Blog Archives

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Today is the last day of this phase
This edition of TAKA will remain up for
the duration of our coming 3-day
"Iraivan Full Moon Retreat"

Our previous announcement about Gurudeva's Vedic Verses email subscription was such a big hit. (120 new subscribers in 48 hours) we want to run this again. Here is testimony from India on this new service:

"Namaste, Thank you very much and congratulations for such laudable effort for human upliftment. Highest Regards,P B Kulkarni and Sudha Kulkarni[India]

~~~~ Vedic Verses Can Come to You Daily! ~~~~~~

One of the many mission achievements of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami was the dissemination of Hindu teachings via the internet. An avid user of email himself, he innovated the now very popular "Daily Inspiration" sending of lessons, excerpts from holy books etc. to subscribers around the world. We are happy to announce an innovation that he requested in the months prior to his Maha Samadhi, which is the dissemination of our Holy Vedas in a systematic, organized fashion. Our "Daily Verses" email subscribers will now receive five verses from the Rig Veda one day, five verses from the Yajur Veda on day two, five verses of the Atharva Veda on day three and five verses for the Sama Veda on the fourth day. This will continue through the year. We hope you enjoy the new format which brings forward to modern times, accessible to all, humanity's oldest living scriptures. For those who are not familiar with the services, you may subscribe at:

/books/daily_inspiration.html (opens in new window)

Things have come together really well for Bodhinatha's trip to Toronto. We encourage anyone living within driving distance on either side of the border to come and join him at functions during his stay there. Click here to go to his travel page for details. (opens new window)

Bodhinatha's Sun One Video. Most Recent update: February 28, 2003, Maha Sivaratri Upadesha (posted today). Opens in separate Window. Quicktime 6.0 required to view this 30 minute MP4).

No Audio Today

We had an inspired group of visitors today. Despite coming from all parts of the world, they all seemed to be of one mind, and left hugging each other, having made friends in just three hours. One lady who had felt harrased by the pressures of time, having experrienced the peace of the monastery and hearing about the pace of carving and construction work of Iraivan, had an "ephiphany" experience of feeling what it is like to take things in perfect stride, feeling calm, that everything is working out just fine.

Mr. Narayan Rao, wife Sarojini and daughter Vanaja from Illinois. He is a professor at the University of Illinois. They brought a proposal for a Ganesha-Sarasvati temple they hope to build in Illinois and to asked for Bodhinatha's blessings.

A couple from La Jolla, California, Mark and Crowley (in the back) came here because someone in San Diego suggested it would be good for their spiritual health and well being.

Back to us is a devotee of Baba Haridas from his Mount Madonna Center in California. The lady in red on the right is from Kauai.

More devotees happy to be at the feet of the Satguru.

The Remarkable Vision	Iraivan Temple Progress Update	Join this historic undertaking. Please contribute generously. Sponsor a stone today! Monthly Report Sponsor a stone Iraivan Wonders
	Order Rudraksha Malas from Siva's sacred Hawaiian groves; and gorgeous 2003 Iraivan Calendars with Hindu festival days on them. Great for Gifts! All proceeds go to the building fund.

Rain abated today and preparations for pillar raising continue... it is going to be a dynamic three-day retreat.

These courses of Iraivan are now all revealed as the retaining wall has been lowered.

Another innovation in progress is the creation of a new "Island Temple" magazine to give people around the world a complete update on the Iraivan project. The last one was done in 1998.
That's all for today! See you next phase...

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Date: March_08_2003
Title: Maintaining Harmonious Family Relationships
Category: Relationships
Duration: 11 min., 12 seconds
Date Given: January 11, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha

At our meeting yesterday, we were editing the brochure for the 2004 India Odyssey Innersearch, 18 days in Malaysia and India. There is a beautiful quote from Gurudeva that really struck me yesterday. So I thought that I would share it on the left inside panel.

"Most people live in duality, life after life, bound in the forces of desire and fulfillment of it. Occasionally, a more mature soul breaks away, at least for a short time, from this cycle of desire - fulfillment - pleasure - loss - pain - suffering - and - joy, and asks questions such as: Who is God? Where is God? How can I come to know God?"

We were looking recently at happiness, the idea of happiness and that the normal definition of happiness from Webster is the idea that when we fulfill a desire or even the anticipation of fulfilling a desire is what causes ordinary happiness. So, happiness comes from fulfilled desire, which this cycle is pointing out, eventually leads to loss, pain and suffering when the fulfillment of the desire loses its magic to please us.

In family life, in grihasta life, being surrounded by family and friends is very important. It is a natural state to live in, being surrounded by family and friends. This is good. It helps us live a happy, dharmic life.

However, the problem comes in if we are relying on our family and friends to make us happy. The spouse is who should make us happy. "I am an unhappy person but I am counting on my husband to make me happy. That is why I am getting married. I am unhappy, I am terribly unhappy. My husband is a happy person. I am counting on him to make me happy."

False concept. We don't want to count on our happiness coming from our family and friends. Their being there is an important part of our life but we want to count on our happiness coming from ourselves. Then, that happiness, we share it with our family and friends.

But we should never look at it that, "I am unhappy by myself. Somehow, if I get married, if I have children or if I have lots of friends, I will be happy." Because, it does not work that way. It wears away in the same cycle of fulfillment of desire we get with new people. We get married. If we are an unhappy person, we may be happy for a while. But, eventually we will go back to our innate state of unhappiness because that is our mental habit. That is the habit we are in, that is the way our mind operates as it dwells in unhappiness. That habit does not go away just because we associate with new people.

As we pointed out last time, of course, it does not go away by getting new possessions that lasts for a short time, shorter time even yet. New computer, new car, redecorate the home. It is good for a few months, maybe a year for the home, but eventually it wears off.

We need to claim the happiness as we talked about before that is inside of us. Happiness is part of our inner self and we need to learn how to experience that part of us that is happy. The inner self is always happy. One way or another, we need to do that.

There are a couple of ways. We were looking at the monistic way or the meditative way last time. We turn within in meditation, go deep enough, the phrase Gurudeva was using is, "going into the lotus of the heart", experiencing our inner self, our inner light, our spiritual energy. That makes us happy. A wonderful way.

There is also the theistic way. We can come to the temple. Open ourselves to the blessings of the Deities. Come in an unhappy state, receive the blessings and go away uplifted and happy.

Why? Because we have gotten into our inner self through external worship. We have gotten into the same place, it is not a different happiness. It is not that the worship of the Deities is a one kind of happiness and meditation leads to another. No, it is two different ways to get our awareness internalized, get our awareness into our spiritual being.

Gurudeva also gives us a third way, which is service. He says, "If you want to attain happiness, make others happy." That is a very wonderful statement. Quite often we are unhappy because we are overly self-centered. We are in a selfish state of mind, just concerned about us, life and us, life is not treating us fairly. So we are unhappy. We are self centered, we are overly self centered.

To do something for other people, try and make them happy, actually make them happy makes us happy in return. It is such a simple principle but so effective.

I remember that story in the book. I will have to write it up, so I can quote it in a talk more accurately. It is in the 'Positive Discipline' book about the psychologist and the patient. The patient was suffering from depression and the psychologist said, "I have a sure cure for depression if you follow it. Go out and help other people, make other people happy." Of course, the person would not do it. He wanted to be depressed. But that was the solution the psychologist gave, "Go out and make people happy and you will be happy."

Three different ways to experience the same state - service, devotion and meditation. All of them taking us deeply enough into ourselves to experience our inner happiness. Which is what we want to be able to do, so we can share it with family and friends and make them happy too. Not count on them to make us happy, which can be a burden.

The nice thing about this quote is, it shows the whole cycle. That is why I read it. Desire - fulfillment - pleasure - loss - pain - suffering. That is the cycle of seeking happiness in outer things, be it people or possessions. Eventually, it wears off and we have to start over again.

One of the concepts of desire, of course, is not our concept. Meaning, Gurudeva did not teach it. The way you get out of this cycle, desire - fulfillment - pleasure - loss - pain - suffering, is to get rid of the desire. Desire is what is causing the whole problem. It is the desire which we want to fulfill and get something to fulfill it. Eventually that makes us unhappy and we start all over again with the new desire. So, if we can get rid of the desire, you solve the whole problem. There are philosophies like that.

But Gurudeva says, "Desire is life and the reason we desire things is because we are alive. Desire is energy expressing itself." The only theoretical way you can get rid of desire would be to get rid of life because the two are synonymous, desire and life. Even if the physical body has passed on, even if we don't have a physical body, we are still alive. Thinking about it, according to Gurudeva's teachings we realize, that is not a solution. We are always alive, so we are always desiring. It is not really a solution to this problem of the cycle of desire and fulfillment to try and get rid of desire.

Gurudeva suggests changing what we desire. That is how we solve the problem. Transmuting our energy, desiring something more refined, instead of desiring just to make ourselves happy, we desire to make all our family and friends happy too. That is a higher desire.

Going to school, for example, is a way of channeling energy. First we memorize, getting the energies out of the chakras below the muladhara into the muladhara chakra. Memory is the first thing we do in school. That is a way of channeling desire, raising our energy. Then we reason. We learn how to think. Then, we learn how to push things through and accomplish them.

So we are pulling up the energy into memory, reason and will just in the normal process of schooling. That is what it does. It is very important. Schooling is very important because it helps the energies come up, be in control and avoid the lower desires.

The cultural practices such as singing, dancing are very useful in refining desire. They help raise the energy even further than just the basic studying in school. We got into culture in our fourth shakti. Cultural refinements help us raise the energy to higher levels and therefore channel desire.

So, in our approach, we don't get rid of the desire, we transmute it. We desire something more refined, and more refined and more refined. In that way, we avoid this base problem of desire leading to ultimate sorrow.

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MORE UPLIFTING THINGS		2004 Indian Odyssey Join Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami on an 18 day Innersearch to South India, from Jan 19 to Feb 5, as we pilgrimage to ancient monasteries, magnificent 1,000 plus year old sacred temples and meet with India's holy men in a life-transforming adventure. Click on the above link for more details.
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