Satguru Siva Yogaswami
Jaffna, Sri Lanka
Satguru Sivaya
Subramuniyaswami
Hawaii, USA
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Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Kauai's Hindu Monastery, USA
June 5: Uttarashadha until 3:19AM Sun HST
June 6: Sravana until 2:25AM Mon HST
Hindu Year 5106: Tarana, the "Year of Safe Passage" -- Site Map --
"If all the temples were destroyed, the gurus would come forth and rebuild them. If all the scriptures were destroyed, the rishis would reincarnate and rewrite them. If all the gurus, swamis, rishis, sadhus, saints and sages were systematically destroyed, they would take births here and there around the globe and continue as if nothing had ever happened. So secure is the Eternal Truth on the planet, so unshakable, that it forges ahead undaunted through the mouths of many. It forges ahead undaunted through the temples' open doors. It forges ahead undaunted in scriptures now lodged in nearly every library in the world. It forges ahead undaunted, mystically hidden from the unworthy, revealed only to the worthy, who restrain themselves by observing some or all of the yamas and who practice a few niyamas."
--Gurudeva
Bodhinatha arrived this afternoon after a very long journey all the way from Washington, D.C.
Bodhinatha's next travel is to Vancouver and Edmonton, Canada. Please visit his travel page for more information.
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Click for most recent TAKA page with an Iraivan Temple progress update. |
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All the monks greet him on the way in...
Sadhaka Nilakantha blows the conch.
Bodhinatha told us a few minutes later in the temple: "All the goals of our mission were met, thanks to careful advanced planning and execution."
Arati at the temple entrance...
"We were impressed by many things. In Atlanta and Bethesda, the caliber of the priests was very high."
Jai Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswamiki Jai!
Ganesha Arati in Kadavul for the arriving mission team.
"The Sanskrit chanting at the ceremonies of the opening of the eye of the Deity was very powerful. It's something you don't expect in America... "
We will bring you more in the days to come as Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami downloads photos from the journey.
The morning was the opening of a new phase... our monks chanting Sri Rudram in the temple during the homa.
Paramacharya Palaniswami presides at the homa, burning all the prayers...
The wooden sandals on Bodhinatha's seat.
The Mukherjee family from North Carolina attended our 6am homa today. They said it has been their dream for the last 4 years to come to Kauai to visit the Aadheenam and are so happy that it has finally come true. They toured Iraivan, the grounds and also the Hinduism Today office and asked a lot of wonderful questions on how to progress further on the spiritual path.
Mr. & Mrs. Raj & Christiane Krishnasami from New York. This is their third visit to the monastery.
Our three-day retreat was filled with many interesting activities. The second day was silpi outing day and we took them to the "Doty Farm," which is a wonderful estate with hardwood trees and many unusual landscaping features and decorations. The remarkable place is open for visitors.
These metal European style statues can be found here and there... Kumar takes his picture with one of them.
Sthapati relaxes in an arbor swing.
This is called "Three Generations" a sculpture of an older man seated with his grandson on a bench and his son standing behind them.
We were treated royally by the Doty family.
This one is a series of kids playing on a log.
The silpis have never seen this kind of art work as all the sculptures and carving in India are based on religious themes. It was something unusual for them to see these "real life" scenes in metal form.
The pieces were certainly remarkably well-crafted and the silpis could appreciate the artist and craftsmen who did them.
Chinnu...
Another wonderful day off for recreation on Kauai for our great team of silpis!
Today's Inspired Talk | |
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Title: Muruga, The God of Yoga and the Spiritual Path, Part 3
Category: God and Lords of Dharma Duration: 10 minutes 49 seconds Date Given: May 20, 2004 Date Posted: June_05_2004 Given by: Bodhinatha |
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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.
| FULL INDEX OF 650+ CYBERTALKS  |
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Date: April_08_2004
Title: Siva Is More Than Just the Destroyer
Category: God and Lords of Dharma
Duration: 9 min., 28 seconds
Date Given: March 30, 2004
Given by: Bodhinatha
I am starting to prepare some talks for a trip to Atlanta, which is in about two months. The Hindu temple of Atlanta is inaugurating a Siva temple and invited us to go there, be the guests and give a talk. This is on Memorial Day weekend. They already have a Balaji temple, a Vaishnava temple. They acquired an additional six acres and last year started building a totally separate Siva temple. An interesting pattern following the expression of this idea of having totally separate buildings for a temple that is of the Vaishnava tradition and a temple of the Saiva tradition. I think, it is probably the largest scale. It is done in a smaller way in a number of temples. They have the main temple as a Vaishnava temple and then they have a separate smaller temple for Siva, in a number of places like in Southern California. This must be a distance, six acres of land contains the Siva temple. It sets a nice precedent having totally separate buildings for these two traditions.
As many of you know, Gurudeva was very concerned about this phenomenon in the US of sticking Siva and Vishnu in the same temple, which is unheard of in India. If the central deity is Siva, it is a Saivite temple. If the central deity is Vishnu, it is a Vaishnavite temple. So it is in India. But in the US, in order to accommodate the interest of both groups and accommodate the financial ability of the temple, they put them both into one building.
Gurudeva felt this was very confusing. So, I am sure he is quite happy to see this being done in Atlanta, in such a nice way.
I am in the midst of preparing four talks. They are asking me to give one talk on each of the four days, a half hour talk. I going to give a portion of one, the second. I am trying to in each talk address three separate topics, so there is a certain amount of variety.
One is something about Saivism and Siva, that I am sure they are expecting. Another one is something about Hinduism in general, which stresses some great aspect of Hinduism, why Hinduism is such a great and wise religion. Then the third area is some practical suggestions, something you can actually take home with you and do, because that is always important too, to bring it down to earth in a practical way.
This talk is based upon a talk I gave in Mauritius. So it is going to sound familiar to some of you. But it is a good talk and the reason for the talk on the nature of Lord Siva, is that sometimes when people explain Lord Siva they come up with some pretty strange explanations. So this is trying to put forth the traditional Saivite explanation of Siva in a way that is easy to remember.
The first topic for today's talk is the nature of Lord Siva. There are some who say that Lord Siva is the Destroyer, also known as Rudra, that Brahma is the Creator and Vishnu is the Preserver and that Hindus believe in a trinity of three separate Gods.
This, of course, is not an accurate understanding. To understand Lord Siva it is helpful to refer to the fact that Hinduism has four major denominations or divisions - Saivism, Saktism, Smartism, Vaishnavism. Each calls the Supreme Being by a different name. To Saivites, the Supreme is called Siva. Saktas refer to the Supreme as Sakti. Smartas call the Supreme Being, Brahman and to Vaishnavites, He is Vishnu. However, the important point is that each is worshiping the same Supreme Being. The name is different, the tradition is different but it is the same Supreme Being that is being worshipped by all Hindus. Lord Siva, therefore, as the Supreme Being performs all three functions - creation, preservation and destruction. In addition to these three actions, He also performs two more actions which relate specifically to the soul.
The fourth action is that He hides Himself from us, though He pervades the entire Universe. Though He is within us, we cannot see Him. This is called His Veiling Grace. This is like both the mother and father playing hide and seek with their child. The game begins by the child not being able to find them.
The fifth action is that Lord Siva eventually shows Himself to us. This is called His Revealing Grace. Of course, this is like the child after much searching successfully finding his mother and father.
Each of these five actions of God Siva has a name. Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, Rudra the destroyer, Mahesvara the veiling Lord and Sadasiva the revealing Lord. These five actions are also refered to often in the chants of the Siva puja by another set of five names. Sadyojata the creator, Vamadeva the preserver, Agora the destroyer, Tatpurusa the veiler and Isana the revealer.
An effective way to explain the nature of Lord Siva to someone who is not familiar with it, is by showing the person the murthi of Nataraja, the Lord of Dance. For in it, the symbolism of all five actions is clearly present.
Sristi - Creation or emanation is presented by His upper right hand holding the damaru, the drum upon which He beats paranada the primal sound from which issue forth the rhythms and cycles of creation.
Sthiti - Preservation is represented by His lower right hand in a gesture of blessing abhaya mudra, saying 'fear not'.
Samhara - Destruction, dissolution or absorption is represented by the fire in His upper left hand posed in ardachandra mudra, half moon gesture.
Tirobhava - Obscuring grace, the power which hides the truth there by permitting experience, growth and eventual fulfillment of destiny, is represented by His right foot upon the prostrate person, Apasmarapurusha the principle of ignorance or anava.
Anugraha - Revealing grace which grants knowledge and severs the soul's bonds is represented by Siva's raised left foot and by His lower left hand, held in gajahasta or elephant trunk mudra, inviting approach.
Another approach to understanding God Siva's nature is to think of Him as the parent and yourself as the child. As parent, He is both father and mother to you. God Siva is your parent because He created your soul. He is the Primal or Original Soul who has created all other souls.
In fact, God Siva is the perfect parent because no matter what we do, Siva always sends blessings and love to us. When we make mistakes, He never becomes angry with us or punishes us. He continues to love and bless us no matter what. God Siva's love is perfect love, meaning it exists at all times for all souls.
The goal of Hinduism is like the goal in the game of hide and seek. God has hidden Himself from us and if we keep searching diligently, we will eventually find Him. In finding God, we also find Siva's perfect love and experience it for ourselves.
There is a famous verse in the scripture Tirumantiram on this point. It states: "The ignorant foolishly say that love and Siva are two. But none of them knows that love alone is Siva. When men know that love and Siva are the same, love as Siva they ever remain."
Thank you!
| MORE UPLIFTING THINGS |
Color Trilogy Complete! We are happy to announce that the new edition of the enormously popular Dancing with Siva is now available in hard back with all new color artwork. It's truly an amazing and beautiful work, with more art than any of the collection. This completes the fulfillment of the vision that Gurudeva had of his Master Course Trilogy being produced in full color. In addition, Bodhinatha is taking pro-active steps to bring Gurudeva's teachings out in a new forms that can be broadly disseminated in the mass mind. With this in mind we, are also pleased to announce that the Dancing with Siva pocketbook is also available. Keep the three-pound book in your shrine room, and take the little one with you on the airplane or subway! How little? It's just 3" by 4.5" -- truly pocket-sized, and just over half an inch thick. Yet it is a full 375 pages, containing ALL of the 155 sutras. Available now at our online store. The complete Trilogy is being offered at a discount. |
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