Kauai Aadheenam

Satguru’s August Trip, Part One

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  • Malhotra home
  • Art installation seen in Chicago
  • Arriving at Satish home

On August 12th, Satguru and Shanmuganathaswami departed for some cities in mainland USA and also to Montreal, Canada. First stop was Chicago to visit with Malhotra family who are SSC sishyas, and also meet a few other devotees. Aran Malhotra had a japa mala blessed as he prepares for his first year of university. From there they traveled to upstate New York to spend some time with the Satish family, longtime well-wishers.

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Chitra Puja, & Jivana Ritau Begins

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As Mother Nature quieted down in the aftermath of the Lala tropical storm, small patches of blue sky began to peek through still-dense-but-fast-moving clouds as we enjoyed another Gurudeva Chitra nakshatra padapuja in the early morning. The puja coincided with the ending of our restful Sadhu Paksha period and entering the season of Jivana Ritau. Hence a small parade then occurred to change the flag. Sometimes there is little wind and the flag doesn’t unfurl as we change it, but the tropical storm leftovers brought a majestic unfurling in multiple directions.

Excerpts from Saiva Dharma Shastras about the this time of year:
“Beginning with Hindu New Year in mid-April, three seasons of the year divide our activities into three great needs of humankind the learning of scripture in the first season, Nartana Ritau; the living of culture in the second season, Jivana Ritau; and the meditating on Siva in the third season, Moksha Ritau. Thus we are constantly reminded that our life is Siva’s life and our path to Him is through study, sadhana and realization. In ritau one, we teach the philosophy; in ritau two, we teach the culture; and in ritau three, we teach meditation.

During Jivana Ritau, the rainy season, from mid-August to mid-December,Living with Siva: Hinduism’s Contemporary Cultureis the primary text. The key word of this season is work. The colors are rust, copper-maroon and all shades of red rust for earthy preservation, copper-maroon for fulfillment and red for physical energy. The Aadheenam’s flag pole flies the rust-colored dhvaja, symbolizing environmental care. Copper-maroon and all shades of red adorn our smaller flags. This is the season of honoring and showing appreciation for those in the vanaprastha ashrama, life’s elder advisor stage. The focus is on preserving what has been created, manifesting goals and fulfilling plans made in the past. Inwardly the emphasis is on direct cognition and caring for the practical details of the external world. Practicality is a word much used this season.”

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New Sprayer on a Trailer

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For years we’ve been using standard hand watering cans to nourish young plants that can’t easily be reached with a garden hose. And even older plants have to get watered during our occasional dry spells. As you can imagine, it’s rather laborious to fill a few small cans at a spigot and then go out to various plants, back and forth, back and forth. To speed up the watering process, we’ve just purchased a 60-gallon sprayer tank on a trailer, with a strong pump. Hook it to a utility vehicle, and you can cover many plants before having to refill. Besides the spray gun, it also has a boom attachment with seven spray nozzles. We assembled it the other day, and now we’re figuring out some extra parts needed to connect it to our vehicles.

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What Is Hinduism Book, On-Demand Print Edition

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As we have mentioned previously, when a book inventory gets low, we are generally shifting to on-demand printing because we no longer have storage space for hundreds or thousands of books. Plus we can easily update the book contents whenever needed. We are currently using Amazon KDP as our on-demand printer, and it comes with more limitations for page margins and manuscript size. We usually have to rearrange aspects of the book to fit their specifications. The latest case is What is Hinduism? book. The book contains 46 chapters that are Insight Sections compiled from past issues of Hinduism Today magazine. We are having to increase the size of the manuscript pages and shift graphics and text to fit within the new margin rules. This would be a tremendous task if done manually. Fortunately AI has advanced at just the right time. Now we can set up AI to do a large amount of the resizing work. Above are opening spreads for some of the book chapters.

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The Path of Egoity, Part Two

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Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.

“Television is a window into the āṇava mārga. We see extremely successful professional people who maybe have started on the āṇava mārga and have bypassed it to the artful acting portrayal of people on the āṇava mārga. We can see in their eyes, they have a life that is seeking and searching, understanding and knowing, and their magnetism keeps them before the public year after year after year. These are the professionals. Then we see on TV the āṇava mārgīs by the dozens. They come and go, are hired and not rehired. ¶Before the āṇava mārga, there is only confusion, unqualified thoughts, desires that are only motivative or directional, not crystallized into any kind of a concept that can be manifested toward a fulfillment. The confusion arises out of the drive for self preservation. All animal instincts are alive in such a human being. He does not hold to promises, does not seek to strive, is a proverbial burden on society. Society is made up of āṇava mārgīs and those who live in the other mārgas. Deception, theft, murder, anger, jealousy and fear are often the occupation and the emotions of those living without a personal identity, a well-defined ego.“

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The Path of Egoity, Part One

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Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami gives his weekly upadesha in Kadavul Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. It is part of a series of talks elaborating on the inspired teachings of Satguru Śivaya Subramuniyaswami as found in his book Merging With Śiva.

“Much has been said of the path toward merger with Śiva, and much remains to be said. But the truth is this: most people on this Earth are following another path for the moment, the path of self-indulgence and self-interest and selfishness. No doubt, it is the most popular path, and it has its own pandits and masters, who teach how to perfect the path of the external ego, how to perfect worldliness, how to perfect the trinity of I, me and mine, how to perfect self-indulgence. But that is not the ultimate path, which is followed by the few, by mature souls. It is important for aspirants to know that the real path leading toward merger with Śiva has many detours, pitfalls and sidetracks that beckon unwary travelers. It is important for him or her to know about these side paths, to be warned, as I am doing now, to be wary of them, to be cautious, to be extremely careful. “

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