Today was the auspicious monthly Chitra puja, when we all turn our hearts, minds and vision toward our beloved Gurudeva. As always tghe magic of the Pada Puja draws Gurudeva's sweet and profound presence into the room for everyone to absorb.

At the Aadheenam we began the phase with a homa as usual. The past few days have been very powerful due to the full moon/Thai Pusam vibration. Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami presided over today's ceremony and told stories from his time in India at the Suttur Mutt. He was particularly impressed by how the devotees there have carried forward the memory of their founder, such that even after 1000 years, you can still feel the presence of the founder as if he were right there today. It was a good goal for us to achieve the same for our own beloved Gurudeva, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. [This slideshow has hi-res images you can view full screen or pan up and down on with your mouse.]

Vel Alahan hosted two familes today. On the right Mylvaganam Kathirgamanathan (he calls himself Kathirgamanathan) and his wife Sarathadevi are from Jaffna, Sri Lanka, now living in Toronto, Canada. Kathirgamanathan is a surgeon and attending a conference on Kauai. He has memories of the days when Siva Yogaswami was alive. In fact his whole family were devotees of St Yogaswami.

On the left The family from Queensland, Australia originally from Fiji: Priya Ayesha Sinh (daughter), Mrs. Sushila Sinh, Ravi Sinh (son), Vinod Sinh (father). They follow the Aadheenam closely on line and are donors of the gilding of Iraivan Temple.

Large photo alert! Pan and Use the pop-out or full screen option to see some marvelous wood grain.

A few recent projects in from the woodshop. First, a redwood batton door, similar to the style on the original aadheenam building from 1929, but here we used tapered sliding dovetail crossmembers, inspired by work at the Russian Fort in California. Second, three photos of some window frames using drawbore pins; and third, a look at the lathe corner.

We offer you hi-resolution slides of today's homa. Click on the pop-out or full screen icons.

Bodhinatha departed for India yesterday with Arumuganathaswami and Yoginathaswami early in the morning. They reported in from Singapore that they arrived safe and sound.

Today Bodhinatha's paduka sit by the homa. Sivanathaswami presided and gave a marvelous talk quoting from Gurudeva, our shastra and Merging with Siva. he focused on the Yugas in terms of the soul's evolution from Manipura to Vishuddha chakras.

Swami Ishwarananda Ji of the Chinmaya Mission in Los Angeles made his second visit to the Aadheenam today. He first visited ten years ago, and he barely missed meeting Gurudeva at that time. Accompanied by Sri Lankan devotees from Southern California, Swamiji told us that he came to Kauai this weekend solely to visit the monastery.

The group of thirteen attended the morning Siva puja, toured Iraivan Temple, met with Bodhinatha and met with some of the swamis of the Ganapati Kulam. The monks also served him and his entourage lunch.

Bodhinatha has always praised the good work of the Chinmaya Mission. Swami Ishwarananda is an excellent teacher and speaker, one of few that Chinmaya Mission has stationed permanently in the US. He and Bodhinatha met in November 2008 during a visit to Anaheim. Since then, Swami has moved the center to Tustin, just a few miles away, to accommodate a larger student body. Every Sunday they have 800 children and 400 adults attend their satsang and classes.

The kitchen at Suttur Math (a small corner of it)

There are dozens of these vats!