Kadavul Hindu Temple§
Ring the bell and say a prayer to Lord Ganesha at His little shrine as you enter the monastery. Proceed up the 300-foot pathway lined with ferns and flowering trees. Under the sprawling banyan tree stands Lord Shanmuga with His six faces and twelve arms. Leave the world behind as you encounter the massive 16-ton statue of Nandi the bull, carved from a single block of black granite. On watch at every Siva temple in the world, Nandi, which means joyous one, represents the perfect devotee, his eyes never veering from his Lord. Remove your shoes, dip your feet in the temple tank and step inside the sanctuary. ¶Experience the darshan (sight) of the Gods and feel the blessed energy. In the center shrine stands the Divine Dancer, Supreme God Siva. To the left is the portly elephant-faced Ganesha, whom we greet first and pray to before every important task. To the right is Lord Karttikeya, God of yoga and spiritual striving. Directly in front of Siva is a 39-inch-tall crystal Sivalingam that will one day be the central icon in Iraivan Temple. The inner walls of the temple display 108 bronze statues of Lord Siva, each depicting one pose of His cosmic dance of creation, preservation, reabsorption and the paired graces which conceal and reveal. In the temple’s rear corner is a shrine featuring a gilded image of Gurudeva, where you can honor the great soul who founded the monastery. ¶A temple is a meeting place of our physical plane and the invisible worlds of the Gods and angelic beings, or devas. The spiritual vibration is kept strong through the monks’ continual worship; they have performed the Sanskrit puja ritual every three hours around the clock without a single break since the temple’s inception in 1973. Kadavul is an ancient Tamil word for God, meaning “He who is both immanent and transcendent.” Mystically, Kadavul is a “fire temple,” with an intense, penetrating energy that breaks up old patterns and helps seekers begin new ones. The monastery allows public access to this private shrine for worship at the daily 9am Siva puja, as the monastic priest performs a centuries-old rite to invoke God Siva’s grace and blessings for all living beings.§
