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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!

Bodhinatha is in wonderful health and spirits after returning home. Sannyasin Saravananathaswami, the talaivar of the Ekadanta Kulam is busy with follow up for all the many requests that were made during the journey.

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 mysorensis vine that grows in trees and offers a beautiful falling array of flowers on a hanging stem.

More news from our Ekadanta Kulam today: Kulapati Rajen Manick in Mauritius has "rounded up" a group of those who have expressed interest in studying Gurudeva's teachings and is helping them all get organized to officially enroll in the Master Course, get their text books and make their tuition payment. That's a great spirit.

From the "distant frontiers"... Bodhinatha received a heartfelt letter from two "Saivites" from the old city of Barnaul, the administrative center of the Altai region in Siberia, Russia. A young couple, a school teacher and a historian write saying, "Siva was revealed to us last year and we are overjoyed to discover the teachings of Saivism in the Russian edition of Dancing with Siva. We would like to start a Siva Temple here in Siberia."

The Altai region is in the "deep south" of Siberia, at the very center of the Asian continent, wedged between Kazhakstan and Mongolia. If you had a really strong arm you could throw a rock from Barnaul into Kashmir, India. (Ha! just kidding.... but take a look at this map, to see where these very sincere Siva worshippers are located.)

Map Quest Click: Barnaul in upper left hand corner... zoom out to see location in Asia.

If that link doesn't work, go to http://www.mapquest.com, click on "city" and enter "Russia" for country and "Barnaul" for city.

Meanwhile, fund-raising for the Iraivan Temple is very much on everyone's minds as the Ganapati Kulam is nearing the end of their work on the latest edition of the "Island Temple Magazine." For those desktop publishing software aficionados: our team has made a quantum leap forward by switching from the Quark Express page layout and design program to Adobe's InDesign 2.0--wow, what an upgrade that is! This has led to some dynamic new layouts for this new issue that will unveil to the world the current progress of the Iraivan Temple project.

One of our new programs for fund-raising is being spear-headed by Pilliyar Kulam member Sannyasin Sivadevanathaswami and this is the sale of things on eBay that are gifted by devotees wanting to help Iraivan. Kulapati Deva Rajan led the way with a gift of roofing tiles that sold on eBay and the proceeds went to the Iraivan building fund and Deva Magdalena has gifted this gold diamond ring which will be auctioned on eBay. This is truly an exquisite piece and if you would like to get a really fine piece of jewelry and give to the temple at the same time you might want to jump into the eBay auction for this one. Stay tuned for the announcement in the days ahead.

Iraivan after a morning shower.

Eye protection, hammer and chisel... all a silpi needs for a full day's work.

The team is working on the ground level now, preparing stone for the next lift up to the vimanam.

This is Silpi Karpaiah.

Chipping stones can be done lightly with just enough force to pulverize a small area of granite within a few millimeters radius from the tip of the chisel. It can also be done with major heavy blows to work out channels, followed by sharp hard blows to the left or right to break out large chunks.

As the silpi nears his "target" level he begins to tap gently and carefully to just knock off the bumps to bring through a smooth, level surface.

It takes many, many hours of patient concentrated work... We have sun shades in place to protect the silpis from the fierce tropical sun. The silpis say that our sun here burns somehow even hotter than the sun in India, even though the temperature may not be so high.

Shanmugam Sthapati finds that this long beam needs a major inset along one edge. The marking is done with a heavy colored paint-dye.

The chalk line is pulled tight.

And, snap!

The onsite Sthapati has to be a mental chess master of stone assembly. From the drawings and existing stones and in consultation with the team in India, he keeps the entire finished Vimanam structure in his mental vision all day long.

Drawing the final edge for this cut. Every move must be the right one. You simply can't just "go and cut another board," to fix it. All is proceeding well.

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Date: July_30_2003
Title: Improving Our Behavior with the Help of the Guru Part 2
Category: Self Improvement
Duration: 8 min., 9 seconds
Date Given: July 09, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha

So, let us look at the first yama, Ahimsa, Non-injury.

Ahimsa, is to practice non-injury, not harming others by thought, word or deed, even in your dreams. Live a kindly life. Revering all beings as the expression of the One divine energy. Let go of fear and insecurity, the sources of abuse, knowing that harm caused to others unfailingly returns to oneself. Live peacefully with God's creation. Never be a source of dread, pain or injury. Follow a vegetarian diet.

Of course, most of us do not indulge in physical violence. Therefore we may conclude that Ahimsa presents no challenge to us. However, let us look more closely at the definition of Ahimsa, which is not harming others by thought, word or deed. This points out that we need to practice ahimsa in our speech, even our thoughts. Today we are focusing on speech, specifically looking at words that hurt. The common forms of hurting others with our speech is joking, teasing, gossiping and backbiting.

Let us look at some examples illustrating joking and teasing.

First example: Someone has a special privilege or position that we don't. He got to skip the work today that we did. "He has really got it easy."

Second example: Someone is a bit overweight. "He certainly likes those desserts."

Third example: Someone speaks English with a foreign accent. You repeat his mispronunciation and laugh.

Fourth example: Someone has difficultly such as in multiplication. When *he is* having trouble making a calculation, you make fun of him.

The rationale for this behavior is, "I am just joking, trying to be humorous, creating some laughter." However, in truth your words are himsa. You are harming another through your speech and justifying it by saying you are joking.

Gurudeva has given us a useful guideline for seeing if our speech is appropriate. It provides a four-fold test. Speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary.

In terms of joking and teasing, the first test to apply is, is it helpful? In other words, everything I say to someone else should be designed to help them do better in some way.

Let us look at our four examples again and see if any of them pass the test of being helpful.

Someone has a special privilege or position that we don't and we joke that he got to skip work today. Someone is a bit overweight, we joke that he likes those desserts. Someone speaks English with a foreign accent, we joke about his mispronunciation. Someone has trouble multiplying and we make fun of him.
Certainly none of them pass the test of being helpful.

Let us look at the example of someone who is overweight and who is a friend or a family member. We are genuinely concerned that it is best for their health to lose some weight. Therefore our words pass the test of helpful. But to tell them simply straight out that you are very fat, fails the test of being kind. We need to express our concern more gently such as, "It might be good for your health if you lost a little weight."

Moving on to gossip. Gossip is talking about the details of others' personal life when they are not present, for the delight of it. Gossip is like creating and watching our own television soap opera. It clearly fails the test of being helpful, as it is designed to entertain the participants, at the expense of the individual being gossiped about.

Some wives regularly indulge in the practice of gossiping about their husbands. While their husbands are at work, they spend a great deal of time on the phone or the internet with other wives, sharing at length the details of their husband's life. How can the husband be successful when the wife's mind is working and plotting against him? Imagine the husband going on a spending spree and buying all kinds of unnecessary items with money that was supposed to cover the mortgage payment. This is clearly misusing the family's financial resources and hurting the family's well being. The wife gossiping at length about her husband is dissipating the vital energy of the family and harming its well being in another way. Gossiping about your husband of course fails the three tests, kind, and helpful and necessary.

Husbands don't usually gossip, but they do tease their wives and that too, fails these three tests.

Last but not least, is backbiting. Finding the faults in others and sharing this finding with others is a hobby many enjoy. It is so much easier to look for faults in others and complain about them, than to see the same faults in us and change them.

Tirukural devotes Chapter 19 to 'Avoidance of Backbiting'. "If men perceive their own faults as they do the faults of others, could misfortune ever come to them?"

Of course, backbiting fails our speech test of kind, helpful and necessary. The truth is that unless we are responsible for someone's upbringing or training such as parents to their children or supervisors to their staff, then it is best to ignore the faults of others and indeed focus on finding and improving our own faults.

So remember the test, speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary.

Okay, now you can make use of your paper, you have a five-minute assignment here.

As we are talking about the idea in improving our behavior, is based upon honest self-reflection. It is easy to say, "Ahimsa, Non-injury. I don't hit anybody, I am not harming anybody." But the spirit of Gurudeva's writing on it is to think deeper. Think about our words and in particular, think about these three kinds of inappropriate speech. Joking and teasing is the first one, gossiping is the second one and backbiting is the third one.

So, we want to just take a look at ourselves for five minutes and write down any areas in which we think we can improve. Be honest, you don't have to read it or show it to anyone. This is just for self-improvement, based upon what we have just heard here. I give you five minutes.

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