Gurudeva

Esoterics of Worship, Part Two

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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.

“The Hindu does not have to die to have a final judgment or to enter into heaven, for heaven is a state of mind and being fully existent in every human being this very moment. There are people walking on this Earth today who are living in heaven, and there are those who are living in hellish states as well. All that the Hindu has to do is go to the temple. As soon as he goes to the temple, to a pūjā, he is contacting the divine forces. During the pūjā, he is totally judged by the Deity. All of his karma is brought current and he goes away feeling good. Or he might go away feeling guilty. That is good, too, because then he performs penance, prāyaśchitta, and resolves unseemly karma quickly.“

Additionally, today also marks 99 years since our late Gurudeva’s birth day in 1927. Here are some words he uttered in 2001 regarding diplomacy and discriminating speech.

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Guru Puja, Vow Taking, Booklet Reprint

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Today was our monthly Gurudeva Chitra Padapuja. Here is a random selection from Gurudeva’s audio archive–

Hindu view of diet items

A few days ago one of our local Master Course students, Katrina St Marie, took the Dasama Bhaga Vrata, or tithing vow. Text of the vow–

Oh! Divine Beings of all three worlds, let us bring our minds to rest in the darsana of Him who has one tusk, let us meditate upon Him who has the form of an elephant with a curved trunk, May He guide us always along the right path.

Vrata: I believe in You, the one Supreme God, Lord Siva, and the Gods of our Saivite faith, and in the Saiva Dharma. In love and trust I recognize Your goodness in providing for my every material and spiritual need. I accept the principle of Dasamamsha (giving one tenth of my gross income) as the method by which I may acknowledge my gratitude to you, Lord Sva, and share in helping You fulfill and perpetuate Your work on earth. As an act of dedication, I am resolved this day to begin (or continue) the regular practice of tithing.

We have a small booklet of fourteen lessons called Know thy Self. We finally ran out of copies and, following our new pattern of book publication, have set it up to be print-on-demand by Amazon KDP. In the process, we have shifted from the unusual horizontal layout to a typical vertical layout.

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Gurudeva Mahasamadhi, Day Three

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We began the day with a short puja at Gurudeva’s samadhi shrine. Later in the morning, Satguru gave a presentation on the Klesha section of the Yoga Sutras to assembled pilgrims and gifted a copy of our new Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras book to each household.

This is the 24th anniversary of Gurudeva’s samadhi, so it carries the 12-year-Jupiter-cycle significance. Sivasri Kumar Gurukkal arrived yesterday and will perform the mahasamadhi pujas tomorrow. He is accompanied by a special guest priest on his first visit, Sivasri Rajashanmugam Gurukkal who serves at the Palani Hills Murugan temple in Tamil Nadu and is visiting California to participate in the Shiva-Murugan Temple’s first Skanda Shashthi celebration in their new premises.

Fifty-four small kumbhas are being prepared today to accompany the main kumbha. A couple of sevakas are here from Malaysia and USA to help out. They are cutting many banana leaves into small strips that serve as mats for the kumbhas to rest on.

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