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Today Bodhinatha gave his usual pragmatic talk on the spiritual work we should focus on during the Moksha Ritau. He explained that many people look at spiritual striving for liberation as something that only monks do. But he said that we can look at it differently, look at the Moksha Ritau as the time to look within, to focus on the inside of yourself. During the Jivana Ritau we are looking out, at our culture.... but during the Moksha Ritau it is a good time to examine how much control we have over our emotions... do we live all day long reacting to external events? Or are we able to be happy on the inside, regardless of external events... He also talked about Self-Realization and harmony in the home as this was the first day of Pancha Ganapati. Stay tuned for the audio, the transcript and, yes, the video of his talk which we plan to post in it's entirety in a day or so.

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Sun One Homa, it is a deeply inner time of year, known in Tamil as Markali, also the time of the winter solstice when the sun changes it's directions.

Aum Nama Sivaya!

Bodhinatha gave an elucidation of Gurudeva's statement "You are already that which you seek," explaining in a potent simple way the idea that the Self is not something to become, you are already that!

A group of engineers from Honolulu came over to visit the temple.

Sadhaka Jivanandanatha at his PC, one of only two Windows machines on our property, that we are forced to use for accounting software. We are a bit fanatic about using only Apple MacIntosh computers here, and Sadhaka himself was a leader in the Mac only clan, he says after using this Windows machine, it only confirmed his original vision that Mac should rule the universe. The real meaning of "DHARMA" as everyone knows is "Drive Hinduism forwArd through Required Macintosh Acquisition."

He hopes one day to be able to run the same programs on Macs...

Over the recent retreat Sadhaka spearheaded the planting of fruit trees on our Himalayan Acres across the river from the Aadheenam. Then he prayed for rain.

Our three day retreat was packed full of adventure and seva. The first day was Iraivan day and all hands were on deck to continue the year end mailing.

Today's efforts focused on finishing up all the foreign pieces.

Also under advance preparation here are the annual archanas for the month of January, 2003, over 100 of them. These are prepared in advance and then every morning the Lambodara Kulam takes the day's archanas to the temple. Most of them are annual birthday archanas, some wedding anniversaries and a few moksha archanas for loved ones who have moved on to the Devaloka.

Helping with the mailing are Kulapati and Kulamata Deva and Tara Katir.

Tara sends her greetings out to all the other sishya of Saiva Siddhanta Church around the world.

In the Guru Peedam room, we keep this small beautiful statue of Siva Yogaswami. In the shrine we have the stainless steel cup he used every day for his morning tea and his small towel.

This is Sannyasin Yoginathaswami, Talaivar of the Siddhidata Kulam who has been doing a splendid job with keeping everything organized and developing in that kulam's area of service. He's always a bright and happy soul.

Here he is working the Bob Cat at the Iraivan temple.

The flag of Hindutva waves smartly in the brisk breeze. It was dry and sunny yesterday and this morning, but, no doubt Lord Ganesha heard Sadhaka Jivanandanatha's prayers and this strong wind from the west drove needed rains over the Waialeale mountain. It was only a few hours later and the distant showers engulfed the new orchard plantings and the Aadheenam.

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Iraivan as we approach from the Aadheenam. Much advance planning is underway. Kulapati Jiva Rajasankara informs us that some of the special work to be done on the windows and lattice work of the three small Gopurams on the edge of the temple will take as many as 3,000 man days. So the issue now is if we will be able to keep the silpis here on Kauai busy in the months ahead.

Iraivan from the North end.

So, if a carving project will take 3,000 man days, and 5 carvers work on that one piece, they will finish in 600 days, or just under two years.

In the distance we see the 'patrai" or black smith forge, under the banyan tree. This will be moved soon and the area will be dedicated to the giant Dakshinamurthy statue.

Our team at work...

Here is an example of a piece that took years to complete. The capstone of the temple.

Shanmuga Sthapati, ever watching, ever planning, looking far into the future to see what must happen today and what must happen in the days and months ahead. He has already picked out men he wants on the next team to come over from India. The current team is made up of ornamental carvers, on the next team he has asked for some men who are familiar with managing giant stones as we proceed toward raising pillars and installing roof beams.

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Date: November_21_2002
Title: Malaysia Conference
Category: Travels, Pilgrimage and Missions Abroad
Duration: 7 min., 56 seconds
Date Given: November 6, 2002
Given by: Bodhinatha

It is a wonderful vibration this morning. I thought twice about speaking English, here comes the English! Anyway, moving into English, another wonderful bliss of our homa.

As most of you know, when we stopped in Malaysia on our way back from Mauritius, we met with the President of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam, Vaithilingam. He invited us to come back to Malaysia to be one of the speakers at an event that the Hindu Sangam is arranging, that they are calling a Hindu Renaissance event, which is scheduled for January 26th.

January 26th sounds like a long time away, two and a half months. Lots of time to prepare. Well, they sent a little e-mail yesterday, could you please send a copy of your talk so we can get you a Visa? So all of a sudden, my two and a half months of preparation vanished and I have about two days instead! I thought I would share some thoughts this morning in terms of initial thoughts on this area and help get some feedback and ideas from all of you. Just your sitting there and thinking about what I say, gives me ideas.

Malaysia Hindu Sangam is concerned about a very specific problem, fraudulent Evangelical conversion. The President very carefully distinguished between the Christian groups in Malaysia which the Malaysia Hindu Sangam gets along with very well, has respect for, such as the Catholic groups, the mainstream groups like Presbyterians and so forth. They respect the Malaysia Hindu Sangam in return.

It is only this one particular area of Christianity that they are concerned about and specifically it is some very charismatic, evangelical preachers who are coming from India. (and) They are holding big rallies and going around to the various cities in Malaysia. If you watch carefully in all the different towns every night the same person, the same blind person gets his sight back. It is the same person every night, somehow he becomes blind the next morning and is cured again the following night. That is not a very good cure! Anyway, I am just joking. The person, of course, is not blind in the first place. He is just pretending to be blind and pretending to be healed. Likewise with people that are crippled and so forth. They are not really getting healed but it is part of the presentation and it is winning over some converts from Hinduism.

Rather than have an anti-conversion rally, we are having a Hindu Renaissance rally. I was thinking about an analogy which I will try and develop. It is not in the pot yet. An analogy of prevention versus cure. In medicine, of course, we try and strengthen the immune system, take our vitamin C, take our echinacea when the cold season comes around. We try and prevent ourselves from getting the cold or flu in the first place. The other approach is you just wait until you get it and then you have to cure it.

So they are taking the prevention approach. Maybe we can strengthen something in the first place so the problem does not occur. That is the reason they are focusing on Hindu Renaissance.

Very interesting timing! In Tamil Nadu, an anti-conversion bill was passed just a few days ago. The legislature of Tamil Nadu passed a bill against conversion. Specifically to read our own HPI says, "Chief Minister Jayalalitha, commenting on the legislation, said that it was not directed against any particular religion or minorities. There was no provision under the India Penal Code to prevent conversions and therefore the government felt the need for a legislation to curb conversions through "force and allurement."

Those are the key words, "force and allurement." Such as, getting money. Or getting privileges that you do not have, such as schools or hospitals. Getting access to those kinds of things which you do not have now. But, if you become of that religion, all of a sudden you have these privileges or allurements . "Those changing religion on their own volition will not be covered under this legislation."

So, as part of the preparation for this talk I was looking through our best resource of course, regarding conversion, which is 'How to Become a Hindu' and I happened to come across the statement that Gurudeva made in the book, which I had forgotten about. It says, "In India today, the problems of forced or deceitful conversions are so prevalent that the government is trying to pass a law to prohibit such tactics, like the laws that already exist in Nepal. We hope this legislation is passed not only in India but wherever similar problems exist."

Gurudeva must be happy! We will have to send him a note. Could you send him a note, Arumugaswami, send him that HPI? The book was published two years ago, I imagine. More than maybe three or four years ago, he made that statement. But it has finally come to pass, at least, in Tamil Nadu. It shows, it is right in line with Gurudeva's thinking. They are using the words, "force and allurement." He said, "forced or deceitful". A very similar concept.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati commented on the legislation. I thought I would read a little bit from him. He is the only Swami from who we have comments at the moment. He says, "I welcome the promulgation of the ordinance by the Government of Tamil Nadu to ban religious conversions by use of force or by allurements or by any fraudulent means. This is a long-awaited step, a step that ensures for the citizens of Tamil Nadu the most basic of human rights."

He goes into a fairly long description of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how it fits in with that. But we will skip that and move on.

"With the conversion experience come shame, isolation, deep personal conflict and ultimately, the seeds for discord. History testifies to the devastating loss of rich and diverse cultures, gone forever in the aftermath of religious conversion. I appeal to the political leadership of all other States in India to promulgate similar laws and make sure that all possibilities of religious conflict are avoided, and the tradition of religious harmony in India is maintained."

That is a very strong statement. It is nice to see he is taking a strong position on that.

transcription ends

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