Blog Archives
August 14, 2003 
Sadhu Paksha Day Twelve
We have just completed a wonderful three-day retreat and everyone is back on the job here at Kauai Aadheenam.
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Attained Maha Samadhi on November 12th, 2001
Click to read for Details.
We are pleased to announce the web release of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's monumental work on Hindu culture and lifestyle:
Living with Siva.
Click here for the entire text and artwork, now on-line!
The first day of the retreat was Iraivan Day. The monks mailed out the monthly newsletter, worked on the coming new edition of "Island Temple" magazine and various fund raising projects. One of these was to send and email to 250 donors requesting help to sponsor the next shipment of containers from India. Within 48 hours we had some very generous responses. Such is the wonderful of cyber communications.
Bodhinatha's Sun One Video. Most Recent update: July 30, 2003.
Bodhinatha speaks on Japa, Mantra Repetition, niyama # 9, elucidating the many dimensions of the sacred science of mantrams, chanting a holy syllable, word or sentence again and again.Japa may be done silently or aloud. Sometimes it is best to begin aloud, so the mind is more focused, then slowly let it become internalized as concentration improves. Often japa is done right after attending a puja. Japa is not used to acquire worldly things. Instead, prayers are used for that. People who anger should not practice japa.
The simplest japa is A-U-M. This is the primary sound of the universe. Initiation is important before starting the practice of japa yoga. Once initiated it is essential to continue the practice, to strive consistently and to chant as instructed by the guru.
14 minutes, 2 seconds
Today's Inspired Talk |
|
|
Title: The Niyama of Vrata, Vows Category: Yamas and Niyamas Duration: 11 minutes, 19 seconds Date Given: July 22, 2003 Date Posted:August_14_2003 Given by: Bodhinatha |
|
For more information about listening to Gurudeva's talks online and to hear them in other formats, click here. And click here for an Index to All Past CyberTalks. Study Gurudeva's teachings
every day. Visit the Master Course site!
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 Sannyasin Saravananathaswami If you are experiencing any problems listening to the audio, please to go our Audio FAQ page and follow the directions there.
 |
||||
Sannyasin Yoginathaswami is about to take his vigil in the temple at 12 noon. The change of vigilees begins with a Ganesha arati. This is done 8 times a day, around the clock and has been going on without a break since March 12, 1973, when Gurudeva first installed Nataraja.
For the coming new edition of "Island Temple" we did a photo shoot of some of the youth from our Kauai Mission to showcase "innovative Iraivan Temple fund raising programs." In this instance it is the cleaning, drilling and stringing of Rudraksha Malas. Left to right, the stalwart and ever cheerful Kumar Katir, holds the drill that opens the hole in the rudraksha; Priya Alahan holds a set of finished malas, her older sister in the back, Neesha Alahan, holds a basket of fresh rudraksha fruits, and Chudika on the right holds a handful of cleaned beads. Chudika is actually from San Diego, daughter of Academy students Dasan and Shakti Mahadevan who have just all recently chosen their Hindu names. Chudika is standing in for Sitara Alahan who is off island at the moment.
Other fund raising innovation-inspirations not pictured included:
- -- Iraivan Day activities in Malaysia
- -- United Saivite Women's sales of handicrafts in Malaysia
- -- Cultural programs held in Singapore
- -- A recent fund-raising dinner held in Maryland, USA
- -- Golden Gate Mission hand crafted Hindu greeting cards, which are selling really well here at our Mini-mela
- -- Single bead Rudraksha mala creations by Nilima Srikantha
- -- Deva Rajan's donation of roofing tiles which were sold on eBay. (If you have anything of significant value that we could auction on eBay and give the proceeds to Iraivan, let us know.)
On the second day of the retreat, Sannyasin Arumugaswami and Sadhaka Tejadeva helped host a guest from Honolulu.
Arumugaswami writes: "The Aadheenam is a member of the East Kauai Water Users' Cooperative, which took over the irrigation system in the our area when sugar company closed down. The various ponds and streams on the aadheenam property are fed by a ditch coming out of the Wailua Reservoir (shown in picture), second largest in the state, just a quarter mile above the aadheenam. On August 11, Ann Steward of Rep. Ed Case's office came to visit the water system, as we had requested federal funding for its operation and improvement. With Ann in the picture are Sadhaka Tejadeva, Jerry Ornellas, president of the Coop, Tony Branco, system manager and treasurer and Les Milnes, field manager and member of the board of directors. Sannyasin Arumugaswami is behind the camera."
"Ann was one of the central staff members of Patsy Mink, who held served our district in the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. for several decades. Ann visited with us at the end of a long day of similar visits on Kauai, and got a quite tour through the system, which transports 27 million gallons of water a day and is capable of irrigation 4,000 acres of prime agricultural land. Kauai is in a slow transition from the monocrop of sugar to diversified agriculture, and water systems such as this are critical. They must be maintained and improved even when much of the former cane land remains fallow, or there will be no future on these lands for diversified agriculture."
Yesterday, world-class photographer of Kauai scenes, Tim DelaVega came to Kauai Aadheenam, as he has been from time to time over the past few weeks, to do an extended photo shoot of everything here. He is quite excited about the project. This is an exchange project in which the monastery will help him with his Na Pali Coast line protect. You can visit his web site at napaliphoto.com
Here Tim sets up for a photo shoot of the Maha Spatika Lingam in Kadavul temple.
Tim is real pro.
A beautiful shot of the lingam.
Backlit....
He takes this close up of the jyotisha layout of the day. These balls represent planets going around the Sun. They are positioned according to their actual positions in the sky each day, thus giving a visual "astrological chart" of the day.
 The Remarkable Vision |
Iraivan Temple Progress Update |
Join this historic undertaking. Please contribute generously. Sponsor a stone today! |
| Order Rudraksha Malas from Siva's sacred Hawaiian groves; and also single rudraksha beads ready to put on a chain around your neck. Great for Gifts! All proceeds go to the building fund. | ||
|
Current Overview  |
||
These are old picture from a previous shipment to Kauai. Our next one is being prepared as we speak and we could use your financial help to bring the containers to Kauai.
We need to bring 5 containers over on the next shipment.
You can sponsor one container for $7,000 and be a participant in the historic process of transporting India's great temple culture all the way to Hawaii.
| FULL INDEX OF 650+ CYBERTALKS
 |
|
Study Gurudeva's teachings.
|
transcription begins
Date: May_27_2003
Title: Mahasivaratri 2003, Part 1, Meditation
Category: Festivals and Sacraments
Duration: 8 min, 5 seconds
Date Given: February 28, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha
Maybe we can turn that into a Upanishad, Mahasivaratri Upanishad. Certainly a beautiful talk by Gurudeva. It is hard to think of what to say afterwards. Fortunately, it is written down. I don't have to think. That was, a part of it where Gurudeva was seeing as Siva, certainly very special.
Our talk tonight ties in quite nicely. You'll see as we go along. It ties in predominately with Gurudeva's theme that after we express all our love in the temple, after we worship God Siva with our whole heart and blend with Him through the process of devotion, we can keep going. We can find a quiet corner and worship in our inner temple. We can practice meditation, dhyanam on Siva, inside of us. That is what he was encouraging us to do. So that is what our talk leads up to tonight, that idea.
I think this is a special Sivaratri and having so many pilgrims coming from such diverse parts. Usually, we have a much smaller group. When we started, it was just the monks and Gurudeva. Today we are blessed with so many people from so many places, all coming and all sharing a love of Siva that brought you here tonight for this special evening dedicated to Siva. We call that Siva Sambandam, bound together through Siva. Relatives of sorts, sharing something in common and, in this case, we all share a love of God Siva that brought us together this evening.
As Gurudeva pointed out, Mahasivaratri is Siva's special night, the Great night of Siva. I was thinking and trying to find an analogy and came up with one of ozone layer and cosmic rays, which is interesting. Think of holes in the ozone layer. The bigger the hole, the more the cosmic rays come in. Of course, that is bad in that context. But there we are looking out in space from earth. We have that little ozone layer there and it protects the cosmic rays, bounces most of them off, except when we get a hole they come through.
If we compare that to the spiritual worlds, it is the same thing. But, it is going inside, instead of going outside. The barriers between the worlds lessen at certain times, like opening a hole in the ozone layer. Instead of cosmic rays coming through, these are Siva's rays. Divine rays of blessings from the inner worlds come through this hole.
What causes the hole to open? Well, an auspicious night such as Mahasivaratri just by itself creates a very big hole. So, lots of blessings are flooding through from this inner hole. But, the ceremony itself widens the hole. The beautiful chanting of the priest, the chanting of Sri Rudram takes a hole that is already there and makes it bigger. So, we get even more blessings coming through. Furthermore, the devotion of those present widens the hole even more. The more devotion they feel, the bigger the hole gets.
So all of this working together creates this very special vibration, very special event, whereby on the inside out, we have all of these blessings coming, all of this energy coming from God Siva and the inner worlds, changing us in ways that we can't even imagine. As Gurudeva talked about briefly there, "cleansing us, purifying us, changing our karmas, mitigating our karmas, changing our futures" and so forth, in very dramatic ways. That is because we opened ourselves up to it, through our devotion on Mahasivaratri.
So, that is not in the script, as you can tell!
Mahasivaratri is nicely described in 'Dancing with Siva'. We are doing it all. Chanting Siva's name, we did that. Singing His praise, we did some singing. Chanting Sri Rudram, we did that. Bathing the Siva Lingam is coming up. Of course, these are common forms of worship done wherever Sivaratri is held and we are doing them all here this evening as well. But it goes on, meditating is the next one and the last one, being near the monks as they strive to realize Parasiva. It is right in Gurudeva's definition of Sivaratri. What a very interesting way of describing it! Most places you go, you don't find meditation going on. It is not part of Sivaratri. But for the completeness of the experience, as we did tonight, we meditated.
First we worshipped. We worshiped Siva through the homa ceremony and later we will worship Siva through Abhishekam and archana. But, we also worshiped Siva inside of us, as the Divine Self inside of us. So it is a unique part of our ceremony, something I never really thought about as much until I read it, and we just do it. We, meaning the monks, focus on the transcendent aspect of Siva trying to realize Parasiva, trying to touch into that part of Siva which we always are. As Gurudeva spoke, a large part of his talk, one of the themes of his talk was the transcendence of Siva and claiming that part of you which you already are. You don't have to become It, you are That.
We are all having an opportunity tonight and what is the benefit of being near the monks as they strive to realize Parasiva? Well, it can quicken our own spiritual life. It is not that we are going to sit there and become enlightened, just because someone across the room is having a good meditation. No. But it can quicken us, it can inspire us, kind of speed up our impetus, help us move along a little faster on the spiritual path than if we had not been there. We may not notice but we pick up some speed. Maybe, we were slacking slightly. We get back to normal speed. Or maybe, we were going along fine and it makes us go along a little faster. In any case, it is a very positive experience, helping to inspire us, even unknown to ourselves to move along faster.
transcription ends
|
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. |
|
|
Check our children and youth section for new items for the young and young at heart! | |
|
1. SIGN OUR GUESTBOOK and receive a FREE GIFT |
||
| 2. Newest Book: LIVING WITH SIVA | ||
|
3. Visiting KAUAI'S HINDU MONASTERY |
||
|
4. Contribute to THANK YOU, GURUDEVA FUND |
||