Iraivan Stone Hauling and Cleaning
The mighty Siddhidata Kulam are rounding up granite stones and moving them in place for the next batch of silpis who arrive in just a few weeks. The foundation of Iraivan is getting cleared for work, and that means moving some serious crate collections that have built up over the years. Luckily our monastic staff has forklifts, big-wheel trucks and gas-powered pressure washers to get the work done swiftly. Here's a small slideshow of their recent effort.
Greenhouse Addition
The Siddhidata Kulam has been working overtime to get strawberries, cucumbers and a variety of kales and chards growing and into the kitchen as soon as possible. Here are some photos of their journey into finishing the greenhouse addition.
Noni Building Blessing, 2018
What was just an empty field April 27th last year is today a fully finished and equipped processing facility for noni from our certified organic orchard located across the river from the monastery on land leased from the State. The orchard's eight acres has proved to be a successful "cash crop" which ultimately will support all the agricultural activity on the 312 acre parcel. This 24 foot by 56 foot building is one of the few we've built "from scratch" at the monastery and was a bit of a challenge to manage. But it is now finished and exactly what we needed to clean, ferment and press what becomes "Wailua River Noni Juice." Since its inception, the monastery has always maintain agricultural activities. Earlier it was honey production on a commercial scale; now, with the acquisition of the large parcel of former sugar cane land it is noni, nursery trees and hardwood trees. One benefit of this agricultural activity is to keep the monastery closely tied to the local community of our rural island. Our thanks to architect Thamby Kumaran who did the building plans as a donation, to Easvan Param who installed all the electrical wiring and to all the others who helped.
You can buy our noni on eBay, visit us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @wailua_river_noni.
Holiday Helpers
The Minimela is blessed to have a full team of hardworking sevaks take the inventory and price checking by storm. This devoted group spent hours chipping at the endless supply of new Minimela items and getting their tags and prices in order.
Washing Iraivan Temple
Growing Shitake Mushrooms
After several months of trial and error, the monks have learned a system to successfully grow Shitake mushrooms. Shitake mushrooms have many great health benefits as well as being quite tasty!
Greenhouse Gardens
Enjoy some of the newest delights coming from the new greenhouse
Self Sufficiency
The monastery is trained and equipped to do most work ourselves. As a cloistered community we are always managing to learn more and increase the monastery's capacity, efficiency and effectiveness. Lord Ganesha has asked for our penuriousness and we joyfully oblige. Recently the Siddhidata Kulam has done just that with old tanks and equipment lying around.
The photos show an old 330 gallon tank that often transports many different liquids to and from the mainland--oils, gasolines and even syrups--to large companies. The monks have taken one for recycle and turned it into our largest watering vessel yet.
The trailor underneath the tank has also been refurbished and strengthened to handle the load, and fitted with a small pump to automate the work.
A New Calf is Born
Satguru Bodhinatha, Shanmuganathaswami and Natyam Mayuranatha just returned from a two week visit to the East coast. The day they arrived, July 20, 2017, our new calf, Kali, was born.
A Look Into Iraivan Day
Each month the mathavasi of Kauai Aadheenam get together and perform a group outreach sadhana called Iraivan Day. The other 3 weekends of the month is Siddhidata day where we all work outside together. However on Iraivan day we work inside on everything Iraivan Temple related. Here is a quick look at what we have been doing for decades.
From Our Gurus' Teachings
Archives are now available through 2001. Light colored days have no posts. 1998-2001 coming later.