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"Perhaps by this time you have seen the clear white light, or less intense inner light, and you have seen how crystal clear and sharp it is. Each thought, each feeling, each action has to be crystal clear and sharp to maintain and bring through a balance of your consciousness to the external world. When this happens, you have control over these states of consciousness, so much so that you are your own catalyst, and you can slide into higher states and out to external states of consciousness without being disturbed by one or the other. "

Bodhinatha was very well received in Toronto. And all the Mathavasis would like to extend their gratitude and appreciation to any of those in Toronto who may have helped with programs there. You did a wonderful job and everyone there is to be praised for keeping up our traditions.

Below we continue with more photos and stories from Bodhinatha's mission to Canada.

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Academy student Trent Smail is on a pilgrimage to the island and coming to the monastery during the day to perform karma yoga. He is working on the area where Dakshinamurthi will be installed, painting the foundation and planting.

Trent sends his love and alohas back to California to his wife Shirley and daughter Karissa!

Balasundaram is here from Houston, Texas is here for the first time.

He and his relatives in Malaysia are temple builders and he has followed and supported the progress of Iraivan Temple for many years.

Tomorrow we have another big "crane day" and the setting upright and placing of Dakshinamurthi will be one of the exciting highlights of the day! The crate was dismantled and today we get a first look at the beautiful craftsmanship.

Trent has painted the spot where Dakshinamurthy will be placed. The carving of the face is exquisite.

Shanmugam Sthapati said the murthi was so perfectly done and shastrically correct that it was a "worshipful" image and fit to receive puja and offerings.

His giant sandal.

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Roof beams that have been pre-cut to size and ready to go up.

Sthapati looks over his notes on the temple constructions.

Numbers for each of the stones and their placement.

Andiappan looking very carefully at some carving he has under hand.

The team put scaffolding into place to climb aloft to guide the beam placement and untie the straps.

Beside these photos of events in Toronto...we share the running story report sent by Saravananathaswami while enroute last week.

"First we drove to the Sri Durga Temple in Richmond Hill which is a suburb of Toronto. The temple is owned by its priest, which is wonderful. This is the temple which Gurudeva gave a message for their kumbhabhishekam. At the kumbhabhishekam, Pichai Kurukkal was the chief priest. He is the one who runs the priest training school at Pillaiyarpatti and we did an article on him in Hinduism Today.

"There were about 50 priests brought for the kumbabhishekam. The temple is very beautiful in South Indian style. It has the nicest ceiling, very ornate.

"Nadaswaram and tavil were played beautifully as Bodhinatha was toured around the shrines. The temple is clean and very well organized.

"Next we drove to the Saiva Siddhanta Manram in Mississauga, where Bodhinatha was given a grand welcome with several nagaswaram and tavil players including the ones who came to Kauai last year, and lines of children dropping flower petals on the white cloth in front of Bodhinatha. The temple is inside a large warehouse building, as is the Sri Durga Temple and several others.

"This was the first temple we went to where they had a banana tree growing in a large pot at the front of the meeting hall! Lots of children were present, nicely dressed, because this is the place where the Saiva Samaya Kuravar School is run. At the school, the kids learn Saiva Siddhanta philosophy, thevarams, Tamil language, music, singing, dance and drama.

"For the event, the children beautifully sang many Natchintanai songs also danced to a Natchintanai song. Arati to Yogaswami and Gurudeva was done, Bodhinatha blessed the release of a book of articles on Yogaswami, then he gave a wonderful talk on the principle of one Supreme Being.

"After that a long line queued up for vibhuti blessings. The giving of vibhuti was the most anticipated part of each event and took a long time. We gave out posters and TAKA cards to everyone after they got vibhuti. Bodhinatha placed a commemorative medal around the neck of each child as they came up.

"After this event and only a few minutes rest at the hotel, we were back on the road for the evening events, starting with a short stop at the Periya Sivan Temple in Scarborough. There was a very devotional crowd waiting and Bodhinatha was paraded around with nadaswaram and tavil through the shrines.

"Then everyone eagerly came up for vibhuti, even some elderly ladies in wheelchairs got onto the stage and crawled over to Bodhinatha for vibhuti blessings. During this time, the crowd was enthusiastically singing Natchintanai and even a song to Bodhinatha.

"Then we drove around the corner to the main evening event at the Thiruvadi Nilayam which also included the members of the Sai Nilayam. The welcome they gave was extremely warm. There were many youth at this event, compared to very few at all the other events.

"They were dressed up in a very organized way and held umbrellas over Bodhinatha as he paraded up the white cloth to the sound of nadaswaram and tavil. They also performed other responsibilities and sang bhajans too.

"This event had the largest audience, about 500 people crowded into a small hall. Up on the stage, they performed a super devotional, elaborate padapuja to Bodhinatha, the most special one we had witnessed, while the crowd loudly and expertly sang many bhajans and Natchintanai and whipped up quite a devotional frenzy.

"Youth stood behind Bodhinatha's chair waving the traditional fans over him. The singing was so intense because the Sai Baba organizations are experts in this area.

"After the long devotional padapuja with many aratis, etc., Bodhinatha gave his talk with a difference.

"This time, after a couple sentences, a Tamil lady spontaneously translated into Tamil, and they went back and forth, whereas previous talks were all in one language and then the other.

"This pattern tonight was very lively and there was joking back and forth as Bodhinatha pronounced various Tamil words and the lady had fun translating what he was saying.

"He talked mainly about Yogaswami's guidance to "Know thy Self by thyself" and the crowd was very attentive.

"It was an extraordinary gathering and the vibhuti darshan took well over an hour, with many people also having copies of Weaver's Wisdom signed by Bodhinatha.

"Sunday was definitely the busiest day of the trip, a very successful day."

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Date: April_05_2003
Title: Positive Attitudes for Positive Spiritual Progress
Category: The Spiritual Path
Duration: 10 min., 26 seconds
Date Given: February 19, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha

"Sloka 2: Where am I going? What is my path?

We are all growing toward God and experience is the path. Through experience we mature out of fear into fearlessness, out of anger into love, out of conflict into peace, out of darkness into light and union in God. Aum."

That is important. It focuses on experience and that was another point we made to Billy's group. How do we describe the Hindu concept of the spiritual path? I gave three synonyms - becoming a better person, improving our behavior, learning from our experiences. That is the simplest way I could think of to explain to this group, the Hindu spiritual path. Becoming a better person and learning from our experiences and improving our behavior.

If we are not doing that, then we are not making the spiritual progress that we could. The more we can do that, the more progress we are making. The idea of learning from our experiences is particularly important. As I mentioned in that talk, the biggest barrier in that regard is the concept that mistakes are bad, wrong, should not happen. Rather than, the concept that mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn. All we have to do is figure out what we need to learn.

When it says the path is experience, it means we realize what we did we could do better, we should do better. There is another way of doing things. We are refining our behavior, we are learning from our experiences.

That won't happen if we feel we should not make mistakes. We feel we should not make mistakes, we make a mistake, we go into self pity, sorrow, self condemnation. That is our reaction if we make a mistake and we feel we should not make mistakes.

Whereas what we want to do is, if we make a mistake we become self reflective without emotion and say, "Gee, how can I avoid that in the future? I know the goal is to only make a mistake once."

So, two different ways of relating to mistakes. How we look at mistakes is key to progressing through our experiences and not just reacting to them.

I thought I would read from the bhasya also. It is so rich you really can't summarize it.

Gurudeva's bhasya: "We have taken birth in a physical body to grow and evolve into our divine potential. We are inwardly already one with God."

There is the word already!

"Our religion contains the knowledge of how to realize this oneness and not create unwanted experiences along the way."

That is very useful. It is pointing out what we are talking about. "Our religion contains the knowledge of how to realize this oneness." Those are the techniques in 'Merging with Siva', our sadhanas, our tantras and through putting them into practice in our life, we maximize our spiritual progress.

"Not create unwanted experiences along the way," means to be careful in terms of the karmas we are creating by our current actions. The knowledge such as we summarized in 'Karma Management' is just a systematized statement of Gurudeva's principles on karma. It is all drawn from the Trilogy. When we understand the principles of karma management, there is no way we are going to create new negative karmas. We are smarter than that. We have got this figured out. We may have some real whoppers coming to us from the past. But at least, we are not creating any for the future. We got that much figured out in terms of our karma.

"The peerless path is following the way of our spiritual forefathers, discovering the mystical meaning of the scriptures. The peerless path is commitment, study, discipline, practice and the maturing of yoga into wisdom."

So we are talking about the kinds of spiritual practices we need to follow and how we need to follow them. We need to be consistent, which here is the word commitment. Commitment means consistency also. So consistency in our practices is very important and there is more value in that which you can sustain. In other words, sometimes when we are youthful we try and do too much, try and set a level of sadhana. Of course, those who are older don't try and set a level of sadhana that is something they can't sustain. Eventually, we have to back off. What we can sustain is what is good, to be sure to keep going on a daily basis, weekly basis.

"In the beginning stages, we suffer until we learn. Learning leads us to service; and selfless service is the beginning of spiritual striving." This is a beautiful statement, really. Suffer, learn, service, understanding, meditation.

If we are suffering, it means we are not doing something right. We are not supposed to suffer. Gurudeva didn't like suffering. He said, "Life is meant to be lived joyously."

So, if we are suffering, it means we don't understand something about the spiritual path. Or, maybe we are going through some rough karma. That could be one reason for suffering. But the idea of suffering here does not mean going through some rough karma from the past. It means doing unwise actions in the present which are bringing back suffering. That is what it is referring to, not managing our karma.

We suffer until we start to manage our karma, act in ways that does not create new karma for us, which is what learning means. We suffer until we learn. Learn what? How to not create new negative karma.

Or, said another way, we are creating suffering for ourselves in the future, every time we create negative karma in the present. When we figure out, when we learn enough about karma and gain enough self control, then we stop creating new negative karma for the future, which is moving from suffering to learning.

"Learning leads us to service."

Service is the sense of not being totally selfish. We are concerned about others. We are concerned about the temple. We are concerned about this, we are concerned about that. We spend time to do things which benefits other people, benefits the temple and so forth. It does not give us any immediate gratification in an external sense. It gives us the spiritual gratification, of course. Service is a natural state of consciousness we come into when our karma is going along smoothly.

"Service leads us to understanding."

Understanding in this case means religious understanding of the temple, understanding of the states of mind, that kind of understanding.

"Understanding leads us to meditate deeply and without distractions."

That is self explanatory.

"Finally, meditation leads us to surrender in God. This is the straight and certain path, the San Marga, leading to Self Realization, the inmost purpose of life, and subsequently to moksha, freedom from rebirth. The Vedas wisely affirm, "By austerity, goodness is obtained. From goodness, understanding is reached. From understanding, the Self is obtained. And he who obtains the Self is freed from the cycle of birth and death. Aum Namah Sivaya."

That is such a perfect quote from the Vedas to illustrate this. Thank you.

transcription ends

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