January Chitra Puja

Today at noon we celebrated Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami with our monthly pada puja during the chitra nakshatra. In Kadavul Temple Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and his monks gathered with local members for an abhishekam. While the monks chanted Sri Rudram Natyam Mayuranatha and Nirvani Tejadevanatha performed the puja, pouring pranic substances such as milk, honey and citrus over Gurudeva's black granite tiruvadi. Following a final arati, the event ended with singing and with each attendee prostrating before the shrine, with an opportunity for everyone to then sit in worshipful silence. Jai Gurunathan. Aum Namah Sivaya.

excerpted From Living With Siva: \"Hindu temples sustain Hinduism around the world.\"

Scriptures keep us always reminded of the path we are on and the path we are supposed to be on

but only from the satguru can you get the spirit, the sustaining spirit to make it all come to life in you

to make the temple meaningful and to complement the scriptures with your own sight your own third-eye sight.

Otherwise it\

s just words. Nathas are not on the path of words.'

The Rishi wandered down from the Himalayas to Bangalore. What did he say? Nobody knows. Whom did he talk to? Nobody knows.

Did he influence crowds of people? Perhaps, but he only had to influence one individual, Kadaitswami, to speak out to the world.

Kadaitswami caught the spirit of the Rishi who had caught the spirit of the previous Rishi and all the ones that preceded him.

It is that spirit of sampradya that makes the traditional teachings meaningful

that gives you the power to discriminate between what is real within those teachings and what is superfluous or just plain nonsense

that gives you the power to blend Siddhanta with Vedanta, Vedas with Agamas.

The irreversible spirit of the guru carries through all of the sishyas.

It is basically the only gift a guru can give--that sustaining spirit.

He doesn\

t have to give knowledge because that has already been written down.'

He doesn\

t have to build temples because there are more than enough temples for everyone.'

The rare and precious gift that he can convey is the inner spirit of his religious heritage.

That is his unique gift to the world.

Nathas do not follow the way of words.

Kadaitswami spoke to a lot of people. Who knows what he said? They didn\

t have tape recorders in those days and doubtless he never wrote anything down but the spirit carried through him to Chellappaguru who didn\'t say an awful lot.'

He wasn\

t following the way of words either. He spoke only divine essences of the philosophy.'

He didn\

t write 3000 verses like Rishi Tirumular did. Nor did he give lectures to crowds like Kadaitswami did.'

His spirit was passed on to Satguru Siva Yogaswami who passed his spirit on to a lot of devotees.

He passed his spirit on to lots of devotees including me.

If I had not journeyed to the northern part of Sri Lanka and gone to Siva temples worshiped there and received initiation from Yogaswami would I have returned to America and built a Siva temple or helped found over fifty other Hindu temples scattered around the world? No.

Would we have a monastic community? No.

Would we have an international Saiva Siddhanta Church? No

Would we have a Himalayan Academy? No.

Would we have a Hindu Heritage Endowment? No. Would we have a Hinduism Today magazine? No.

Would we have family missions all over the world? No. Would we be sitting here right now? No.

Only because of the existence of one satguru in this venerable line of gurus, I caught the spirit; and through this spirit the words manifest the activities manifest the devotees maintain that straight path the disciplines bear fruit the inner sight comes and after it comes it stays.

Without satgurus we would only have temples and scriptures.

Without satgurus we wouldn\

t have the spirit and people would stop going to temples and stop reading the scriptures.'
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