Trilok Akhada

Trilok Akhada is a spiritual lineage led by Guru Pashupati, with followers in India and abroad. We built and run the platform that holds its teachings, its members and its payments.

What was the problem?

Members sign in to study, subscribe to a new teaching each month, apply for deekshas (initiations given by the Guru), buy programmes they can listen to on the site for life, and give dakshina (an offering). Some of those are free by application, some are paid, and the people using them live in many countries. A small team has to run all of it.

A lineage that grows by word of mouth ends up with followers in many time zones and currencies. A plain website cannot take a member from reading about a teaching to owning it, and a shop plugin does not fit the way these teachings work. Teachings open on a schedule. Some programmes are applied for, not bought. An overseas member should pay in dollars without converting rupees in their head, and the same person should be able to come back a year later and find everything they own.

The team also needed to hear about problems before members did. A payment that fails quietly costs trust as well as money.

What did we do?

This is product development and application development together, on one codebase.

Membership that keeps its promises. Members create an account, sign in and see what they own. Teachings are listed with a countdown to when each one opens. Programmes carry their own audio player, in Hindi and English where both exist, and the listener keeps access for life. Applications for a deeksha go to the team, and the Guru decides who receives it. A waitlist collects interest while a programme is being reshaped, and existing subscribers see that nothing changes for them.

Payments in the right currency. Checkout runs through payment gateway integration with three gateways: Razorpay and Cashfree for rupees, PayPal for dollars. The billing country decides the currency and which gateway comes first, so a member abroad is never defaulted to India. Dollar prices are set on their own and never worked out from the rupee price. The checkout shows the basket, a tax split where it applies, a discount code field and a short "people also bought" suggestion. Terms are versioned, so the team can tell which version each member accepted.

Problems reach the team first. A report-a-problem form gives every issue a reference number. Payment and system failures send a WhatsApp message to the team through AiSensy, with a cooldown so one fault does not become a flood of messages.

What is it built on, and how is it run?

The site is Next.js with Payload CMS and PostgreSQL, and the team edits pages and content in Payload. Payments and orders are the only source of truth for what a member owns, and the money code is written test first, with a large automated test suite beside it.

There are two environments on one private server: production, and a QA copy where changes are checked first. We build in a clean folder, keep the previous build ready for rollback, and check member pages by their content, not just by whether the server answers. Both databases are backed up before every significant release, and the Akhada's team is told what will change before anything reaches production. Monthly teachings are published on schedule.

What changed?

• The platform is live at trilokakhada.com. The home page leads to the Shri Kailash Aashram (deekshas), Pashupati Peetham (the monthly teachings), Dakshina, and a sign-in. Chamundi Raj Gurukulam is marked as still taking form.
• Members in India and abroad pay in their own currency, and the team hears about a failed payment before a member has to report it.
• The monthly teachings are closed to new enrolment for now while they are upgraded, and visitors can join a waitlist.
• Member and payment results: [RESULT TO CONFIRM]. The analytics for this site are not visible to us yet.

If you run a membership, a course business or a community that takes payments across borders, tell us what you need.