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Gurudeva writes in Living with Siva:

"Many people are afraid to do puja, specific, traditional rites of worship, because they feel they don't have enough training or don't understand the mystical principles behind it well enough. To this concern I would say that the priesthood in Hinduism is sincere, devout and dedicated. Most Hindus depend on the priests to perform the pujas and sacraments for them, or to train them to perform home puja and give them permission to do so through initiation, called diksha. However, simple pujas may be performed by anyone wishing to invoke grace from God, Mahadevas and devas.

"Love and dedication and the outpouring from the highest chakras of spiritual energies of the lay devotee are often greater than any professional priest could summon within himself. Devotees of this caliber have come up in Hindu society throughout the ages with natural powers to invoke the Gods and manifest in the lives of temple devotees many wondrous miracles."

The first annual Mahasamadhi observance souvenir is in the works with many beautiful photos of Gurudeva.

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				Live Web Cam Pix!

Our team has searched through thousands of photos, finding just the right ones for the booklet.

Acharya Kumarswami is usually 100% a word smith... working continuously on formatting and typesetting the text for our printed books. Here he takes a turn at photo selection for the creation of the souvenir booklet.

That's all for today... a quiet day in paradise with water everywhere!

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Date: September_18_2002
Title: Jivana Ritau Focuses
Category: Yamas and Niyamas
Duration: 2 min., 35 seconds
Date Given: August 24, 2002
Given by: Bodhinatha

As we talked about last phase, we are in the Jivana ritau and Gurudeva's ritau and he would pull out 'Living with Siva' and find a few sutras and start scolding everyone. Of course, we are not going to do that this year. But , the spirit of the ritau is to try and look and see if there are areas that we are weak in and areas we have slacked off in terms of 'Living with Siva'. You will have to scold yourself this year! If you can find any areas, then it is appropriate to try and upgrade. Just do a little better.

It fits into the 'Yama and Niyama' concept. The yamas and niyamas talks we gave a number of months ago, are now getting posted on the web in transcription form. We are starting to get some e-mails in from those that don't listen to the talks but read them. Very appreciative e-mails on the yamas and niyamas. One statement that came in struck me. They liked the idea, that the yamas and niyamas are ideals we are striving for and if we fall short, that is alright. Of course, it is the way Gurudeva states it.

The person liked that because they know they have fallen short, and said, "Oh, okay. It is all right to fall short. I feel better about myself already." That was kind of the message that was being said, without being said.

"Oh, it is great to read this because we don't want to get stuck in the concept we have fallen short. This is terrible. I am an unworthy person, everybody else is better than me," or something.

That is missing the point. If we fall short, we want to try again and try to do better. That is the ideal of the yamas and niyamas, it is the ideal. You keep trying to do better in manifesting the ideal. But if and when we do fall short of the ideal, we don't want to blame ourself or feel badly about what has happened. We want impress ourselves that we have fallen short, try and figure out how not to repeat that and how to do a little better in manifesting each of the yamas and niyamas.

Have a wonderful phase.

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MORE UPLIFTING THINGS		Innersearch 2003-4 in India! We just completed the July 17-23 Kauai Innersearch, 2002. Bodhinatha will lead the next Innersearch to India, between Dec 2003 and Jan 2004. We will visit Bangalore and the Iraivan Carving Village, and settle in the South in Tamil Nadu, Click on the above for details on what will be an inspiring journey to our holy land of Bharat!
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