Today is JAZ Day. It happens once a month, and it's not really a carnival at Kauai Aadheenam. JAZ Day is Gurudeva's term for our monthly magazine deadline. He thought "deadline" a word too morbid for the joyous work we do in lifting the consciousness of humanity. So our deadline day has a sweeter name, one that reflects the musical nature of selfless service to others, and the rhythm we must all share and follow in getting such an immensely complex project assembled every 30 days from all corners of the Earth. We even play a different music in the monastery today, nothing too wild, but Indian music with a little more energy and beat! Let the day begin!

And begin it did with a most precious upadesha Gurudeva gave to monks and pilgrims. "Everything is within everything else. the soul lives in the body which is the outer most part of ourselves, which allows us to walk upon this plane of consciousness. The real you is much deeper. The next thing for you pilgrims to do is realize the Source of the body, the Source of the emotions, the Source of the intellect, none of which you are, the Source that the Vedas speak of and that I speak of.

"You may naver have been to these depths. That's fine. You may never have been to South Africa. I have been there and can tell you about what it is like. But until you yourself go there it is just a concept to you. To make it real, you must realize the Self yourself. How to do that? One way is to go through what I will call the back door. That is saying to yourself, I am not this body. I am not this mind. I am not the emotions, or the will or the cognition, not even Divine Love and superconsciousness.

"Keep finding out what you are not, this Self. Neti, Neti. It is not this. It is not that. Have the willpower to continue this search. Willpower is released as you use it, from within you. What you use is not used up, it will never go away for it was obviously there inside you just to be released. Use your will to seek the Self within, and practice using your will in day-to-day matters, strengthening it each day."

Our happiest news this morning is that Brahmachari Jyothi Palani is back with us after visiting his family and celebrating his path-choosing samskara. Jyothi has come back to begin his monastic life under Gurudeva's graceful shade, to join his energies with that of his mathavasi brothers, to seek the Self within and live in a consciousness of Sivaness. That's Jyothi with Gurudeva [on the far right] along with Nilakantha Veylan, Ananta Palani and Sadhaka Japendranatha, gathered in the Press with JAZ Day energies swirling all around. It is said the cosmos itself rejoices when a soul like Jyothi takes to the path of perfect liberation, of Moksha. We join that cosmos which is ourselves in today's celebration of this right-minded soul's arrival on Kauai.

It's also guest day at the monastery, with about 15 visitors taking our three-hour tour today. A very special guest came and met with Gurudeva in the Mahogany Room. She is DC Cordova, the founder and head of Xcellerated Business Schools, now headquartered in Honolulu. They teach highly effective people how to spiritualize their business enterprises, how to maximize their capacity, how to realize their entreprenureal visions! She's quite a wonderful lady. Welcome back, DC!

Now some news we were holding in order to work on the magazine. Yesterday after the 6am Muruga Puja, Paramacharya Bodhinathaswami sat in Kadavul Temple and spoke with the pilgrims who had just worshipped. Mahalo nui loa to Deva Seyon for providing us all with this summary so we can enjoy Paramacharya's talk:

Unity with Divine Law
Because it is relatively free from mistaken doctrines, the Hindu approach to life--and the Hindu approach to time and the Hindu approach to worry, is very different from the Western approach. Aum.

Paramacharya Bodhinatha asked us to go into to and think about the statement that there are differences in the Eastern and Western goals of life. In our pursuit of the purusharthas: Family, Wealth, Virtue and Moksha, Paramacharya Bodhinatha helped us to see that the first three are actually very similar in both Eastern and Western thinking. Both Eastern and Western souls aspire and pursue the goals of family and fortune guided by right means, virtue. Liberation however is not a concept understood by the Western faiths with the exception of a very few. Moksha is not a goal of the Western faiths and is not pursued by the Christians in Lihue!

Moksha and liberation are in the area of mysticism. Mysticism is a required course in Hinduism, a mandatory class in which you must graduate. Mysticism is an elective course for Western souls which most people choose not to take. Paramacharya Bodhinatha talked about the word mysticism as a personal experience of God, a personal experience of God within our soul an ever deepening and direct experience of God.

Paramacharya Bodhinatha talked about practical mysticism. Moksha, liberation can seem like a far away concept. Like talking to a 5-year-old child about death! But it is really much closer, in fact, right here, right now. In Hindu mysticism we have to claim our identity with our soul every morning before we enter our day. Claim it--we are the soul. I am the soul. When we do that we claim the perspective that everything is perfect right now and that we are perfect. We have to claim peace in our life.

True, the things that surround the soul can be disturbed but that is not YOU.The externalized mind may not be peaceful but peace exists constantly within us. Once we begin to claim it we can go within and be peaceful. Enter the world each day as a joyous positive being like Gurudeva does every day.

Yogaswami's beautiful Natchintanai -- Peace, Peace, the perfect Peace--is talking about this mystical peace that comes through the daily sadhana and practice of claiming our Soul as us. First we have to believe it - then we have to practice it. It is not enough to read about it.

If we sit and try and meditate and we start having an argument with our father about something that happened in the past - do the vasana daha tantra until the peace within is apparent. If we sit and meditate and we have thoughts about something we did in the past that we regret and is disturbing us, maybe we need to perform prayaschitta, specific forms of penance, until we can sit in the peace and bliss of our own soul.