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.”
Times mysteries. These slidding time lines are packed with days, weeks, months, years really. All squeezed into the movemnt of a tiny line. Compressed life . . .it seems to remind and reveal the unbelieveable energy, passion and commitement it takes to develop, to improve, to fullfill Destiny.
Maybe because the monks and all of us circumambulated a big whole in the ground for years, then a large bare foundation for years, then layer upon layer of stone for years. . . . Now we sit in Iraivan, the vedic chants echo through the halls, the Crystal that sat in Kadavul for years, is now Mahalingeshvara radiating light in all directions. We are sitting right there and yet it is still hard to believe we are not dreaming.
“AUM”!.