On July 2 Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami and I departed Mauritius and flew to Geneva, Switzerland, where we spent a full day with a small group of European members and devotees. Activities included some lively philosophical discussions over lunch and dinner. Next was a flight to Washington DC and a drive to nearby Maryland for the Murugan Temple’s annual festival. Friday morning was a homa and abhishekam. Saturday was the dramatic chariot parade around the temple with a large crowd in attendance. Many devotees carried kavadi, and more extensive kavadi dancing took place than in previous years. Our stay in Maryland concluded with a Sunday satsang with devotees, the focus being on presenting our book Path to Siva and gifting a copy to each family. I stressed the book’s many chapters explaining the purpose and mysticism of Saivite temple worship. We returned to Kauai Aadheenam just in time to attend the monthly Ardra abhishekasm to Nataraja. Two-weeks later, on July 25, the monastery observed our annual celebration of Satguru Purnima. It started with the traditional 6am parade up the San Marga path to the swayambhu lingam with the electric chariot being ceremoniously pulled by devotees with ropes. This was followed by an elaborate pada puja and concluded with individual blessings of devotees. Later in the day vows for the sadhakas and yogis were renewed for another two years. We are grateful to our global family of temple builders for your continued generous support. General contributions for July totaled $67,621 which exceeds our minimum monthly goal of $65,000. Special project contributions totaled an additional $316.    — Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami.

Innersearch Sri Lanka 2019

From March 14 to 29 we will travel with Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and his monks and an amazing band of seekers. Find all of the details and video compliations of this Himalayan Academy Travel-Study Program by clicking the link below, and reserve your place in history.

Click for more about our next program.

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 (Gurudeva)

"When you control your emotions, you are bringing through your spiritual being. It is only your spiritual being, your soul in action, bringing through the spirit, or bringing through God, that can control the mind. When you are living in an emotional state, you are only experiencing the mind temporarily out of control. And like anything that gains its own momentum, even if you do not control it, it will subside automatically after a period of time until it builds up again. This is all caused by subtle transgressions of natural laws of the mind, in this life and in previous lives.…To keep your spirit flowing, always allow yourself to be in the line of understanding. In other words, do not allow misunderstanding to arise in your mind. Should misunderstanding arise, sit down, be quiet and do not get up until you understand the problem. You might have to sit for an hour. Instinctively your animal nature will not allow you to do that, but if you use willpower and persist, tomorrow will be a perfect day. Now, this is easy to talk about, and also easy to understand, but it takes a very discerning mind, utilizing the power of discrimination, to master these laws of the mind."

Explore Gurudeva's Wisdom

• Study Gurudeva's Master Course, which is filled with philosophical, practical, soul-stirring information potent enough to inspire even a skeptic to change his ways of thinking about life and the ultimate goal of existence on this planet: HimalayanAcademy.com/study/mc/
• Read Gurudeva's books online at: https://www.himalayanacademy.com/looklisten/gurus-talks
• Listen to Gurudeva's inspired talks by visiting: https://himalayanacademy.com/talks/gurudeva

Recent Happenings

Lord Hanuman: At his studio in Colorado, Bobby Page stands before the amazing bronze he spent months welding from 65 molds into a rare masterpiece. The uplifting story of this Lord Hanuman can be found inside.

Making a stall for Nandi the bull: The six sculptors on Kauai have been working to perfect the Nandi Mandapam, a 12-pillared shrine at the entrance to Iraivan Temple, adding details to the base. Here a silpi marks the design with a charcoal pencil, which he will then carve.

Top to bottom: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami is paraded to the new thatched mandapam in Mauritius for Pada Puja; the recently completed front steps leading to the Maha Mandapam at Iraivan Temple; all gather on Guru Purnima to honor the Satguru and his lineage. Our four yogis and three sadhakas are blessed by Bodhinatha after renewing their four vows. Visiting Swamis: Sadhus from the Swaminarayan Order, Swami Paramtattvadas and Swami Mangalnidhidas, visited Iraivan Temple. Their fellowship has created over 1,000 Hindu temples in the last 50 years.

Guru Purnima, Vow Renewals & Special Guests
The monks and local devotees joyously celebrated Guru Purnima with a parade and pada puja for Satguru at the Swayambhu Lingam just west of Iraivan Temple. This is the site of Gurudeva’s 1975 vision of Siva that gave rise to the Iraivan Temple building project. Later on Guru Purnima day, the sadhakas and yogis, sitting before Bodhinatha, renewed their two-year vows of Humility, Obedience, Purity and Confidentiality. The monastery was honored to host two sadhus from the Swaminarayan Order, Swami Mangalnidhidas and Swami Paramtattvadas. They shared news of the BAPS youth program which had over 10,000 youth and young adults, and the World Sanskrit Conference in Vancouver, Canada, which they had just attended. The two met with our acharyas for several hours and attended the 9am Siva puja.

Iraivan Temple Progress:
By the end of their fourth month on Kauai, the silpis had set in place the 12 pillars on the base of the Nandi Mandapam and installed the first layer of ornamentation stones on top of the pillars. They also did the final carving on the beams that will sit atop the pillars, fitting them in advance on the floor. They also assembled the three sets of stone steps and accompanying yalli handrails at the temple entrance. The monks of the Siddhidatta Kulam assembled a massive wooden scaffolding over the Nandi Mandapam for the silpis to work safely at the higher level. Never in their lives, the silpis said, have they had such a sturdy structure to work on.

Publications and Other Projects
In July the Ganapati Kulam monks finished the editorial work on the October-November-December edition of Hinduism Today magazine and sent the files off to the printer in Wisconsin. Feature stories are: Thai Pusam at Batu Caves by Alexandra Radu, a visit to the Ayushakti Clinic in Mumbai by Rajiv Malik, Siva Temples pilgrimage by Aravind Gopal, and Gurudeva’s Spiritual Toolbox. Great progress was made on the Dancing with Siva audio book which is being recorded by Hansh Rajput in New Delhi, who has recorded 103 of the daily lessons. Chidambaram Sendan and Jeyendra Mardemootoo visited the monastery during their July school break to assist the Siddhidatta Kulam with gardening and construction work. Vel Mahalingam arrived from Mauritius to serve for several months with landscaping projects.

Progress on the Hanuman Bronze Masterpiece
Over a decade ago the monastery commissioned a 13-foot-tall granite statue of Hanuman, to fulfill the wish of our Gurudeva. His instructions were clear: make Him noble and muscular, powerful, strong. In Hanuman’s left hand, held aloft, Gurudeva had asked for a small Iraivan Temple to be placed. Just as Hanuman brought the healing mountain from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka so He would bring Iraivan from India to Kauai. When future generations ask, “How on earth did an Agamic, hand-carved granite Chola-style Siva temple ever end up on this remote island?” we would smile and say, “Hanuman brought it here.” The completed statue was shipped to Kauai in 2013. While awaiting its installation, tragedy befell the statue. It broke while lying on an iron pallet. What happened next proves that all such things that occur in life are a boon, if we but react and respond to them with higher consciousness. After accepting the fact that Hanuman had split in half, the senior monks met to determine how to make a seeming disaster into a boon, something Gurudeva was always teaching to us—see Siva’s Will in all that happens, the good as well as the bad. In consultation with Sivacharyas of Tamil Nadu, temple architect Selvanathan Sthapati and the Pundit Sabharathnam of Chennai. We devised a plan that called for capturing the artistry and darshan of the stone by turning it into bronze. The statue, duplicated in metal, could have details that were impossible in granite. In all, 29 craftsmen and women went to work and in about eight months created the new masterpiece. He is a perfect copy of the stone Hanuman (well, Holly Young, the sculptor, did add lots of refinements). He will last for 1,000 years and more. In mid July Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami flew to Colorado with Yoginathaswami to inspect the completed bronze and to witness the magic of Patrick Kipper, America’s foremost patineur, who would apply the final finish, color and texture on the statue. On July 13, Hanuman was transformed from golden bronze to deep green jade. He is now completed and awaits His voyage to Kauai.

Bodhinatha's Newest Teachings Online
Satguru Bodhinatha is now turning his 15-minute Keynote presentations into movies which can be used for our personal benefit or shared at a satsang of friends. See them here. Thanks to a vibrant team of transcribers we can hear Bodhinatha's recent talks and read the transcriptions here. Read the transcriptions on line. Click here for all of Bodhinatha's talks.

The weekly talks are also live streamed and then save on YouTube. Go to the Kauai Aadheenam channel and scroll down to recent talks (audio has some room echo)

Bodhinatha's weekly talks can be heard on our website: His recent commentaries on the chapters in our new book "The Path to Siva" are marvelous!

Click here for a complete index of both Bodhinatha's and Gurudeva's talks on line

Recent Talks:

How Do We Treat the Environment?
Why Are We Vegetarian?
Why Do We Practice Ahimsa?

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

Follow our daily activities at Today at Kauai's Hindu Monastery (blog)

How Lord Hanuman Came to Kauai

Hanuman & Kauai Aadheenam: (top to bottom:) Carrying Iraivan Temple across the ocean from India; the bronze statue worshiped at our morning homa; the Hanuman bell

There are various stories about the origin of Lord Hanuman: that He was born to the Princess Anjana after she and her husband, Kesari, prayed to Lord Siva; others say he is an incarnation of Lord Siva as Rudra. He is found in Buddhist, Jain and Sikh scriptures and in stories from across Southeast Asia, China and Japan, where He is the divine being Saruta Biko. Hanuman may be the subject of Rig Veda hymn 10.86. He appears in the Rama­yana, Mahabharata and Puranas and is best known today as the divine helper to Lord Rama.

Hanuman is a model of loyalty, strength and service to God. He has been long associated with Siva, a topic dealt with in 1901 by Shri Mudigonda Nagalinga Sastry Garu in his article, “Anjaneya Swaroopa Nirupanam,” listing more than a half-dozen references to the association and concluding, “Saivites have the right to install Hanuman as stated by most of the Saiva Agamas.” Hanuman is depicted worshiping Lord Siva at Rameswaram (where Rama Himself worshiped Siva) and at Kundala Karaneswara Temple in Tamil Nadu. According to the Tamil scholar, Dr. S. Sabharathnam, Hanuman’s worship of Siva is mentioned in the Tamil Tirumurai scriptures.

One most notable fact about Hanuman is that He is immortal: a boon granted Him on multiple occasions by various Gods, including Lord Rama, and no scripture mentions His death.

But, how did He get to Kauai? Hanuman came to Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami in a most unusual manner: as a bell. In the early 1970s, one of Gurudeva’s devotees spotted a beautiful Indian bell in a store in San Francisco, the handle of which was in the form of Hanuman. Gurudeva heard about it and visited the store, purchasing it for $50. He brought it to Kauai shortly before the six-foot-tall Siva Nataraja arrived from India. When Kadavul Temple was founded in 1973, following Gurudeva’s vision of Lord Muruga, the Hanuman bell was there for Siva puja at the feet of the newly installed Nataraja. It was rung daily for decades, its remarkable sound filling the mahamandapam and resonating into the distance. A further acquisition in the 70s, also purchased in San Francisco, was a solid bronze one-foot-tall statue of Hanuman, which was also brought to Kadavul Temple.

When work on Iraivan began in earnest in the late 1990s, Gurudeva instituted the phasely Sun One homa at Kadavul with instructions that Hanuman be invoked to bring the new granite temple to Kauai. As plans for San Marga developed further, Gurudeva requested a 13-foot-tall statue of Hanuman be carved in granite holding a bronze model of Iraivan in His upraised left hand. Gurudeva mused that future pilgrims would be told that Lord Hanuman carried Iraivan Temple from India to Hawaii. How else could such a thing happen? The continuing tale is told on page 3 of this newsletter.

In the early 70s, Gurudeva had visions of Hanuman and received messages from Him on how to train his monastic order. As plans for Iraivan Temple unfolded, Gurudeva found it most apt to credit the monkey deva—known as the epitome of loyalty, strength and service to God—with bringing the massive temple to Kauai, just as He once transported Mount Dronagiri from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka.

Hindu Heritage Endowment

Estate Planning in the United Kingdom

You can find out what you need to know about estate planning in the UK at: www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm. You can also memorize Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets (www.shakespeares-sonnets.com). Both are daunting tasks, especially for Hindu residents adjusting to a culture that uses terms such as “nil rate band” to describe how large an estate has to be before it is subject to inheritance tax: (£325,000 in 2010-11 for a single person, £650,000 for a married couple that has made a proper estate plan).

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs website, where estate planning rules are listed, repeatedly pleads with its readers to “seek legal advice,” like an exasperated teacher telling her blank-faced students “it’s all in the text.” But it’s a good place to start. Because so much is at stake, HHE presents a few estate planning basics its UK supporters should know.

1. If your estate is not vulnerable to estate tax, you should still have a will or a trust that specifies how you want your estate distributed. Otherwise, the courts will impose an impersonal formula that may or may not reflect your wishes.

2. Married couples need a written estate plan, even though no tax is imposed on the death of the first spouse. Without a plan, large estates may be vulnerable to tax at the death of the second spouse if nothing is done to preserve the estate tax exemption of the first to die.

3. Those who have lost a spouse and then remarried need to provide in writing for children from their first marriage. They should not assume their surviving second spouse will have the same concern for children from their prior marriage.

4. Written estate plans do more than distribute wealth; they can postpone distribution until heirs are capable of managing large sums prudently. They can also provide for heirs with mental or physical disabilities in ways that do not unwittingly jeopardize other benefits their heirs may be receiving.

5. If you own your own business, your estate plan may help you reduce the value transferred of business assets passed to heirs and so reduce possible estate tax.

6. Single people need written plans; otherwise their assets may go to those who don’t need them, such as well-to-do parents, rather than to others who do, such as struggling siblings.

7. Unless directed by your written estate plan, the court will ignore good causes you have supported for years and close friends you want to remember.

8. Your written plan allows you to appoint executors and trustees. Without an estate plan, the court may appoint someone you would never have chosen for these sensitive and demanding roles.

9. The appointment of guardians for bereaved children—among the touchiest of estate planning issues—can be accomplished through a will. You can also specify financial support for the children’s maintenance and education.

These basic rules only scratch the surface of the tangle of regulations governing estate planning in the UK. What is clear is that the economic meltdown has made written estate plans more urgent than ever. A recent study of 3,000 adult UK residents by the London law firm Seddons showed that one in ten had been recently involved in a dispute following a death. One in five said they feared they would not be treated fairly, and one in four felt they would end up with nothing.

Marvin Simons, the head of Dispute Resolutions at Seddons, blames the rise in disputes on the current economic climate. People are “so much more concerned about money and property values being so depressed, [it] is only likely to result in an escalation of these problems.”

HHE encourages estate planning, but not just for tax and economic reasons. For Hindus in the UK and elsewhere, estate planning documents are instruments of family peace. What Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 18 can be applied to your written estate plan: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

The Hindu Heritage Endowment wants you to succeed in your estate planning efforts and, through them, both care for your family and remember good causes like the Iraivan Temple Endowment. (For additional information contact Shanmuganathaswami at 808-822-3012, ext. 6, or e-mail [email protected]. To learn more about planned giving options to provide immediate tax and income benefits to you and your family, while also providing a future gift to HHE, please visit www.hheonline.org. Get the tool-kit (pdf)

Help Move Iraivan Forward

 

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Building Fund Donations

Eleven-Month Summary: For the eleven months of September, 2017 to July, 2018, our minimum monthly goal was $715,000. Excluding contributions directed toward special projects, we received actual contributions of $788,921.75.

Thanks to Our July Temple Builders in 18 different countries

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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 19 resident 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.