Today at Kauai Aadheenam

Arrival at the Concord Shiva-Murugan Temple

The temple is looking wonderful!

A blessing before entering

Shivacharya brings our swamis around to the temple shrines

Starting with Ganesha of course

After darshan from Murugan, we sit down for a short satsang

The next day, a picnic under some California redwoods

A short hike in a nearby forest riverbed

Nice to be in nature again after airplanes and hotels

Evening dinner

Recently our traveling monks, Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami and Sannyasin Tillainathaswami, enjoyed a visit to the Bay Area for several days. The two are making their way across the globe to Mauritius. On their first day in the Bay Area they traveled to see the Concord Shiva-Murugan Temple which was recently completed. They were warmly welcomed and went around to visit each shrine, with a short worship at Muruga’s central shrine. They also took a brief tour of the still-under-construction community center nearby. One thousand copies of the October issue of Hinduism Today (which features the temple and Murugan on the cover) had been sponsored for the Temple to have and distribute. After some unexpected delays, the magazine copies finally arrived on the same day our monks did. Several were placed in the Muruga shrine for the blessing.

After the puja, our monks, members and students sat down in the temple for a simple satsang. Paramacharya gave some insightful information about Tayumanivar and played some of the recently recorded Oduvar work we’ve had done. He also covered some useful advice for our members there. Tillainathaswami gave a short presentation on self-discipline. 

The next day everyone headed up to the nearby redwoods for some nature time and a picnic, followed by a small evening dinner. The next day the monks flew to the East Coast in continuation of their journey. Aum

fully installed cladding

Sadhaka Shankaranatha standing next to the completed project

rough lumbar being sanded

here we used our new shaper machine to create different profiles

stiles and raises being cut on the table saw

bandit the cat, in the shop for moral support

here we laid out the 4 front panels to see what design we like best

rough layout of one of the doors

gluing side parts together

first installed door

we oiled the panels before assembling it

after many coats of tung oil this is how it looks

another photo of the front frame

laying out the side pieces

assembling the horizontal pieces

laying out the doors

gluing the bullnose to the horizontal boards

Sadhaka using our sliding table saw

sadhaka drills domino holes for joinery

right side of the cladding

both side pieces are oiled and drying

all our pieces are drying from the most recent application of oil

here we glued the side components and top bullnose to the front frame

the Siddhidata Kulam delicately bring the cladding to the shop

fully assembled cladding

Over the past six months, Acharya Kumarnathaswami and Sadhaka Shankaranatha have been crafting wooden cladding to go around the existing fish tank frame in the Hale Hana office space. They used ear pod wood grown on the island, which had been chainsaw-milled many years ago and left to dry in our sawmill. This was the monks’ first time working with this lumber.

After milling it in the sawmill, the wood went through jointing, planing, shaping, sanding, and finally oiling. The project was then installed by the monks. The assembly went very smoothly thanks to Acharya’s extensive planning. It was quite a challenge, as the existing frame was not near the shop, so all measurements had to be exact.

In recent weeks, as many of you have seen, we wrapped up the project. We used tung oil sealer followed by a tung oil hard oil for the topcoat. It was an amazing experience for Sadhaka Shankaranatha, who is just beginning to learn finish carpentry. The cladding blends beautifully with the koa vinyl flooring in our new office space.

Sadasivanathaswami and Tillainathaswami fly off today on a 25-day mission to California, New York, London and Mauritius. As they pack to depart, the Songs of Tayumanavar book is taking shape, a work of some three years. You will hear more about it in the months ahead, but for now we share the graphic spreads that introduce the five cantos which are the organizational structure of the Tamil poet’s 1,454 songs. Amazingly, and not without climbing a steep learning curve, the five works of art were created by DALL•E, the AI partner of CHATgpt. Tayumanavar, we hear, is to be a major theme for the various satsangs, workshops, temple talks and seminars planned for the journey. Aum Namasivaya!

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.

“If you were to travel through India on a spiritual pilgrimage, you would undoubtedly hear much about the Sanskrit word darshan. The religious leaders of the Orient are categorized according to the darshan they give, for there are various kinds of darshan. Darshan is the vibration that emanates from the illumined soul as a result of his inner attainment, be he a yogī, pandit, swāmī, guru or a ṛishi. Usually the yogī, swāmī, saint or sage attracts his following not so much by what he says as by the darshan he radiates. Hindus travel for miles to receive the darshan of an illumined soul established in his enlightenment. Perhaps he doesn’t even speak to them. Perhaps he scolds some of them. Perhaps he gives the most inspired of talks to them. In any case, they feel the darshan flooding out from him.“

A collection of photos that Senthilathiban took while here at Kauai Aadheenam on our taskforce program

Senthilathiban takes a stroll through the rudraksha forest

One of his projects while here was to help clean this entry arch

He also enjoyed attending pujas at Iraivan Temple

Sadhaka performs the daily San Marga puja. Our wild chickens are very devoted to this daily event.

He got to see a wonderful event, the sea turtles coming to shore at the beach

Many islanders gather for this event

In another act of Seva, Senthilathiban cleaned these granite bonsai stands

It’s longan fruit season here, and the trees are loaded

Aran returns Senthilathiban to the airport

Aum Namah Śivaya

Aum Namah Śivaya

Yesterday, Senthilathiban Rajasankara finished his several week visit on our taskforce program. He has been doing some temple construction projects on the US mainland, and was able to take some time to come here. While at the Aadheenam he helped the monks of the Siddhidatta kulam with a variety of tasks, such as helping in the gardens, doing cleaning an maintenance projects, and much more. Aum.