Rudiren Pillay will be departing for his home in South Africa tomorrow. We all want to thank him for his great attitude and spirit of service. He returns renewed with his mantra diksha. At lunch today he gave testimony on how inspired he was to to live among a group of people who are always happy.

One of the monks told him he thought it was a waste of time being unhappy. Since everyone is running around trying to do something to make themselves happy, they would save a lot of time and effort if they would just BE happy.

Durvan is here from Arizona. His home is in Malaysia and he's here working for Intel for the last three months for work. His family met our late Gurudeva years ago. He's looked forward for many years to finally visit Kauai Aadheenam for the first time. Durvan and his family in Malaysia have subscribed to Hinduism Today magazine for many years now.

Prasanna and Maya from Vancouver lived in India for 19 years where he did astrology at Ammachi Ashram. They had a long talk with Bodhinatha.

One more of the many events at Suttur Mutt. Actually, these dancers were everywhere during the days of the festival. Watch it in full screen to see their elaborate costumes and priceless facial expressions. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VkskvdUPOM

As you may know, in 2009 our Siva Poomi Elderly Home purchased 300 lachchams of land (about 40 acres) in Jaffna with the help of 6 families from California. We call this land Siva Poomi Farm.

Since then, much work has been done on the farm. When we purchased the land, it was abandoned and overgrown; now the land has been cleared and fenced, and we put a small building on it with a water tank. This is the third year we have planted rice in the 100 lachchams paddy field and are expecting a good harvest early in 2012. This rice will be used for Elderly Home meals. On the rest of the land, we have planted 400 coconut trees, mango trees, banana and lemon trees. We have also planted onions and vegetables. We now have a small dairy with 6 cows on the farm. Any milk produced in excess of what is used for the elderly home is sold locally. The farm has two full-time employees; seasonally we hire local people to work on the farm.

Our sincere thanks go to Manitha Neyam Trust and the donors. Click here to donate to this trust via the Hindu Heritage Endowment. In March, we purchased a two-wheeler tractor for the farm. We are a long way from being fully self-sufficient, but we are on our way to it. The farm not only provides for the Elderly Home, it also provides employment locally.

Thanks to a small group of kindhearted souls halfway around the world in California, people are obtaining benefit from their generosity in their motherland.

In Peace,

Rishi Thondunathan

PS. I am enclosing some photos of the farm and the Elderly Home for you to enjoy.

Suttur Mutt spared no expenses when hiring performers for the five-day festival. At any time there were artists somewhere, sometimes simultaneously, including plays that went from midnight to sunrise -- it takes a lot to entertain 250,000 people. Here is a short clip of a cool musical style we heard there. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c28e1qBcB7Y

[NOTE: large size images are available in this slideshow. use the pop-out and fullscreen tools on the lower right.]

Today was an auspicious one for the Kailasa Paramapara, Rudiren Carpanen Pillay and Uma Sivanathan. They both received their Samaya Diksha and the precious and magical gift of Panchakshara mantra was passed on from preceptor to sishya in the simple ancient initiation into mantra japa yoga given by Bodhinatha to each of them.

This is the first and foundational step onto the Saiva Neri, the Path to Siva. The daily contemplation on Lord Siva, Siva Dhyanam, begins with this practice and deepens through the years, as we repeat the Sacred Letters Five and let our hearts and minds melt in Divine Love for the One God of All.

Yogaswami sang:

"Thou who art non-pareil,
The consort of UmaDevi,
Whose temple is thy devotee's heart.
Hail Namasivaya.

'Ye art not the body', said he
And gave me strength divine
To purge me of my fearful bonds,
Oh Primal One, Namasivaya

That Tattvas ninety six are unreal,
I realised through thy grace,
And transcended their barriers,
Oh Siva, Namasivaya.

To those who have crossed
The six centres of consciousness,
Thou did'st grant thy Lotus Feet
Thou great God, Namasivaya

In the void of silence, that I may
Attain peace thou willeth.
Thou source of Vedas and God of Devas,
Thou sovereign ruler, Namasivaya.

Thou pursued me that I may turn to thee,
Thy beauteous form I saw,
In rapt synthesis I was thine for ever,
Oh Source of Grace and Power! Namasivaya.

Those who behold the sight
Of thy dance with raised legs-
Will they perish in this world
Full of toils? Namasivaya.

Art thou not the support
Of those who seek thee
In the temple of the body?
Oh Sankara, Namasivaya."

Our fourth day at Suttur began with a puja to Adi Shivarathriswara, the founder of the mutt, at his samadhi temple. His murti is so small that it is brought out of the sanctum for special guests to offer flowers, chanting the Siva ashtottara. The shrine itself is not small, and a rather large Nandi seats there serenely -- or deliciously, I should say, for he is decorated daily with a kavacham coating of butter, with grapes and chillies made to look like jewels. So playful, so delightful.

We met a craftsman who carries the Sivalingams that Lingayats use. To our surprise, the black round lingam is not a stone, but a concoction of wax and 51 other substances. Inside resides a minuscule stone Sivalingam on a yoni. He melts the black substance, encases the stone Sivalingam in the wax Sivalingam and creates an artifact said to last for a lifetime of devotion.

From there we visited some temples, including Chamundeswari Temple, crowded, and a temple to the Goddess' sister, nearby, nice and less popular.

In the evening we went to the immensely popular fire-walking ceremony -- you can see the second story VIP section on the photos above, at the top of a house. The even went on and on, with amazing performances of popular dancers, acrobats, fire-eaters, nadaswara players, drummers and anyone else who could make some noise. We will upload a video when there is more bandwith.

One more interesting fact: the previous day, when the auspicious yatra parading the murti of the founder was about to roll down the streets, fireworks exploded in the sky with deafening noise. A flock of gigantic birds, disturbed, flew in circles above us, disoriented by the noise. Are they birds? No. Wow, those are bats. Enormous, black bats, awe-worthy and creepy. The poor animals were confused and went away, reminding us that, in many cultures, loud fireworks are meant to scare away evil spirits, demons of mischief and darkness, and perhaps a few innocent bats to symbolize the fleeing forces of ignorant evil.

Yoginathaswami and SadhakaTejadevanatha flew over to the Big Island to take care of some business and to visit Kawamata Farms in Hilo.

The farm manager David Oshiro gave us a very informative tour of the farm.

Farm was started in the Mid 60s. Today they have 14 workers, 6 trainee's and 3 managers. They started growing field veggies and ran into challenges with controlling bugs that would eat the crops. Then the farm transitioned into flowers. The challenge with flowers is the high competition from other countries that have lower labor cost. Now they grow 3 Acres of hydroponic tomatoes and 3/4 of an acre of cucumbers. The tomatoes have a higher profit margin and the bugs can be controlled in a green hose

Stats of the Farm:

Tomato production: 1 million lbs a year. Cucumbers: 400,000 lbs a year

Tomatoes and Cucumbers are grown in : Coconut husk media that is imported from Sri Lanka. Liquid fertilizer is fed to the plants through drip irrigation. The system is closely monitored by the Farm Manager. Tomatoes are spaced 5 ft apart by 12 inches

Any bugs that do find the plants are controlled organically with Neem oil. The oil is purchased from India in 55 gallon drums.

After our Maha Ardra day festival Kulapati Satya Palani stayed on to help the monks. He is currently a top project manager for a construction firm but in his younger days he was a master tile craftsman. He kindly offered to help the Siddhidata Kulam tile their new office floor. Thanks to his amazing expertise and the team work they finished the whole job in two days. These photos are from day two and the floor is almost done.

Sadhaka Haranandinatha went for a stroll this morning, catching our monks at their seva here and there. Senthilnathaswami is working on an article for the April Hinduism Today special Bali issue. This article is about animal sacrifice. "It's not an easy article to write," he says. Sivakatirswami is reviewing the iPad app "British Library; Historical Collection" for the April issue of Hinduism Today Arumuganathaswami holds a preliminary, editing copy of Growing Up Hindu, Book One of a series called Modern Stories for Hindu Youth. Santosh and Karuna Krinsky owners of New Leaf Distributors are here today.
Brahmachari Jaya is shrink-wrapping a variety pack of incense for the Minimela. Sadhaka Mayurnatha also using our laser etcher to creating wooden signs for the mini mela.