A poem from a dear devotee, who was inspired after viewing the Pada Puja video from Guru Purnima:

All hands are blessed equal
some are more blessed than others
these are the hands that serve
that serve God, Gods and Guru
So close to those they serve
how blessed they be!

 To soak in that darshan
a Presence that floods and cleanses
the heart, mind and five senses
To touch the form of stone
and that of flesh and bone 
how blessed they be! 

What penance performed
brought forth the voice
that speaks His names
so loud, so clear
What deeds of love
allowed the ears
to hear His call and respond
how blessed they be! 

Aah ... the fruit of devotion
with taste that quickly permeates
each cell, each pore
To tap into that, to hold
and to pass it on
how very blessed they be!

 And, how grateful we be
for these blessings that flow
unending, manifold
from His Feet, so sweet
so still, clear and pure!

These are the newly designed perimeter wall under carving.

Srikhar and Deepti are visiting for the first time from San Francisco area. It's their one-year wedding anniversary.

Anand and Manisha Cholia visited for first time from Texas. They are friends of Mrunal and Padmaja Patel and Ananda is current president of the Hindu Temple in Midland

Click here to view report and images of the event in Mauritius Part 1--

Click here for Part 2--

Click here to view images of the event in Malaysia, which included a skit

Click here to view images of the event in Singapore

Today the monks begin their new phase. A sacred Homa is held in Kaduval temple and Satguru Bodhinatha gave an upadesha about the power behind a life which observes both inner worship and outer worship, reminding us that the temple is for our outer worship and that our meditation is reserved for our inner worship and the realization of our oneness with all.

The homa connects us with the inner worlds, through our worship and our prayers. Here is a section from Merging with Siva about this connection:
"There is a vast inner network of devonic helpers, ever working, never sleeping. They are nourished on the pranas of the most refined morsels of Siva consciousness. They never take time out even to eat a meal. There is a continuity of consciousness in the Devaloka that we do not experience in our earthly bodies. It is in the world of the Gods and their devas that the mass consciousness is guided through its evolution--the evolution of the maya of the constant, interlaced action of creation, preservation and dissolution. This mighty group of soldiers of the within, preceptors of dharma, lords of karma, is ever active, available and ready to serve those who seek. Sending prayers into the inner world through the sacred fire is simply a means of communicating with those powerful beings who do not possess a physical body. It is as simple as writing then mailing a letter, sending an e-mail or a fax. Through this means, you can even communicate with someone living in a physical body in a far-off place. They will receive your message from a dispatcher at night when they are out of the physical body during sleep and conscious on the astral plane. This is truly a magical way of reaching into the inner world and contacting friends and relatives asleep at night in a far-off place. You are also an inner soul and can be seen by the devas in their world. They see you in your soul body. Psychic persons living in physical bodies can often see the devas."

On the auspicious day of Guru Purnima, Sadhaka Tejadevanatha received his diksha as a Nirvana Sadhaka. After years of service and having completed his four sojourns in the world, he received his mala of large rudraksha beads. Bodhinatha then signed his vow book and blessed him in his new life as Nirvani Tejadevanatha. Aum Namah Sivaya

Prabhakar and Sundara Kulkarni's daughter Anita got married yesterday to Arun Agarwal at the Hyatt hotel in Poipu, and the wedding party came up this morning to attend Siva puja, get blessings from Satguru Bodhinatha and see the grounds

Somehow this post slipped through the cracks. Consider it a little Deutsch Retrospektive.

Sadasivanathaswami and Senthilnathaswami stepped into Germany in the big city of Berlin, greeted by long-time sishyas Kulapati Veeragathiyar, Kulamata Puvanesam, their daughter Sivapprintha and her daughter Gajanani, and our student Niraj Thaker, who had flown down from London.

We took the afternoon off to explore Berlin on our own. The city's difficult history revealed itself to us when we realized at one point that we were walking on a permanently marked strip of ground that denotes the path of the infamous Berlin Wall. We didn't visit Checkpoint Charlie, where a section of the wall is permanently memorialized, but it was tempting. It just didn't seem necessary, we thought; "Let's leave the past in the past."

Saturday morning was filled with temple visits. First we were taken to the Sri Mayoorapathy Murugan Temple on Urbanstrasse. This small temple in the basement of an unassuming residential building is a center for the Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants in this city, most of whom came as refugees during the civil war in their country. It was powerful, due in large part to the young, inspired priest, who is a force goading the community forward in getting more solidly established in their new home.

They are now in the process of building a full size temple on a corner in a much nicer part of town. They took us there, and it was quite a sight to behold. After a tour of the inside, where the plaster has been finished on the shrines, awaiting painting in beautiful colors, we were taken to the roof where one group of shilpis was painting the vimanam and another was putting finishing touches on the plasterwork of the rajagopuram.

Next stop was the famous Ganesha Temple of Berlin. Surprised we were to find it in a hundred-year-old warehouse-style structure right next to the beautiful Hasenheide Volkspark.

The site had been given to the immigrant Indian community (not the Sri Lankan community, as we had thought) by the Mayor of Berlin. The elders shared with us their plans to build a formal temple, and then took us to the site, right next to the existing structure, which will later serve as a cultural hall. At their request we blessed the site (which has some beginning concrete foundations and pillars) for a swift manifestation of their shared dreams.

The park directly adjacent this temple makes it a very sweet location, surrounded by trees and open grass where the local folks enjoy relaxing on sunny summer afternoons.

Taking advantage of the hot summer days is actually something we saw all over the continent. Winter ended late here this year, only in April, and the spring was quite cold as well, so everyone is squeezing as much as they can out of the few summer months that are available before the weather cools once again. This is also an important time for agriculture, and in every country, driving or riding on trains through the countryside from city to city, village to village, we noticed that virtually every square meter is planted with one crop or another--happy crops, too. All the things you would expect in Europe: grapes, tomatoes, wheat, barley, vegetables of all kinds, and a hundred different things that were challenging to identify at the high speeds of the trains and the autobahn.

Our last activity in Berlin was a satsang with our kulamata and kulapati and their family and close, pious friends. It was a sweet time spent with long-time devotees who have not seen any of the monks since Gurudeva visited here last in August of 2001.

For sincere devotees who could not be here yesterday, this video covers nearly an hour of the Aadheenam's early-morning celebration and padapuja honoring our beloved Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami. A perfect way to spend a Sunday full-moon morning or evening! (Available all the way up to 1080p HD, if you have the bandwidth) httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcObttRLL3E