Kauai Aadheenam

As Gurudeva loved to say when traveling, “Up, up and away!” This is the 17th year of our digital fund appeal. It begins November 1 and ends December 31. Like Wikipedia’s annual appeal, our Digital Dharma Drive provides the resources to publish our spiritual works in the year ahead, in an increasingly post-bookstore world.

A Message from the Editors

November 1, 2026

Imagine this: One day in 1984, Gurudeva is driving through picturesque Kapaa Town on our small island of Kauai. He spots a new computer shop, the first on the island to offer Apple computers, and directs the monks to stop so we can go inside and see what’s up. What we discover will change our lives for decades to come.

Inside, Gurudeva is introduced to the first Macintosh, with its mind-bending 128K of memory, little monochrome screen and curious device called a mouse—all housed in sleek white packaging. We had never seen anything like it. With the boldness that characterized his entire life, he bought one on the spot, and we carried it out to the Jeep. After a week or two exploring MacPaint and MacWrite, he clearly saw how this little machine could empower his monks. Soon, he bought a Macintosh for each of us.

Fast forward to 1997, when the digital waves of the Internet washed ashore on Kauai. Gurudeva was all in. “Let’s start a daily journal!” he proclaimed. And just like that, Today at Kauai Aadheenam, affectionately known as TAKA, was born. One of the pioneering daily monastery journals on the Web, it has been a fixture of our online presence ever since. How’s that for keeping up with the times?

Now, nearly three decades later, another technological revolution is transforming our small publishing team’s work. In just the last three years, artificial intelligence has given us efficiencies we never imagined possible. We are still discovering ways to put this remarkable technology to work—creating short instructional videos, proofreading manuscripts, assisting with Sanskrit and Tamil translations and, perhaps most dramatically, producing artwork at a pace once unimaginable.

Not long ago, creating an illustration for one of our books was a months-long undertaking. We would conceive an idea, sketch it out with detailed descriptions, email our instructions to an artist in Tamil Nadu or Kerala, wait weeks for a preliminary rendering, suggest revisions and then wait another two months for the finished canvas to arrive—all at a cost of $400–500 per piece. Today, a digital image can be accomplished in less than a minute, at a cost of under a dollar! For our recent book Tayumanavar’s Songs to Siva, we created dozens of illustrations in just a few days. What an evolution!

Digital publishing has brought equally remarkable changes. Remember when printing a book meant a substantial investment up front, followed by the challenges of warehousing, shipping and managing unsold inventory? Today, print-on-demand technology allows us to make books available through Amazon without those initial printing costs. And our digital books, magazines and other resources can reach readers around the world almost instantly.

Of course, there is something timeless about holding a beautifully printed magazine or book. We still cherish that experience. But digital publishing has its own special advantages: searchable PDFs and ePubs, instructional videos, audio recordings and a growing library of Hindu resources available wherever an Internet connection can be found. Our Hinduism Today app, available for iOS and Android, puts the magazine into the hands of readers worldwide, free of charge.

Now imagine Gurudeva (1927–2001) seeing the fruits of today’s digital age. With a simple touch on a mobile device, his teachings reach seekers in every corner of the world, without costing readers a penny. His voice, recreated through AI, is heard as devotees explore his Trilogy while commuting, tending to their families or sitting quietly in their home shrines. He always loved high-tech, not as an end in itself, but as a powerful means of sharing timeless spiritual truths. Surely he would be delighted to see how the tools he first placed in his monks’ hands more than four decades ago have evolved, carrying his teachings to seekers around the globe. The technology has changed beyond anything we could have imagined in 1984. The mission has not.

With much aloha and warm greetings during the 2026 holiday season,

The Editors
Kauai’s Hindu Monastery
Himalayan Academy Publications

This before and after aerial photo of Iraivan tells a tale of progress. The BEFORE shot is from 2020 and the AFTER is from 10 days back.

For decades the monks cleared the land, built ponds and waterfalls, planted tens of thousands of plants, trees and flowering bushes. So, by 2020 the Sacred Garden was almost mature. To the first-time visitor it looked complete. Of course, under Siva’s care it has become ever so much more in the last six years.

And for decades Gurudeva, Bodhinatha and the monks worked with skilled teams of Indian silpis to hand-carve and erect the temple, which was completed in 2023 .

But there still remained a no-man’s land between them, a 50-foot-swath of dirt and mud. It has to be so, since it was still a construction site with trucks coming and going constantly.

Now, with the temple completed, we could begin healing, planting and landscaping that surrounding band of raw earth. That has been a focus for the last few years, and continues to be. But it is nearing completion (in August and September a team will clad the new concrete Garden Path that surrounds Iraivan Temple with quartzite which is now on a ship from Brasil).

The effect has been profound. The finished garden is being united with the finished temple, making them a single holy sanctuary. As a Japanese landscape designer once told the monks: “What you have created here is amazing. The temple is Indian granite. It is hard, rigid, strong, structured and commanding. It is masculine. Around it lies the garden which is soft, pliant, graceful, organic and nurturing. It is feminine. You have created the perfect balance of Siva and Shakti.”

“The perfect balance of Siva and Shakti.”

It is unusual, at our quiet monastery, for so many projects to be happening on a single day. Yesterday was such a day.

A team of 12 volunteers from the Corteva Agribusiness group spent the day helping us plant mondo around Iraivan. This was their second visit. To thank them, the monastery prepared a truly special South Indian feast (see the menu in the slideshow) which they enjoyed midday.

Another team was installing a new floor in rooms that will be used by our newest monks. A third team (as you know from yesterday) is taking apart the 97-year-old roof built by Japanese craftsmen in 1929. There is considerable weather damage to repair. It is the roof of our Guru Pitam, which is also our meditation hall each morning.

And finally, our own monk team has erected scaffolding at the MiniMela, preparing for the repair of the solar panel microinverters in the days ahead.

Inspiring to have so much basic maintenance underway.

Hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia and South Korea, and the state flower of Hawaii. It has great meaning in many cultures. In the Hindu tradition, hibiscus (especially Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, the red hibiscus) is sacred. Its five petals are interpreted as representing the five senses, the five elements, and even the five potencies of God Siva. The flowers are offered to Kali because their deep red color resembles divine power and the life force. They are also offered to Ganesha in many regions. They symbolize Shakti, energy and devotion and, for some, the transience of life, since their blooms, while stunningly beautiful, are brief, reminding us to be present in every moment.

The fancy hybrids are not as productive as the workhorse flowers that we collect daily by the bushel. They are far more spectacular, as though the plant puts all of its effort into the extra attention given to color, shape and form of the blossom. We show a few of the hybrids and a few of the more productive flowers that are the monks’ daily offerings to the deities in our two temples. Enjoy this short slideshow.

Rishi Valley 1988 and Today

This morning, while in Rishi Valley (just 100 feet East of Iraivan Temple for those unfamiliar) inspecting some minor pig damage from their nighttime foraging, we were struck by the beauty of the pond and the surrounding landscape. You know the experience: we see something day after day and then, suddenly, it reveals itself in a fresh and completely different way.

That happened today, and our minds drifted back through the many years of clearing land, making paths, creating waterfalls and ponds, reshaping the terrain, planting, planting and planting some more. We have come a long way.

Back at our computers, we found an old photograph taken during the valley’s early development. It looked so raw and rugged. We thought it would be fun to share a glimpse of what the valley looked like then and how it appears today.

Use the slider to move back and forth between past and present.

Stills of Rishi Valley

Photos from today’s walk through the monastery sacred garden on Kauai

Today’s amble through the monastery’s sacred gardens became a meditation on water — among the most common substances on Earth, yet also one of its rarest treasures. Without it, no garden could flourish, no forest could endure and no human life could continue. On our island of Kauai, water appears in many forms at once: rushing rivers, quiet pools, misting rain, waterfalls tumbling over volcanic stone and delicate droplets resting silently on lotus leaves. It is an essential offering to Siva in the temple sanctum during abhishekam. Clear water appears empty, but contains 5-6 million forms of life in a single drop. Patiently, persistently, unceasingly, water moves toward its source, the sea, just as the soul moves toward God.

Water is endlessly adaptable. It accepts every shape without losing its own essence. It yields to obstacles and moves around them effortlessly. It can appear gentle enough to cradle a lotus leaf, yet powerful enough to carve valleys through stone over thousands of years.

Scientifically, water is astonishing. A simple molecule made from two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom forms the basis of nearly all life on Earth. Its unusual properties allow plants to draw moisture upward against gravity, help living cells regulate temperature and enable oceans to store immense amounts of heat that stabilize the planet’s climate.

In Hindu thought, water has always carried sacred meaning. It purifies, renews and restores. Temples are traditionally built beside rivers, tanks or oceans, recognizing water as both a physical necessity and a spiritual symbol. Watching the streams move through the monastery gardens today, one is reminded that water teaches by example. It yields, adapts, nourishes and continues moving forward without resistance.

We have much to learn from water’s ways.