A Daily Chronicle of Kauai's Hindu Monastery

Satguru Siva Yogaswami
Jaffna, Sri Lanka

A Daily Chronicle of Kauai's Hindu Monastery

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Kauai's Hindu Monastery, USA

October 31, 2000 - Purvashadha
Hindu Year 5102: Vikrama, the "Year of Fulfillment"

Gurudeva worshipping the fire on Sun One, last Saturday. Today we had a Publisher's Desk meeting to review the March/April Issue of Hinduism Today, and the January/February 2001 issue was sent off to the printer. In a new innovation, the publication teams sent all their digitil files to Missouri by the Internet, nearly 3 Gigabytes of data which took about 18 hours to transmit.

This phase we are enjoying the Skanda Shasti festival vibration, which is culminating with a grand homa/abhishekam early tomorrow morning. Lord Muruga's vibration is like scintillating electricity. Several visitors to the temple today asked why their ears were buzzing as they stood before the sanctum.

Title: Foot Touching: Who is an Adult, who's an Elder?
Category: Hinduism and Tradition
Duration: 3 min., 18 seconds
Date Given: September 7, 2000

Cybertalk: Today Gurudeva answers two questions from Sudir in Memphis Tennessee. First he asks why we would touch an elder's feet when the feet represent the chakras of lower consciousness. Gurudeva explains that one would not want to touch the feet of someone functioning in those states of consciousness, but that we touch the feet of those who have closed off those areas within themselves. Then Gurudeva responds to the practice in the Asian community of considering someone a child until age 30. Gurudeva's advice is strong and clear to the youth out there: at 17 you are a young adult and at 21 you are a full-fledged adult. Stand on your own two feet.

" For more information about listening to Gurudeva's talks online and to hear them in other formats, click here.

Do you have questions for Gurudeva? Send to questions@hindu.org.

Please note: Gurudeva only responds to questions from the general public on matters that are suitable for our public cyber audience. Personal or intimate questions sent to this address are not answered.

A detailed index of past inspired talks is available here.

Transcription of One of Gurudeva's CyberTalks
October_30_2000
Title: Head Filled with Light; the
Unknown Gods
Category: Meditation and Yoga
Duration: 2 min, 44 seconds
Date Given: September 7, 2000

We have a cyberspace question from webtv.net. From a cybercadet who sometimes feels the top of his head is not there and it's filled with expansive light and he's asking "is this superconsciousness?"

Yes, this is known as Satchidananda, a state that everyone on the planet should be in one time or another. Preferably everyday and yes, this is superconsciousness. But there's one great caution. When we have a high superconscious experience, especially if we do not have a strong philosophical foundation, there is a reaction of going that much the other way, into anger, into lust or disruptive areas of the mind. So I would like you to get a new book that's just been released, "How to Become a Hindu" and read it very carefully.

A question from a cyberspace cadet from Province, Connecticut, University Library, wants to know if some of the millions of Deities that aren't worship and aren't popular to Hindus of today, what is their function?

They work behind, what is mystically known as behind the veil. They're not known because they don't want to be known. Their duties are different than those who are popular and known. They are more in the background, facilitating many, many unseen things that make our lives go smoothly. And you ask about animal sacrifice in invoking the Deities, that is a form of worship that has been going on on the planet for hundreds and hundreds of years by people who live below the Muladhara chakra, in the instinctive world of anger, self preservation, jealously and the lower realms of consciousness to appease the asuric forces and even Lord Ganesha said in one of His letters, "that is a realm beyond My reach."

Acharya Ceyonswami has been performing the 9:00 am Siva Puja in Kadavul Hindu Temple this week. Here he performs the final rites of the bali peedam puja, offering rice to the elemental kingdom. Watching attentively was the Lien family, who came to Kauai for a visit and have been coming to the temple every day. Little Kirsten finds everything fascinating.

The final offering of rice, being given to the birds.

And then the final arati is done, looking Eastward, worshipping the Sun, invoking with gratitude the fullness of nature from which our lives are nurtured. The large stone bull is a replica of the famous Mysore Nandi. This wonderful image is the second largest such Nandi to be carved since ancient days.

Manjeri and Krishna Raman originally from Chennai now living in Savannah, Georgia, who came to Hawaii for a conference and heard about the temple. They are standing next to the beautifully carved Vimanam capstone of Iraivan Temple, that will one day be gold leafed.

After the 9:00 am Siva puja, Kulapati Deva Seyon and his wife Kulamata Amala are chatting with the Lien family about Hindu family life and positive discipline for the children.

An eleven acre site in Bangalore, India, where 75 Indian families live and daily carve the sacred white granite edifice of Iraivan Temple which will soon begin to be assembled on the island of Kauai

We have more outstanding photos documenting the Ayudhya--Vijaya Dasami celebrations at our carving site in Bangalore which we will run over a series of days.

Here is our driver, C. Devaraj, is doing puja to the carving site car.

This is the crane used for transporting the larger stones at the worksite. For the smaller stones, a forklift is there which belongs to us.

Here, a coconut is broken after the puja.

Gurudeva's other monastery in the island country of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean near South Africa

A bright young group of visitors from nearby Goodlands and Petite Raffray: Ravi, Prithviraj, Preeti, Vanessa, and little Sandhya and Ram.

Gunness Appavoo, on the right, first started to visit the Spiritual Park more than ten years ago, but then moved to France. During a visit to Mauritius, he once again came to the Spiritual Park with his cousin, Sachudah Veerasamy.

In France he and a friend keep in touch through receiving daily lessons which come by Email from Gurudeva. There are five different groups of lessons available, including lessons on mediation from "Merging with Siva", quotations from the Vedas translated into English, and English translations from the South Indian ethical classic, the Tirukkural. You can subscribe to this free service too, by sending an email to listmaster@hindu.org What an uplifting way to start the day!

Even though it is still spring here in Mauritius, the intense tropical summer heat has begun, and every day we struggle to water more than three thousand trees and shrubs by hand. We have been tracking the storm shown here as it came in from the Atlantic Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in Africa then slid up past Madascar. It brought a break from several weeks of bright blue skys, with light showers last night and this morning, but only a slight respite in the upcoming summer heat. Jain Irrigation, from India, has offered to install a drip irrigation and sprinkler system for Mauritius Rs. 100,000 (Only US$ 4,000.) Should some inspired soul like to contribute to this watering system, they can contact us at SPark@hindu.org.

"How to Become A Hindu"! Gurudeva's latest book release is now available Hot Off the Press! Visit the Himalayan Academy Book Store Web Site get the book and read the incredible testimonies of the early pioneers from the west who chose to make a full and complete conversion to Hinduism, legally change both their first and last names to Hindu names, change their lifestyles, sever their formal connections to previous faiths and joyously face the challenges in joining the tribe of the Sanatana Dharma

Visiting Kauai's Hindu Monastery
If you are planning to visit Kauai, please go first to our our visitor's page. Thank you.

INNERSEARCH EUROPE 2001

12 Glorious Days, 8 Enchanting Countries and One Chance in a Lifetime!

Join Gurudeva for Himalayan Academy's 17th travel-study program, the 2001 European Innersearch, themed the "Hinduism Today Adventure".

Go to www.innersearch.org and for more detailed information, please contact Sadhaka Dandapani. Space is limited and filling up fast!

Very Important: Please include your mailing address and telephone number in the body of your message. We will keep you posted as the program develops.

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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 last forever; they're not a one-time gift. So gifts to this fund have 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, traveled with him or just talked with him over the years. A contribution to this fund is tax-deductible.

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