Kauai Aadheenam

For about two years we have been fighting an invasive and destructive beetle called the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (CRB), or Oryctes rhinoceros. As the name implies, they are fond of coconut trees, but they also attack and can kill other palms. We have hundreds of mature palms in our gardens, and many of them are suffering from beetle attacks. A dozen have died and more are threatened.

Yesterday two experts surveyed our large palm collection, which includes hundreds of species, with the goal of developing a plan to reduce the beetle’s rapidly increasing population in the monastery. Their company uses steam to heat mulch piles that serve as breeding grounds for the larvae. The heat kills them before adults emerge and fly off to feed on palm trees. We have also been hiring a drone operator from Maui who has come twice to apply protective treatments to the rarest and most important trees. The Kauaʻi Invasive Species Committee (KISC) has helped us set up traps around the palms to capture the voracious insects. That is helping, but not enough.

Great damage has been done over the last two decades in Guam, where about 70% of palms were killed, as well as in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and now Hawaiʻi. Biologists are working intensively to deploy a virus widely considered the only long-term solution, but it has so far eluded them.

Two days back Rajkumar Manickam, after working with the monks, sent us an amazing Adobe Express creation giving the entire life of Saint Tayumanavar in illustrated form. It is a fun way to learn who this articulate and highly mystical Sivabhaktar was, how he endured great loss, rose to become finance minister to the king, left the palace to wander from temple to temple and write his 1,452 songs. Click on the second image below (with the giant Sivalingam), and the story will load in a few moments. Then use the mouse to scroll down, revealing image after captioned image. Aum Namasivaya!

The two masterful bonsai trees gracing the Kadavul Temple pool are a delight to all pilgrims. But their beauty comes with great discipline and care. The roots are so shallow, even 3 days of no rain/water can stress them and so Tandu Sivanathan has to be constantly aware of their needs.

Two days back he and his friend and bonsai sensei, Abe, gave the two a haircut. Why? Without continual pruning, the carefully developed miniature proportions and artistic structure gradually disappear. We share the happening in our slideshow today.

Bonsai, the sacred art of shaping living trees in miniature form, carries a history of more than a thousand years, passing through generations as both a refined craft and a contemplative discipline. It quietly reflects profound spiritual truths long cherished in Hindu thought. The gardener does not force the tree but guides it with patience, restraint and loving attention, working in harmony with nature rather than against it. In this gentle partnership we see the path of sadhana itself—steady effort joined with divine grace.

A bonsai reminds us that spiritual maturity is not measured by outward size or display but by balance, rootedness and inner beauty. As branches are trimmed and growth directed, the practitioner is inwardly taught the same lesson: refine the mind, steady the heart and allow life to unfold according to dharma. Thus the tending of a bonsai becomes a quiet meditation, a daily reminder that with patience, humility and devotion the soul too can be shaped into a work of living harmony.

Some CyberCadets enjoyed the old photos we shared a few days back, so we thought to dig up a few more. We seldom reflect on the far past, choosing instead to follow Gurudeva’s teachings of staying in the now, or an extended now he defined as four days in the past and four days in the future. Below is his full statement from Merging with Siva about living there.

GURUDEVA: When we forget who we are, who we really are, we live in a consciousness of time and space, and we relate to the future, to the external us, to the past, and to our subconscious internal us. This can be rather confusing. Most people are therefore confused and seek to distract themselves in an effort to find peace. A conscious awareness of now only comes when we remember who we really are. This doesn’t mean we cannot plan for the future or benefit ourselves by reviewing experiences of the past. It simply means that we always remember that we are the essence of all energy, the source.

Return to the source. Merge with Śiva. At the source there is always peace. The key to this entire practice is to become consciously aware of energy. In this constant remembering we have the feeling of being the center of the universe, with the whole world functioning around us. To be fully anchored in the knowledge of the source of our being, the eternal now can and must be a constant experience. It’s easy to live in the now if you work with yourself a little every day and concentrate on what you are doing each moment. To begin to work toward establishing yourself in the eternal now, first limit time and space by not thinking about or discussing events that happened more than four days past or will happen more than four days in the future. This keeps awareness reined in, focused. Be aware. Ask yourself, “Am I fully aware of myself and what I’m doing right now?”

Once you have gained a little control of awareness in this way, try to sit quietly each day and just be. Don’t think. Don’t plan. Don’t remember. Just sit and be in the now. That’s not as simple as it sounds, for we are accustomed to novelty and constant activity in the mind and not to the simplicity of being. Just sit and be the energy in your spine and head. Feel the simplicity of this energy in every atom of yourself. Think energy. Don’t think body. Don’t think about yesterday or tomorrow. They don’t exist, except in your ability to reconstruct the yesterdays and to create the tomorrows. Now is the only time. This simple exercise of sitting and being is a wonderful way to wash away the past, but it requires a little discipline. You have to discipline every fiber of your nerve system, work with yourself to keep the power of awareness expanded. Regular practice of meditation will bring you intensely into the eternity of the moment. Practice supersedes philosophy, advice, psychology and all pacifiers of the intellect.

We have to practice to keep awareness here and now. If you find yourself disturbed, sit down and consciously quiet the forces in yourself. Don’t get up until you have completely quieted your mind and emotions through regulating the breath, through looking out at a peaceful landscape, through seeking and finding understanding of the situation. This is the real work of meditation that is not written much about in books. If you can live in the eternity of now, your life will be one of peace and fulfillment. Aum

Today we look back in time to early days on Kauai with Gurudeva. It comes as part of our reflections of his life, focused by the fact that in 11 months we will celebrate his 100th birthday in a simple way.

It is a reminder that when Gurudeva moved to Kauai and founded the monastery, it was a rough parcel of land, covered by wild guava and hau bush. There was little hint in those early years of the beauty that the monks would lure forth with decades of creative effort. Instead there was weed tree removal, path building, clay and mud everywhere. But that was then and now is different. So join us in a handful of photos that tell of those early days in the 70s and 80s.

New Edition Published by Amazon

As our CyberCadets know, we are working with Amazon to publish our books. The latest to move into this new system is Gurudeva’s “12 Shum Meditations,” which are collectively called mamsani. The book is 100 pages long and has changed from a wire binding to perfect binding. It is now available on Amazon. The book contains The Advaitin, a remarkable writing from Gurudeva on the pure nondual philosophy. He presented it on June 10, 1968, and we share it here for those wanting to take a deep dive to balance this January day.

The Advaitin

All of the planned, thought-through philosophies derive their concepts through breakthroughs into expanded consciousness. These breakthroughs, well-recorded through relating them to prior concepts, form the philosophies we know today. The supreme breakthrough of the advaitin into nirvikalpa samadhi sustains the philosophy known as advaita without the necessity of recording experiential insights in the rational mind.

And we go on from there with a new point of unthought-out reference supplementing the rational mind with current insights which it has no time to record. This is because experience can only be recorded as it happens and referred to after. Whereas, constant experiencing can only be lived, recorded constantly in its happening but never referred to. This is the aftermath of being That which was fully realized. When a chela attains nirvikalpa samadhi, the mind reacts in a certain way. A rebirth of the psyche occurs. The constant experience begins of that which was experienced. The laws of the related difference of concepts change, and mind looks like being at the other end of the tunnel of consciousness looking out. Whereas before the happening, the mind was at the opposite end of the tunnel of consciousness looking in.

The flow of actinic energy through the constant changing force field of mental forces activates these odic force fields during an experience of nirvikalpa samadhi. This activation must be controlled through previous sadhanas, disallowing an influx of force that would deter succeeding experiences of nirvikalpa samadhi—perceptive insights into the overall nature of the mind, mind and Self as expounded through advaita yoga. This in turn brings out of the mind many comforting feelings as the advaita point of reference is gained.

All thinking people formulate their conclusions from one singular point of reference. Generally it is dvaita, dualistic in context. The pure advaita point of reference concedes positive conclusions backed by occasional intuitive flashes. Hence, advaita yoga is, in fact, healthy for the mind of man.

Beginning with the foreground of the average life span, we see lapses of consciousness in the generative functions of the mind. This is caused, no doubt, by all of the time spent in allowing dvaita thinking to penetrate the feeling nature. However, when schooled in advaitism, the same mind structure just referred to can change its format and condense its issues, and, without hesitation, relate all thinking, as well as feeling, to its base concept of the Self beyond mind, yet felt through mind even before a partial, actual realization occurs.

To cause advaita yoga philosophy to be a lifeline in one’s life, he must only be capable of thinking through the processes of subjective reasoning. Later some questions will be raised to stimulate this process of reason one must enter into, and exact methodology for bringing forth the advaita concepts in the mind into felt reality.

Not all persons, of course, are able to conceive of or accept the advaitin point of view. The mind is too superstitionally cluttered with dvaitic threats upon their own personal peace and future to dare look further. The process of disbelief is, therefore, almost automatic, and rejection final. Hence the two, advaita and dvaita, will always exist in the human kingdom. Man raising in consciousness from darkness into light has only to perceive his ancestors as they, too, sought through the lower, ebbing layers of the mind to bring forth from within themselves factual knowledge based not only on inductive thinking but the actual birth of experience. The format, therefore, is that to make a philosophy live vibrantly in mind and spur him on into its experiential states, its opposite must occur, causing the competitive whirl of the senses as they seek consciously conscious states.

As the advaita philosophy is looked at under the cold eyes of reason, it stands no chance of being realized in the personal life scope of the student. He must struggle first with his nature and clear an advaita pathway through many phases of his mind. First relating all experience through the summing-up process of reason, then clearly and unyieldingly define all his actions and way of life to the advaita path to enlightenment. This is difficult, and few really make the necessary strides beyond belief in advaita thinking. But even those who formulate a new point of reference through subjective reason live a grander and fuller life far from the superstitious dvaitic entanglements of the lower mind.

Talk to yourself and convince yourself of the logistics of the paramount factor that mind in all its various phases is form, even as protruded in light. Form is vibration; and yet beyond any possible vibration of consciousness is the Self beyond form, hence more intense than consciousness of time and space. Once sitting quietly in a meditative state, thus talking this over with yourself, trying to prove out the theory as well as disprove it, habit patterns of the subconscious begin to change radically, as preconceived, perhaps even unthought-out concepts held in faith begin to break, altering this mind structure. Yes, a new-found freedom, a lightness of body and mind, a true sense of religion occurs as the advaita principles begin to penetrate the mind structure and displace erroneous impressions.

“Thou art That,” the sages tell us and often never go on to explain the That, the Self. This Self within the very cellular structure of man can actually only be talked about but must become a constant nirvikalpa experience to be really realized.

Gurudeva’s Commentary

One can easily see the difficulties so far in expressing in either the languages of East or West these deeper truths. The Western languages simply have no inclusive conceptual words to encompass the internal happening of the superconscious. The best they can do is to tell of the existence of those states. The Eastern languages have long since lost the meaning of certain of their key words due to the varying interpretations of scholars approaching them from an advaitist point of view or a dvaita point of reference. Hence advaita yoga on an international scope in this age is hampered through the communication media.

This was realized halfway through the writing of The Advaitin on the shores of sublime Lago Maggiore while going through intense and profound inner states of superconscious in the struggle to convey some of its linear depth on paper. In a few hours, from deep within the uda current of the sushumna, came forth a new language—unfolded from the sounds of the anahata, visuddha and ajna chakras in action. This profound language will serve us to convey the inner teaching from the source of the sounds in which they exist. For it encompassed all the baser elements transmuted into conceptual fourth- and fifth-dimensional pictures. The three- and four-syllable words convey the happenings of the inner man. The one- and two-syllable words take care of the aspirant’s communication in his relation to external things, in monastic life, around the home in the kovilla or ashram, so that the flow of inner and outer conceptual viewing is not broken and life can flow on constructively.

The language of the Advaitin in the new age, called Shum, is of the four higher chakras, whereas his native tongue can take care of his association with thought patterns of the first three chakras.

The inmost center of consciousness—located only after the actinic forces dissolve concepts of form and even consciousness being conscious of itself—is found to be within the center of an energy-spinning force field. This center—intense in its existence, consciousness only on the perimeter of the inside hub of this energy field—vitalizes all externalized form.

Losing consciousness into the center of this energy field catalyzes one beyond form, time, space. The spinning hub of actinic energy recreating, preserving and dissipating form quickly establishes consciousness again. However, this is then a new consciousness, the continuity of consciousness having been broken in the nirvikalpa samadhi experience. Essentially, the first total conscious break in the evolution of man is the first nirvikalpa samadhi experience. Hence, a new evolution begins anew after each such experience. The evolutional patterns overlap and settle down like rings of light, one layer upon another, causing intrinsic changes in the entire nature and experiential pattern of the experiencer.

Almost as soon as dvaita thinkers come in contact with advaitist concepts, they accept the format of thinking and belief, wondering how ever could they have felt otherwise.

The advaita point of view has not been too prominent in the West, nor even in the Far East, for few scriptures are clear enough in their translations or editing, even in original text, to maintain the pure advaita point of reference. The Bhagavad Gita exemplifies this very clearly, having clearly defined its premise in two paragraphs, contradicting it in a sentence or two following. Of course, the advaita mystic can read and enjoy any scripture, only enhancing his realization; whereas the dvaitist becomes subconsciously confused when these inconsistencies occur. Great efforts on our part are now being made to edit some of these ancient scriptures in the true advaitist purity that I feel was originally intended by the enlightened rishis.