Om Gam Ganapataye Namah

Each morning at 3am in Kadavul temple, one of our monks performs an abhishekam to Lord Ganesha. The Lord of Categories is invoked, bathed in fresh water, oiled, and offered songs, incense, and fresh cut fruit and flowers. He is then dressed for the day based on his daily color which the monk can find in our panchangam calendar. Well before sunrise Ganesha's grace fills the temple and prepares it lovingly for the coming day. This month our 3am pujari has been taking the occasional photo following Lord Ganesha's Alankaram. Here is Lord Ekadanta's darshan from the last 15 days accompanied by verses from Auvaiyar Ma, the 9th century Tamil saint.

"The God with the elephantine visage I shall never forget--Shankara's son, with massive belly and the thodu in His ear, the Lord who gave His grace to Indra, of whom mantra is His very form." Yogaswami's Natchintanai

Read Loving Ganesha

Yesterday we changed the fabrics for the Guru Peedam simhasanam and the Gurudeva shrine. Enjoy!

Holly Young has returned from our time together in Colorado and Victoria, BC, and sends these photos showing the progress on the carver for our next masterpiece. Many have met Chenniah, shown here doing his magic with a chisel.

We have a special treat for you today. Thanks to Bobby and Kathy Page, of Loveland's very own Page Bronze team, we bring you the step-by-step process of a bronze piece. Our traveling monks got to see some updates of Iraivan's work, and also an entire lesson on coloring, or bronze patination, work on a sculpture.

Yesterday we celebrated Ganesha Chaturthi at Kauai Aadheenam in Kadavul Hindu Temple. This annual home-temple festival occurs on the fourth day ("chaturthi" means "fourth" in Sanskrit) after amavasya, or the new moon in the month of Simha, which is always in either August or September. In Hindu homes around the world in which Ganesha is worshiped, handmade Ganesha icons are fashioned and worshipped for ten days, culminating on the fourteenth day after the new moon in Simha, known as Ananta Chaturdashi. "Ananta" means eternal, and "chaturdashi" means fourteen. "Chatur" is four, "dashi" is tenth from the word "dasha" meaning ten in Sanskrit. On this day, the aforementioned Ganesha murti which the family made and worshiped for ten days is submersed in a body of water, be it an ocean, lake, river, pond, etc. Though in same families and communities, this submersion, called visarjana or a "farewell" is sometimes done on Ganesha Chaturthi day itself.

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami recently were in Bangalore, and met with Sri Jayendrapuriswami. Swamiji is the head of Kailash Ashram in Rajarajeswarinagar and a dear friend to the Aadheenam.

The Nataraja temple in Chidambaram is exceedingly close to our monks and members. And it should be, being the Center of the Universe. We never expected the great dikshitar lineage of priests from that temple to visit Kauai, but that is exactly what happened this week. Father and son dikshitars are on the island for an eight-day symposium on puja, homa and mantras. They are teaching daily in Hanalei at a yoga studio.

They have been all over America, raising consciousness and also raising funds for their padasala in Tamil Nadu. Their Ratna Charitable Trust runs the Veda priest school in rented facilities, and they are seeking help to build a permanent place where the old traditions can be passed on to the next generation.

The father is Siva Rajasikamani Deekshithar and the son is Shanmuganandha Deekshithar. During their visit monks felt as though long lost brothers had returned.

Their hosts brought them to the Siva Puja yesterday and they were able to tour Iraivan and the sacred gardens with Sadasivanathaswami.

Gurudeva would count it as nearly miraculous that yoga students on this little is are learning puja and mantras from the dikshitars themselves. Gurudeva and Bodhinatha have a long history of connection at Chidambaram, and the two temples are powerfully connected. More so now. At the end of this slideshow are some photos from days gone by in Chidambaram.

As they departed they smiled and said they plan to come each year now and teach on the other islands too. We hope that is possible.

Today marked the moon's passage into the lunar mansion (nakshatra) known as Ardra. Ardra nakshatra is associated with Lord Siva, specifically with the eponymously named star within it. The star known as Ardra is known as Betelgeuse in astronomy, and is 1.5 billion times larger than our sun. Think about that. Keep in mind that our sun is a million times larger than the size of our earth to begin with. This affords us the opportunity to meditate on the microcosm/macrocosm concept. Lord Nataraja's image conveys the constant activity of our natural universe in His dance. It occurs every millisecond within every subatomic particle. This is Parasakti.

Today's photo captions are the entirety of Gurudeva's third lesson of Dancing with Siva, "What Is Meant by 'Dancing with Siva?'."

Please also enjoy also this quotation from Saint Thirumular on Siva's Dance.

"The thirty-six elements dance. Sadasiva dances. Consciousness dances. Siva-Sakti dances. The animate and inanimate dance. All these and the Vedas dance when the Supreme dances His dance of bliss. The seven worlds as His golden abode, the five chakras as His pedestal, the central kundalini sakti as His divine stage, thus in rapture He dances, He who is Transcendent Light. He dances with the celestials. He dances in the golden hall. He dances with the three Gods. He dances with the assembly of silent sages. He dances in song. He dances in ultimate energy. He dances in souls--He who is the Lord of Dances. Tat Astu."
-- Saint Thirumoolar

Jai Ganesha!

The Aadheenam has just received a large shipment of granite stones from Bengaluru for the continuation of Iraivan Temple construction. This shipment included many stone for the perimeter wall as well as a few others. Two of the large red granite pots, which will sit atop the wall, also arrived. Aum Namah Sivaya.

We've recently received this set of photos from Jiva Rajashankara in Bengaluru, giving us a sense of the recent progress made on the Perimeter Wall of Iraivan Temple. These pieces will encircle the main temple, atop the concrete foundation. Each long section of wall will have a polished granite plaque which will display information about the temple and its founding as well as our lineage's teachings and selected profound quotes from Hindu scripture. Atop each pillar section of the wall will be a polished red granite pot. Progress on these stones is being made quickly because the siplis are able to use power tools, as these pieces are not part of the central temple structure which was limited to hand tools.

Aum Namah Sivaya