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Gurudeva with a group of devotees at the beach on Kauai. The coming Himalayan Academy Innersearch Travel Study Program to India with Bodhinatha is shaping up really well. As it turns out we have over 70 participants and seven or more monastics will be going as staff. With over 80 total, this will be the biggest Innersearch of all time! Gurudeva must be so happy watching all this from the inner planes. What a great satsang this will be... to go to our holy land with Bodhinatha, the swamis and other monks with a group of one-minded people all focused on spiritual transformation! Such an event is a rare and precious opportunity. Don't hesitate. Because of the recent "rush" to join, we've had to get another bus and so now we have another 15 seats open... But they could sell out soon. Please come with us to India! Click for more info.

Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
Click to read for Details.

We are pleased to announce the web release of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's monumental work on Hindu culture and lifestyle:
Living with Siva.
Click here for the entire text and artwork, now on-line!

Bodhinatha gives a talk in the temple. By the way, yesterday we started putting up a five part series of audio from Bodhinatha's classes given here during Gurudeva's Maha Samadhi Observances. These classes on "Self-Improvement, Tools and Techniques" in five parts got rave reviews from participants.

Bodhinatha's Sun One Video. Most Recent update: September 12, 2003. Bodhinatha speaks on Ahimsa, noninjury, yama #1, which is noninjury in thought, word and deed. The law of karma decrees that it is wise not to harm or hurt others, for we will then receive harm and hurt in exchange in the future. 12 minutes, 29 seconds.

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Meanwhile another one of Bodhinatha's initiatives is manifesting: bringing Gurudeva's teachings to the masses in "digestible" formats. Here is the cover proof for "Yogas's Forgotten Foundation" which are the Yamas and Niyamas, taken for the most part from Living with Siva and recast into a smaller book format. Only 280 pages or so, just 3/8's of an inche thick, with cover... one of the first books we have done in a long time that weighs less than half a pound.

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The blue line proofs have arrived from Sampurna publications in Malaysia. Yogi Japendranatha is our book print production manager who handles the final stages of the book preparation and communications with the printer.

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We look forward to this being a great new addition to the out front public offerings from Himalayan Academy Publications.

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Meanwhile, since are in the area of publications... here is Acharya Kumarswami working on a new font for Hinduism Today. Please forgive us for this adventure into publications typography "nerd land"... if you don't know what we are talking about, no problem... all that matters is... Hinduism Today will have a classier look and be easier to read....

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In 1996, when we switched to the color magazine format, Kumarswami took the then well known "New Caledonia" font, which we purchased and tweaked it for our use in the then powerful program called "Fontgrapher." This involved many, many hours fine-tuning the shape of every single letter and also setting up the precise "kerning pairs" --this is all possible two letter combinations with a mathematical definition of the distance between the two letters. We named the new font:"AQuantumLeap" indicative of the upgrade from a newspaper/tabloid format to a color magazine.

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Digitial fontography has evolved a lot in the last 8 years and with the advent of Open Type fonts and Unicode, Mac OS X and Adobe Indesign, we recently had the opportunity for a major upgrade, but our font was not an Open Type font.

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So Kumarswami is moving all the characters from our old AQuantumLeap font, into the latest New Caledonia Open Type font matrix, fine tuning the font weights again. After years of living with the other one, we have a good sense of how to make it better. In some cases, our old AQuantumleap was a little "thin" and some ligatures needed a bit more weight. Here he is tweaking very precisely the shape of a lower-case letter "e". The new font will be named "Agama."

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Speaking of fonts, another digital type wizard who is a fan of our web sites, Mark Riffle of Ohio, was inspired by our Sacred Aums web page to make an Aum font from our designs, as a gift to us in thanks for all of the monastery's work and service. We are offering this to all TAKA visitors. Think of it as a gift from Gurudeva to you on your computer, for as we all recalled during his Maha Samadhi observances, none of this would exist without him. The above is a font chart mark made of what's on the font. And you can get the font from our site. Click here (opens new window), and download "Aum.ttf.zip" to your computer. Decompress and install. Note, this is a Windows True Type font, but will also work just fine on a Mac in OSX.

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Our publications saga continues. Following shortly after the complete of the Island Temple magazine our team went right ahead and completed the next, January-February-March edition of Hinduism Today. It has a fantastic 30-page article on the Nasik Kumbha Mela, among many other wonderful stories... and all files now are in Adobe's new InDesign format, allowing for a lot more lovely page layouts.

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Our previous coverage of Kumbha Melas were hailed by many as the best media coverage of these great events by any publication in the world. Again we are proud that we were able to send our own correspondent, Rajiv Malik and photographer, Devraj Agarwal, to cover the event, and what a great job the did once again... don't miss it when it comes out. Subscribe to Hinduism Today, Today!

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The Remarkable Vision	Iraivan Temple Progress Update	Join this historic undertaking. Please contribute generously. Sponsor a stone today! Monthly Report Sponsor a stone Iraivan Wonders
	Order Rudraksha Malas from Siva's sacred Hawaiian groves; and also single rudraksha beads ready to put on a chain around your neck. Great for Gifts! All proceeds go to the building fund.
Current Overview

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We've been having classic Kauai weather of late, a regular round of showers and sun, showers and sun. At the Iraivan Temple site, the issue dealing with water that will be falling on a temple for over 1000 years poses significant challenges for our team.

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The vimanam tower over the temple's main sanctum continues the structural form of an inner and outer wall.

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Our team, after a great deal of work on the ground re-finishing stones to the perfect dimension... has almost completed the 18th course.

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More stones awaiting their trip aloft....

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This is classic... rain drenched Iraivan after a brief but torrential shower.

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The vimanam, more than any other part of the temple, will be very exposed to extreme changes of weather... in a week or so, it may be hammered with rains, bringing the humidity and water content density in the materials between the inner and outer walls to 100% moisture saturation. Only to be follow by a week of hot tropical sun.

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After much deliberation, traditional red clay bricks were chosen to fill the space between the walls.

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These bricks absorb moisture and then release it, allowing the vimanam to "breath" along with the ebb and flow of the natural forces.

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The silpis have to hand insert and pack every single brick into this space... a time consuming job.

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After much discussion, again, simple traditional materials (low-fired red bricks are used in temple roofs in India) were the material of choice.

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Today's Inspired Talk
Title: Putting Gurudeva's Teachings to the Best Use, Part 2 Category: Self Improvement Duration: 6 minutes 58 seconds Date Given: October 23, 2003 Date Posted: November_05_2003 Given by: Bodhinatha

Cybertalk: Bodhinatha continues his Gurudeva mahasamadhi observances class with this part on how Gurudeva continues to influence us by his teachings. All who continue to put into practice the teachings he gave us, he continues to live through that. One of the hardest things to do is to receive a set of teachings and follow them. Next, Gurudeva continues to live through the core mission activities. The core is the monastery and the monks. He documented very well how we the monks, initiated members and students should live. Exercise - Take a look at the personal advice you may have received from Gurudeva. Are you putting it all into practice, or are you neglecting to follow some of it?

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

And click here for an Index to All Past CyberTalks.

Study Gurudeva's teachings
every day. Visit the Master Course site!

Bodhinatha will be happy to hold "Prasnottara Satsang" -- "Questions and Answers" over the telephone with any Hindu religious societies, Hindu youth groups, Radio talk show hosts etc. All you need is a phone with a speaker and an enthusiastic audience. Arrangements may be made in advance by sending email to Sannyasin Saravananathaswami

If you are experiencing any problems listening to the audio, please to go our Audio FAQ page and follow the directions there.

MORE UPLIFTING THINGS		2004 Indian Odyssey Join Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami on an 18 day Innersearch to South India, from Jan 19 to Feb 5, as we pilgrimage to ancient monasteries, magnificent 1,000 plus year old sacred temples and meet with India's holy men in a life-transforming adventure. Click on the above link for more details.
	Check our children and youth section for new items for the young and young at heart!
1. SIGN OUR GUESTBOOK and receive a FREE GIFT
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