Jim Levin and Natalie Cederquist quietly knocked on the door of the Ganapati Kulam yesterday morning, announcing their surprise arrival from Tuscon, Arizona. They have not been here for over seven years, and so began the mandatory and magical tour of the sacred gardens. Jim is the visionary behind the Sivadarshanam Vanam art kiosks and sponsor of the amazing 9 Kerala paintings of Gurudeva's powerful seeing of Lord Siva back in 1975. He also inspired us to create the eight massive black granite Satgurus that are waiting in Bangalore to come to Kauai. Jim is also the one who kicked open the doors for the Hinduism Today article on Shakti Amma's Golden Temple in Vellor.

Sadasivanathaswami took them on a walking tour of Siva's Gardens. One can see on their faces how it appeared to them after all those years. One of Jim's insights: "These unique grounds and the stone temple are a one thing, not two, sharing the sacredness."

Click here for a short report about a karma yoga literature distribution program

Click here for more report and photos of recent exhibition held at Senpaga Vinayagar Temple in Singapore

Several of the Monks traveled to the mountains to stay a few days at the Camp Slogget lodge in Kokee. On the way they stopped by Waimea Canyon, as well as the Kalalau Lookout. They took the time to hike, meditate, and enjoy the outdoors.

For their annual 3 day retreat some of the monks took a trip to polehale beach on the northwest side of kauai, and then spent a night up in the Mountains at a lodge in Kokee.

Vivek and Meenakshi Vyas with daughters Ananya and Ariyana made their first visit from Sacramento, northern California, on the occasion of Vivek's birthday. They've wanted to visit ever since hearing about us from one of our sishyas at the Himalayan Fair about seven years ago.

Today a new phase begins at Kauai Aadheenam. The three worlds are connected through the Homa fire as we offer prayers to the inner worlds.

For the past three days our Buddhist landscape architect has been exploring the sacred Siva Gardens with Sadasivanathaswami. The goal is to bring forth from within the most gracious, enchanting and meaningful landscape ideas for around Iraivan Temple.

Martin Mosco was sent here by Jim and Natalie Levin, at their expense, to spend 11 days creating a master plan. Martin is an amazing fellow and an intuitive maker of sacred space.

He stepped on the inner path when, at age 11, he was drowned in an infinite ocean of light. Nothing was ever the same. He studied for 20 years with a Tibetian master, and 12 more with a Japanese Zen master. At one point he took three years to do 108,000 full prostrations (he did that twice, as his master thought he had done the first set imperfectly!)

He is taking today off to visit the Limahuli garden on Kauai. And six of the monks are off to Kokee Park for three days. It will be Jaya's first such outing and all are excited for him.

Today Brahmachari Jaya took his supplicant pledge. This stage indicates that he is no longer "aspiring" to be a monk but has made a firm and clear decision to follow the monastic path, having settled his affairs in the world. As a supplicant he pledges to continue his spiritual work and is now in a state of "begging" or supplicating the order to be accepted as a full postulant Sadhaka.