"What you sow, you reap, and what you sow you eventually eat. So, be sure what you eat will be sweet by sowing the right things."

GURUDEVA

It's Sun 5 on the Garden Island, and Sunday, so quieter than usual. Our wonderful Kauai Mission members came at 7am today and listened to a wonderful talk by Acharya Kumarswami. He spoke on Gurudeva's sadhana of reviewing the experiences of the day at the end, just before sleep. It involves reviewing how we did in our relationships and activities, seeing where we could have reacted or performed better, and also congratulating ourselves on those things we did well. Thus karmas are reviewed, cognized, new resolutions made and a clearer future, without subconscious congestions, set in motion. Thank you, Acharya, for sharing your wisdom with us all.

Our special plants arrived from India! Yes, some new cultivars of cordyline terminalis, known locally as ti plants, were brought back from Bangalore by Yogi Tapodhana. They are a gift from Mr. Iyengar, once the chief landscape director for the entire chin of Oberoi Hotels, and now one of India's finest collectors. He has selected some tis and plumerias and sent them to Kauai. A gift from India to the Islands, and to the monastery, and to all who visit. This is Yogi placing them in pots this morning. They seem strong and we expect them to all survive the journey. Thanks to Jiva Rajasankara and his team in Bangalore for preparing them so carefully for the trip!

The monks are oiling the redwood walls in the Guru Peedam. This is the room that was built in 1929 as a Theosophy Center and used to be a Hawaiian sacred space. The floors were just tiled in white and orange Italian marble, and now the rust-colored walls, with their 12" wide boards are radiant, looking as though the wood was sawn yesterday. This will be the new meeting place for pilgrims and visitors having Gurudeva's darshan. . These are the monastery garden shovels and hoes and stuff, used every afternoon in our veggie garden.

This flower is "El tigre", a valued commercial flower and gift from Mark Collins on the Big Island, brought to the monastery two years ago by Jyoti Sendan.

Gurudeva gave another upadesha for today, once again focusing on drugs, on the karmas of it all, and of the need on the spiritual path to not depend on drugs, but on the divine energies within. He also talked about Aparadha svikara, the Sanskrit word for the telling of our misdeeds, or confession. Click the Satguru Speaks button above to hear his entire talk. If you know anyone who has become involved in drugs, this would be a wonderful message to share with them.

THINGS TO PONDER TODAY

Merging with Siva, a secret preview for TAKA visitors.

(For all of you who made it this far through today's page, we offer a pre-publication excerpt from Gurudeva's newest book, the one he works on four hours or more every day. This is from the lesson on the River of Life.)

You have all heard about the sacred river Ganges, but have you ever wondered why this river is sacred? Why has this river become personified among all the rivers of the world? Let us meditate on this and let the river tell its own story to us. The river is the esoteric symbol of life's force, and as it flows it tells us how those cosmic currents flow through the physical body, quieting the emotions and awakening the willpower so that we can keep the mind under our control. This all happens, of course, providing we are in tune and flow with that life force, that illimitable power within us. ¦The birth of this river high in the Himalayas we can liken to our own conception and entrance into physical consciousness. As the river flows to meet the sea, it drops off many disturbances, just as our life absorbs many of its hindrances. The rapids smooth out, the waterfalls become smaller, the mouth of the river broadens, and as the river flows into the ocean we can see this esoteric symbol of life ending its manifest physical form. ¦Let us relate that symbol to our own consciousness, holding it within our mindÑthe river as a symbol of life. Now look at yourself and see what stops that river from flowing. What stops you from flowing with cosmic forces and becoming one with life's ocean of eternal bliss? Is it not attachment that keeps us clinging to the bank of the river? Is it not fear that we are attached to? All of the personalities we know and the various material objects we are clinging to keep us holding tightly to the banks of life's cosmic river. The river still flows on, but we do not flow with it. We are fighting against life's currents when we allow ourselves to become attached. ¦Think today about the personal experiences in your lifetime and clearly view just how often you cling to the banks of life's river by attaching yourself to personalities and possessions. Have you ever stopped to think that we even become attached to things that we do not like and to the things that we have done against our better judgment? We are attached to objects, values, schedules, habits, memories, even likes and dislikes. We become attached because we do not stop to understand that each of those experiences that conceived the attachment was just a boulder, a waterfall or an old tree trunk blocking one of the little rivulets as it tried to merge with the great stream ever merging itself into the ocean. Meditate on a river. Follow it as a visual image from its source to the end where it merges into the sea. You can now clearly see where you have been clinging to the bank of life's river. You will plainly see just how long you have been clinging to various attachments by holding onto fears, worries, doubts of the future and regrets about the past. Looking at attachment, we see how it holds the mind downÑhow it submerges personality. Attachment is a stationary thing. Attachment creates the personality. The popular concept of the intellect at this point would be to say, "Well, then, according to this, we are not supposed to be attached to anything, or even have a personality." ¦But I take this one step farther and tell you, become affectionately detached, for by becoming affectionately detached you absorb all the power of the spiritual force within you. When you absorb the power of the spirit through the body, you will be able to feel it flowing through your most subtle nerves. This vibrant spiritual force within you, vibrating through every cell of the body, quieting the emotions and bringing the mind into effortless concentration, is born of affectionate detachment. ¦Affectionate detachment is stronger than any attachment could possibly be, because attachment is created through unfulfilled desire, salted and peppered with fear. Fear of loss, fear of the unexpected, fear that life may not have much more to offer than what has already been offered, fear of old age, fear of harm, fear of accidentÑthese are the fears which salt and pepper the unfulfilled desires. This is attachment. ¦To be affectionately detachedÑthat is a power. That is a wisdom. That is a love greater than any emotional love, a love born of understanding, a love that merges you into the river of life and allows actinic force to flow within you so that you realize God. ¦We all still have those little attachmentsÑthe good ones, the need for love, acceptance and security. These attachments form the positive aspects of the subconscious. We want to free ourselves of all negative attachments, then use the subconscious positively, as a powerhouse directed by our superconsciousness.