Aum Namah Sivaya

Recently the monastery had the pleasure of hosting Amma Anne for a week, who was visiting from the Seattle area. As an Amma of our monks, she arrived bearing gifts of cookies and chocolates for our monks to enjoy. While here she was hosted by Tillainathaswami, who took her around the grounds to see the many developments that had taken place since her last visit. Om.

Before the red granite tile setting begins soon around the outside of the mandapams, we need to install many water drain screens that connect to drain pipes embedded in the concrete foundation. Making that connection requires us to modify PVC piping somewhat. Today a plumber visited to get familiar with the job. He met with Arumuganathaswami and Yoginathaswami to discuss details.

For many years our local sishya Tandu Sivanathan has patiently, carefully nurtured various bonsai trees on the Aadheenam grounds. Here are closeup photos of some, revealing nuanced results of the art form. More photos to follow at a later time.

It has been many years coming, but in the last few weeks we have finally begun to terraform the land right around the temple. All these years this area (see the red-dirt surrounding the temple in this photo) has been a storage and construction zone, with large trucks arriving to offload crates from India, giant cranes working to lift stones in place, all of which made it impossible to do much there. But wait! Now the wait is over and Dennis Wong is shaping the land. His primary goal is to make it even, so the abundant Kauai rain waters shed evenly away from the temple in all directions. Water is the mortal enemy of any building, and if we are to actually have a temple that lasts a thousand years, this water management plan is critical.

So Dennis (who has worked here for 40 years making the gardens and ponds) is out there morning to night in dozers, excavators, skidsteers, 12-ton compactors, cutting the earth to perfection. The slides tell the still-in-progress story.

Here are some beautiful malas recently strung by local sishyas for selling in the Minimela giftshop. The malas move like hotcakes and we can barely keep up.

Aloha , Today is a quiet and calm day at the monastery. We are all winding down from an intense and exciting festival phase, as we like to call it, as it really doesn't feel like a normal phase at all with how much is happening! Anyways... Back to the news! Today Ajay and Lata Shah, longtime donors to Iraivan Temple, came for a short visit today, they were shown around by Shanmuganathaswami who took then to Iraivan. They also had darshan with Bodhinatha! Aum Namah Sivaya

Vel Muruga!

We hope you had an inspiring and meditative Vaikasi Visakam.
If you missed the puja the live stream video can be found on our Youtube Channel. In this post we bring you some photos of yesterday's abhishekam.

Aum Namah Sivaya, Please enjoy this audio book of Yoga's Forgotten Foundation, which details the ten restrains and ten observances of Hindu religious life. The book is free. It was created in just a few hours using Google Play's automated book transcription software, which has been improving rapidly in recent years. Let us know what you think!
Get it here

On June 11th morning we celebrated Gurudeva's monthly padapuja to honor his Mahasamadhi on Chitra nakshatra. Thanks to local sishyas for providing new flower arrangements for the occasion. An update of Gurudeva's year-long calendar of quotations will be printed soon, this time including some quotes from Satguru Siva Yogaswami and Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami