Most communities in America have an interfaith initiative, and Kauai's is called the Interfaith Roundtable. Religious leaders of the island meet in various places to share and strengthen cooperation among religions here, and today the meeting was at the monastery.

Vel Alahan, who is the treasurer with Bodhinatha's blessings, took them all on a tour of the temple and grounds and then they sat for 15 minutes with Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami, who shared with them the story of the monastery's work to make changes in the California textbooks for 6th grade students. It's quite a tale.

They asked interesting questions: Is it easier to realize the Self working in a spiritual community or by one's self? Do your solar panels cover all of your electrical needs? (Answer, no just 35% or so).

Afterwards, they met among themselves for the regular meeting. Such a delightful, spiritual group.

Scribe Day? Yes, this is the day each quarter when our cenobitic editors have to submit their articles for the magazine. Then we have four working days to make our final edits and color corrections and such before Scroll Day. Scroll Day is when the PDFs go off to our printer in Minnesota. Get it? Scribe is the writer and scroll is the printer. Gurudeva never like the word deadline, so we have positive names that won't keep a monk awake at night if he is behind schedule.

After it's all off to the printer, we go to work and repurpose the files for our website, and then send the PDFs to India to be ePubed, then send another set to Delhi for the India Edition, then send Pub Desk to seven translators for porting to other languages, then.... you get the idea.

My God is the melter of my heart of love. Let all adore my God, the Lord of primal love, first of beings, my Siva, who again and again melts my heart. May He render me His love in foremost measure! Praise Him but once, the Pure and Holy One, and He will be your escort to heaven. He, Lord Siva, decked in honeyed konrai blooms, sits enthroned in my love, steadfast and free.
Tirumantiram 274-275

Recently two families from Texas (Mallik Putcha and his wife from Houston, and Sangita Tiwari family from Dallas/Fort Worth) and another couple from England all visited us for the first time. They had a great time meeting each other, exploring Iraivan Temple and rudraksha trees. Mallik and his wife returned in the afternoon to perform a short abhishekam to our Narmada Sivalingam

In life: Nothing is misshapen, mishappening, mistaken, mistimed, misguided, mismanaged, miscarried, misplaced or missing.

Most of you know that the silpis use a simple hammer and a special mild steel chisel to give the temple granite its soft, refined finish. They start with a rough chisel and move through 8 or 10 degrees of refinement, just like a woodworker takes rough sandpaper to begin, the more and more refined.

In this first photo, we see this process at work at our Bengaluru site.

But times do change, and this week we received photos from our site manager, Jiva Rajasankar, showing us a new tool that makes this work much faster. It is a pneumatic device, beautifully adapted by our team to the special need. Of course, it moves the work along much faster, and just in case anyone is wondering, no, it is not being used on Iraivan temple which is only carved by hand.

Here is Jiva's note sent with the photos today:

Aum Sivaya, Paramacharya!

We are now using a compressor driven hand tool that smoothens the larger surface area very much faster. The machine vibrates a lot and the silpi has to hold it tight and guide the machine.

A close up of the tool with crossed patterns which does the smoothening.

The third photo shows the working of the compressor driven tool and the use of the hand chisel side by side. For all  the edges and tricky areas, we still use the hand chisels.

Please take note that this machine is only used for the perimeter wall. Nandi Mandapam is totally hand carved, no comprise whatsoever.

Aum.

Jiva

Though two members of the Pillayar Kulam were recently traveling, work at the PK continues as normal. Responsible for the Monastery's and Church's financial considerations, as well as magazine subscriptions, advertising, shipping, cow care and so much more, the Kulam plays a very crucial role.

This first photo is a hoya vine which was planted five years ago on a coconut tree next to the Kadavul Temple pool. Today it finally bloomed and greeted the tropical sun.

The following photos are of a blooming Giant Dutchman's Pipe or Pelican Flower:
Aristolochia gigantea is a robust, twisting climber that can grow around a sturdy arbor or a tree up to 30 feet tall or higher. Giant Dutchman's Pipe has developed an ingenious way to make the flies do all the pollination work. First, the fly, which is already coated with pollen from another flower it has recently visited, is attracted to the sight and smell of the open flower. As it follows the scent down to the main chamber of the flower, it is prevented from exiting by the stiff hairs from inside the pipe, which traps the insect inside. Since the hairs point downward, the fly must move in that direction. Deep inside the flower, the pollen-covered fly brushes up its head against the flower's receptive stigma, depositing pollen from the previous flower. The next day the flower stops producing the scent that attracted the flies and releases pollen on the captives. Only then does the flower relax the stiff hairs and release the flies to carry the pollen to another flower. The flower is about the size of an open hand.