The Pillayar Kulam is focused on many tasks at the moment, including newsletter printing, reviewing next years financial projections, as well as many other duties involving mailing, accounting and much more.

It's the beginning of the new season. The monastery parades out to change the flag, lit by the golden rays of today's sunise.

Two monks and four Taskforcers took a journey over the retreat, a formal visit to the erstwhile Shingon Buddhist center, now called the Lawai International Center. About 23 years ago the island's most respected kahuna, Kahu Abraham Kawai'i, approached Gurudeva to request that their beloved wooden deity of the healing Black Buddha be kept safely at Kadavul Temple while they built a new place for him. Gurudeva said yes, and nada Buddhake was moved into a niche near Ganesha's shrine where he has reigned for all these years. That connected us to this center, and we came to know Lynn Muramoto well.

Lynn greeted us warmly, in her amazing way. She is a river of gratitude, freely flooding everyone within range with her frequent "thank yous." Lynn served tea and told of the history of the center. We visited the almost-finished yellow cedar Hall of Compassion, met the volunteer artisans and then walked the hill pilgrimage, visiting all 88 small shrines. These were created around 1904 by 15-17 year-old Japanese immigrants. Each shrine represents a full temple back in their native Japan. Inside are small wooden and stone murthis of the Buddha in his many forms.

The Hall of Compassion is to become a meditation hall, and a separate shrine will be erected 25 feet away where Nada Buddhike will reside. He has great healing powers, and Lynn explained that the people must be able to touch him to connect with that healing. If it works, the tradition is they return with a hand-made apron, a small one, which they place around his neck in thanks.

Congratulations, Lynn, to you and your team for this wonderful gift to our island!

The big news of this phase was the removal of the old office trailer where Acharya Arumuganathaswmi and Brahmanathaswami have been living and working in for years. It felt like a mini-hurricane had come and opened up a new space! Stay tuned as for a major transformation!

Stepping back in time to November's Mahasamadhi events, we had two Natchintanai Bhajan Workshops for all the pilgrims with Brahmanathaswami. Everyone is very inspired to be singing the praises of God, Gods and Guru. The goal is to bring back "singing for the common devotee" and not be worried too much about the music but focus more on memorizing the songs, learning their meaning and having the courage to sing regardless of your skill level. Singing to the Gods is the primary Hindu traditional expression of bhakti and with the rise of radio, CD's and "professionals" we all stopped singing and we just listen. Amazingly some of our devotees said they did sing years ago, but have long since stopped.

Our goal is to change all that and to re-integrate song into our personal lives as a powerful sadhana, just as it was for Siva Yogaswami himself and to empower everyone to participate and lead the group. Our motto is "Everyone can sing!" We are also developing a digital library of songs at all levels that can later be incorporated into our educational programs for children and youth.

We have testimony from one participant. "Thanks to the workshop, for the first time I had the courage to sing to Siva in Kadavul! And when I went home I led bhajan for over 100 people in our temple."

If you have not connected with this brand new area of our web site. Click here to go to our music library page.

In this belated post we share with you images from Toronto where devotees of the Sivathondan Nilayam observed Gurudeva's Mahasamadhi in November.

Here are more photos from Bangalore showing recent work on Iraivan's Nandi Mandapam, and temple entrance