On November 1, the monastery celebrated the last day of the annual Skanda Shashti festival. Many pilgrims had attended a puja on each of the preceding five days. On the sixth day a grand abhishekam was held in the afternoon as the festival’s culmination. The monastery celebrated the monthly Ardra puja to Lord Nataraja and Chitra Puja to Gurudeva. On November 26, Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami and I departed for a short trip to Malaysia. The major activities occurred on the weekend, beginning with a Saturday satsang in Klang attended by members, students and Aadheenam devotees. After the pada puja, I gave a talk based on my Publisher’s Desk from the April 2020 issue of Hinduism Today. The theme of the article is how to integrate Hinduism into our daily tasks. Ceremonies included certificates that were given to about ten youth who completed the Path to Siva course to become Aadheenam devotees. Also nearly a dozen youth took their brahmacharya vrata, vowing to remain chaste until marriage. On Sunday, we attended the maha kumbhabhisekam of Satguru Sri Jeganathar Swami’s Atma Nilayam in Tapah, Perak. We were present for the final part of the homa, the pouring of kumbhas on the two temple towers and the inaugural pujas inside the shrines. This temple is managed by the Malaysia Hindu Sangam. We learned that the Atma Nilayam is just the first phase of the Sangam’s grand plan to construct a Hindu Training Center on this land made sacred by Sri Jeganathar Swami’s multi-decade presence. General contributions for November totaled $94,932 which exceeded our minimum monthly goal of $70,000. Special project contributions totaled an additional $134. We are grateful to our global family of temple builders for your continued and generous support. Aum Namasivaya,

   — Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami.

Click here to see Bodhinatha's extended travel schedule. Bookmark the link and return for updates.

Founder of Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, 1927–2001, arrives by ship in Trinidad and Tobago in 2000.

The beginning stages of watching the mind think I shall describe as similar to sitting quietly with your eyes open and, while not thinking about anything in particular, simply looking at what is around you—all of the time feeling somewhat empty on the inside, but seeing what is in front of you, to the left side of you, to the right side of you, above you, below you, and knowing what each object is, but not thinking about any object or collection of objects. Your eyes are watching; who lives behind them is the watcher. The objects that the mind perceives are similar to thoughts. ¶When you close your eyes and begin thinking about the objects you have been looking at, duplicating your surroundings in your mind by creating thought pictures of those objects, there is a deeper you who is the watcher of those thoughts. This you can practice all through the day almost anywhere you are. It takes no particular skill or practice. It can be done at any time. You are simply becoming conscious of the natural processes of awareness, consciousness and thought which have been going on day after day all through your life up to this point.

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Morning greets Kadavul: Looking east
where the dawn sky is shining through the banyan tree..

Hawaiian cave: The silpis go on an adventure to the state’s largest limestone cave on a day-off outing.

(top to bottom) Visitors gather at the flagpole for the mandatory group photo during the weekly guided tour: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami meets with the Malaysian kulapatis during his November journey; Lord Murugan is decorated with exquisite skill during the Skanda Shashti puja.

Iraivan Temple Progress
In November the silpi stone carvers focused on the final decorative carving of the two large yalli handrails that will frame the front steps from ground level up to the temple. They finished the months-long process of installing the stones of the perimeter wall (with the exception of a small portion that will frame the front steps) and are now working daily on the tedious touchup work at the joints of every stone. This process will take months.

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami’s Activities
During November, Satguru and Shanmuganathaswami returned to Tapah to bless and take part in the kumbhabhishekam for the Tapah Siddhar Temple. Some 7,000 people were in attendance. Swami Jaganatha, the founder, lived in Tapah for 78 years, originally migrating from Puri, India, to Burma when he was 18. His devotees constructed a samadhi shrine over his burial place after his mahasamadhi in 1959. During the last years of his life, Jaganatha predicted that a ”soul” from America called Subramuniya would come. “He would reside in Hawaii. Subramuniya will travel around the world and everyone will receive his darshan. Then I, too, will join him,” the swami declared. Because of this we feel a mystical connection between the monastery and this sacred place.

Publications and Other Activities
The monastery celebrated the final day of Skanda Shashti with a powerful abhishekam to Lord Murugan in Kadavul Temple. A tour of Iraivan Temple was conducted for students of Kauai High School. Early last year we began a project of creating an updated virtual tour of Kauai Aadheenam, offering photos, videos and information about the many locations throughout the Aadheenam’s 70 acres. With the help of Andre Garcia in the UK and with photography from LakshmiGrace Phoenix, we were able to put together this new web app on our site. There are still some things to implement, but it’s ready to be enjoyed. See: bit.ly/KHMVirtualTour. The Wailua River Noni website was developed: wailuarivernoni.com. Pillars of Iraivan—a web portal into the iconography carved on the pillars is nearing completion. Yajatadeva, on task force from Malaysia, helped on this project. Easan Saravan from Singapore spent almost two weeks with us helping in the garden and working in the greenhouse. In the past six months, 2,000 Honduran Mahogany trees have been planted on the Himalayan Acres farmland. The year-end Digital Dharma fundraising drive was commenced. Satguru’s overview of the work done so far: “The ‘History of Hindu India’ continues to be our broadest reaching digital initiative, with Part One of the five-part series reaching 3.1 million views on YouTube. To supplement this series, children’s songs are being added to each of the five-parts. To date, six are on our YouTube channel, with more coming soon. Our Spiritual Work Out app has received a major upgrade in both Apple and Android formats. The app provides a ten-minute routine of spiritual practice with multiple options in each of the five areas of practice.”

Online Courses
Himalayan Academy has been working for some months on a series of online learning courses. We chose the THINKIFIC platform (they have more than 40K teachers!). The Master Course trilogy is there, in three parts. So is our youth catechism Path to Siva, in both the teenage version and the 8-year-old simplified form. There is also a course on Know Thy Self. The lessons are illustrated and designed to take ten minutes a day, or less. Beginning to Meditate is our newest addition. We thank Rajen Manick for the creative work he has done in taking Path to Siva and making a slideshow out each lesson which has 8-14 graphically rich slides, and a simple test. Go here to download the PDF files: bit.ly/P2SSlideshowPDF.

Building the Future:
A silpi patiently carves the intricate designs for a massive handrail that will grace Iraivan temple’s wide entryway. Though the major carving was completed in India, the Kauai team felt they could make it even more perfect and have been working for many weeks on it.

Task Forcers Help Build the Next Green House
Arinien, Tejadevanatha, Jnanideva and Roshan stand near the hydroponic head house they are building to protect pumps and high-tech equipment for the vegetable growing.

Hindu Heritage Endowment, Estate Planning

Balanced Giving:
Simple Solutions for Life’s Financial Challenges

The two hurdles we hear of most when it comes to giving to projects that inspire us are lack of resources and a desire to put family first. We can help! Read on to see how these obstacles are easily overcome.

Obstacle I: Family Obligations

I have children and grandchildren to worry about, and they come first.

Solution: Estate planning attorneys can explain the various methods available to fulfill your philanthropic desires without jeopardizing your family’s security. The easiest approach is to remember HHE through a gift in your will or living trust. This gift supports HHE’s future work, and you can change your mind at any time.

Obstacle II: On a Budget

I am not rich. There is only so much money to go around.

Solutions: Rather than make a gift of cash now to support the work of HHE, consider the following giving options. Bonus: they also offer important tax savings for you and your family.

Stock: For gifts of appreciated stock that you have owned longer than one year, you receive an income tax charitable deduction for their full fair market value—not the price you originally paid for them.

Life Insurance Policies: You can donate a policy you no longer need, or simply name Hindu Heritage Endowment as the beneficiary.

Retirement-Plan Assets: Highly taxed when left to heirs, such assets make an excellent charitable gift after your lifetime.

Real Estate: You can donate your home now and still live there for the rest of your life. We can help you identify a gift to fit your goals. Contact us to learn how you can make a big impact on Hindu Heritage Endowment.

If you are considering naming Hindu Heritage Endowment in your will as you make or update your estate plan, please let us know so we can ensure that your gift is used as you intended. Strengthen your family’s future and continue your support of Hindu Heritage Endowment by downloading the toolkit pdf file at www.hheonline.org/tool-kit.shtml. Learn more about estate planning and planned giving at www.hheonline.org.

Help Finish Iraivan!

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Building Fund Donations

Thanks to Our November Temple Builders in 20 Countries

For the three months of September - November, our minimum monthly goal equals $210,000. Excluding contributions directed toward special projects, we received actual contributions of $245,476.78

Your support is deeply appreciated!

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Click here to see Bodhinatha's extended travel schedule.

Iraivan Temple is a punya tirtha, a sacred destination for devout pilgrims. The vision of Lord Siva on San Marga that Gurudeva was blessed with in 1975 is sustained and made manifest by the daily sadhanas of 198resident monastics from five nations. Kadavul Hindu Temple and the many sacred areas of San Marga are available to Hindus for worship, meditation, japa and quiet reflection. It is best, if you are planning to come to visit us, to email us in advance to make sure the days of your visit coincide with our open times. And, if you want to have darshan with Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, to check if he is in residence and to make the necessary appointment. Please see our visitor information pages for more details.