Following the model of another free resource, Wikipedia, today we begin our annual November-December appeal for support of our publications development. The success of this drive defines the scale of our digital work in the months ahead.
From the moment he personally produced his initial yoga lessons using a Mimeograph in the humble confines of a San Francisco Temple back in the 1950s, Gurudeva showed a remarkable affinity for embracing technological advancements. On a memorable afternoon in 1984, in a little green Apple store nestled in the tranquil town of Kapaa, he encountered a Macintosh for the first time. Having never before engaged with such a device, he was captivated by its novelty and simplicity of use. After a mere quarter-hour experimenting with MacPaint and MacWrite, he emerged, a pioneering Macintosh 128K cradled under his long arm. This marked the beginning of the monastery’s digital evolution; soon, he provided each monk with a Mac, transitioning to digital typography—a nostalgic nod to the (then amazing to us) era of the LaserWriter.
As the digital tide reached Kauai’s shores in 1997, Gurudeva was quick to seize the new possibilities, encouraging his monks to maintain a daily blog recounting life at the monastery. Thus was born “Today at Kauai Aadheenam,” or TAKA, a trailblazer among blogs, which has since been published with near-daily regularity.
Gurudeva would celebrate where we have come today. He would love the ease with which his books are available, at no cost, to everyone who owns a mobile device anywhere in the world. The Capricorn in him would love the lack of massive investment costs that are required for major books to be put on printing presses, tens of thousands of dollars for each title. Then come the inventory costs, the shipping, the returns. All of that has been largely rendered unnecessary in the age of digital publishing. In our case, we are doing both, printed editions of the magazine, for instance, and then digital editions based on the elegantly designed PDF pages. Our Hinduism Today app, available to anyone with a mobile phone, anywhere in the world, is an example of the best of the Web.
Gurudeva would love that we don’t have to charge struggling Hindu students and seekers for the spiritual teachings, but can make them available for free. In the last decade, our resource-building efforts have shifted massively toward the Web, following the fast-evolving world of communications and publishing. It takes a deft team to gather and sculpt the needed tools and stories for Hinduism Today and our Web resources. Creating and sharing an articulate and graphically elegant repository of Hinduism is neither easy nor without costs. Hindu youth are learning their spiritual ABCs online, and millions of seekers are discovering Hinduism digitally. What they encounter should be thoughtful, lucid, elegant and authentic. Not to mention relevant in fast-moving times. That’s what compels our annual fundraising campaign. It’s a chance for you to help us to help explain and share Hinduism globally. In order to provide information without charging for downloads, without showing advertisements on our sites, without commercializing our mission, we turn to you for help.
Yes, we could (perhaps) meet our costs by charging for the online books and magazine, but we are determined not to do that. We ourselves are seldom motivated to pay for online information. We like it when needed information is available without cost. We have come to expect it. But free to the world is not free to those of us who create it. Running our websites entails significant costs, especially when we have to reach out for expert help and skills. A good example of current use is our support of a dedicated team in Moscow which, despite great difficulty, continues to translate, print and distribute Hinduism Today magazine in Russia. The goal for 2025 is $75,000. Our Digital Dharma Drive will end at midnight on December 31, 2022. We hope you will join in helping us meet our goal. In the right hands, and leveraged by the unsalaried work of the monks, these funds will have a profound impact on the future of Hinduism around the world. Please make a generous donation today.
With much aloha from the far islands and warm greetings during the 2024 holiday season,
The Editors
Kauai’s Hindu Monastery
Himalayan Academy Publications