Monks’ Cookbook
Our cookbook is out of print, proof (if it was needed) that people love to cook and eat. This week we updated it, asking ChatGPT to make us some new and relevant images. You can see a couple of the results in the slideshow, all painted by DALL-E, the intelligent but highly artificial artist.
The files are ready and today they go off to Amazon. Huh! Yes, Amazon, the company that already manages much of life, now wants to take over the on-demand printing business. We are trying their service for the first time.
The history of the Monks' Cookbook is that as Gurudeva traveled across the globe, he was invited to special meals in devotees' homes. Naturally, the Ammas brought out all of the family's heirloom recipes to serve to the Satguru, and so the meals were extraordinary. The best of the best were captured by having a swami run into the kitchen after the meal, and write down Amma's recipe.
One by one they were captured, and for 20 years it was only used in the monastery kitchen on Kauai, kept in a 3-ring binder. Inside were punched pages, typed with a tool I think they called a typewriter, with pages stained with ghee and spices. Finally, in 1997 Gurudeva gave permission to print it and share the riches.
You can now read it online, purchase or download the free ePub or PDF here:
https://kauaishindumonastery.com/books/monks-cookbook/
Of Missions, Mountaineers & Mushrooms
It was a close call, but our annual Digital Dharma Drive met and exceeded the goal of $75,000, a good harbinger on this first day of 2024. We are enormously grateful for all the generous giving and can spend another year innovating, creating Hindu resources and keeping our deep website evolving to meet the needs of the day.
Also today an intrepid monk, camera in hand, found a colony of small fairy inkcap mushrooms (Coprinellus disseminatus) out near Iraivan temple getting their heads together to map out the new year. See them later in the slideshow.
Powers of the Spine – Part 3
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.
"Once in either current for a long time, it is difficult to flow awareness out of it. There are some people who are predominantly piṅgalā, aggressive in nature and strong in their human elements in that area. There are some people who are predominantly iḍā: human, physical and earthy, and full of feeling. And there are some who switch from one to the other. These are the more rounded and well-adjusted type of people, who can move awareness through the piṅgalā current and through the iḍā current and adjust the energies almost at will."
Powers of the Spine – Part 2
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.
"Once in either current for a long time, it is difficult to flow awareness out of it. There are some people who are predominantly piṅgalā, aggressive in nature and strong in their human elements in that area. There are some people who are predominantly iḍā: human, physical and earthy, and full of feeling. And there are some who switch from one to the other. These are the more rounded and well-adjusted type of people, who can move awareness through the piṅgalā current and through the iḍā current and adjust the energies almost at will."
HOLY SIVA SONGS
The monks continue almost daily work on the Siva songs of Saint Tayumanavar. Once in a while we wish we could share them all with you, and we will, once the book is published. In the meantime, here are two from yesterday's editing session.
Canto 40, Song 5
Alone, standing as the astounding pure void, if You call all lives to You and merge them in one inextricable mukti of unending bliss that we call God, will it diminish this play of Your manifold creation?
Song 6
Gathering universes all while losing not a single atom, You put them all into an atom. Gathering atoms all, You made them into universes vast. So mighty are You! Do what You will!
How Monks Use ChatGTP: A Word Game!
Aum Namah Sivaya
Apart from the usual articles we've all read, where the author describes the wonders of ChatGTP and then at the end they tell you that Chat wrote everything you read, there are other interesting uses for this and similar machine-learning tools. A major one of which is being able to write code.
Today we asked ChatGTP4 several simple questions to produce what we were looking for. Our first prompt: Write the html, css and javascript for a simple in-browser word game that includes at least 15 spiritual words from hinduism and yoga.
Within 20 seconds we had the code for a working example. It even did pretty well with the definitions of the words. But it was a little plain so we prompted it to add more color and a different font. We also asked it to do a few other small changes such as improving the way it refreshed for a new word. Just a few sentences in english, and the ai updated our code for exactly that.
We didn't do any manual adjustments the the above game, this was all built by AI. All we did was upload it to our website. Have fun!
(And no, this article's words were not written by AI)
Ganapati Kulam Brainstorming Meeting
Every once in a while the Ganapati Kulam spends the morning at our seaside condo to casually discuss the overview of things and brainstorm new ventures.
Today we looked at the progress of a new version of our main websites that is nearing completion, examined ways to bring Gurudeva's audio voice forward more, and noted potential collaborations with well wisher volunteers along with organizations that we recently met at the World Hindu Congress in Bangkok
Felicitation of Hinduism Today Magazine at Bangkok Congress
Noni Fruit Picking, and Gurudeva Annual Puja Events Underway
We took taskforcer Tarun Nathoo (in green) over to Himalayan Acres for the first time, to join us in picking hundreds of pounds of noni fruit. Suresh and Rajkumar also joined us. They got to briefly experience the picking platform to reach the higher fruits, while spending most of the time picking the younger trees from the ground.
The second group of photos shows the Ganapati Kulam updating our Guru Puja pilgrims on some of its media activities, including new artwork commissions, videos to show US sixth graders about students visiting the eastern dharmic religions' places of worship, and the Sanskrit pronunciation website we recently created.
HOLY SONGS
The monks continue almost daily work on the Siva songs of Saint Tayumanavar. Once in a while we wish we could share them all with you, and we will, once the book is published. In the meantime, here are two from yesterday's editing session.
Canto 40, Song 5
Alone, standing as the astounding pure void, if You call all lives to You and merge them in one inextricable mukti of unending bliss that we call God, will it diminish this play of Your manifold creation?
Song 6
Gathering universes all while losing not a single atom, You put them all into an atom. Gathering atoms all, You made them into universes vast. So mighty are You! Do what You will!
From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.