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While in the San francisco Bay Area, Satguru visited scenic Mount Tamalpais to retrace our late Gurudeva’s first walk to the summit. Here is what Gurudeva said in Merging with Siva lesson 123 about his times there: “For eleven years I led a bhakti pilgrimage, a devotional pilgrimage, to the top of Mount Tamalpais in California, the first Sunday of every month. I never missed one. The devotees, in looking over three cities with me, could intuit that within each city there were problems. Each home in each city contained an area of the mind that was problem ridden.

“Those who had the devotion went to the top of the mountain. Hence, the opportunity to expand their awareness for an hour or so and look over the external states of the mind. There they set their pattern for meditation for the ensuing month. It takes great dedication, devotion and bhakti to disentangle awareness from that which it is aware of, to flow into and become aware of expanded areas of mind. The rewards are great. We are able to look over and through our expanded vision the totality of the exterior area of our mind and intuitively know the answer to the experiences that we are going through.

“This may seem difficult to comprehend, but it is really very simple. When awareness is burdened in the exterior area of the mind, we simply release awareness from that area of the mind that it is aware of. Release the burden—but not by taking on more burdens or trying to find out the whys and wherefores of it all. In other words, we alleviate the pressures that awareness and our nerve system feel because of being involved in the exterior area of the mind and thus become devoted to our own superconsciousness.”

After flying to Dallas, Texas, Satguru held a satsang at the home of sishyas Sanjiva and Tiya Thielamay, where he spoke to those gathered about the purusharthas, the four goals of life. Priest Kumar Gurukkal also joined for the evening.

Jai Ganesha!

Recently we’ve been exploring different formats to deliver our books to seekers, particularly for social media. Last week we created one of these short presentations for Path to Siva: Chapter One, and today we invite you to explore the content in Chapter Two.

Click below to play

Here are the slides as individual images:

This morning in Kauai we observed Gurudeva’s Chitra Padapuja for the month of May. In California Satguru Bodhinatha was also given padapuja at a satsang.

And, below are livestreams of the final day of kumbhabhishekam ceremonies at the Concord Shiva Murugan Temple.

Satguru and swamis depart Kauai

The new temple entrance

The structure is built for all seasons, and houses its kodimaram inside

To adorn the temple vinamanam and gopurams

The yagasala has been going to several days already, building up power for the consecration

Pitchai Gurukkal was also present

Aum Namah Sivaya!

Several days ago, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, and Sannyasins Shanmuganathaswami and Siddhanathaswami boarded a flight bound for the Bay Area. They arrived in Concord to attend the Mahakumbhabhishekam for the newly completed Concord Shiva Murugan Temple that replaces the aging temple, which was established here from Gurudeva’s original Palaniswami Sivan temple in San Francisco. It was later managed as Himalayan Academy, California branch, by our monks and devotees, and then given over to the Hindu community when Gurudeva consolidated all his teaching activities at Kauai Aadheenam. It has come a long way, and the new temple is a beautiful structure, complete with more parking and a nearby community center which was built in tandem. Aum.

Jai Ganesha!

With the Aadheenam’s great many publications that are available to explore and share, we decided to present some here in a different format than usual. The idea was to convert the Path To Siva book into a shorter and simpler version for everyone—as a preview of what the chapter is all about. Something that works well for social media, for example. Below is the short-video format of Chapter 1. Who Am I and Where Did I Come From? Following that are nine slides with simple animations. You can download the video to view it in a better quality by clicking the vertical ellipses in the bottom-right of the video frame. Aum.

CLICK THE VIDEO TO PLAY

Below are the slides in image format