Bodhinatha and Sannyasin Arumugaswami depart tomorrow for India.

~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming three-day retreat,
until Dasami Tithi, Sun One, Sunday, Dec 7th.

It is also Sadhu Paksha and we are not conducting any tours.

Brahmacharini Shama Kumara is hosting the Sitaram Family — Pravin his wife Jyothi and their two daughters, Sarjara and Shriya, from the Boston Area. They heard about the temple from a friend who uses our Kadavul Panchangam (Hindu Calendar)

The monks have an international mission and scope. Strategizing the outreach, communications and distribution of everything and anything is an on-going task.

Here Sadhaka Nandinatha from the Lambodara Kulam is working on a shipment of “Gifts of Grace” for the shrine rooms of several of the initiated sishya parampara families in different countries far away.

Muruganathaswami the “Master of Shipping” advises…

Every month Shanmuganathswami oversees the printing of Kauai Aadheenam Monthly Newsletter.

Our long time trusty printer troubleshooter Chris Sanborn is on hand….

Keeping this monster printer/copier/folder/stapler running is a bit of a job. But it saves a lot of printing costs in the end.

Kumarswami is already hard at work on the April issue of Hinduism Today. Designing and laying out the Insight Section as he does every issue.

We are taking the work done in a recent souvenir for Mahasamadhi and sharing it with the whole world:

The Power of Affirmation

The Siddhidata Kulam in recent months has shut down some old containers and replaced them with these small but more efficient, modular “Big Macs” plastic, snap together storage sheds.

Sadhaka Rajanatha here… inside they have built shelves for storage. Everything is better organized and much more readily findable and accessible in these smaller units.

Iraivan Temple construction requires a lot of visioning work…looking into the future. Yoginathswami reviews Selvanathan Sthapati’s plans for finishing off Iraivan’s roof with Palaniswami in the Cedar Room.

There will be raised areas, sloping to drainage spots, to handle the massive deluges of rain that will be coming down on the temple. It is a sign of great progress that today the Indian craftsmen on Kauai are working on the roof and the floor.

Our young bull, Yitesh, is still too small to let out. But we do tie him each afternoon to a long rope and let him graze and wander some.

Meanwhile, being raised from day one by the monks, he thinks he’s a little human boy.

And, like most little boys: his main interests are food, and being let out to play. He’s hoping this camera man will take him out for a run.

Gurudeva called Hinduism Today magazine “the prow of the ship.” By that, he meant that the magazine was designed and written to reach into every corner of the Hindu world, to relate to every member of every Hindu lineage, and as such it could open doors for many initiatives and bring his other teachings to the far corners of the Earth.

Thirty Years of
Sharing Dharma

This sticker is printed on the cover of all the issues printed in 2009.

The 30th year anniversary issue should be arriving in your mailboxes just about now. If you see something you especially like, or an issue that tugs at your heart, write us a letter to the editor at letters@hindu.org.

And this is one of the early Macs we used when we moved from light tables and paste-up to digital production in 1986. Bodhinatha tells a bit about that part of our history, too.

And how we now live in a digital world.

Having left Old School photography behind.

He also mentions our free online digital edition. Here is a screen shot of the application that delivers the PDF files to your desktop.

Along with rich media and links to our many resources.

These are the presses in Missouri where the magazine is printed.

Gurudeva loved the way the magazine was received, and would have been delighted to hear a conversation the editors had this morning. A California subscriber called to seek some help with vegetarianism, and mentioned that the magazine had changed her 25-year-old’s life completely. He became a Hindu. He became a vegetarian. And through the magazine he found teachers to guide him in his newest fields of interest–Vedic astrology and ayurveda. It’s rewarding to hear such tales of the magazine’s impact during this celebration of 30 years of publishing.

The monastery’s Ganapati Kulam just completed Bodhinatha’s Publisher’s Desk video for the January/February/March, 2009, edition of Hinduism Today on YouTube. As Bodhinatha explains in the video below (which also links to the Publisher’s Desk video at the end using YouTube’s new annotation feature), this is one of three types of video content we will be rotating through each quarter as our Kauai’s Hindu Monastery monthly video.

Palaniswami is working on the 10-minute video of that issue, to be posted to YouTube. And if you have not seen the YouTube videos, you can search for Hinduism Today and watch. Over 3,900 people have watched the October-November-December video so far.

Don’t miss the latest updates at the Malaysia Initiative to raise funds for the Iraivan Temple Floor. Even if you don’t live in Malaysia… feel free to help them!

http://iraivantile.blogspot.com/