Natyam Nandinatha is on the 3am temple vigil for August and celebrates Chaturthi for Ganesha with exuberance and flair. Kadavul Ganesha has Nagaraja alankaram on His trunk in honor of Naag Panchami which begins as soon as Chaturthi ends. Naag Panchami is the annual serpent worship festival.

We recently received these photos from the Wailua Mission, whose members gathered several days ago at the home of Tandu and Uma Sivanatha. Each month the Wailua Mission gets together to clean rudrakshas and string malas and jewelry to be sold at the Mini Mela in support of Iraivan Temple construction. Aum Namah Sivaya.

"What is Saivaism? We are devotees of Lord Siva and we are doing Sivathondu - that is Saivaism." - Siva Yogaswami

The latest addition to the shilpi memorial arrived a last week and the monks uncrated the piece and delivered it for display in the Banyan Mandapam. Artist Holly Young has again done one of her incredibly beautiful and accurate-to-life master pieces.

The next in the series of bronzes which will give tribute and honor the art and craftsmanship of building Iraivan Temple by hand out of hard granite has been completed and will soon be crated for the journey to Kauai. This is among our favorites, two silpis on a stone, doing what silpis were born to do, bringing raw stone to life with simple tools.

This slideshow presents the fifth and so far the largest of the masterpieces carved by Holly Young, showing some of its evolution. Once Holly has done her wax sculpting, she makes molds and ships them to Loveland, Colorado, where the finest of America's bronze craftsmen have assembled.

A copy of hers is made in wax, then a special mold for the molten metal is made, several actually. These molds are cast with 1,900-degree metal, and once cooled welded back together into a single piece. Yes, the entire original wax is broken apart, duplicated, cast and put back together by the skilled men and women in Loveland.

Enjoy the visual story.

Yesterday's TAKA post on the special puja at Chidambaram Temple inspires us to offer some background for the event that provoked asking Siva Nataraja for His Profound Grace to fall upon Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami on his nakshatra day, Purvashada. So here we go….
 
Chidambaram. The very word sends subtle shockwaves down the spine!
 
Ananda Nataraja Rajamurthy and Sivakamasundari preside over the innermost shrine, Ponnambalam or Golden Dome. And, yet the main deity here is Siva as Space, formless, unbounded, immeasurable. Symbolically, He who abides here as Space, is represented by strings of golden bilva leaves. And, that is the Chidambara Rahasyam or the Secret of Chidambaram. 

So, picture yourself standing before the main shrine. In the center is Nataraja at the end of His Ananda Tandavam, where His locks fall to His shoulders, not flying around as found in most murthis, His glance pours out love, His smile so compassionate, His raised foot offers everything your heart desires and much that you don't even have knowledge enough to desire, His right hand showers blessings .... He is unbelievable! To his right, are the bilva strands and to His left stands Sivakamasundari. The Sphatika Lingam, Ratna Sabapathy ruby Lingam and Swarna Akarashana Bhairavar, all are present here. Patanjali and Vyagrapada stand worshipfully at His Feet. 
 
The temple, spread over 51 acres, has surely seen better days. The four gopurams or towers at the 4 entrances really do tower over this quiet town. It appears that all the activity is centered around the Temple, along the four Veedhis or streets. It is along these lanes that Nataraja comes out in procession twice a year and hence these are called North Car Street, East Car Street and so on. After 28 years, repair, renovation and reconsecration of the main towers and the numerous smaller shrines in the Temple concluded with Mahakumbhabhishekam on May 1, 2015. The ceremonies started 10 days prior and will conclude one mandalam or 48 days later. Various pujas and homas are conducted each day, invoking, restoring and amplifying the energies of this sacred space.
 The Diksithar community, comprising 366 priests now, conduct these proceedings as one body, decisions taken after meetings every afternoon. All expenses are born by individuals or organizations that step up and bear costs. They do not advertise or ask for donations. They send out invitations, on receiving which, one may be prompted to ask, "How may I participate?" Options are then presented and you may choose what stirs your heart and fits your pocket!
 
Forty-five of the Mandala Puja days, starting May 4, were open to individual sponsorship of Rs.400,000 per day (that's about $6,300). A small group of Satguru Bodhinatha's devotees contributed and chose Day 5 to dedicate the Mandala Puja to Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, because his janma nakshatra Poorvashada prevails on that day, with the prayer that Nataraja of the East and Nataraja of the West pour forth blessings on him, so he may fulfill the sacred, massive mission he has dedicated his life to. What you saw in the photos yesterday are scenes from this puja. 

May all who helped make this happen be blessed again and again, and then again! As Yogaswami said, "Eppavo mundintha kariyam!" Yes, those present said it did feel like witnessing an event that had happened long ago.

A mandalapuja was sponsored at Chidambaram on May 8 by a small group of devotees. The inspiration to call on Siva Nataraja to bless Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami for a long life and powerful mission came in the form of this all day event, during his nakshatra. Sheela Venkatakrishnan was able to be at the temple on May 8 to present Satguru's name in the sankalpam, which is the beginning of the puja, stating the intention and what is to follow. The following captions are Sheela's account of the special day. Enjoy!

Our weekly Sun 1 homa blessed the monastery and everyone attending this morning. Satguru bagan his talk on Lord Muruga. Muruga holds a special place for our Nandinatha Sampradaya, as he is the "beginning lord of the Yoga Pada", a path the monks strive to empower every minute of every day. He also spoke of the sub-conscious mind and how to keep it straight and clear for proper meditation.

Satguru elucidates on negative attachments from the past: "Events of the past, that aren't fully resolved, will come around in the present, well have another chance and it wont be the same person necessarily, but it will be the same situation..."If your so focused on the past you wont see the present, we have to let go of the feeling "oh we did this in the past its terrible" and let it go and say "well, if that situation comes around again I'm going to handle it this way". We just let go of the past and have a plan for handling it if it comes to us in the future, that's the idea."

Today we received these photos from our carving site in Bengaluru. They include the Nandi Mandapam yesti, which act as the side rails for the Nandi Mandapam entry steps, and some of the small statues which will be for the guru statue's peedams.

"Like the Hindu religion itself, the Hindu temple is able to absorb and encompass everyone. It never says you must worship in this way, or you must be silent because there is a ceremony in progress. It accepts all, rejects none. It encourages all to come to God and does not legislate one single form of devotion." Gurudeva

With Mahasivaratri approaching, Kadavul Temple's shakti has been especially potent. Above are a few images from this afternoon, during the 3:00pm Ganesha puja. Below, a quote from Gurudeva about this special place.

From The Guru Chronicles:
"At Mahasivaratri time, in 1973, in the jungles of Kauai, our Kadavul Nataraja Deity, Lord of the Dance, arrived at Sivashram and was placed in the gardens overlooking the sacred Wailua River, where it was spontaneously decorated, bathed and worshiped. That night the exact location of the Deity's installation was chosen by Lord Murugan Himself when He appeared to me in an early-morning vision, upturned His glistening vel, His scepter of spiritual discernment, and powerfully pounded its point three times on the cement steps at the monastery entrance, marking the precise spot to place the Deity.
"Lord Murugan's orders were obeyed. On March 12, the Deity was moved into place and worship began immediately. A rotating 24-hour vigil was established, and it has been maintained without a single hour's lapse to this very day. Under this strict monastery discipline, monks take turns every three hours in the temple, night and day, 365 days a year. During this vigil, they perform constant meditation, puja, yogas and chanting, quelling the mind and giving themselves in profound adoration, prapatti, to this remarkable God. Thus the arrival of the Siva Nataraja Deity transformed our life, and from that day onward life in and around the monastery has revolved around His divine presence.
This establishment of Kadavul Hindu Temple on the lush, tropical Garden Island of Kauai, Earth's most remote land mass, at the base of Hawaii's oldest extinct volcano, known as Mount Waialeale, eventually was recorded in the State archives by the Governor as the first Hindu temple in Hawaii.
"With the arrival of Lord Nataraja, thousands upon thousands of devas of the Second World and devas and Mahadevas of the Third World penetrated the inner atmosphere of the Lemurian mountaintop island of Kauai from several ancient temples--in Sri Lanka, the precious Kumbhalavalai Koyil, mystic Nallur and potent seaside Tiruketeeswaram, and in India, the mighty Chidambaram, Thanjavur's Brihadeeswarar, which I am said to have built in a previous life as Rajaraja Chola, according to several jyotisha nadishastris, and the sin-dissolving Rameswaram, overflowing in healing waters in twenty-two wells. The three worlds had at that moment become connected as one, and the Saivite Hindu religion began to flourish on this side of the planet."
The power of the Kadavul Siva Temple became supreme following the installation of the Lord Nataraja Deity in 1973. The name Kadavul, from Tamil, is among the oldest names of Lord Siva, literally meaning "He who is immanent and transcendent" or "He who is within and without." Humble in its physicality, the temple had a life-transforming shakti from the start, the natural convergence of Gurudeva's vision, Siva's presence and Murugan's yogic thrust. It was, Gurudeva said, a fire temple, for fire is the element of change, of reformation and even annihilation. Some people entered the temple and began to weep uncontrollably. They would come in one state and leave in another, their lives changed in large and small ways. So potent its energies became that Gurudeva would in later years, just for a time, allow only vegetarians to enter, seeing that others were too overwhelmed by the energy, overcome by the transformative tsunami of shakti.

Gurudeva commissioned a giant Hanuman to be carved in India and decreed that He be installed in Iraivan's Sacred Garden, holding in His hand a small mountain on which Iraivan Temple sits. As you know, Hanuman arrived, but His base is still in progress in India.

Today we received these photos from the Bengaluru team showing the progress on this massive base. It is REALLY big, fully nine feet long and four feet high. Hanuman will stand 18 feet tall when He is installed for a thousand years.