Blog Archives
April 25, 2003 
Gurudeva taught us: "To progress on the path, we study the Vedas, other scriptures and our guru's teachings and make every effort to apply these philosophical truths to daily experience. We strive to understand the mind in its fourfold nature: chitta, consciousness; manas, instinctive mind; buddhi, intellectual mind; and ahamkara, ego or I-maker. We perform japa, meditation and yoga each day. Such spiritual discipline is known as sadhana. It is the mystical, mental, physical and devotional exercise that enables us to dance with Siva by bringing inner advancement, changes in perception and improvements in character. Sadhana allows us to live in the refined and cultured soul nature, rather than in the outer, instinctive or intellectual spheres. For consistent progress, sadhana should be performed regularly, without fail, at the same time each day, preferably in the early hours before dawn. The most important sadhanas are the challenges and practices given by one's guru. The Vedas caution, "The Self cannot be attained by the weak, nor by the careless, nor through aimless disciplines. But if one who knows strives by right means, his soul enters the abode of God." Aum Namah Sivaya.
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
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Another active day at the Aadheenam with pilgrims and changes in the air.
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The Talaivar (head coordinator) of the five kulams (monastic family-departments) meet each week with Bodhinatha to coordinate activities in the monastery.
Academy student, Kasi Ramanathan, on pilgrimage from Illinois pitches in with some karma yoga. A new black granite threshold for Kadavul Temple has arrived from India with the last shipment and Kasi is removing the old concrete step.
After puja in the morning he assisted with the next San Marga newsletter mailing.
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Prashant and Pradnya Gosavi, a young couple from Troy, Michigan came to visit today.
Preparations are underway for the next set of potagai to be place atop the pillars you see here at the front of the sanctum.
Checking the level of a flat side of a stone.
The painstaking process of smoothing out the joints between one stone and the next.
Pillars of Iraivan...
Other wondrous magical events unfolding.
The glorious colors of nature.
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transcription begins
Date: April_13_2003
Title: The Importance of Knowing Thy Self
Category: The Ultimate Goals of Life
Duration: 4 min., 59 seconds
Date Given: February 25, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha
These days knowledge is so readily available. If you want to know about anything you search on Google and you find out about it. There is a mass of knowledge that is so available and so fascinating.
A good example of knowledge is, we saw on television the other night, the doctors were saying, "More than half my patients come in having diagnosed themselves and tell me what is wrong with them. They don't tell the symptoms, they tell the disease. "I am suffering from this disease, cure me". It used to be you would come in and say my hand hurts, my head hurts but these days there is so much knowledge out there that people will look up the symptoms on the web and figure out what is wrong with themselves. At least, they think they do."
They go in and tell the doctor, "I am suffering from this disease. Please cure me."
Why do I say that? Well, it shows how much knowledge there is and how we fill ourselves up with all this knowledge. Which is okay, but sometimes it is to the exclusion of knowing ourselves. "Know Thy Self," one of Yogaswami's mahavakayams - Thannai Ari. "My Guru made me to know myself." Engal gurunathan, the first line.
Sometimes in these days, it is so easy and education reinforces it. We are spending all our time learning about what is outside of ourselves. We are learning about knowledge and it is so ramified, it takes up the whole day. We know about everything. We know about health. We know about astronomy. We know about politics. We know about economics. We know about investments. We know about all kinds of things but we don't know about ourself. Because, no one is encouraging that. They don't encourage that in school. They don't encourage that on television. They don't encourage that in movies. If they are encouraging learning, they are encouraging learning about something external to yourself.
That is where religion is a balancing force. That is where Hinduism gives us wonderful direction, it reminds us "Know Thy Self." Look within and find our spiritual identity, find our soul. Look within the soul and find God. So that is knowing our Self, knowing our spiritual identity.
As Gurudeva says so beautifully and one of the reasons he was loved by so many, "You are a spiritual being, live a spiritual life." He just exuded that sense. People that were open to him felt that, "Here is a man that looks at himself as a spiritual being and just by his mere presence encourages me to be the same."
Isn't that wonderful? A really unique quality. So many people on the island here have shrines to Gurudeva. You know, they are Catholics, most of them but they come in and tell you about their Guru shrine. "I have a picture of Gurudeva here in my home and everyday I stop at the picture and share my life with Gurudeva." ... and so forth. It shows how much he touched them. And why? Because of his quality of being a spiritual being and encouraging them to be one and encouraging them to do their best and so forth ...
It is part of a new cult on the island, the Gurudeva cult! Very nice, very wholesome because it is encouraging them and they are finding strength to be of more service in many instances. They looked at Gurudeva as an example of someone who was really selfless and loved to help other people. So they find strength in their own life to do more service to others through their ties with Gurudeva.
So, we are going to have a wonderful week together, culminating in our Mahasivaratri evening.
Have a wonderful day. Aum Namah Sivaya!
transcription ends
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