Bodhinatha and Shanmuganathaswami are in Greenbelt, Maryland attending the pujas and festival activities of the annual Ilankai Nallur & Kathirkamam Kanthan Festival at the Murugan Temple of North America. This temple has three endowments with Hindu Heritage Endowment, and this connection with HHE is inspiring Bodhinatha and Shanmuganathaswami to spend some time reviewing the HHE website.

During the homa on the front steps of the temple little Lalitha was given her commencement of learning ceremony, vidyarambha, one of the sacraments of childhood. Lalitha is the daughter of two of Bodhinatha's Master Course students, Mayuran and Amanda Muttulingam.

One of the first activities to begin the Nallur festival was the Ganesha abhishekam. In 1981 Gurudeva gifted a Ganesha murthi to the late Arumugam Saravanapavan and his wife Pathmini, and this was the beginning of the Murugan Temple of North America. A beautiful shrine was built for the Ganesha murthi in the temple, and the shrine has since developed a very powerful vibration. Pathmini created a fund (#39) for the Pillaiyar shrine with HHE to insure the continued pujas and abhishekams for Lord Pillaiyar. The fund provides a grant to purchase milk, honey, coconut water, flowers and other supplies for the shrine. Pathmini created this as a single-donor fund in which only members of her family may contribute. Read this inspired story at the HHE web site: http://www.hheonline.org/reports/2003/oct-nov-dec/

A birthday party was held for Gayatri Rajan on the 5th of August at Satya and Savitri Palani's residence. Here the feast is spread out for lunch and it looks yummy.

Our guest of honor, Gayatri Rajan the birthday girl.

We all sang 'Happy Birthday'. Thank you Chamundi Sabanathan for making a yummy chocolate cake.

A beautiful table setting with roses and amethyst Ganesha.

The quilt is a gift for Gayatri from all of us. We worked on the quilt squares months before and final pieces were put together by Asha Alahan and Savitri Palani. It turned out very nicely and thank you to Asha Alahan for designing the quilt.

Group photo of all of us with the quilt.

We all couldn't keep our eyes off the quilt!.

Sandhya Devi Param with big bright smile.

Jai Ganesha, adored by all.

You may remember these charming digital dolls, the masterful creation of Henrique Pereira who lives near Sao Paulo in Brasil.

Inspired by Gurudeva’s teachings, Henrique surprised us by sending a digital doll of Gurudeva. How does he capture Gurudeva in such simple strokes? We bring you the images along with Gurudeva’s teaching on Facing Burdens of the Past. Admit it, it’s hard to feel burdened looking at these light-hearted creations.

GURUDEVA: We must live in the now to follow the path to
enlightenment. In the lower realms of the
mind, where time and space seem very real,
we are worried about the past or concerned about the
future. These two intermingle and limit conscious
awareness. Living in the past or the future obstructs
us in this way: the past, by reliving old experiences,
mainly the negative ones, for they are vividly remembered,
clouds our vision of the future.

Living in the future overactivates the intellect, the emotion and the desires. The future is little more than another form of
mental fantasy. Past and future are equally unreal and
a hindrance to spiritual unfoldment. A person functioning in the now is in control of his
own mind. He is naturally happier, more successful. He
is performing every task with his fullest attention, and
the rewards are to be seen equally in the quality of his
work and the radiance of his face. He cannot be bored
with anything he does, however simple or mundane.

Everything is interesting, challenging, fulfilling. A person
living fully in the now is a content person.
If we look at the past and we look at the future as
both a series of dreams, and the only thing that we are
concerned with is our immediate reactions and what
we carry with us now, we see that the past is there to
test us and the future is there to challenge us. We cannot
change the past, but we can change how we react
to what has happened to us in the past.

Let us not worry about the past ever again. Do not
even think about the past. Face everything that comes
up in the light of the present, not in the darkness of
the past. Aun Namasivaya!

At Iraivan today the roof is black. A team covered the granite with oxidized asphalt, for waterproofing.

After it has cured for 7 days, they will install a special membrane, which has copper on one side.

Inside, the silpis continue to install the rose colored flooring stones and the handrailings.

These are seriously thick pavers!

Each handrail section is made of 38 separate stones.

They come from India all sculpted to perfection and wrapped in coir, which is the Bubble Wrap of Bharat, made of coconut husk and rubber.

Four keys from Gurudeva's teachings on how to cope with the past, so we can live in the eternal now and work singlemindedly on our spiritual progress.

Early one morning (before the first visitor had arrived) Paramacharya Palaniswami rose early and manifested this exquisite rainbow of color outside the Kadavul Temple. Palaniswami is the knowing expert, mastermind and creator behind the vast planning of the beautiful fifty-one acre Aadheenam botanical gardens.

Kauai is officially known as the "Garden Island" and visitors from all over the world marvel at the rich and beautiful array of flora here. The Aadheenam gardens are a tropical paradise, with flowering plants and trees from all parts of the world, lovely tranquil waterfalls and lotus ponds, with sacred shrines and peaceful areas for meditation. It is locally known as one of the most beautiful and uplifting botanical gardens on the island. These plants were a gift to the monastery from someone who loves the idea of sacred temple grounds where seekers can see God Siva everywhere they look.

Thank you, Paramacharya Palaniswami!