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Bodhinatha Is Flying Home

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Bodhinatha and Shanmuganathaswami are in transit. They will be home tomorrow around 11 am, Hawaii time.

Today is the end of a short 4-day phase.

~~~~~~~~~~~
END OF PHASE
Today is the last day of our phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain posted
over our coming two-day retreat,
until Dvitiya Tithi, Sun One, Friday, August 21st.

Jai Ganesha

Stormy day on Kauai, complete with lightening and thunder enough to send the cats into their safe places and to take down the electricity for thirty minutes. The river is running chocolate brown from all the rain runoff upstream.

Iraivan stand peacefully amid all the tempest, like the Self within, untouched by experiences, whether good, bad or neutral.

We take you to Kadavul temple for a special little surprise. Sadhaka Nandinatha work up early (and when a monk who usually gets up at 4:30am wakes up early, you know it’s early) to spend nearly two hours decorating our Mighty Ganesha. While showing his artistry, we give you words of wisdom from Gurudeva’s Spiritual Toolbox, a chapter he calls:

Can’t control the kids?

It is so simple, be patient and caring

There is an old saying: “If you can’t beat them,
join them,î and this is wise in certain respects.
We are thinking of the young adults who will not follow the traditional family patterns of their well-raised Hindu parents. Admittedly, they can be made
to fear their parents and be forced to obey for a time.
Th e problem with such an approach is that it usually
ends up with the sons or daughters losing respect for
them and leaving home as soon as they are able. Often
parents take the authoritarian approach, not realizing
there are alternatives, well-proven techniques of
a more positive discipline. In actual practice, it is more
useful to work with children little by little as they grow
and mature.

My advice to parents has always been to stay close
to their children, but at the same time give them some
space to grow and mature in today’s world. Today’s
world is not all that bad. But children must be taught
how to live in it–what to be wary of, whom to trust,
whom to befriend and marry, how to proceed in business,
social life, education, career upscaling, religious
life and on into the raising of their own family. So, keep
the communication lines open.

True, today’s world has its challenges, its temptations
and definite drawbacks, but it is today’s world and
the world of tomorrow. We can’t ignore that fact. So,
be wise and pass your deeply profound Hindu culture
and wisdom along to the children so they can make
proper decisions for themselves. This is what they will
do anyway, make their own decisions, so they might as
well be trained early on how to do it right. Who better
to teach them this than their own parents? Aum Nama Sivaya!

The Blessings of Water

As the world struggles with water shortages, when rains fall here on Kauai, the wettest place on earth according to some, though we may wish for sunshine, we also count the incredible blessings of this gift from the heavens. The ancient myths of Ganga falling down onto the matted locks of Lord Siva, is a vivid living reality for those who can look up at mountains covered with rain and water falls. This amazing video, taken inside the crater of Mount Waialeale which we look up at daily, was taken with a robotic helicopter. It speaks of the blessing of water, falling like grace from inner worlds.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z58vWt-rhMA

Ashram Sadhana Day at the Aadheenam

Today’s Ashram sadana was focused on cleaning in Kadavul temple.

The Siddhidata Kulam, master of scaffolding, teamed up with the Ganapati Kulam to clean the skylight.

Bring in the scaffolding!

Kumarswami and Sivakatirswami aloft cleaning the soot off the plexiglass. The assembly of the scaffolding was the hard part, the cleaning went quickly.

Only two more bays to go!

Afterwards, the sun shine was right brilliant inside the temple.

The Search for the Perfect Loaf

Our monks are pretty good cooks and some are diligently trying new recipes for bread.

Perfect!

Monthly Video for August 2009

Sorry, folks! We had not correctly linked the end of Bodhinatha’s introduction video, below, to the full video of his Publisher’s Desk article on YouTube. This has been fixed. Now, when you watch the video below, you can click on the box as indicated at the end and it will take you to the full video.
This month’s monthly video: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, publisher of Hinduism Today magazine, reads his Publisher’s Desk article from the Oct/Nov/Dec 2009 issue on camera. He speaks of the three stages of faith: blind faith, informed conviction and personal realization.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHP9YzJ3lMY

Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.

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