A Daily Chronicle of Kauai's Hindu Monastery

Satguru Siva Yogaswami Jaffna, Sri Lanka		Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami Kauai's Hindu Monastery, USA
	February 15, 2000 - Ardra

It's Sun 2, and Gurudeva is working on the next book and the next issue of our magazine, and there were LOTS of visitors today, even though it is not a visitor's day. His happy look today reminded a TAKA editor of a bit of humor from the Satguru we share here: "I studied English as a language, too, you know. A split infinity is when you are standing looking forward into an endless future, and you turn around and see back into a beginningless past." Satguru Speaks Cybertalk: Gurudeva responds to an e-devotee's question about the recent millenium event, when the Western calendars turned to the year 2000. Why was such a big fuss made, when seemingly nothing happened? But, as Gurudeva explains, perhaps a great deal occured. Gurudeva stresses that if you want to help someone else, you must be helping yourself first through some form of regular daily practice--sadhana. He then briefly defines the nature of sadhana.perspective of the astral body of the child and what he or she might be experiencing. Gurudeva also relates this to the similar observances at the time of the death of a loved one. Title: Why all the Y2K Commotion? (with Tamil translation) Category: Change and Transformation Duration: 4min. 41 seconds MP3 Streaming: Use the QuickTime controller above to listen to Gurudeva's upadesha in MP3 streaming mode. You must have the QuickTime plug-in installed in your browser. (Click here to get QuickTime.) Click here for Real Audio For those unable to play streaming MP3 or RealAudio: Option-click here to download MP3 file to your computer. Option-click here to download WAV file to your computer. A detailed index of past inspired talks is available here. About 20 wonderful souls from Kauai island senior citizen's group, retired teachers, nurses and some handicapped visited the monastery this morning. There they are, smiling for the digital camera. Today we take our TAKA visitors to Bangalore, India, then to the Iraivan site where BIG equipment is at work this morning, but first on a tour of the farm at Kauai's Hindu Monastery, our cows and gardens, our tractors and such. The front end loader on the John Deere poped off and we had to get it back on to continue hauling gravel for our new office sidewalks. Sannyasin Arumugaswami on hand with lots of experience. Sadhaka Nilakanta and Brahmachari Sivakumar observing. Brahmachari Vigneswaran also observing. In Hawaii for every job you need two people to watch, to make jokes and give advice to the one who does the job. Brahmachari Panshula shining brightly amidst some heavy work. Each day one of our cows comes to be milked. This is the very intelligent and sweet natured Kamadhenu who is milking right now. OK, sometimes she has to be herded to the milking stall by Sadhaka Tyaganatha. In fact every day. Get along, little doggie! They don't like to walk on the gravel road. . .it's a little hard on their feet. And soon we will be setting up a milking station on the edge of the nearest pasture so they won't have to walk in everyday. We leat a lot of Hawaiian taro, both the leaves and the root are edible. Yogi Yuganatha, the head of our grounds department, has set up a complete "mulch garden." No more tilling of the soil with the tractor. The mulch is 6 inches thick now and not weeds can grow easily. . .moisture is conserved and its a lot less work. And the earth devas are happy that we don't have to drive through and tear up the ground with that noisy machine all the time call a tractor roto-tiller. An overview of the vegetable garden. Cedric Ramos is working with his big CATS today, covering up the giant foundation slab. He will eventually, in the days ahead, place 4 million pounds of earth on the slab, eight feet high. Today we received photos from Bangalore, India. At our carving site there are 75 craftsmen working each day to carve the white granite for Iraivan Temple. Here some tools are being sharpened. This is the blacksmith shop. Each day the team sharpens 3-4,000 chisels for the carvers! The chisels are heated in coal-driven furnaces. It's hot! Then they are taken out one at a time and while they are still red hot and soft, they are hammered on anvils to sharpen the points dulled by constant hammering on the hard granite. Once sharpened, they go back to the sculptors. With simple tools, these hereditary carvers can do amazing work. Achieving fine detail despite the hardness of the Indian stone. Note that here and above the master designer has marked the stone with a red powder, to guide the hand of the apprentices. He must do this on each stone many times each day, to be sure the artistry is perfect. Here is a ceiling beam being shaped. And here is the Stupi Stone, the topmost stone and largest in the temple. It will stand 35 feet above the temple floor, and it will be almost completely covered in gold, to shine in the tropical sky for a thousand years. Another view. Here you can get a fine sense of the intricacy of the carving, and the gracefulness of the stones once finished. Shaping the hit chisel to just the right form. Then, once they are sharp, they are set in shallow water to allow for slow cooling. The chain being used in this blacksmith's left hand is driving a billows that blows air (and thus oxygen) into the furnace to heat the coal fires to very high temperatures. More shaping. and cooling. And carving. Thanks to Jiva for sending all these fine photos today. SIGN OUR GUESTBOOK AND RECEIVE A FREE GIFT Click here to sign the Guestbook and we will send you a free issue of our global full-color bi-monthly magazine, Hinduism Today. THANK YOU, GURUDEVA! For those who have been touched spiritually by Gurudeva's work, his books, his guidance, his inspired life and example and even his website, the "Thank You, Gurudeva Fund" has been established within Hindu Heritage Endowment. Proceeds from this fund are forever, not a one-time gift, so gifts to this fund have an eternal gratitude built into them. They live on, in perpetuity. Each month Gurudeva receives the income from the fund, to be used at his own discretion to promote his work and mission around the globe. He loves this, for he knows that it comes from all the good souls who have met him and studied with him, or traveled or just talked with him, over the years. A contribution to this fund is tax-deductible. GURUDEVA'S MANY CYBERTALKS ARE NOW ONLINE All of Gurudeva's Cybertalks are now on this site at: /audio/ You will find here over 200 Inspired Talks, thoughtfully organized, with thorough text descriptions (yes, they are searchable!) so you can find the subjects that are of deepest interest to you. We encourage everyone to go to the page, bookmark it and visit now and again to listed to the wisdom of our beloved Satguru. Wow! What a grand addition to our website this is! Thanks to the many talented hands that made this possible. Year 2000 March Caribbean Innersearch Some cancellations have happened and suddenly we have some space available on the ship! But not too much! So please do call us soon, if you have a yen to travel inside and outside you. Also, there will be another Innersearch announced for later this year, tentatively scheduled for New Zealand (where, surprise, Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in the country!) or to Europe, where Gurudeva has started several important temple in the last two decades. For information, contact our wonderful tour agent who will be conducting the Innersearch: Kailash and Indra Dhaksinamurthi of Search Beyond Adventures, Inc. ASAP at search11@mail.idt.net Very Important!: Be sure to include your mailing address and phone number in the body of your message! Kailash will be mailing you information, but if you don't send an address there is nothing he can do.
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