Jai Gurudeva!

This morning our monks and local shishya celebrated the Chitra nakshatra with their monthly observance in Kadavul Temple. Sannyasin Tillainathaswami and Yogi Haranandinatha performed an abhiskekam at Gurudeva's shrine, while other monks chanted Sri Rudram. Aum

"It is not a matter of becoming the Self, but of realizing that you never were not the Self. And what is that Self? It is Parasiva. It is God. It is That which is beyond the mind, beyond thought, feeling and emotion, beyond time, form and space." - Gurudeva

When Jiva Rajasankara and the three silpis arrived from Bengaluru a few days back, they had many boxes of items for the monastery. One held these amazing silver puja items, given by Swami Jeyendrapuriswami, shown below with Jiva holding an alankara lamp. Swami knew Iraivan would need these when the temple opens and commissioned them made by one of South India's finest silver smiths. Such a precious gift to Siva. Nandri, Swami. They will serve us for many years into the future.

Aloha all! We are very excited to announce that after an absence of years the Silpis have recently arrived back from India and have begun to work on Iraivan Temple and the Nandi Mandapam in front of Kadavul Temple. Enjoy the photos of progress and look forward to more 🙂
Aum Namah Śivaya

Recently our inspired team of taskforcers got together to cook a wonderful and tasty meal for all the monks and Satguru. Encouraged by their fearless culinary-leader, Vatshalan, the group embarked on a quest to create a banquet of traditional Sri Lankan dishes including idiyappam, coconut and tofu curries, onion sambar, coconut chutney and carrot sambal. The meal was served on traditional banana leaves and deeply enjoyed by all!

This rare photo from 1980 shows Gurudeva seated on the Kadavul threshold watching the young monks guide a giant crane that is lifting and putting into place the 32,000-pound granite Nandi. It was so heavy, it bent the crane! That night on the evening news from Honolulu (remember TV news before the Internet?) the opening story from Kauai was captioned "16 Tons of Bull!"

When Nandi was in place, Gurudeva lamented that the black granite murti was magnificent, but the base on which he kneeled "is a pile of rocks." He was not happy with the roughness of the stones. So here we are, 42 years later, bringing the base up to Gurudeva's hoped-for standard.

This morning the three silpis and Jiva, newly arrived from India, are uncrating sculpted granite cladding that has been in the Bengaluru workshop for some three years. In the days ahead they will be assembling these stones in front of Kadavul and we will visualize Gurudeva seated on the threshold smiling that his words were still ringing in our ears and his Nandi will have a proper throne as he kneels before Siva Nataraja.

A few days ago we realized that our new AI narrated audiobooks on the Google Play Store were not available to some regions of the world so we found a way to export the mp3 files and are sharing them here if you want to download them through Google Drive. 🔊 Additionally, the pronunciation in Lemurian Scrolls has been improved thanks to the work of our taskforcer Lucas and his great work correction the AI.   Śaiva Dharma Shastras- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-w2YNp4kddTvhRf5jZyINkTnq0dE_68G/view?usp=sharing Lemurian Scrolls- https://drive.google.com/file/d/13e4Tawctc6Nzk8UXRZCnqWa4GLCug60h/view?usp=sharing Weaver's Wisdom- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nj3AjsOHNfvU3FRx8br94FuQYDa5wELE/view?usp=sharing Loving Ganesha- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cthPfIlLU8XYnnWwyLCdzkA-0BE-C_Gz/view?usp=sharing Holy Orders of Sannyas- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j7BpJRgRsQQHGJ76Jc9TzD8XHMu8o4W4/view?usp=sharing Yoga's Forgotten Foundation- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j8l8wuAV4Bxo-aTfvYxsShEhAqs8UWsk/view?usp=sharing   Aum!

Today was a day off for the busy tile setting team, so we took the opportunity to sneak inside the workspace to see what they've been up to.

Happy Ardra Nakshatra!
Aum Namah Sivaya!

On Siva's most auspicious nakshatra of the month, we welcome one of our newest monastic candidates into the pre-monastic aspirancy program. Vatshalan Santhirapala has been on taskforce for several months at the aadheenam and has long been interested in monastic life. In several days he will be returning to the UK, and while there as an aspirant he will continue to work towards his supplicancy vows. While someone must usually be under 25 years of age to enter our monastic order, if they are born into the Saivite Tradition and meet certain other qualifications, they may be eligible to take monastic vows provided they are under the age of 35--as per an adendum added by Gurudeva in 2001. Aspirancy is one of two major steps as a pre-monastic before qualifying to take vows as a postulant Sadhaka.

As stated in the aspirancy pledge:
"Saiva Siddhanta Chruch has established the Aspirancy to offer a pre-monastic training through its theological seminary for those who aspire to follow the monastic path. By this agreement aspirants affirm their commitment to deepen their study of the Saivite Hindu religion, particularly the Advaita Ishvaravada philosophy, also known as Advaita Siddhanta, enunciated in the Saiva Siddhanta theology of the Himalayan rishi Tirumular. They have chosen Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami as their satguru and the Kailasa Parampara as their heritage of faith and awakening. Aspirants come to monasteries and temples to learn through example and observation, and to be trained and taught the principles of religion, theology, philosophy and yoga. The primary objectives of aspirants are to emulate Saivite monastic life, intensify their Master Course study by studying the trilogy each day and to become thoroughly immersed in the tradition which they aspire to serve as a Saivite monastic."