6
A long and joyous life rewards those who remain firmly
on the faultless path of Him who controls the five senses.
Kural 7
They alone dispel the mind's distress
who take refuge at the Feet of the Incomparable One.
Kural 8
They alone can cross life's other oceans who take refuge
at the Feet of the Gracious One, Himself an Ocean of Virtue.
Kural 9
The head which cannot bow before the Feet of the Possessor of
eight infinite powers is like the senses lacking the power to perceive.
Kural 10
The boundless ocean of births can be crossed, indeed,
but not without intimate union with Infinity's Holy Feet.
Support Digital Dharma Drive
A Message from the Editors
December 7, 2019
For nearly thirty years Gurudeva and a team of several monks met each day between 3 and 6 or 7pm. He called it “the editing team” and loved to work near the ocean with the whales and green turtles just offshore. They would drive down each afternoon, park the Winnebago recreational vehicle (specially outfitted with computers for editing) near the water’s edge in Kapaa and work on his life’s legacy of inspired talks and writings. It was a self-imposed appointment he rarely missed if he was not traveling, and one he gave full focus to, going over every word, every phrase of every publication himself, often tweaking and adding insights to the work dozens of times before he would say to the monks, “That’s good.”
Though he printed his early yoga lessons by hand in the 1950s on an old-school Mimeograph machine at the San Francisco temple, Gurudeva readily embraced technological changes. One afternoon in 1984, having never seen or even heard of a Macintosh, he encountered this revolutionary computer in a small Apple store in the sleepy town of Kapaa. After playing with MacPaint and MacWrite for fifteen minutes, he walked out with a Macintosh 128Kb under his arm. Later, he bought each monk a Mac and gradually made the shift to digital typography. Takes one back to the LaserWriter, right? When the Internet swept up on Kauai’s shores in 1997, he urged the monks to publish a daily blog of monastery events, and “Today at Kauai Aadheenam” was born. TAKA, among the earliest (maybe the earliest) of blogs, has been issued almost daily since that time.
Gurudeva would celebrate where we have come today. He would love the ease with which his books are available, at no cost, to everyone who owns a mobile device anywhere in the world. The Capricorn in him would love the lack of massive investment costs that are required for major books to be put on printing presses, tens of thousands of dollars for each title. Then come the inventory costs, the shipping, the returns. All of that has been largely rendered unnecessary in the age of digital publishing. In our case, we are doing both, printed editions of the magazine, for instance, and then digital editions based on the elegantly designed PDF pages. Our Hinduism Today app, available to anyone with a mobile phone, anywhere in the world, is an example of the best of the Web.
Gurudeva would love that we don’t have to charge struggling Hindu students for the spiritual teachings, but can make them available for free. In the last decade, our resource-building efforts have shifted massively toward the web, following the fast-evolving world of communications and publishing. It takes a deft team to gather and sculpt the needed tools and stories for Hinduism Today and our Web resources. Creating and sharing an articulate and graphically elegant repository of Hinduism is neither easy nor without costs. Hindu youth are learning their spiritual ABCs online, and millions of seekers are discovering Hinduism digitally. What they encounter should be thoughtful, lucid, elegant and authentic. That’s what compels our annual fundraising campaign. It’s a chance for you to help us to help explain and share Hinduism globally.
In order to provide information without charging for downloads, without showing advertisements on our sites, without commercializing our mission, we turn to you for help.
Yes, we could meet our costs by charging for the online books and magazine, but we are determined not to do that. We ourselves are seldom motivated to pay for online information. We like it when needed information is available without cost. We have come to expect it. But free to the world is not free to those of us who create it. Our digital innovations entail significant costs, especially when we have to reach out for expert help and skills.
The goal for 2019 is the same as last year: $75,000. Our two-month-long Digital Dharma Drive will end at midnight on December 31. We hope you will join in helping us meet our goal. In the right hands, and leveraged by the unsalaried work of the monks, these funds will have a profound impact on the future of Hinduism around the world. Please make a generous donation today.
With much aloha and warm greetings during the holiday season,
The Editors
Kauai’s Hindu Monastery
Himalayan Academy Publications
Path To Siva – Slides for Every Lesson 1-68
Donate: Nerds at Work – App and Web Development
We want to thank last year's Digital Dharma Drive donors. Their contributions help us carry on the advertising free digital web work we do and free apps that we publish. It may not seem like much is happening, but behind the scenes a teams is constantly at work. Please donate today for the coming year!
All New!
Spiritual Workout App
SivaSiva App
From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.
