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As Gurudeva loved to say when traveling, “Up, up and away!” This is the 17th year of our digital fund appeal. It begins November 1 and ends December 31. Like Wikipedia’s annual appeal, our Digital Dharma Drive provides the resources to publish our spiritual works in the year ahead, in an increasingly post-bookstore world.

A Message from the Editors

November 1, 2026

Imagine this: One day in 1984, Gurudeva is driving through picturesque Kapaa Town on our small island of Kauai. He spots a new computer shop, the first on the island to offer Apple computers, and directs the monks to stop so we can go inside and see what’s up. What we discover will change our lives for decades to come.

Inside, Gurudeva is introduced to the first Macintosh, with its mind-bending 128K of memory, little monochrome screen and curious device called a mouse—all housed in sleek white packaging. We had never seen anything like it. With the boldness that characterized his entire life, he bought one on the spot, and we carried it out to the Jeep. After a week or two exploring MacPaint and MacWrite, he clearly saw how this little machine could empower his monks. Soon, he bought a Macintosh for each of us.

Fast forward to 1997, when the digital waves of the Internet washed ashore on Kauai. Gurudeva was all in. “Let’s start a daily journal!” he proclaimed. And just like that, Today at Kauai Aadheenam, affectionately known as TAKA, was born. One of the pioneering daily monastery journals on the Web, it has been a fixture of our online presence ever since. How’s that for keeping up with the times?

Now, nearly three decades later, another technological revolution is transforming our small publishing team’s work. In just the last three years, artificial intelligence has given us efficiencies we never imagined possible. We are still discovering ways to put this remarkable technology to work—creating short instructional videos, proofreading manuscripts, assisting with Sanskrit and Tamil translations and, perhaps most dramatically, producing artwork at a pace once unimaginable.

Not long ago, creating an illustration for one of our books was a months-long undertaking. We would conceive an idea, sketch it out with detailed descriptions, email our instructions to an artist in Tamil Nadu or Kerala, wait weeks for a preliminary rendering, suggest revisions and then wait another two months for the finished canvas to arrive—all at a cost of $400–500 per piece. Today, a digital image can be accomplished in less than a minute, at a cost of under a dollar! For our recent book Tayumanavar’s Songs to Siva, we created dozens of illustrations in just a few days. What an evolution!

Digital publishing has brought equally remarkable changes. Remember when printing a book meant a substantial investment up front, followed by the challenges of warehousing, shipping and managing unsold inventory? Today, print-on-demand technology allows us to make books available through Amazon without those initial printing costs. And our digital books, magazines and other resources can reach readers around the world almost instantly.

Of course, there is something timeless about holding a beautifully printed magazine or book. We still cherish that experience. But digital publishing has its own special advantages: searchable PDFs and ePubs, instructional videos, audio recordings and a growing library of Hindu resources available wherever an Internet connection can be found. Our Hinduism Today app, available for iOS and Android, puts the magazine into the hands of readers worldwide, free of charge.

Now imagine Gurudeva (1927–2001) seeing the fruits of today’s digital age. With a simple touch on a mobile device, his teachings reach seekers in every corner of the world, without costing readers a penny. His voice, recreated through AI, is heard as devotees explore his Trilogy while commuting, tending to their families or sitting quietly in their home shrines. He always loved high-tech, not as an end in itself, but as a powerful means of sharing timeless spiritual truths. Surely he would be delighted to see how the tools he first placed in his monks’ hands more than four decades ago have evolved, carrying his teachings to seekers around the globe. The technology has changed beyond anything we could have imagined in 1984. The mission has not.

With much aloha and warm greetings during the 2026 holiday season,

The Editors
Kauai’s Hindu Monastery
Himalayan Academy Publications

Jai Ganesha!

Firstly we’d like to mention that, following our very-recent storm, our monks are all doing well. Last night’s Hurricane Lowell was at peak intensity around midnight as it passed by our island, delivering ~80-90 mile-an-hour winds or more. Ever since Hurricane Iniki leveled the whole island in the 90’s, the monastery has taken disaster preparedness very seriously, and we were quite well prepared for this storm. For example, all of our buildings have quickly deployable metal hurricane shutters on doors and widows. Last night, in between moments of sleep, the large and loud wind gusts could be heard, flying debris through the air, all with the sound of a falling tree every 10-20 minutes.

This morning we awoke to a stunning sunrise, accented by the extra light now filtering through our many de-leaved trees. The first order of business was damage assessment. The Aadheenam’s buildings were for the most part completely unharmed. The winds were strong enough, however, to fully uproot many huge trees. Nearly every road around the aadheenam acreage had been blocked. The whole island is temporarily without power, but the monastery has a big generator and our fiber internet connection remains unbroken. The island’s utility water is also out, but again we are well prepared while county teams work tirelessly to bring everything back online. The day has been spent making sure our basic utilities are up and running, as well as chainsawing trees, clearing our vital roadways and removing debris.

Aum Namah Sivaya

Future pilgrims coming down San Marga from the Rudraksha Forest will climb the staircase to the Iraivan Temple entrance. It will be their first darshan of the temple, and a dramatic one at that. To make the climb safe, a new handrail has been installed. It is a gift from a husband and wife who saw the need and sponsored the project.

The craftsmen of Kauai’s Liquid Metalworks fabricated and installed it. They created a simple but elegant handrail that starts on the right side of the stairs and ends at the male elephant. At that point, a pilgrim moves to the left side of the path, in front of the mother elephant and her calf, and continues to the top.

The bronze is soft to the touch and marvelously shaped. In just a few months, the tropical weather will oxidize the metal, and it will take on a weathered patina: a deep, earthy color somewhere between brown, black and gold. At that point, it will fit into the garden better than the glitzy new color.