An Outing to Kokee
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Over the retreat a few monks and several church members and pilgrims went for a hike up in the mountains. To get there one must drive to the other side of the island, then take a long and windy road up the mountain. The group first stopped to see Waimea Canyon and then headed for the trail. They decided to hike one of our favorites, the Berry Flat trail. As its name suggests, it is covered in a variety of edibles such as blackberries, guavas and wild passion fruit, the trail is also a restively relaxed venture. One of the monks loves to take pictures of the many varieties of mushrooms on our diverse little island, and as as you'll see he found some rare ones.
Beginning a New Ritau
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After being delayed by stormy weather a few days ago, the flag was risen this morning to mark the beginning of Moksha Ritau. Bodhinatha lowered the previous flag and replaced it with the coral pink one of this new season. Today's observance was accompanied by the morning's rain and a soft sunrise.
Twitter Update: Our publisher's editorial for the Jan/Feb/Mar 2014…
TAKA Archives Available For Viewing
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Thanks to many tedious hours of work by Andre Garzia, our developer in Brasil, and to the Digital Dharma Drive donors whose donations pay for his time, we are happy to announce that TAKA archives are available for viewing. He had to go back in time and "scrape" the content out of obsolete web formats and move all this into our Word Press database. It was a huge project. Presently we have from 2001 through until today. We have yet to get the archives from 1998 to 2001, as the formats from those days is so old as to be unparseable. The content will have to be hand-picked for each day.
To use the archives, click "Archives" at the bottom of the page. You will be presented with the twelve months of 2013. If a date is greyed out, it means there were not posts on that day. You can click on the year to choose a year, such as 2006. It will take a moment to load. The click to view a specific date. Once you get back to that date you will need to choose "Archives" again to move to another day. We are working on having this show the current year that you are in (e.g. if you go to 2007, then when you choose a day and go back in time the archives will still be set to 2007 and we will have the date you are viewing show in another color. Please send feedback to studyhall@hindu.org
We want to thank our Digital Dharma Donors. Your donations allow us to continue developing our web services.
Girish Samugan Arrives, a Milestone after 24 years!
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Girish Samugan, from Singapore has known Gurudeva since he was just a small child. Originally his parents hoped he would become a monk. Of course one never knows what the prarabda karmas will be until someone grows up and makes their own choices. As young boy, Girish went to India with a number of other young men to stay at Kailas Ashram as part of their earlier training toward possible future monastic life, if that were to be their choice. Sadhaka Tejadevanatha was their chaperone at that time in India.
Girish came to Kauai Aadheenam with his parents on pilgrimage several times through the years and the idea of monastic life as his life choice began to gel in his mind. But getting a visa for a young man in Asia to come to America is challenging, and his father also wanted him to finish his education. And then, once you come of age in Singapore you are bound by law to serve in the military for two years. So one obstacle after another came up. During those years, Girish became educated as a sound engineer, worked in the Singapore Police force, and even started his own business providing event/presentation services for people want to put on a show. He and his team would set up the hall, install audio-video screens etc.
But he kept his eyes on the path all along and last year finally was able to see a way through after finishing is military service to come to Kauai. The immigration and visa process was a daunting gauntlet, but finally he made it yesterday to Kauai.
Congratulations to Girish for staying focused all these years on the end game of life! One advantage for the monastery is that he arrives as a fully competent highly trained, disciplined soldier of the within!
Four Shaktis from Australia and Malaysia Come on Pilgrimage
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Four of Gurudeva's most long time devotees from Malaysia and Australia arrived yesterday. Brahmacharini Barathy Sockanathan, her sister Sarkunavathy Sockanathan are from Klang, Malaysia. Sornavanita Sutherman, Thamilmani Visakhan, originally part of our Singapore Mission, now live in Perth, Australia. They are all traveling together on pilgrimage for Ardra Darshana.
BAPS (Swami Narayan Fellowship) Devotees Visit Kauai Aadheenam
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Today a group of 125 pilgrims from the Chino Hills BAPS temple arrived in 3 buses. Many were present there when Bodhinatha spoke to the group at the opening of their new temple in Chino. So they were all looking forward to going to a sacred space on Kauai.
Mountain Top Consciousness Views
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Sharing the beauty of our island and Kauai Aadheenam is challenging. A normal camera can only begin to capture what the eye sees. Aerial photography is famous for giving us big dynamic views of the world. In the old days it would cost a mini-fortune to hire a helicopter, professional photographer just to go up for a few minutes of video or still shots.
Well that's all changed in the 21st century. For a few-hundred dollars anyone can buy a small drone and send your camera up. The monks only realized this recently when a local man showed us amazing footage he was taking with a small helicopter only about 18 inches across! We decided to invest in this ourselves instead of paying big bucks for professional photographers. Now Sadhaka Mayurnatha and Siddhanthaswami are taking the lead in our aerial photography initiative.
Today we bring you some ove views of the land we have across the river called Himalayan Acres, which is an agriculture endowment for Kauai's Hindu Monastery. Pan around to see everything.
Our Publications at Diwali Nagar in Trinidad
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Divali Nagar (City of Lights) is an annual exposition of Hindu culture and celebrations of Diwali since 1986. It is staged at the permanent Divali Nagar site, located in the borough of Chaguanas. There is a great variety of religious and cultural displays and performances to be enjoyed. And it is a time of meeting the many celebrities and dignitaries who visit the site over the week it is active. The chief guest opening this year's festivities was Captain Pratima Dharm, the first Hindu chaplain of the US armed forces who was featured in the cover story, January-February-March 2012 issue of Hinduism Today.
Ashwinee Ragoonanan, her daughter Kashika and her team of sevaks have, for the past 20 years, maintained a prominent booth at the Nagar that displays Hinduism Today and Himalayan Academy publications along with the annual Kashika Panchang for the island of Trinidad. Ashwinee has, during these same past 20 years, also managed a lively Hinduism Today distribution center from her home.
At the booth, Bodhinatha's upcoming visit to Trinidad in February, 2014, was broadly announced.
Landscaping With Ancient Plants – Cycads
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With the disappearance of the mango tree by the edge of the media studio and the expanded area created by pruning back the banyan tree on the east of Kadavul, we had a lot of exposed ground. Paramacharya Sadasivanathswami acquired some cycads to dress up the area, provide some shade and wind break for the flowering plants. Cycads may look like, but should not be confused with, palms or ferns. They are a unique plant. Fossil remains of cycads have been discovered that indicate they were present on earth 280 million years ago. Some think even longer. A cycad plant is known to live 1000 years. Highly prized in the world of tropical horticulture, they are a zero maintenance and very slow growing plant. In a tropical jungle environment where things grow so fast you have to spend a lot of time trimming and pruning back your flora, hauling away fallen fronds and leaves.... cycads will just "sit there" year after year, looking beautiful.
From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.
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