October 14, 1998 - Ashlesha (Until 6:59pm Hawaii Time)

"The world is divided into two kinds of people: the wise and the otherwise." Gurudeva It's Sun 2 at Kauai Aadheenam and a tropical rain, lasting just 15 minutes, blessed the Earth after dawn and then left so the sun could shine through all morning. The tiling project continues energetically here, with our talented team laying down an elaborate floor for the Guru Peedam. So much work is going on there that the monks held the morning meditation with Gurudeva in the temple today. Gurudeva said: "The first three years on the spiritual path are crucial. During this time the subconscious goes through important changes brought about when enough meditation is learned to quiet the mind just a little. So it is good to stress working diligently with oneself during those first years, and to establish strong patterns of living dharma." This is a Sanskrit chanting class held this morning with Skandanathaswami and our young upakurvana men (Ananta Palani and Markandeya Sendan) here training and serving for six months. We received the hundreds and hundreds of photographic transparencies from Indivar Sivanathan in Oregon. They are here, Indivar, safe and lovely. How to say thank you? It's such a great service you are doing, preserving all this amazing collection of art from India permanently. Now with our flextight hi-res scanner we can make 5000-dpi scans of the art when they are needed. Future generations will place their hands together in Anjali mudra, honoring your gift to them! As Gurudeva mentions in today's audio clip, we are working with Dr. Kusumita Pedersen in New York, helping her find Vedic quotes for a Loving kindness Conference being held by the World Council of Churches. We have asked her for permission to print her talk to the session in Hinduism Today. Stay tuned for that. It is about "moral exclusion," how certain beliefs give permission to harm or even dispose of animals, even people. She is focusing on how in Hinduism there are no "expendable beings." A wonderful gift arrived from India with our pilgrims yesterday. It is a silver crown made to adorn the head of Siva Nataraja in our temple. It was crafted to order in India, a gift to Gurudeva from the Jiva Rajasankara family in Bangalore. As you can see, it is very elegant. Cows are big today. The monastery sold two cows to some local dairy folks. that's Willie Sanchez, paniolo cowboy par excellence. He lassoed Buttercup, and tied his rope to a guava tree in the pasture. Then they used various strategems to get the two bovines into the trailer, including the old grain-in-the-bucket ruse. It works everytime! There's buttercup, Jersey with pride of lineage even in her stance! Saying goodbye to our two cows, off to their new homes on Kauai. Off to greener pastures, we hope (though ours are pretty flush with all this rain lately).

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