Today at Kauai Aadheenam

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.

“We must be aware that it is only reawakening consciousness into a natural state, and that there is nothing mystical, difficult or inward that has to occur to hold an awareness of the inner and outer simultaneously from one central point in the mind. It is only because one is not accustomed to thinking in this way that it may seem difficult. But little children are in this state much of the time, and it is natural to them. ¶The beginning stages of watching the mind think I shall describe as similar to sitting quietly with your eyes open and, while not thinking about anything in particular, simply looking at what is around you—all of the time feeling somewhat empty on the inside, but seeing what is in front of you, to the left side of you, to the right side of you, above you, below you, and knowing what each object is, but not thinking about any object or collection of objects. Your eyes are watching; who lives behind them is the watcher. The objects that the mind perceives are similar to thoughts.”

Mayuran Muttulingam and son Chandipati just arrived from California for a couple weeks of sadhana and seva with the monks. Mayuran will focus on a project he started on a couple years ago to research the training of object-detecting software to recognize grantha script letters inscribed on ancient palm leaves.

Chandipati will help with various tasks. Today he is learning from Deva Seyon how to apply gold leaf to rudraksha beads as a specialized product.

Jai Ganesha!

As we were strolling around the Aadheenam we caught up with the monks of the Siddhidatta Kulam who were doing their seva in the Garden. It’s a routine they do each week to maintain our vegetable plants. From here we get several of our vegetable verities such as zucchini, pumpkin, kangkung, okra and green beans. The Siddhidatta Kulam usually spends their morning on the first day or our lunar week here, harvesting, planting and mulching. Our two taskforcers, Roshan and Vel are also here, enjoying the Garden Day with Mayilnathaswami and Vishvanathaswami. Here are some of the pictures we took, to give you a glimpse of our beautiful Annapurna Garden. Aum!

There is a kind of James Bond unbelievability to the fact that Hinduism Today magazine continues to be published each issue from Russia. The small team there translates, retypesets, prints and distributes it every three months—a lot of work for a small team. We just received the latest Russian edition PDF and posted it to the HT site. If you have Russian speaking friends, they can download it here: https://www.hinduismtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/HT-russian_No3.2024.pdf

Here is a short email that Dinanath Bodhiswami, the Russian editor, sent two days back:

Jai Gurudeva! Jai Satguru! Jai Kauai Aadheenam! Om Namasivaya!

Dear Sadasivanathaswami, Namaskar!

Today we celebrate the Day of Mahasamadhi Gurudeva (according to the Solar calendar).

We are sending the link to the Russian PDF. Thank you so much for supporting our publishing activities.

With infinite love, Dinanath & Russian Team.

Aum Sri Gurubhyo Namah

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.

“We can see that from the mystic’s point of view, he is the watcher. And as the mirror is in no way discolored by what it reflects, so is the mystic in his perfected state. Your perfected state, too, as the watcher, is right there, deep within you. The next time you sit for meditation, follow my guru’s advice to us all and witness your thoughts. Be that stationary awareness, holding form in its own perfection. All you have to do is to watch your mind think. Then and only then are you experiencing your perfect state of inner being. The only difference between the jñānī and the novice is that the jñānī stays in there longer as the watcher, whereas the novice experiences this only momentarily from time to time. “