Lily with dark leaves opens in the pond by Bodhinatha’s office

Giant seed cones of a cycad, fruiting for the first time after 10 years of making us wait!

Sadasivanathaswami takes a group of ten island leaders through the gardens today, including our former mayor Joanne Yukimura, Lucy Kawaihalau, Barbara Curl, Char Ravelo and Laurie Ho.

The rare False Fruit Tree gets ready to set seed.

Close up of a travelers’ palm

Today’s visitors, a flock of island geese, called Nene. They are the state bird and clearly wanted a closer look at the monastery.

Caladium leaves, hand painted so they say.

One of our frilly hybrid hibiscuses

The amazing Rangoon Creeper, from Burma, a vine out by Iraivan Temple

Now for the truly rare. This is a yellow poinciana, almost never seen in Hawaii. We got it from Puerto Rico.

Up close. Blooming for the first time.

A mountain apple tree whose limbs are actually breaking due to the heavy fruits.

Up close. Not the best fruit in the world, but among the most productive.

There is the garden, and there is today’s garden. And there will be tomorrow’s garden. It is changing every day, new fruits, unseen before flowers, ferns high up in trees that we never planted. So, here is a small sampling of today’s discoveries in Siva’s Sacred Garden.

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.

“Why would you ever want to place demands of perfection upon yourself? You now walk the path of perfection, and you must be so to walk that path. What is this perfection? First, it is a clarity of cognition. Second, it is a bursting of actinic love for your fellow man. Third, it is an openness and willingness to serve and fit in, in any capacity. Fourth, it is living a contemplative lifestyle better every day. Fifth, it is mastering all of your yoga disciplines given to you by your guru. Sixth, it is the ability to hold responsibility, maintain a continuity of your own karma yoga, yet have the mobile quality to be ever ready to do something different without losing continuity of what you have been doing in holding your responsibility. ¶If you can gear yourself to accomplish all this, you are on the path of enlightenment and you will surely prove to yourself, when you have your realization, that you are a free man in a free world, subject to nobody, to no power, even the power of karma. How could That which is formless and causeless be subject to anything?“

These high tunnel green houses produce and protect our more vulnerable vegetables

Mayilnathaswami mulches the beds while Nirvani maintains the coverings

Vivshvanathaswami fertilizes the beds

Nirvani Tejadevanatha is watering the keiki (baby) plants that will be planted in the future

Sadhaka Shankaranatha uses the tractor to bring more mulch to the garden

Panchamukha Ganesha in the garden

All these beds will be used to plants more vegetables

Our pumpkin harvest! We have have about 153 pounds of pumpkins here. Kudos to the team!

This thorny tree, when full grown, produces massive amounts of beautiful flowers!

Here it is! This large one just produced its first round of flowers earlier this year. Just like our inner spiritual growth, no matter where start, we can always grow greater!

Jai Ganesha!

On Sun One (which is like our Monday in our Panchangam calendar) the monks of the Siddhidata Kulam enjoy their weekly Garden Day. This week the team of monks joined together to sprout seeds, plant beds, add compost and other nutrients to the soil, weed, mulch and harvest today’s organic lunch. Thanks to an orderly system of maintenance the garden only needs to be worked intensely on once a week in order to go on producing all the vegetables we need. Aum!

The parampara, from Siva to Bodhinatha

In Bengaluru with devotees

In Kuala Lumpur, pada puja for Satguru

Singapore greets Satguru at the airport.

As you know, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and Sannyasin Shanmuganathaswami spent several active days in India, called there to attend a massive conference in Bengaluru that brought together some 500 swamis, gurus, madhapatis, yogis and teachers. It went well.

To welcome Satguru, the Velayudham family created this marvelous art, depicting the passing of the power of parampara from Siva down to the present. Madan created it, and had copies prepared as a poster Satguru could hand out in Malaysia and Singapore on his way back to Kauai.

Passing on the Power

From The Guru Chronicles

A parampara is like a mighty river, its waters ever fresh, its vitality unremitting. Branching out and winding through the centuries, through many nations and cultures, the Kailasa Parampara brings life-giving waters to all who thirst for Truth.§

We have glimpsed seven lives in this story—seven great beings who strode the Earth, who spoke of the inseparability of man and God, the unity and perfection that pervades every atom of the universe, seven satgurus who realized God and exemplified spiritual life as few have. What we have not seen is their yet-to-be-known impact: the illumined satgurus of millennia to come, who will meet in wisdom challenges these seven did not know would exist; and those who, upon encountering monistic Saiva Siddhanta, will fall at their feet, only to learn that they are the All in all. They are the Truth they seek. §

No one can say how a guru should initiate another. In some traditions, such as the Dashanami orders, sannyasa diksha is a formal ritual following rigid protocols. In others, such as the Natha orders, it is usually more spontaneous and unstructured, a potent awakening that can be transmitted by a thought, a word or a touch. The Kailasa Parampara gurus commonly pass on their spiritual power through touch. Kadaitswami was touched by the rishi and passed his power on to Chellappaguru by placing a large rupee coin in the disciple’s open palm. At the auspicious moment, Chellappaguru knocked a cup and a bowl out of Yogaswami’s hands. Yogaswami nearly knocked Gurudeva to the ground with that resounding slap on the back at his compound gate. By such otherwise mundane gestures, spiritual power is transmitted from one generation to the next. §

That special touch, full of purpose at the crucial moment, acknowledges the realization and maturity already unfolded in the disciple and confers upon him the mantle of spiritual authority of the parampara, much as a father might pass a family business to a worthy son. The full weight of this responsibility is assumed only when the initiating guru leaves his physical body. §

To assure the continuity of the parampara, each successor leaves the lineage in the illumined hands of the next, thus fulfilling his part in a chain extending from the grace of Siva, a chain that began with man’s first search for the realization of the Absolute and will continue ineluctably to the end of time, and a few days beyond. §

Our printer for the monthly newsletter

The next Kauai’s Hindu Monastery monthly newsletter wrapped up editing, and now it’s being printed and folded. Today Yogi Haranandinatha is learning how to manage the finicky folding machine. In a few days, many of the monks will gather at our monthly “Iraivan Day” to stuff the newsletter in envelopes along with vibhuti packets.

The final image is of another addition to our hybrid hibiscus collection.