Blog Archives
February 28, 2001 
Gurudeva sits with his "email secretary" Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami (right) and also with the talaivar of the Pilliyar Kulam, Sannyasin Skandanathaswami (who handles business, book sales, Hinduism Today subscriptions and distribution.) going over the details of the day and the 100's of emails that people send to him. Gurudeva works personally with the karma and spiritual unfoldment of each of his sishya worldwide... those that have made serious commitments and are prepared to follow the life of dharma he expects.
No new audio today, so take a stroll through the fantastic audio archives:
A detailed index of past inspired talks is available here.
Gurudeva 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 Sivadevanathaswami
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.
transcription begins
Transcription of One of Gurudeva's CyberTalks
Date: February_20_2001
Title: Arthur Pacheco interviews Gurudeva Part 8
Category: The Guru
Duration: 3 min., 11 seconds
Date Given: January 27, 2001
Arthur: Gurudeva, I had written down one thing that I didn't want to forget. It is one of the last points that I am going to be bringing up here. It has to do with the milk-drinking miracle that Lord Ganesha accomplished some years back. Could you possibly comment on that? I am sure most people that are listening don't know about it at all.
Gurudeva: Well, as you know, Lord Ganesha is the Hawaiian God Lono and is a popular Asian God, through Japan with the Buddhists and Shintos, to the Hindus and all the Asian religions. He is very, very close to the earth. He lives within the muladhara chakra, within each and everyone. That is His point of communication with us. We were writing a book, a beautiful book called 'Merging with Siva'. All of a sudden, in the middle of the book Lord Ganesha interrupted and said, "I want a book for me." So we stopped and did a beautiful book for Lord Ganesha, and He helped us with it, called 'Loving Ganesha'. It is a really lovely book, it sells all over the world. It is printed in India, Malaysia and the United States. It is all about Ganesha, all of His images, prayers, songs and so forth and how to get in touch with Him. So what happened was, at the end of the book, just when we finished it and were publicizing it, Lord Ganesha started drinking milk in New Delhi and drank all the milk in New Delhi. We thought, "My goodness! He is doing the PR work for our book." Everybody started thinking about it. He drank all the milk in London. This means that you hold up a cup of milk or a spoon of milk to a stone image or a brass image of Ganesha and it would disappear right into the image. Gallons and gallons and gallons of milk.
Arthur: Amazing!
Gurudeva: So we have in the book, newspaper articles, excerpts that we collected up from Denmark, Sweden, Italy, England, India, Sri Lanka, Canada and all through the United States about the milk-drinking miracle. Scientists gave up even trying to explain it. Why can you not explain a miracle? Because if you could, it wouldn't be a miracle. It would be an ordinary happening, it could be explained. So He showed the world that He is very immediate. He showed the world that He is right there within you. You can contact Him just by thinking of His beautiful elephant head on a big, fat body. Why did He choose to look like that? He is the God of Wisdom. He didn't want to look like any of the other Gods or Goddesses.
transcription ends
Sannyasin Arumugaswami, managing editor of Hinduism Today leans back to take a break after an intense closing week of the May-June issue of Hinduism Today. All the editorial work and proofreading have been completed and the files turned over to our production manager to send to the printer.
This issue proves to be another fantastic issue with a really exciting photo documentary of the Kumbha Mela, including photos from space and the rarely-seen-in-print "royal parade" of the sadhus on the front cover. Our intrepid reporter Rajiv Malik and photographer Amit Kumar were at the Mela to get lots of first hand interviews with the great spiritual leaders of the day. It was a very tough assignment but they both did a great job.
Printed "proofs" will be sent by courier tomorrow, a quarter a way 'round the world, to Libetry, Missouri to Banta Publications, one of the finest printers in the USA. Their Missouri plant is on the cutting edge of the digital printing industry. And Hinduism Today was one of the first publications to go 100 percent digital two years ago.
Tonight we will start transferring the digital files to Missouri over the internet. It will take about 15 hours of uninterrupted transfer time over our T1 line to send about 3 Gigabytes of data comprising the entire issue.
Lovely couple from Texas, Savitha and Jaja Krishna Vaidyanatha, with their son Abhimanyu.
Abhimanyu is almost five years old physically, but has the mind of a ten year old.
This wonderful sketch of the statue of Dakshinamurthy arrived from India. The final statue will be about 12 feet tall. The base will depict the "Swayambhu" (Self-Born) Siva lingam that Gurudeva found on the land after a vision of Lord Siva walking the land. This murthi will go directly north of the Iraivan Temple, under a banyan tree.
Meanwhile the stone for the above statue has been selected, giving you a small idea of the massive carving about to be undertaken.
Gurudeva's other monastery in the island country of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean near South Africa
The early morning of Sun 5 in our monastic calendar we worship Shanmuga. He is another giant statue commissioned by Gurudeva, similar in size to the one of Lord Siva mentioned above that is being made for Kauai.
"Let us meditate upon Him, the Supreme General of the great deva army. May He enlighten us and lead us to be one with Him, Lord Skanda." Shanmukha Gayatri
Gurudeva's creative vision to help preserve our religious culture though these huge images has manifest and is a great inspiration to Hindus everywhere.
Sadhaka Adinatha stands behind one of the young Ashoka trees. He has his hand above the tallest branch. The frequent summer rain has prompted lots of new growth on all the trees in the park. This particular tree is commonly found lining the avenues in Bangalore. It becomes quite large, with impressive drooping branches.
Iswar Gungaram, left with his wife, sister and Mom. They are visiting from Petit Raffray, about 5 miles up the coast. After worshipping Ganesha, mom foundsome Noni leaves (called Tortue in Mauritius) which will give relief from arthritis pain. Just boil the leaves and apply them externally as a poultice on the painful spot, is what she tells us. This same technique is said to be equally good for skin problems.
Christian and Elke Michalke with baby Nils posing in front of Siva Dakshinamurthi. They are visiting Mauritius from Hamburg, Germany. They've been many times to India and were delighted to hear about the Spiritual Park from a friendly shopkeeper in Flacq. They look forward to receiving details by email about Gurudeva's Germany visit during the Northern European Innersearch cruise this upcoming August.
How about that? We're speaking about the upcoming innersearch again. Here's another aspect of the cruise. Picture yourself in this group having a daily class with Gurudeva in our own private lounge aboard Holland America's newest cruise liner, the MS Amsterdam. See below for more information on this "once in a lifetime" kind of event.
|
12 Glorious Days, 8 Enchanting Countries and One Chance in a Lifetime! Imagine spending 12 days with one of the greatest spiritual leaders of this century. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami will be leading this exotic educational and spiritual voyage himself combining the mystical path of Indian spirituality with a superlative retreat from it all. Take advantage of this one chance to be in close proximity with a living master. Come with us on an inner and outer voyage to Northern Europe and Russia. www.innersearch.org
|