Tour Day At The Monastery

Today we host our last group tour before our two week long retreat period of Sadhu Paksha begins.

Our Malaysian pilgrims Valluvan, Thilagarani and Kayshana join the Ganapati Kulam for their morning meeting.

Ganesha appears in mango wood.

The start of a great loaf of bread.

The cats enjoy the brisk morning air as the monastery comes to life for the day.

Our tour group receives a dynamic introduction to the monastery and an overview of the many teachings of hinduism.

Excitement builds as we get closer to the temple worksite.

Swami gives a talk about the construction taking place and afterwards the silpi\

s give a few demonstrations. One of the things the silpi\'s demonstrated was how when they move stones they use only metal rods and they sing a song in order to create a unified sense of rhythm. '

I talked with a kind soul about this interesting staff and what it represents. He follows the Mayan tradition and we talked of the many similarities between the Mayan and Hindu cultures and their teachings. This staff was given to him by his teacher who initiated him with a swift kick on the backside, a similar fashion to how Gurudeva was initiated by Yogaswami with a slap on his back.

Freshly washed stones.

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