Blog Archives
February 22, 2003 
Gurudeva looks up at the flag of Hindutva that flies over the monastery land. In simple ways he always taught us to look up, keep focused on the higher aspirations, spiritual ideals, the evolution of the soul and to never waver in our commitment to these lofty goals.
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Phase End Notice:
This is the last day of a short, four-day phase.
This edition of TAKA will remain in place until
Tuesday, February 25th.
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
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Today was tour day and we also had a number of fine pilgrims with us. Bodhinatha met with one couple in the Guru Peedam who posed him quite of lot of intelligent questions.
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Title: How Temple Worship Can Help Our Life |
Cybertalk: How can we improve our behavior? Making good use of the Hindu temple is one of these ways. Bodhinatha also discusses how the worship of Ganesha can help us to be "in the right place, at the right time." Our choices in life guide how our karmas manifest, and this is helped by connecting with the Deities through temple worship.
Cybertalk Ends"
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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 Yogi Mahadevan
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Rajinder and Jyoti Gandhi from have been readers of Hinduism Today for over fifteen years. They are lifetime subscribers. This was their first visit. They are leaders in the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha America (Arya Samaj of America) and sponsored the trip of Swami Agnivesh to come to Kauai to visit Gurudeva several years ago. They live in Saddle River, New Jersey. They had some very interesting and important questions, among them about keeping young people close to religion, how to open doors to westerners who are actively involved in yoga etc., to welcome them into Hinduism.
The couple made their trip to Hawaii especially to have darshan with Bodhinatha who appreciated having pilgrims who were prepared with so many thoughtful queries.
It is always an excellent satsang when we meet with our long time Hinduism Today subscribers. They are already well attuned to our mission and thinking. Jyoti makes good use of her copy of the magazine as a resource and has used portions of Hinduism Today to make presentations at interfaith groups in her community. We encourage all our readers to come for a visit. Please don't wait fifteen years!
More pilgrims today.... Everyone is really impressed with Iraivan Temple.
This is the Paramanandan family, originally from Guyana and now living in New York. Their daughter, Deviyani, in the middle, who lives in Honolulu, came last year and this year arranged to come again with her parents.
Originally from Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Mr. and Mrs. Sivasothy and Dharshi Sivakumar live in Sunnyvale, California and have been close to our activities for many years. Sivasothy knew Yogaswami when he was young and though they never met Gurudeva, they keep a picture of him in their shrine room. They had attended our Concord temple and one of the boys had samskaras performed there under the aegis of our monastic priests when the temple was still managed as part of Himalayan Academy, California.
The Sivakumar family are lifetime subscribers of Hinduism Today, also for over 15 years. The boys, 10-year-old Ganesha on the left and 11-year-old Haran on the right, born in America, are very intelligent, bright young men, both interested in math, sciences and computers. Haran is also a big reader of books and went home with an English translation of Yogaswami's Natchintanai as a gift.
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All the excitement is at the Iraivan Temple site these days where changes are going on daily. The tent on the top of the temple was removed temporarily and today as we write, several sections of the retaining wall on the front of the main sanctum are coming down, to release more sand. The process of cleaning and finishing what has already been joined continues.
A target date has been set for early March to raise another six pillars and put four potagai on top of the four that are already up.
Sannyasin Yoginathaswami and his team are on the job, arranging pillars on the foundation.
Giant straps do a good job in gripping the stone without damage.
The area is tight and careful thought must be given to what goes up first, second, third etc. so that months from now we still have access.
Sthapati has it all worked out.
Gently now, set the pillar down on blocks... awaiting the day when the crane will come and put it up.
The name of this palm is Pigafetta Filaris and it is native to a relatively small area in Papua, New Guinea. It is the fastest growing palm in the world and also gives edible fruits. We have six in a small clump about 40 meters away from Iraivan Temple.
Enjoy your retreat... see you all on Tuesday evening!
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transcription begins
Date: February_11_2003
Title: The Nature of Awareness Traveling
Category: Soul
Duration: 5 min., 23 seconds
Date Given: January 3, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha
Despite the English, "I am happy", we are not happiness even though the language tries to convince us we are. "I am happy, I am sick, I am this, I am that." Language tells us we are happiness. Gurudeva says, "No, that is a state of mind, that is a state of consciousness." Then, he goes on to tell us, we are the pure awareness that experiences that state of consciousness.
This is a wonderful tool really, it is just so simple. We have the awareness which is pure experiencing the different states of consciousness. Of course, as Gurudeva says, "The traveller traveling through San Francisco does not get confused that he is San Francisco." I read this one yesterday with one of the monks. Somehow language works there very well. We know when I am traveling through San Francisco and what I see is San Francisco, it is not me.
But, when it comes to things in the mind the English language does not give us that kind of clarity. We identify with everything in the mind. "I am happiness, I am unhappy."
Gurudeva says, "No, you should not look at it that way. You are the pure awareness traveling through the mind. Some of the states are enjoyable, some are not enjoyable but identify with the awareness."
Gurudeva goes on to tell us that we have the ability to control this awareness. This is an important point. Just because philosophically we get that far, "Okay, there is an awareness and there is a consciousness. This is all great." He goes on to say, "No, we have the ability to control this awareness."
How do we do that? Through regulating our breath. We can sit down and regulate our breath and turn within and start to experience control over our awareness. We are able to move it into states of consciousness we want to move it into.
To quote from the lesson, 'Lotus of the Heart', Gurudeva says, "How do you avoid unhappy states of mind? By consciously flowing awareness into the radiance, the light emanating from the self-effulgent being within the lotus of the heart."
By consciously flowing awareness into the radiance, the light emanating from the self -effulgent being within the lotus of the heart, through controlling our breath. That is a very practical statement when it comes to happiness and unhappiness. It is not just a generalization, we should be happy, we should not be unhappy. No, it is saying, "Okay, if we are feeling unhappy what do we do?" Go out and buy a new car, spend some money, shop till we drop? No, of course not.
He is saying, think of it as controlling awareness. You just have to move your awareness a little deeper, your awareness is externalized. How do we do that? We regulate our breath. Turn in and experience the inside of us in terms of a spiritual energy, spiritual light, positive feeling. Somehow we find something inside ourselves which uplifts us. So we put awareness into that state of mind.
Gurudeva goes on to say, "Tell yourself that it is there and soon you will begin to feel it."
That is good advise also. You have to really believe that it is there. "Okay, it is there, I can experience it. This is easy. I can move my awareness into my inner self and be a happier person because of it."
In this way, we can all experience true bliss to one degree or another, because it is inside of us. It is not dependent upon what is going on outside of us, which may be going well or may be going poorly. Life has its ups and downs, good times and bad times.
Our advice from 'Merging with Siva' is, detach from that and realize that that has its limitations. Sometimes it will make us happy, sometimes it will make us unhappy. But we can transcend the unhappiness caused by external circumstances through these techniques given to us in this wonderful 'Lotus of the Heart' chapter in 'Merging with Siva'.
transcription ends
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