On the 15th, Bodhinatha and Palaniswami left Kuala Lumpur for India on a morning flight, transiting through Chennai to Bangalore. After a short rest in their room at the Golden Palms Hotel, they were off to their first function at the padasala of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (see below).

The evening closed with a pada puja at the home of Kulapati Jiva Rajasankara, gift giving to the silpis and a late dinner.

On the 16th they paid a visit to Kailas Ashram and had long talk with Sri-la-Sri Jeyandrapuri Swami.

Then Bodhinatha presided over the namakarana for Chinmayie Rajasankar, first child born to Thuraisingam and Swapna Rajasankara.

On November 15, our Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and Paramacharya Palaniswami had the distinguished honor of visiting His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, guru and founder of the Art of Living. There in Bangalore, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has established a large and thriving padasala where boys and young men learn and teach Sanskrit, studying from Veda and Agama.

The padasala in Bengaluru is on the massive campus of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Driving past lakes and lotus buildings, one comes at last to a hillside where the gurukkulam is located.

They have 200,000 square feet of buildings, and 220 boys in training. Bodhiantha was the guest of honor at the home that was underway, the murthi being a clear crystal Sivalingam, around which Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had placed the Rudraksha mala he was gifted while on Kauai earlier this year. 

The chanting was long, and exquisite.

Bodhinatha was later asked to inspire the boys and gave a short talk on how important they are and “What a good team we make: the Hawaii monastery digitizing the Agamas which is our expertise and all of you preserving them in actual practice and worship, which is our special gift.”

Two elephants greeted Bodhinatha and Palaniswami as they left the padasala and were taken to a lotus-shaped building for a brief audience with the ashram’s founder.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri met with Bodhinatha and Palaniswami. An interesting fact: Sri Sri had been in North India for some time just prior to Bodhinatha’s arrival in Bangalore. When Sri Sri heard that Bodhinatha would be there in Bangalore, he flew down from the North to see him, even though it was for just a view hours. After this meeting, Sri Sri flew back to the North in order to catch his flight to Rome thereafter.

It was a beautiful and jovial, though brief, meeting -- one of mutual respect, admiration and support of the others’ tireless efforts to further the Sanatana Dharma.

In Sri Lanka, when children reach Grade Six, one of the school items that is needed is a math/compass set (ruler, pencil, compass, eraser, sharpener in a box). Many families are not able to purchase this small item (valued at $1US) so the children need to use each other’s set which is very inconvenient during exam times. This math/compass set is used by the students from Grade 6 to Grade 10 and is a valued part of their instruction supplies.

Operation Math Compass is one of the educational projects of the Sri Subramuniya Kottam of Kopay. This project is providing a math/compass set to all the less fortunate students who do not have the set.

Mrs Sivalosani Kanagaratnam handing over the math sets to deserving students at the Pandaitharippu Maha Vidyalayam and Kopay Navalar School.

As October 2010, the Kottam distributed math/compass sets to 820 students in the Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts.

This small gift was very much appreciated by the students, their parents and their teachers.

We could not resist posting this cover of Newsweek.

Nitya Nadesan who sent it to us, echos the sentiments of many of us:

“Vanakkam and Aloha,

Please see attached. I find it fascinating the way the media appropriates our Hindu iconography.

Aum Sivaya,

Nitya”