Blog Archives

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!

Today Bodhinatha continued with his series of presentations on Yamas and Niyamas. He also gave an inspiring "digest" of some of the significant experiences and results of his mission to Singapore, Malaysia and Mauritius. Stay tuned for the video and audio of these two talks in the days ahead.

Bodhinatha's Sun One Video. Most Recent update: September 12, 2003. Bodhinatha speaks on Ahimsa, noninjury, yama #1, which is noninjury in thought, word and deed. The law of karma decrees that it is wise not to harm or hurt others, for we will then receive harm and hurt in exchange in the future. 12 minutes, 29 seconds.

				Live Web Cam Pix!

The early morning sadhana of going to the temple before dawn has been the anchor for our monastic life for over 35 years....

Indeed, this morning worship from the early hours through the dawn, a time called the "sandhya" hour, might well be called the anchor for Hinduism itself, a practice observed from time immemorial.

Here we sit, while our priest Yogi Mahadevan starts the homa fire.

Monks chanting Sri Rudram.

There was a very positive dynamic energy in the air.

There were lots of prayers offered today. Lord Agni, the Fire seems to be joyful in His duty as the Messenger of the Gods.

A good look at the inside of the Kadavul Hindu temple. Devotees are coming forward for vibhuti blessings.... one of the monks on the left is preparing for his turn in the temple... for the 6-9 am morning vigil and Sadhaka Jivanandanatha on the right is packing up the audio equipment in front of Lord Muruga who awaits His Abhishekam and main puja of the day.

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Current Overview

If you have ever wondered about the future of the outdoor shrine of the Svayambhulingam where Gurudeva saw Lord Shiva sitting on the rocks, the above painting will give you some idea of what is being called the "Panchalinga Mandapam."

A view from the Southeast corner, the artist really has captured a glimpse of the look and feel of the San Marga sanctuary, with Mount Waialeale in the background. The mandapam will be cover and surround the natural stones. You will step in and onto a platform. the middle area will be recessed back down to ground level where you will still be able to sit on the ground in front of the stones, which will be preserved in their original, natural state.

Another "vision of the future" ... one of the tops of the "Chinna Gopurams" which means "Little Towers." Already being carved in India and nearly complete.

The top of a Chinna Gopuram.... these small towers will be situated just outside the Iraivan temple main sanctum.

Front view.

Side view...

No Audio Today

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Date: July_27_2003
Title: Improving Our Behavior with the Help of the Guru - Part 1
Category: Self Improvement
Duration: 8 min., 49 seconds
Date Given: July 09, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha

For those of you who were not here yesterday, we are talking about the role of the Satguru and we will review some of the points we made yesterday as well.

Starting with a quote, there is a beautiful chapter in 'Living with Siva', Chapter 47 called 'The Spirit of the Guru'. So we are going to quote from that and it talks about "this room", which is this room so you can visualize what is being said, it makes sense here.

Gurudeva says, "In the future we envision pictures of our Nandinatha line of Satgurus all the way around this room, then around and then around and then around." How many times is that? Four, right? So how many pictures can you get, I figure maybe fifteen, so that would be sixty, right? Four times around for fifteen would be sixty. You figure forty years each, that is two thousand, four hundred years. Anyway, that is my calculation.

Gurudeva says, "We can see ahead another two thousand and two hundred years."

Why does he say that? Because the date on Tirumular's Tirumantiram is two thousand two hundred years ago, which is when we date our lineage as having begun. So, he is looking two thousand two hundred years into the past and at the same time two thousand and two hundred years in the future!

"It is the same spiritual force, Sakti of Siva flowing through the Nathas. There are many Nathas being born again as Nathas, to move things along, to improve conditions and when things are not going very well, more Nathas will come to put a spiritual force into the world through such media as 'Hinduism Today'."

I remember Gurudeva once - I thought it was jokingly but who knows! - saying, "Oh, maybe in my next life I will be born in China, to establish Saivism in China."

So that is that kind of idea, of being born to accomplish a big spiritual mission. Some people are born, like Gurudeva, with that in mind and choose difficult things to accomplish.

To review from yesterday, we made a list of five major tasks that a Guru does and we will read them.

First, the Guru provides encouragement to continue to strive and move forward. He encourages us to keep striving even when we are going through difficult times in our life. He also encourages us to strive to achieve more than we would otherwise. Yesterday, we gave an example of encouragement. Remember?

Second, the Guru helps us develop a spiritual self-concept. Whatever self-concept we bring to him - be it one of self-doubt or one of great pride - the Guru helps us move beyond it and identify with our spiritual nature so that we truly feel ourselves to be a divine being. Again, we talked about that yesterday.

Third, the Guru speaks the teachings and by listening to his spoken word we have insights into the teachings far greater than we can acquire on our own, by simply reading his books. We touched on that yesterday and Siddhanta Shravana Niyama. That was our first talk yesterday on how the idea is that when it comes to spiritual teachings, you can understand them much better when you listen to someone expound them, such as Gurudeva, than you can just from reading them.

Fourth, the Guru helps us improve our behavior through focusing on our weakest areas as well as giving us guidelines as to how we, as a spiritual person, should behave. We are going to touch on that today.

Fifth, the Guru provides initiation to quicken our unfoldment. We made this point yesterday by reading another quote. I will read it again today. It is what Gurudeva calls "transformational, spiritual unfoldment". As Yogaswami put it, "It is not in books, you fool." Shorter phrase there, meaning that books are important but spiritual unfoldment comes from what we do, not just from what we read. It is our actions in life that cause us to unfold spiritually.

This is a quote from Gurudeva, again from the same chapter on this idea of sadhana. "Many of you have been studying with me for ten, twenty or thirty years. I want you to think and think through the rest of the day about the spirit of the Satguru. Suppose you didn't have a Satguru. You would be guided by the spirit of your intellect, or the spirit of your instinct, or the energies of confusion. The Satguru only has one job, to keep his devotees on the right track. We do not follow the way of words, which is repeating from memory verses and stanzas of scripture with meager mental interpretations of their meaning. We follow the way of transformational spiritual unfoldment. We follow the marga of sadhana and tapas. Sishya move from one stage to another in spiritual unfoldment as they progress through the different petals of the higher chakras and come into one or more inner awakenings, one after another. They are not to settle down in any one or several of the chakras and consider, "This is a nice life. I like this part of my unfoldment. So I won't strive further." They can't do that , because the spirit of the Guru drives them onward. He is constantly thinking and saying, "This is not good enough. You can do better."

Today we are going to focus on, "Help us improve our behavior."

Our class today will focus on area number four, improving our behavior through focusing on our weakest areas, as well as, giving us guidelines as to how we, as a spiritual person, should behave.

Looking back at our analogy of the dance teacher yesterday, the teacher knows you are a student because you have done something such as signed up for a class for the year, are paying a tuition each month. It is clear to the teacher who her students are and of course, she feels free to correct them. But of course, she does not correct other dancers who are not her students.

Gurudeva worked out a simple way of knowing who his sishya are, which he called the 'Annual Rededication'. Every year at Satguru Purnima, a sishya who wants to continue sends in the Rededication form. This lets Gurudeva know, and now me, that the sishya wants continued guidance in his or her life for the coming year. Gurudeva described this as a sishya taking one step toward him and he responding, by taking nine steps in return. Gurudeva felt the rededication was important, as it prevented him from continuing to make suggestions to someone, who no longer wanted to receive suggestions from Gurudeva.

One of the ways self-reflection can be done on our behavior is an annual review of Hinduism's 'Code of Conduct' or the yamas and niyamas. A natural time for this review to occur is during the time of year the 'Living with Siva' lessons are about the yamas and niyamas. These are 'Living with Siva' lessons 8 through 63. This period begins in the latter part of April and lasts for about two months. In performing this review, we are looking at the next refinement in the yama and niyama, not simply thinking we have mastered it because we have the basics under control.

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