A contractor team has arrived to begin two to three weeks of work to create a concrete road around Iraivan Temple, replacing the temporary crushed asphalt we have there now. Some time after they are done, another team will cover the road with quartzite tile. Besides allowing vehicles to conveniently drive around, the road can serve as a circumambulation path for pilgrims doing sadhana, and occasional parades.
Today the main focus was to dig out the area that will connect the stairs coming up the hill to the temple granite staircase, where more technical precision is needed to ensure that the eventual quartzite tile layer will be at just the right height next to the first granite stair. They will pour this area on its own first, then the rest of the road later.
Auspiciously, today also happened to be the monthly Gurudeva Chitra pada puja.
Also, we continue to have a flock of nene geese moving about the property.
Arinien has Supplicancy class with Acharya Arumuganathaswami
The Sacred Pledge of the pre-monastic Supplicant
Many blessings to another bright soul on the Path!
Aum Namah Śivaya
During his training as a monastic Aspirant, Brahmachari Arinien has been having many classes with the monks, including philosophy classes with Siddhanathaswami, meditation training with Tillainathaswami, puja training with Mayilnathaswami and Sanskrit chanting with Kumarnathaswami. Over the last few weeks, Brahmachari has begun his classes with Arumuganathaswami in preparation for taking his next steps towards monastic life. This next step involves the taking the Supplicancy vows of Purity, Humility, and Obedience. Once entered, this stage is the final 6-8 month period before someone is ready to take their vows as a monastic sadhaka. One of the wonderful pieces of study in Arinien’s current material is Gurudeva’s On the Brink of the Absolute which reads as follows:
“On the brink of the absolute. The higher states of consciousness very few people are familiar with, having never experienced them. They are very pleasant to learn of, and yet out of our grasp until we have that direct experience of a higher state of expanded consciousness. The mind, in its density, keeps us from the knowledge of the Self. And then we attain a little knowledge of the existence of the Self as a result of the mind freeing itself from desires and cravings, hates and fears and the various and varied things of the mind. I say “things” because if you could see hate, you would see it as a thing that lives with one as a companion. If you could see fear, you’d see it as a thing, and as understanding comes, that thing called fear walks away down the road, never to return. ¶As you unfold spiritually, it is difficult to explain what you find that you know. At first you feel light shining within, and that light you think you have created with your mind, and yet you will find that, as you quiet your mind, you can see that light again and again, and it becomes brighter and brighter, and then you begin to wonder what is in the center of that light. “If it is the light of my True Being, why does it not quiet the mind?” ¶Then, as you live the so-called “good life,” a life that treats your conscience right, that light does get brighter and brighter, and as you contemplate it, you pierce through into the center of that light, and you begin to see the various beautiful forms, forms more beautiful than the physical world has to offer, beautiful colors, in that fourth-dimensional realm, more beautiful than this material world has to offer. And then you say to yourself, “Why forms? Why color, when the scriptures tell me that I am timeless, causeless and formless?” And you seek only for the colorless color and the formless form. But the mind in its various and varied happenings, like a perpetual cinema play, pulls you down and keeps you hidden within its ramifications. ¶In your constant striving to control that mind, your soul comes into action as a manifestation of will, and you quiet more and more of that mind and enter into a deeper state of contemplation where you see a scintillating light more radiant than the sun, and as it bursts within you, you begin to know that you are the cause of that light which you apparently see. And in that knowing, you cling to it as a drowning man clings to a stick of wood floating upon the ocean. You cling to it and the will grows stronger; the mind becomes calm through your understanding of experience and how experience has become created. As your mind releases its hold on you of its desires and cravings, you dive deeper, fearlessly, into the center of this blazing avalanche of light, losing your consciousness in That which is beyond consciousness. ¶And as you come back into the mind, you not only see the mind for what it is; you see the mind for what it isn’t. You are free, and you find men and women bound, and what you find you are not attached to, because binder and the bound are one. You become the path. You become the way. You are the light. And as you watch souls unfold, some choose the path of the spirit; some choose the path of the mind. As you watch and wonder, your wondering is in itself a contemplation of the universe, and on the brink of the Absolute you look into the mind, and one tiny atom magnifies itself greater than the entire universe, and you see, at a glance, evolution from beginning to end, inside and outside, in that one small atom. ¶Again, as you leave external form and dive into that light which you become, you realize beyond realization a knowing deeper than thinking, a knowing deeper than understanding, a knowing which is the very, very depth of your being. You realize immortality, that you are immortal—this body but a shell, when it fades; this mind but an encasement, when it fades. Even in their fading there is no reality. ¶And as you come out of that samadhi, you realize you are the spirit, you become that spirit, you actually are that spirit, consciously, if you could say spirit has a consciousness. You are that spirit in every living soul. You realize you are That which everyone, in their intelligent state or their ignorant state, everyone, is striving for—a realization of that spirit that you are. ¶And then again for brief interludes you might come into the conscious mind and relate life to a past and a future and tarry there but for a while. But in a moment of concentration, your eye resting on a single line of a scripture or anything that holds the interest of the mind, the illusion of past and future fades, and again you become that light, that life deep within every living form—timeless, causeless, spaceless. ¶Then we say, “Why, why, after having realized the Self do you hold a form, do you hold a consciousness of mind? Why?” The answer is but simple and complete: you do not; of yourself you do not. But every promise made must have its fulfillment, and promises to close devotees and the desire that they hold for realization of their true being hold this form, this mind, in a lower conscious state. Were the devotees and disciples to release their desires for realization but for one minute, their satguru would be no more. Once having realized the Self, you are free of time, cause and change.”
We recently purchased a new vehicle, the Kandi EV Cowboy UTV. Previously, we used vehicles such as the Cushman utility vehicle and the Polaris Ranger, and this new addition has further improved our daily operations. We typically use these types of vehicles within the property to travel from one place to another. The Kandi EV Cowboy UTV is larger and wider than the other vehicles we have, making it more practical for carrying supplies. It features a rear cargo bed with a higher load capacity, allowing us to transport more materials efficiently. The vehicle can comfortably seat up to three people and a long-lasting battery suitable for extended use throughout the day. This has been an excellent addition for the monks here. Aum.
Two days earlier it is thinking if there is anything outside.
A wild orchid by the kitchen
Black Coral calocasia, having a great first year in the garden.
Paris japonica, an otherwise unamazing plant from Japan, has 150 billion DNA base pairs (we have 3.2 billion), so its code is 50 times bigger than a human! Something to ponder, no?
Siva’s Sacred Garden is a never-ending delight, like life itself. And it is never the same, changing from day to day, year to year. Today we invite you to join us on a walking tour to meet a few of the inhabitants. And in the last slide we offer some food for thought regarding your DNA.
Herewith, a fun poem by Rudyard Kipling. It has a playful tone, but also a quiet wisdom beneath it:
The Glory of the Garden
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing:—“Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade; While better men than we go out and start their working lives At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner-knives.
There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick, There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick, But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done, For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.
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.
“How can we know when we’re ready to know the Self? How do we know when the soul is spiritually mature? When we begin a journey and clearly define our destination, then we must begin from where we are, not elsewhere. Clearly defining our destination requires knowing where we are, requires determining whether or not we want to go there at this time. We must ask whether we have the means, the willpower, to get there. Are we ready to leave the world, or must we fulfill further obligations in the world and to the world? Have we paid all of our debts? We cannot leave the world with karmas still unresolved. Perhaps we desire something more, some further human fulfillment of affection, creativity, wealth, professional accomplishment, name and fame. In other words, do we still have worldly involvements and attachments? Are we ready for the final journey life has to offer? Are we prepared to endure the hardships of sādhana, to suffer the death of the ego? Or would we prefer more pleasures in the world of “I” and “mine”? It is a matter of evolution, of what stage of life we have entered in this incarnation—is it charyā, kriyā, yoga or jñāna? When the soul is spiritually mature, we know when we’re ready to know the Self. “
Our newest book, Tayumanavar’s Songs to Siva, is now on our website here. You can peruse it for free in three ways: PDF file, a ePub format that has a layout similar to a printed book, or you can click the “Read” button to go through each chapter of text and graphics on the website itself.
What is it that is immeasurable effulgence, perfect bliss, filled with grace? What is it that willed to contain the countless universes in boundless space and there flourishes as Life of life? What is it that stood transcending thought and word? What is it that remained as the ever-contentious object of countless faiths claiming, “This, my God,’’ “This, our God’’? What is it that exists as omnipresent and omnipotent, love-filled and eternal? What is it that knows no limits of night and day? That indeed which is agreeable to contemplation. That indeed is what fills all space in silentness. That indeed is what we in meekness worship.
