Bodhinatha's comments on Dancing with Siva on how maturing through experience eventually takes leads to revealing our all-knowingness. He give examples from the life of Yogaswami how a great jnani can become omniscient. I

f our awareness wasn't narrowed we wouldn't be motivated to act in the world. The cycle of icchha, kriya and jnana. God Siva's all-knowingness is always inside of us; we just have to look in the right place at the right time. Everyone has Satchitananda as part of his nature. Visualization is the first step to experiencing it; pursue a practice, meditation, that brings us into that state.

Master Course, Lesson 184 Dancing with Siva, Shloka 29

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

Today's lesson from Dancing with Siva which is Sloka 29:

"Why Are We Not Omniscient Like Siva?

"The three bonds of anava, karma and maya veil our sight. This is Siva's purposeful limiting of awareness which allows us to evolve. In the superconscious depths of our soul, we share God Siva's all-knowingness.

"Just as children are kept from knowing all about adult life until they have matured into understanding, so too is the soul's knowledge limited. We learn what we need to know and we understand what we have experienced. Only this narrowing of our awareness, coupled with a sense of individualized ego, allows us to look upon the world and our part in it from a practical, human point of view."

In other words, if we weren't narrowed, if our awareness wasn't narrowed we wouldn't be motivated to act in the world. We'd just sit there in bliss all day. Bliss, bliss. But, the soul isn't matured. So, it's going to enjoy bliss but it's not going to realize it's oneness with God. It's not mature enough to do that.

You know, how does it mature? By this process of taking seriously the person we are. We take seriously the person we are and we act in the world identifying with that person and we have experiences; we learn from those experiences. So, we mature. So, it's an important process.

So, I'll read that sentence again.

"Only this narrowing of our awareness, coupled with a sense of individualized ego, allows us to look upon the world and our part in it from a practical, human point of view. Pasha is the soul's triple bondage: maya, karma and anava. Without the world of maya, the soul could not evolve through experience. Karma is the law of cause and effect, action and reaction governing maya. Anava is the individuating veil of duality, source of ignorance and finitude. Maya is the classroom, karma the teacher, and anava the student's ignorance. The three bonds, or malas, are given by Lord Siva to help and protect us as we unfold. yet, God Siva's all-knowingness may be experienced for brief periods by the meditator who turns within to his own essence. The Tirumantiram explains, 'When the soul attains Self-knowledge, then it becomes one with Siva. The malas perish, birth's cycle ends and the lustrous light of wisdom dawns.'"

Karma, the teacher, is important. And one way of looking at that is the cycle of icchha, kriya and jnana. Desire, action and wisdom.

Desire leads to action; guaranteed. But action doesn't necessarily lead to wisdom. So, we can get stuck in a cycle, doing the same things. Desire leads to action; desire leads to action; desire leads to action. Finally we realize that this isn't the wisest action. So, finally we get some jnana. And then what happens? We get a new desire, more refined desire. That desire leads to action. We go back and forth, desire-action.

And then finally we get some wisdom. So the wisdom doesn't come necessarily from each action. It can take us a while to catch on. But it does come and eventually we do change our behavior based on the wisdom. And that's the important part, that we learn. If we're not learning from our experiences then we're not going to move forward as quickly as we could in our spiritual evolution.

An important part of Gurudeva's teachings are the idea of, is the dual idea of becoming and being which shows itself in different ways. The way it is shown here: "This is Siva's purposeful limiting of awareness which allows us to evolve."

So, that's the becoming. We're evolving; we're changing. Something's happening.

And the next sentence: "In the superconscious depths of our soul, we share God Siva's all-knowingness."

That's the being. So, that's already the case. Nothing has to happen; nothing has to change in order for that to be true. It's like having something you forgot you have, you know, and you finally open the bottom drawer. And you say: Oh look what's there. I forgot I had that.

But you had it all the time, right? You just weren't looking in the right place. So similarly, God Siva's all-knowingness is always inside of us. We're just not necessarily aware of it. We don't have to do anything for it to be there; that's the important thing. We just have to look in the right place at the right time.

Gurudeva mentions that again here at the end. "Yet God Siva's all-knowingness may be experienced for brief periods by the meditator who turns within to his own essence."

Paramaguru Yogaswami has some simple but profound ways of stating the idea of our or God's omnipresence, which I thought I'd share.

"Bliss, bliss, nothing but bliss! I am here, I am there, I am everywhere!"

So, the interesting point in this perspective is you don't find the word Siva anywhere, right? Just find the word "I." He's, he's just so identified with it that it's just who he is. This omnipresence. I'm everywhere. I'm omnipresent. It's just a part of himself.

"Now I am sitting here. I am in England also. I am also in America."

So this quote shows how natural it is to him. You know, he's just sitting there in his hut. He's also in two other countries inside his mind. In touch with what's going on there.

"We can give initiation by thought to people in Singapore while remaining here."

So, now he's starting to use this omnipresence to do something. It's not just, you know, I'm omnipresent. I'm aware of what's going on in Singapore. He's saying: No, I can actually initiate someone in Singapore through this power of being omnipresent. Very interesting, hmm?

"Sat Chit Ananda. That is one thing. Satchitananda. Sat is 'you are.' Chit is omnipresence. Prakasha, light as from the Sun - all knowing. Ananda is bliss. They are three, but they are One. That is your nature."

So he's pointing out you know, that is your nature. It's in everyone. You know, that's the important point. Sometimes when we hear these high truths we just think about them as being true to the person who is saying them. So, that's what he's experiencing; that's what she's experiencing. But it, he's pointing out that's, this is the truth about everyone. Everyone has Satchitananda as part of their nature.

Couple more: " I am everywhere. You are everywhere, but you don't believe it. "

So what's he showing? He's showing that our intellectual concepts can be a barrier. We can't be everywhere; we're too impure, right? You know, what I did yesterday, you wouldn't think I was everywhere. You know, there's some, some imperfection we think of in ourselves and therefore we're not worthy of being everywhere for some reason today. But, you want to take away that sense of not believing it.

"Aham Brahmasmi. You are God. You are everyone. You are everywhere. Learn this. This is practice."

This quote is pointing out that to experience our omnipresence we need not only give up the concepts that say we can't be that yet, but also pursue a practice that brings us into that state. Of course, that would be some form of meditation.

"See God everywhere. This is practice. First do it intellectually. Then you will know it."

That's similar to Gurudeva's idea that visualization of something is the first step toward experiencing it. Well this is saying that same thing another way. First do it intellectually, conceptualize it, then you will know it.

So, one last quote here from Gurudeva: " He can travel here and there with his own 747, without extraneous external conveyances."

He's talking about the internal 747, not the external one.

"He knows the goings-on in far off places. He is consciously conscious of his own karma and dharma and that of others. For him there is no apartness, due to his attainment within the chakras previously described. His only gift to others, to the world, would be blessing, an outpouring of energy to all beings from the higher planes where he resides. It is the jnani, the enlightened being, who sees beyond duality and knows the oneness of all. He is the illumined one, filled with light, filled with love. He sees God everywhere, in all men. He is the one who simply is and who sees no differences. That is his difference."

Thank you very much. Have a great day.