To attend worship at Kadavul Hindu Temple make a reservation here
FRONT GROUNDS ARE OPEN DAILY FROM 9AM to 12PM WITHOUT A RESERVATION

Spinning Wheels of Consciousness, Part Three

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.

“The sixth force center is ājñā, or the third eye. Ājñā chakra means “command center” and grants direct experience of the Divine, not through any knowledge passed on by others, which would be like the knowledge found in books. Magnetized to the cavernous plexus and to the pineal gland and located between the brows, the ājñā chakra governs the superconscious faculties of divine sight within man. Its color is lavender. Of its two “petals” or facets one is the ability to look down, all the way down, to the seven talas, or states of mind, below the mūlādhāra and the other is the ability to perceive the higher, spiritual states of consciousness, all the way up to the seven chakras above the sahasrāra. Thus, ājñā looks into both worlds: the odic astral world, or Antarloka, and the actinic spiritual world, or Śivaloka. It, therefore, is the connecting link, allowing the jñānī to relate the highest consciousness to the lowest, in a unified vision. This center opens fully to the conscious use of man after many experiences of nirvikalpa samādhi, Self Realization, resulting in total transformation, have been attained, although visionary insights and, particularly, inner light experiences are possible earlier.”

Taskforce & a Medley

Aum Namasivaya!

Aditya Vinadhara, from Utah, arrived on the island last night for a 26-day stay. During his Taskforce time here, his considerable construction skills will be put to good use. He is teamed up with Acharya Kumarnathaswami to move the Stone Bell Tower forward. Today also marked the 297th Chittra Pada Puja for Gurudeva. The full report will be in a couple of days, but today we share a photo from Colorado of the puja done in a shishya's shrine room. Also, showing some recent visitor shots.

Iraivan Bronze Bas-Relief Panels

Recently the massive project of creating and installing 35 bronze panels around Iraivan Temple's perimeter wall was completed. Each Panel measures 14" by 47" and encapsulate a distilled library of information for future pilgrims. They include the history of the temple, from vision to chisel; the founder and architect; the simple technology used; the story of Mahalingeshvara; the monastery and its Satguru and monks; the philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta represented by the temple; the scriptures and beliefs in multiple languages, and more.

On many of the panels you'll find a bas-relief, sculpted by Holy Young, and later cast in metal. Rajen Manick was asked to photograph the panels for our digital archival use. Here are his first batch of photos.

Outing to Ho’opi’i Falls

Nearby the monastery, in upper Kapaa, is a wondrous walk through through lush rainforest and along a stream to visit a couple beautiful waterfalls, mainly Ho'opi'i Falls.

SSC sishya Rajen Manick, from Mauritius, is with us on taskforce and this was his first outing to see some of the island. Ho'opi'i Falls was a set piece for one of the Jurassic Park movies where they were mining amber that contained Jurassic DNA.

Serving the Dharmic Religions #1 – Buddhism

Over the last year, our publications team in Kauai has been quietly working on a sizable side project sponsored by the Uberoi Foundation. The project is intended to assist in the presentation of the four Dharmic faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, as per the foundation's goal. This particular video is meant to teach the Buddhist religion in California 6th grade social studies classes. The ten-minute video is hosted by Rimban William Briones who describes the temple’s origins and basics of their beliefs. The temple was begun in 1905 by the Japanese community of Los Angeles. It belongs to Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, one of the largest denominations of the Pure Land stream of Mahayana Buddhism, and the largest Buddhist denomination in the United States. The video is the first to be released. Each one will allow students to experience these temples as a digital school tour, when visiting them in person might not be possible.

Directed by Mainak Dhar, Produced by Gabriel Bruskoff.

Rajen Manick to the Rescue

For many moons we have wanted to upgrade the floor of the Banyan Mandapam, an important gathering place for visitors. But it was hard to find the hours to do it. Then Rajen Manick came, a senior member from Mauritius who brings with him considerable graphics and translation skills, and not a few practical abilities. Rajen just finished painting the floor of the 40 by 40 tent, and the 50 foot long walkway. It took about a week (not full time) to paint two coats of durable paint. He was helped a bit by Doug. A big upgrade to the entry of the monastery.

Spinning Wheels of Consciousness, Part Two

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.

"It is in the svādhishṭhāna chakra that the majority of people live, think, worry and travel on the astral plane. If they are functioning solely in the reasoning capacity of the mind, devoting their life’s energies to its perpetuation in the libraries of the world, then they would take the intellect very seriously, for they naturally see the material world as extremely real, extremely permanent. With their security and self-esteem founded in reason, they study, read, discuss, accumulate vast storehouses of fact and rearrange the opinions and conclusions of others. When guided by the higher chakras and not totally entangled in ramifications of intellect, the powers of svādhishṭhāna are a potent tool in bringing intuitive knowledge into practical manifestation. Reason does not conflict with intuition. It simply comes more slowly, more cumbersomely, to the same conclusions. Nevertheless, the intellect, in its refined evolution, can harness and direct the base instincts in man."

Digital Hinduism

This book was recently sent to us. To our surprise, the very first chapter is dedicated to a small order of Saiva monks living on a far island. It's a bit academic, but it has some rather thought-provoking things to say about Gurudeva's little order, and so we thought to share it.

Gurudeva always loved using the latest technology, whether typesetters, Walkman recorders or Macintoshes. By encouraging his monks to embrace high-end tools, he amplified their abilities to push forward the mission.

As you will see, it worked. Here are excerpts of the chapter:


Abstract:

The Significance of Non-Participatory
Digital Religion
The Saiva Siddhanta Church and the
Development of a Global Hinduism

There are just a small number of websites that have appeared consistently in the top ten during the research period. For example, a search conducted on November 13, 2004, revealed the following five websites in the top ten of the Google rankings: religioustolerance.org. hinduism, bbc.co. uk/religion/religions/Hinduism, hinduism.about.com, hinduismtoday.com, and himalayanacademy.com9 (see Scheifinger 2008: 36). These same websites also appeared in a search conducted almost 12 years later on August 29, 2016. These websites also featured when the intervening searches were conducted.

Especially noteworthy is the fact that not only is it the case that a single group has two of these websites (himalayanacademy.com and hinduismtoday.com) that have such a strong online presence, but that it is the only religious organization among those responsible for the five websites. This organization is the SSC and it, along with details regarding its online presence and its influence within Hinduism, will now be discussed.

This chapter has demonstrated four undeniable facts. These are that the SSC has an incredibly strong online presence (the extent of which has been revealed in the methodology section of this chapter), that it pursues its aims online (evidenced by my discussion of the contents of its websites), that new forms of digital media mean that the internet is now embedded in many people's lives, and that the SSC wields influence within Hinduism which belies its size. I

In combination, these facts give rise to the following claim: that the SSC's online presence is an important factor in the development of the global form of Hinduism discussed in this chapter, and thus it plays a role in the way that Hinduism is perceived by non-Hindus and understood by Hindus themselves.

Despite these points, it is safe to say that it is highly unlikely that this small order of twenty monks living on a Hawaiian island, deriving from a particular Hindu tradition "representing fewer than three million of the world's ... Hindus" (Martin 2001) would be able to have the influence discussed in this chapter if it had not been so successful in its engagement with contemporary digital media. . . .

Iriavan Temple Krittika Homa

Aum Namah Shivaya

At Iriavan Temple each month, during the Kirttika Nakshatra, Pravinkumar performs a special homa. Since Iraivan is not yet fully open to pilgrims, it is attended by Satguru and a few monks and devotees. This time, Rajen Manick was there to capture the event with his camera. This Krittika was quite auspicious, being very close to the full moon, with Ardra the next day and Thai Pusam being the next. This is a powerful time for inner and outer worship. Aum.

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

Subscribe to RSS Feed