Two of our upcoming books are about Sage Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and Saint Tayumanavar’s life and songs. Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami commissioned ten original pieces of art for each book from famed muralist Suresh Muthukulam in Kerala. Though it will be a while before the books are published, the artwork is now available on our Himalayan Academy Museum of Spiritual Art (HAMSA) in the Suresh Muthukulam collection, with detailed captions for each. Here is a sample from each group:
Tayumanavar
Tayumanavar, with accounting journals under his arm, walks barefoot to the castle, where King Nayak has engaged him as his financial manager. Days later, two men examine the footprints he left in the sand, astonished to find they have not disappeared as one would expect. They take it as a miraculous happening. Above, Siva uses His trishula to row a divine Moon Boat through the heavens, watching the events below. On the left, a family of toddy tappers walk the aerial ropes between palmyra palm trees, gathering the nectar for making jaggery and toddy. Below, a woman sells the palm nuts. A bullock cart full of kingly supplies approaches the castle, and elephants, one with a flower in his trunk, greet the saint on his first day. Below, under a spreading banyan tree, two philosophers debate the merits of Vedanta and Siddhanta. It was Tayumanavar’s life mission to show the unity of these two great views.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
Here, Rishi Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras (ca. 200-500 BCE), meditates while seated on the coiled body of a giant serpent. His hands are held in Shuni Mudra, which is said to awaken intuition and higher consciousness, and to purify thought and emotion. The banyan tree, with its vast rooting tendrils, represents the strength and longevity of Hinduism. Above, Sadasiva rides on His winged vahana, Nandi. In the branches, two cobras have wrapped themselves around the ola leaf manuscript of the Yoga Sutras, protecting it for future generations. Near the bottom, Siva is present in the sage’s personal Sivalinga. Subtly, Siva’s two all-seeing cosmic eyes peer out from the sky behind, just above the horizon.
Last week Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami shared the upadesha that he recently gave at satsangs in Singapore and Malaysia, about comparing the inner climb up the chakras to reaching the summit of Mount Everest. Mount Everest base camp was compared to the fourth chakra and dimension of cognition. In today’s upadesha he shares our late Gurudeva’s in-depth description of the fourth dimension of consciousness.
Besides the livestream from this morning, here is a selection of photos which also show the chariot parade out to Iraivan Temple, and the planting of a bilva tree sapling next to Iraivan Temple right after the padapuja. And, the final photo shows Nandi receiving yogurt abhishekam during Pradosha Puja the prior afternoon.
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami shares the upadesha that he gave at satsangs in Singapore and Malaysia last month. He quotes Paramaguru Sage Yogaswami comparing the inner climb up the chakras to reaching the summit of Mount Everest, and then elaborates on the stages of this climb.
SSC sishyas Erasenthiran and his son Naavalan have arrived from mainland USA for a month to serve in the Siddhidata Kulam at Kauai Aadheenam during Naavalan’s summer break from school. In today’s photos, Naavalan is picking Abiu fruit that is abundantly in season right now. He says he enjoys being out in nature, with the cooling trade wind breeze and birds chirping.
A group of Nene geese also decided to visit the nearby avocado orchard this morning.
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.
“Why would you ever want to place demands of perfection upon yourself? You now walk the path of perfection, and you must be so to walk that path. What is this perfection? First, it is a clarity of cognition. Second, it is a bursting of actinic love for your fellow man. Third, it is an openness and willingness to serve and fit in, in any capacity. Fourth, it is living a contemplative lifestyle better every day. Fifth, it is mastering all of your yoga disciplines given to you by your guru. Sixth, it is the ability to hold responsibility, maintain a continuity of your own karmayoga, yet have the mobile quality to be ever ready to do something different without losing continuity of what you have been doing in holding your responsibility. ¶If you can gear yourself to accomplish all this, you are on the path of enlightenment and you will surely prove to yourself, when you have your realization, that you are a free man in a free world, subject to nobody, to no power, even the power of karma. How could That which is formless and causeless be subject to anything?“
