With temperatures dropping just below 60 degrees at night (burrr!) H2O in the atmosphere loves to manifest itself on the plants in our garden. Sadhaka Rajanatha sends this lovely and remarkable series of shots of the morning dew on the plants. There are large versions to view in this slideshow, so don't hesitate to go full screen for the full experience of this incredible show of Lord Siva's beautiful creations!

The monks had a homa this morning. Satguru Bodhinatha did not attent, still resting up from his trip to Canada. Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami filled in, burning prayers and giving a short talk about current monastery projects and about virtues, specifically the virtue of being on time, which Bodhinatha observed as being a form of respect for the meetings, people and events one is involved with.

The Monks performed a powerful Abisheka, bathing Kartikkeya in milk, yogart, honey and more, from which He absorbs the prana and uses it to bless all present. Taipusam is a celebration of Muruga's truimph over the darkness of ignorance, commemorating His receiving the Vel, His spear of Spiritual illumination. Dancing with Siva states of Muruga: Lord Kārttikeya flies through the mind’s vast substance from planet to planet. He could well be called the Emancipator, ever available to the call of those in distress. Lord Kārttikeya, God of will, direct cognition and the purest, child-like divine love, propels us onward on the righteous way through religion, His Father’s law. Majestically seated on the maṇipūra chakra, this scarlet-hued God blesses mankind and strengthens our will when we lift to the inner sky through sādhana and yoga. The yoga pāda begins with the worship of Him. The yogī, locked in meditation, venerates Kārttikeya, Skanda, as his mind becomes as calm as Śaravaṇa, the lake of Divine Essence. The kuṇḍalinī force within everyone is held and controlled by this powerful God, first among renunciates, dear to all sannyāsins. Revered as Murugan in the South, He is commander in chief of the great devonic army, a fine, dynamic soldier of the within, a fearless defender of righteousness. He is Divinity emulated in form. The Vedas say, “To such a one who has his stains wiped away, the venerable Sanatkumāra shows the further shore of darkness. Him they call Skanda.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Wednesday was the final day of the Kumbhabhishekam, with a Homa to further sanctifying the main kumbhas, which included extensive nyasa (touching with mantras) and then moving each of the atma, vidya and Siva tattva groups from the homa into the murtis. Then and Abhishekam of the shrine spires and murtis. They Concluded with deepa alankaram, arcana and arati. When the curtain was closed Bodhinatha gave a 20 minute talk. Attendance at any one time was about two hundred, with devotees coming and going as the events were all on weekdays, so many had to work.
In the evening Bodhinatha was at the peace center, with Jeffrey Armstrongs Vedic Academy. There were probably 70-80 people, half of whom were his regulars, and half coming to see Bodhinatha. He gave a talk on "A Vision of Siva," about the Saivite concept of Siva and Gurudeva's 1975 San Marga Vision.

Click here for photos and description of January 19th study session for Master Course formal students and new seekers

We are happy to announce that we have completed the migration of the Hindu Lexicon over to our new web site.

See: http://www.himalayanacademy.com/view/lexicon

It took some time... because we ported all the data to a MySQL data base and we are presenting the information through a new modern web application which will be easily re-worked for use on mobile devices. As and additional plus the lexicon is dynamically tied to our web view of books. If you are on the simple web book page format for view, for example, this page in Dancing with Siva (click) you can select a word and if it can be found in the lexicon it will be opened to it's definition. (Note that some of the unicode diacritical words will not work in this environment, but you can copy and paste then into the lexicon search and then they will.)

Feel free to report any bugs with an email to studyhall@hindu.org

We want to thank our Digital Dharma Donors as projects like this take many man hours of programming by skilled, and your donations are what enable us to move forward. Thank you!

Jai to Our Beloved Gurudeva!

Photos from the foundry in Colorado. The life-size bronze masterpiece is finished and on its way to Kauai! And, yes, the rudraksha beads are bronze, not real!

Manickam Senthivel family is hosting Satguru Bodhinatha as usual. Manickam shared some information about our late Gurudeva's involvement:"When Gurudeva visited Vancouver in the year 2000, we met Gurudeva at the Airport and later at the hotel Gurudeva stayed for Blessings. At that time Sri Ganesh Maha Sapai was only 2 months old. It started out with a picture of Lord Ganesh and with a few devotees. Mostly we took this picture to devotees homes and conducting payans. The next day after Gurudeva left Vancouver, I travelled to Kauai for Guru Purnima celebration in 2000 (My first time to Kauai). With the blessings of our beloved Gurudeva a small Murthi was given, and advised by Gurudeva to have the murthy in devotees' house in turn and perform pooja. Gurudeva also mentioned the temple will be built within 15 years. That's now happened. I am very proud that I carried Lord Ganesha's Moorthy to Vancouver from Kauai. Dr. Thillai and his wife Dr. Sakthi worked very hard with other devotees to have this new temple today in Vancouver."