Kauai Aadheenam

The Sri Lankan monks enter our meditation temple

A happy exchange between Hindus and the majority Buddhists of the country.

All sit for a quiet inner moment.

Earlier they visited Yogaswami’s hut

The monks’ colors, saffron and burgundy, denote their different sects.

We have been sharing Saint Tayumanavar’s wonderful teaching of samarasam—the unitive amity between religions. The idea of such shared respect is no less relevant to our 21st century experience than to his time, some 300 years ago.

A real-life example took place a few days back at the Sri Subramuniya Temple in Sri Lanka. Here is the report from Rishi Thondunathan (who this morning is hunkered down in Colombo due to a massive cyclone passing over the island).

“Greetings! On Friday, a group of 120 Buddhist monks and devotees from Kandy visited the Yogaswami Samadhi Temple and our Sri Subramuniya Temple in Alaveddy. They shared that they had read about Yogaswami’s life and teachings in various books, and were deeply moved by his simplicity and the profound wisdom reflected in his words and way of life. This inspiration led them to visit the sacred places where the sage lived. They had already downloaded the English Natchintanai from the Himalayan Academy publication website, and they have translated the song “Engal Gurunathan” into Sinhala. They attended the pūja and then eagerly listened to the story of Yogaswami’s life.”

In Peace,

Rishi Thondunathan 

Mount Waialeale is one of Kauai’s greatest natural marvels, rising from the island’s emerald heart (more technically the island rises from its heart) and cloaked in near-constant mist. Its name means “rippling waters” or “overflowing water,” a reference to the countless waterfalls and ancient bogs that spill from its summit. Known as one of the wettest spots on Earth, Waialeale is revered in Hawaiian culture as a sacred wao akua, a realm of the gods, where clouds gather, nourish the land, and sustain life downstream. Its blue-green cliffs and perpetual rain have long inspired respect, marking the mountain as a living temple of water, fertility and spiritual presence at the center of the island.

We live with it daily and watch it change from hour to hour as the clouds come and go, as the setting sun sets it on fire. Gurudeva envisioned a futuristic coffee table book which would show all of its moods, and we share a few of those in today’s TAKA, taken by various monks over the years.

In December of 1968 Gurudeva brought 32 Innersearchers to Kauai and on the second day we hired Larry rivera, the island’s legendary singer/composer, to regale us all with his song about Waialeale. Larry warned us, as we gathered around what is now the temple pool, that the song makes it rain more often than not. We nodded politely, and asked him to continue. It rained before he ended!

Want to hear him sing it right now? Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0voBezB05cw

Drone shot looking Southeast from Kuamoo Road

Satellite overview

Here we are on Kauai island, 4 miles inland

Like everything in life, our point of view shapes our experience. Here at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, we’re all familiar with the monks’ ground-level photos—bright baskets of vegetables, blossoms unfolding, quiet temple pujas, and those small daily miracles that make monastery life so rich.

But the photo above gives us something entirely different. It lifts us into the sky and turns us toward a direction we’ve never seen before. Suddenly the whole monastery reveals itself in a new light. Footpaths we walk every day connect into larger patterns. Buildings become part of a serene landscape design we didn’t know we were living inside. It’s a gentle reminder of how perspective changes everything.

As Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

To help everyone orient themselves in this rare bird’s-eye view, we’ve labeled the main areas. Enjoy this fresh glimpse of our spiritual home—and may it inspire a renewed appreciation for this sacred land that holds our daily worship, work and service.

Always listening for Siva’s words.

Under a sacred tree, Tayumanavar
 speaks 
to
 the
 Vedantins 
on 
his 
right
 and
 the
 Saivites
 on 
his 
left. 
Around 
him,
 villagers 
listen
 as
 the
 saint
 reveals 
the
 unity
 at
 the heart
 of
 both 
faiths:
 the
 eternal
 Siva
 within.

Tayumanavar welcomed seekers from every path, embracing the many lineages of India—not only Hindu traditions, but also Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, and others. His vision of samarasam, or harmony, called for unity beyond sectarian boundaries, affirming the shared quest for truth that underlies all faiths.

In the mystic, devotional songs to Siva, Saint Tayumanavar (1705–1742) beseeched humanity to see the one Divinity within all paths and philosophies. He sought to reconcile the religious conflicts of his day in South India—the Buddhists colliding with the Jains, the Vaishnavites quarreling with the Saivites—not unlike what we see in other parts of the world today. He had a Tamil word for it: samarasam. Samarasam literally means “same taste.” It denotes the harmony of doctrines, the inclusivity of religions, the bliss in which all dualities dissolve. It is, in essence, the high state of awareness that sees the One Divine equally in all beings. It reminds us that the thousand names of God are but echoes of one eternal Silence.

That call for religious harmony and reconciliation is a hallmark of Gurudeva’s teachings,and reaches back to Yogaswami before him. Saint Tayumanavar was deeply connected to our lineage, and sang that he followed the teachings of Tirumular, the second satguru on the Nandinatha Sampradaya.

Tayumanavar sings from within this current. His hymns revere both Vedas and Agamas, the saints and siddhars, and above all the living Guru who embodies their essence. He sees Saivism not as one creed among others but as the meeting point where outer differences are reconciled. For him mauna (silence) is not emptiness but the serene absorption that follows perfect understanding; and samarasam (harmony) is not compromise but the state in which Vedanta’s insight and Siddhanta’s devotion fuse as one path. His language of longing—sivanubhūti, anbu, jñāna, mauna—marks a heart that has passed beyond theology into direct awareness.

Today we share a sampling of his songs and art from the book we are soon to publish. 

Songs for Siva

Who was it that gave this egoity so much authority? Does this maya even exist outside of my thought? Will “sky flower’’ and “mirage water’’ ever have a practical use? Even my instructed state is thrown into confusion unless I receive Your grace to seek refuge in You. It performs a conjuring trick in my mind, establishing the illusory world as permanent. When shall I receive the secret of conquering this? Please tell me, O Jnanaguru Who expounds in Your grace the six established faiths and the philosophical unity of Vedanta and Siddhanta for all the worlds in cardinal directions to know. O Mantra Guru! O Yoga Tantra Guru! Mauna Guru who comes in the line of Tirumular!

Holding as real this body that is evanescent, like a flash of lightning, holding as real the pleasures of flashy women who intoxicate the senses with their collyrium-painted eyes, holding as heaven the stately mansion and mounting riches, holding gold as an imperishable treasure that waxes high, putting on false appearances to an excessive degree, abandoning to the winds the virtues of patience, wisdom, renunciation and charity, to be possessed of greed, miserliness and other demons, to walk about here below caught in the faith of the materialist—with a single word, in compassion, You kept me from all these that I might receive the grace of the great Vedanta-Siddhanta accord and enjoy the life eternal. O You Jnana Guru! O Mantra Guru! O Yoga Tantra Guru! Mauna Guru who comes in the line of Tirumular!

Today we announce our annual end-of-the-year Digital Dharma Drive.

A Message from Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami

November 1, 2025

Namaste and welcome to our various websites and mobile apps, through which we endeavor to provide accurate, useful and contemporary information on Hinduism. 

Thanks to Digital Dharma Drive donations, the monks continued their steady push to create additional AI recordings in Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami’s voice of his writings that he did not himself record. This is especially appreciated by individuals who regularly listen to audio files, such as when traveling to work. We have a new presence on Instagram, where snippets from Path to Siva and Gurudeva’s Spiritual Toolbox appear each week thanks to development and publishing tools that have been acquired. AI has been adopted by many of the monks who now use it to aid in communications, publications, web development, image creation, troubleshooting, computer learning and research tasks. Donations also cover the professional fees needed to continue to upgrade and expand our digital offerings. Our most exciting news is the completion, after 13 years of work, of our own translation and commentary of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. And it’s illustrated!

The material on our websites and mobile apps continues to be available for free. Our Guru, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, insisted that all of his books as well as our other publications be available in digital formats without charging readers to access this material. For example, all issues of our magazine, Hinduism Today, are available online without cost.

We do, however, follow the model of Wikipedia of asking for donations during the last two months of the year. For fifteen years running, you have responded generously to our Digital Dharma Drive, and after another year of dynamic digital progress, we are back again with our 2025 appeal.

In our “How the Funds Are Used” page, https://ddd.himalayanacademy.com/how-the-funds-are-used/ we detail what we did with your past generosity, and what we hope to accomplish in the coming year. Digital Dharma Drive funds do not pay staff salaries or administrative overhead, since our sites are created and maintained by selfless monks who happily work for free and live simply in our remote monastery on the island of Kauai. This allows us to accomplish major projects with relatively small cost.

Ten percent of your tax-deductible contribution goes into the permanent Digital Dharma Drive Endowment, which now stands at $319,764 after fourteen years of fundraising. This follows Gurudeva’s vision that ultimately, in the future, all major aspects of our work will be supported by endowments. As the endowment accumulates, it will provide an ever-increasing income for decades to come, protecting the digital future of Hinduism, your religious heritage.

We urge you to donate today, and empower us to improve Hinduism’s global English-language resources—for the benefit of this and future generations. Our plans, projects and publications can be made manifest with your help.  

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Guru Mahasannidhanam of Kauai Aadheenam
Publisher of Hinduism Today