Gurudeva Puja in Alaveddy, Sri Lanka
Gurudeva’s 10th Maha Samadhi puja was held at our Sri Subramuniya Ashram’s Sri Pasupathiswarar Temple on October 25th.
Two priests from the Kumbilavalai Ganesha Temple conducted the Puja.
Along with the local devotees, Rishimatha Sivalosany Kanagaratnam attended the event.
Along with the Sri Subramuniya Kottam children
Bodhinatha Getting Ready for Travel
Bodhinatha will be traveling to Mauritius and Malaysia for 14 days, departing on November 14 and returning on November 28. See his schedule here.
Electrical Upgrade Magic
While the changes to our electrical system span a large area and also underground, Yoginathaswami sends this dramatic image of the loft above our kitchen before Easvan and his team went to work. And…
After all the old wiring was removed an properly routed through conduit.
Wailua Mission Natchintanai/Bhajan Satsang
Twice a month Sivakatirswami meets with the members of the Wailua Mission to practice Natchintanai, perfect and learn new bhajans and be a “beta” test group for the things we want to teach in future Saiva Hindu Religion classes: chants, bhajans, Natchintanai, Tirumurai. It is a wonderful “bhakti break” for everyone as our members work very hard and Swami also likes to get away from the computer to “Sing to the Gods.”
Today we had the pleasure of following along with the songs recorded by Mrs. Mardemootoo while she was here on pilgrimage. Thank you, Selvon!
Stay tuned as these and other recordings from the Natchintanai Workshop in Mauritius will be coming to our web site soon.
Here we are sending all of Kadavul’s good energy out to everyone around the world and especially to our counter part singing satsang/classes in Mauritius and Malaysia. Swami’s goal is to encourage and enable everyone to have the courage to lead and to be to follow Yogaswami’s dictum “Sing until you melt the very stones!”
Malaysia Mission
Click here for latest Malaysia mission satsang photos
Click here for latest Malaysia mission satsang photos
Param Family Finish Their Pilgrimage
Saiva Siddhanta Church sishyas Chandran and Sahanadevi Param from California met with Bodhiantha this morning for darshan on the last full day here. They will be returning to California tomorrow.
The family has been spending a lot of time with swamis. On the left, Bhajana, who wants to help with our digital productions, the young man on the right: Jeyendra and the two devas below — “The Twins”, seven-year old Bodhisiva Sankara and his sister, Bela Sundari. Here they are with Sivakatirswami who gave the whole family had a little class on preparation for meditation today. They have also been reading the children’s stories and giving lots of useful feedback to the Arumuganathaswami. Chandran is participating in the planning of the renovation of the Media Lab building, being the lead man on lighting which is his field, and Sahanadevi has been providing a lot of support for our temple and kitchen team helping Sadhaka Nandinatha, and working hard to make sure her family stays on track in their religious and spiritual lives. The children are a new breed, being third generation American Hindus — our future!
Bodhinatha's Jayanthi In Sri Lanka
Babu Chandreswaran writes from Sri Lanka: "On October 15th, the Thirunavukkarasu Nayanar Gurukulam (orphanage) celebrated the jayanthi day of Satguru Bodinatha Veylanswami who guides us and the Hindu world.
The celebrations took place at the gurukulam's new complex. All children and devotees gathered to pray and seek Bodhinatha's holy presence and divine blessings.
Please find the photos gallery
-- Babu from gurukulam on 15th October, 2011.
Sun One Homa, Parampara Stories
A new phase began today. Things are quieting down most pilgrims have returned home.
Bodhinatha added a new feature to his Sun One upadesha: he read a story from the Guru Chronicles that related to his talk on the three spiritual goals of life: Self-Realization, Moksha and Vishvagrasa.
Siddhanathaswami is our morning pujari for this phase.
Gurudeva's Maha Samadhi in Toronto
Vanakkam Swami,
Tamil seniors of Toronto have celebrated Gurudeva's Maha Samadhi on October 23ed at the Sangamam Hall in Scarborough.
Aum Shanthi,
Rishi Thondunathan
How Digital Dharma Drive Funds Are Used
On our second day of the Digital Dharma Drive, we bring to you our statement on how the funds we raised last year are being used, and what are plans are for this year's contributions.
How Your 2010 Donations Were Used
- Ebooks: We hired a firm in Chennai to convert many of our renowned publications on contemporary Hinduism to PDF, ePub (for iPad, iPhone, Nook and other devices) and Amazon Kindle formats. Gurudeva's entire trilogy (over 3,000 pages), our children's story books, Gurudeva's Toolbox for a Spiritual Life, our history lessons, Gurudeva's Spiritual Visions, Hinduism Today magazine issues for the year and, importantly, our newest spiritual biography The Guru Chronicles—all these will soon be available for free on our website and for sale through the Apple iBookstore and Amazon Kindle Store.
- Digital Dharma Library: Knowing that our current website doesn't make finding our resources as easy and transparent as it should, we embarked upon a complete overhaul. First, a programmer in Brazil was hired to construct a database to hold all of our resources and write web applications that will facilitate organization and access. Second, one of the world's best professional web design firms, Happy Cog, was contracted to craft a modern, more functional interface to the site that visitors will navigate easily through, accessing our thousands of resources: art, books, literature, audio and video files, and more. The aesthetic design and web page templates are complete. We are currently working hard to move all of the content into the new database and page templates, and by January we plan to go live with the new site. Here is a sample page from the newly redesigned website:
- Social site: Another firm was hired to help us implement a private social networking site to connect our Saiva Siddhanta Church members and Himalayan Academy students around the world.
- Hinduism Today: A web contractor was hired to update the website of our international magazine with each quarter's new edition.
- Miscellany: Funds were also used to purchase software and fonts that will be used on the new website, iPads for developing delivery systems to mobile units, domain registration fees, etc.
Our Plans for This Year's Contributions
- Ebooks: There are many more books to convert to PDF, ePub and Kindle formats to make them available for use on today's variety of digital readers. By the end of 2012, we hope to have all our publications, big and small, available as ebooks.
- Mobile Apps: 2012 is planned to be our Year of the App. We have waited long to embark on this important initiative, and with the main goals behind us, the way seems clear. Apps that bring our publications to life, apps that teach, apps that inspire and guide children. It's a whole new world for us to plan for and design.
- Mobile Website: Our new site is beautiful and functional, but what if you are trying to access it on your iPhone or Android phone? We hope to hire our web design firm to make the necessary enhancements behind the scenes to make the site fully functional and easy to use on devices with small screens.
- Hinduism Today Website: The online presence of our international magazine was recently redesigned, but it's still not perfect. We hope to hire a web designer to make needed adjustments.
- Web Programming: As with any large web architecture project, especially for a site offering as many thousands of resources as ours, there will be ongoing maintenance and programming of new tools and features to keep the site up to date and functional for users. For this, we will need to continue to hire our Brazil-based programmer.
- Members' social site: Continued development of features to bring students and families together from far corners of the world.
