Lesson 342 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Is There Good Karma and Bad Karma?

ŚLOKA 32
In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving ac­tions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness pro­­duces sweet fruits, called puṇ­ya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called pāpa. As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adhar­mic actions impede our progress. The di­vine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual un­fold­ment. Performing daily sādhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others’ needs—these evoke the higher en­ergies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the cre­ation of trou­ble­some new karmas. The Vedas explain, “According as one acts, so does he be­come. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 342 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Preparation For Adult Life

Very importantly, we must inculcate in youth a respect for family life, for marriage as a sacred union undertaken for the mutual spiritual advancement of husband and wife. They have to be counseled and counseled well in how married life is to be faced, what attitudes they should hold toward sex, how to keep a marriage strong and joyful, how to combat the pressures they will face in this modern world, especially if they come to live beyond the borders of our holy land. We must also inculcate in them a knowledge of monastic life, so they may understand and revere the satgurus and swāmīs of Śaivism. Śaivite monasticism was a powerful spiritual force in the world when the mahārājās supported the monastics, and it will continue to be so through the support of the families, their children and their children’s children. All this is accomplished through religious education. We call upon the youth of India, the youth of Sri Lanka, the youth of Malaysia and all other countries where Śaivites are living to consider the two paths. We call upon those rare few to accept the dharma of the Śaivite monastic and serve their God and religion through a selfless life, preaching and teaching throughout the world. There is a great need here. Too many Asian families relinquish their children to become Catholic priests and Protestant ministers and not enough encourage them to become Hindu sādhakas, yogīs and swāmīs.

The youth must be taught that Śaivism is not only the oldest religion in the world, but a vibrant and dynamic religion in this technological age. They must come to know its wisdom is for the farmer as well as for the computer programmer, for our ancestors and for our descendants. Śaivism is the Eternal Path, the Sanātana Dharma. The youth working in science, working in space exploration, working in electronics, working in business, working closely with members of different religions, will encounter many challenges. They must be carefully taught how to remain within the bounds of their religion and their beliefs without being dissuaded, without accepting ridicule from those who have yet to comprehend Śaivism. We must teach the Śaivite youth who are now growing up around the world about the Hindu festivals and holy days, making these auspicious days vibrant and alive in their memories. We must explain to them the meanings behind every observance so they are not just following blindly.

Symbols are an important part of bringing Śaivism into the hearts of the youth. Symbols carry great significance, and young people love and understand symbols. We should have Śaivite symbols abundantly around us, in the shrine room and throughout the home. The Prāṇava Aum, swastika, Śivaliṅga, tripuṇḍra and pottu, aṅkuśa, tiruvadi, nāga, vel, kalaśa, vaṭa, rudrāksha, seval, triśūla, kamaṇḍalu, trikoṇa, bilva, shaṭkoṇa, konrai, homa, kuttuvilaku and mankolam.

We should have a kuttuvilaku, or oil lamp, in our shrine room. We should have pictures of the Deities and their vahanas, Nandi, peacock and mouse, in our home, sacred flowers and trees in our garden. We should, of course, wear the holy ash and pottu, our sacred jewelry and prayer beads, and see that our young people do also. All Śaivites should become initiated into the Pañchākshara Mantra and chant it daily upon a mālā of rudrāksha beads. Sights, scents, sounds, tastes and religious symbols—it is through these ways our religion is understood by the next generation.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 342: LUNAR RETREATS FROM GUESTS AND THE PUBLIC
Śiva’s monastics observe the full, new and half moons and the day after each as retreats for sādhana, study, rest, personal care and āśrama upkeep, plus a fortnight’s retreat at the end of each of the year’s three seasons. Aum

Lesson 342 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

To Stay Enlightened

A sannyāsin of attainment has had many, many lifetimes of accumulating this power of kuṇḍalinī to break that seal at the door of Brahman. Here is a key factor. Once it is broken, the seal never mends. Once it is gone, it’s gone. Then the kuṇḍalinī will come back—and this gives you a choice between upadeśī and nirvāṇī—and coil in the svādhishṭhāna, maṇipūra, anāhata, wherever it finds a receptive chakra, where consciousness has been developed, wherever it is warm. A great intellect or a siddha who finds the Self might return to the center of cognition; another might return to the maṇipūra chakra. The ultimate is to have the kuṇḍalinī coiled in the sahasrāra.

I personally didn’t manage that until 1968 or ’69 when I had a series of powerful experiences of kuṇḍalinī in the sahasrāra. It took twenty years of constant daily practice of tough sādhanas and tapas. I was told early on that much of the beginning training was had in a previous life and that is why, with the realization in this life, I would be able to sustain all that has manifested around me and within me as the years passed by. Results of sādhanas came to me with a lot of concentrated effort, to be sure, but it was not difficult, and that is what makes me think that previous results were being rekindled.

The renunciate’s path is to seek enlightenment through sādhana, discipline, deep meditation and yogic practices. That is the goal, but only the first goal for the sannyāsin. To stay enlightened is even a greater challenge for him. This requires a restrictive discipline, not unlike a military, at-base, on-call life, twenty-four hours a day, even in his dreams.

Many people have flashes of light in their head and think they are totally enlightened beings, then let down in their sādhana and daily worship to later suffer the consequences. Enlightenment brings certain traditionally unwanted rewards: attention, adulation; one becomes the center of attraction, knows more than others and can exist on words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, for a long time, even after the light fades and human emotions well up and new mixed karmas build. He then may become known as having attained the erratic human behavior of the “enlightened” person. This is totally unacceptable on the spiritual path. Once enlightened, or “in-light,” even to a small degree because of daily sādhana, stay enlightened because of daily sādhana. Once having intellectually realized Vedic truths and become able to explain them because of study and daily sādhana, then realize these truths by intensifying the daily sādhanas, lest the remaining prārabdha karmas germinate and create new unwanted karmas to be lived through at a later time.

The advice is, having once attained a breakthrough of light within the head, wisdom tells us, remain wise and do not allow these experiences to strengthen the external ego. Become more humble. Become more self-effacing. Become more loving and understanding. Don’t play the fool by giving yourself reprieve from prāṇāyāma, padmāsana, deep meditation, self-inquiry and exquisite personal behavior. Having once attained even a small semblance of samādhi, do not let that attainment fade into memories of the past. The admonition is: once enlightened, stay enlightened.

Enlightenment has its responsibilities. One such responsibility is to have respect for and pay homage to the satguru and the satgurus of his lineage. These are the ones who, in seen and unseen ways, have helped you on your path. Another is to keep up the momentum. The wise know full well that the higher chakras, once stimulated, stimulate their lower counterparts as well, unless the sealing of the passage just below the mūlādhāra has been accomplished. Diligence is needed, lest higher consciousness fall unknowingly on the slippery slide of ignorance into the realms of lower consciousness, of fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, loneliness, malice and distrust. The faint memories of the beginning enlightenment experiences still hover, and while now in lower consciousness but still emulating the higher qualities in personal behavior, the now unenlightened claims full benefit for the previous enlightenment. Shame! This is because he did not maintain his disciplines after enlightenment. He let down and became an egocentric person.

Lesson 341 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

How Do Hindus Understand Karma?

ŚLOKA 31
Karma literally means “deed” or “act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we res­pond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in in­telli­gent ac­tion and dispassionate reaction. Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some ac­cum­u­­­late and return unexpectedly in this or other births. The several kinds of karma are: personal, family, commun­ity, national, global and universal. An­cient ṛi­shis perceived personal karma’s three-fold edict. The first is sañ­chita, the sum total of past karmas yet to be re­solved. The second is prār­abdha, that portion of sañ­chita to be ex­per­ienced in this life. Kriyamāna, the third type, is kar­ma we are currently creating. The Vedas propound, “Here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will. As is his will, so is his deed. What­ever deed he does, that he will reap.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 341 – Living with Śiva 

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What to Teach The Youth

Behind many past wars and before us today we find unconscionable conversion efforts that infringe on the rights of not only the individual, but of groups and nations. When religions set out with a consciousness of conquest and make inroads on each other, this naturally becomes a major concern to families, communities and nations. Is it not the right of each of the world religions to declare dedication to their incontestable lawbooks of shoulds and should nots, holy texts telling us how to pray, meditate and behave? Freedom to choose one’s religion as well as freedom to leave it if one wishes is a fundamental human right, and it is a human wrong to deny or even limit it. This may seem obvious, but it is not a freedom many people of the world fully enjoy.

Because they love their children, devout Śaivites do not put them into Christian schools but provide Śaivite schooling which fills young minds with Śaivite lore, Śaivite history, Śaivite art, knowledge of the Vedas and the Śaiva Āgamas. Such children, nurtured from birth in their religion and taught the sacred scriptures and songs from an early age, grow into the great ambassadors of Śaivite Hinduism and joyfully carry it out into the rest of the world. This is the plan and the thrust of the devotees of God Śiva in 1981, 1982, 1990 and on beyond the year 2000. They know that there is no place where we can go but that God Śiva is there ahead of us—there already. They know that nothing has existence except that God Śiva created it. These Sivathondars are vowed to protect, preserve and promote the Śaiva Dharma on this planet.

In Dancing with Śiva, Hinduism’s Contemporary Catechism all of this that I have been speaking about is neatly explained through short questions and answers which are easy to understand, to commit to memory and to teach to children and adults alike so that they can talk intelligently in foreign countries about their religion and benefit themselves as well as others.

A child’s mind is like a computer disc or a recording cassette. It is a blank tape, capable of recording confusing sounds or beautiful melodies. It is up to us to make those first and lasting impressions. That tape is very difficult to edit later. What should we teach to our young boys and girls? What do we record in their mental computer? Dancing with Śiva—beautifully illustrated because children also learn through their eyes—contains a foundation of religious study to be memorized by boys and girls from six to sixteen years of age, to be discussed by the family, to be expounded upon by the father and explained by the mother.

This book answers the question, “What should I teach my children about Śaivism?” We must teach the children about our purpose on this Earth, our relationship with God, our ultimate destiny—all according to the Tirumantiram, Tirukural, the Vedic and Āgamic scriptures of monistic Śaiva Siddhānta. We must teach our children, as did mahāsiddha Tirumular 2,200 years ago, that the soul is immortal, created by God Śiva and destined to merge back in Him. We must teach our children about this world we live in and about the other belief structures they will encounter throughout life. We must teach our children how to make their religion strong and vibrant in a technological age. These instructions are important for all Śaivite families.

Those of you here in Asia have a rich and stable religious culture. Therefore the future of your children is less uncertain. In other parts of the world, Śaivite children are not benefiting from a temple in the village, from a grandmother who can explain things or a grandfather to expound. Yet, though children here have all these advantages, still the temptations are there to adopt wayward Western ways and Christian attitudes. We must work to overcome such magnetic forces by educating our children, both those who are living here in Sri Lanka and India and those who are citizens of other nations in the world. They will then grow up to teach their children and thus perpetuate the Śaivite Hindu religion into the next generation, the next and the next.

Yes, united Śaivites of the world, we need to pass on to the next generation the importance of dharma and of good conduct, especially ahiṁsā, fundamental principles of the Hindu faith. Ahiṁsā means noninjury physically, mentally and emotionally. We need to explain to them the secret of the mysteries of the holy Śiva temple. We need to take them often to the kovils, mandirs, shrines, āśramas, aadheenams, maṭhas, sacred places and rivers so they become well grounded in their devotion. We need to carefully explain to them the purpose of, and the results that can be obtained through, home pūjā, having archanas, abhishekas and homas performed in their behalf in Śiva temples. We need to teach them how to pray to God and the Gods. We need to foster in them a deep reverence for our scriptures and our saints and sages.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 341: SIMPLE CLOTHING FOR SIMPLE MAṬHAVĀSIS
Śiva’s monastics wear robes of cotton or wool—hand-spun, hand-woven and unsewn. Other clothing should be made of simple, unadorned cotton, wool or synthetics, in traditional North or South Indian style. Aum.

Lesson 341 – Merging with Śiva 

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Dharma after Self Realization

What is life like after realization? One difference is the relationship to possessions. Everything is yours, even if you don’t own it. This is because you are secure in the Self as the only reality, the only permanence, and the security that depends on having possessions is gone. After Self Realization, we no longer have to go into ourself. Rather, we go out of ourself to see the world. We are always coming out rather than trying to go in. There is always a center, and we are the center, no matter where we are. No matter where we are, no matter how crude or rotten, the vibrations around us will not affect us. Curiosity is the final thing to leave the mind, which it does after Self Realization. The curiosity of things goes away—of siddhis, for example. We no longer want power, because we are power, nonpower, unusable. And we don’t have the yearning for Paraśiva anymore; we don’t have the yearning for the Self. And Satchidānanda is now to us similar to what the intellect used to be. If we want to go to a far-off place, we go into Satchidānanda and see it. It is that easy. Samyama, contemplation, is effortless to you now, like the intellect used to be; whereas before, samyama was a very big job which took a lot of energy and concentration. Therefore, before Paraśiva we should not seek the siddhis. After Paraśiva, through samyama, we keep the siddhis we need for our work.

But Paraśiva has to be experienced time after time for it to impregnate all parts of the body—our big toe has to experience it—because we are still human. From a rotten state of consciousness, feeling totally neglected, that nobody loves us, we have to realize Paraśiva. When ill and feeling we may die, we have to realize Paraśiva. When concentrating on our knees, we have to bring Paraśiva into them. The knees are the center of pride, and this helps in attaining ultimate humility. So it is with every part of our body, not only the pituitary center, the physical corollary of the door of Brahman—that is the first place—but with every part of the body. The pituitary gland has to be stimulated sufficiently to open the door of Brahman. But only the strictest sannyāsin disciplines would induce this result. Ears, eyes, nose, throat, all parts of the body have to realize Paraśiva, and the siddha has to do this consciously. The calves have to realize Paraśiva. All the parts of the lower body have to realize Paraśiva, because all of those tala chakras have to come into that realization.

Then, finally, we are standing on the mūlādhāra chakra rather than on the talatala chakra. Then, finally, our feet are standing on the svādhishṭhana chakra, and so on. And this is the true meaning of the holy feet. Finally, we are standing in the lotus of the maṇipūra chakra. And doubly finally, the kuṇḍalinī coils up in the head and lives there rather than at the bottom of the spine.

For ultimate freedom, everything has to go away, all human things, possessions, love, hate, family, friends, the desire for attention and community acceptance. The sannyāsin renounces the world, and then, if his giving up is uncompromisingly complete, the world renounces the sannyāsin. This means the world itself won’t accept him as it once did as a participant in its mundane transactions of a job, social life, home and family. Earlier friends and associates sense his different view of their existence and now feel uncomfortable with him. Slowly he joins the band of hundreds of thousands of sannyāsins throughout the world, where he is joyously accepted. All must go, the past and the future, and will naturally depart as the great realization deepens, as it penetrates through all parts of the body and all states of the mind. This alone is one good reason that family people and noncommitted singles are never encouraged to strive for realizations higher than Satchidānanda, and then only for brief periods now and again at auspicious times. For family people, gṛihasthas, to go further into themselves would be to earn the bad karmas, kukarmas, of subsequent neglect of family dharma, and to lose everything that the world values.

When the renunciate finally attains Paraśiva, everything else will fall away. It all has to fall away to attain Paraśiva. But it doesn’t totally fall away when he attains Paraśiva, because he arrives into Paraśiva only with a tremendous amount of built-up effort. All the Gods have given permission. Lord Śiva has given permission, and He now says, “Enter Me.” That is grace, His grace.

Lesson 340 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

How Do Hindus Understand Moksha?

ŚLOKA 30
The destiny of all souls is moksha, liberation from rebirth on the physical plane. Our soul then continues evolving in the Antarloka and Śivaloka, and finally merges with Śiva like water returning to the sea. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Moksha comes when earthly kar­­ma has been resolved, dhar­ma well per­formed and God fully realized. Each soul must have performed well through many lives the varṇa dharmas, or four castes, and lived through life’s varied experiences in ­order to not be pulled back to physical birth by a deed left un­done. All souls are destined to achieve moksha, but not necessarily in this life. Hindus know this and do not delude themselves that this life is the last. While seeking and attaining profound re­aliz­ations, they know there is much to be done in fulfilling life’s other goals (purush­ār­thas): dharma, righteousness; artha, wealth; and kāma, pleasure. Old souls re­nounce worldly ambitions and take up sannyāsa in quest of Par­aśiva, even at a young age. Toward life’s end, all Hin­dus strive for Self Re­al­iz­ation, the gateway to liberation. After moksha, subtle kar­mas are made in in­ner realms and swiftly resolved, like writing on water. At the end of each soul’s evolution comes viś­vagrāsa, total ab­sorp­tion in Śiva. The Vedas say, “If here one is able to re­­alize Him before the death of the body, he will be lib­er­at­­­ed from the bondage of the world.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 340 – Living with Śiva 

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Neglecting The First Duty

What happens to a child who receives such contradictory training? He doesn’t know whom or what to believe. He pulls away from the Christian religion he learned at school. He pulls away from the Śaivite religion he learned at home. He grows up without a religion. He does not have the good Catholic fathers to turn to; nor can he turn to his parents’ religion when in need of spiritual advice, for Śaivism has been discredited in his mind. He is thus denied a religion in this life. As one Catholic Father confided, “The Hindu children in our school may never become Catholics, but they also will never be good Hindus.” The child who once attended home pūjā with joy and respected the visiting swāmī no longer shows him praṇāmas, resists pūjā time, challenges parental decisions and slowly takes over the home, relegating the parents to second-class citizenship within it. All in the home are consigned to dance around the contrary feelings of such children in order to avoid their threats of unchaperoned dating, leaving home, even suicide. As a result, these spiritual orphans are growing up without a religion and turning to drugs, turning to crime, turning to existentialism and Western rationalism, even terrorism, for some semblance of security, turning to divorce and even suicide in increasing numbers when life becomes difficult to face. Their lack of religious life is creating a very serious karma, taking them into the consciousness of the seven lower worlds. This karma is the responsibility of our Śaivite community, of each and every one of us. We will all reap the bad karma generated by our neglect.

Those who have been educated in Christian schools have little respect for the swāmīs, pandits and gurus of Śaivism. They don’t respect the sanctity of our temples. They may go into a temple to fulfill the social customs, but in their hearts they don’t believe that the Gods live in the temple, because they have been told in school that the stone Deities are just stones, that pūjās are just primitive rituals. You love your children and you should not sacrifice their minds for an education, for a little money. That money will be ill-gotten, for you played the Christians for fools in order to get it. Do the Christians believe our beliefs? No. Do the Jews? No. Do the Muslims? No. They do not believe a single one of our central beliefs, which are karma, reincarnation, the existence of God everywhere, the absence of an eternal hell and the assurance that every soul, without exception, will attain liberation.

All religions are not the same. They are not equal. They have different spiritual goals and, therefore, different attainments reached by their followers. We must not forget this, especially these days when it is fashionable to ignore the differences and to claim that all religions are one. We must not be taken in by those who make such claims. The religions of the world are all great, but they are not all the same. Their beliefs are different, and since beliefs create attitudes, they hold different attitudes toward life and death, and toward the soul and God, too. Our collective beliefs create our collective attitudes and thus perpetuate the culture.

Yes, we have but one duty to perform: to pass our religion on to the next generation, the next, the next and the next. How is this done? Through Śaivite education, building more schools. We must educate our youth well. The alternative is to allow Śaivism to be conquered by atheism, to be conquered by Christianity, to be conquered by Islam, to be conquered by existentialism and Western rationalism, materialism and secular humanism, and to be conquered by the liberal neo-Indian postulations which seek to cut the roots of tradition. Our only hope lies in educating the children, the young minds which are open and eager to learn, but which are being enticed away from their heritage. Hold them close, protect them, love them dearly and give them the treasures of Śaivism. That is the greatest gift you can offer them. Everything else will perish. Everything else will decay.

You can remember this next time a Christian missionary comes to your door. Welcome him with “Namaste.” Tell him or her, “We are Hindus. We have a catechism of our own. We have a creed and an affirmation of faith in our religion, too. We have our scriptures, our Holy Bible of the Śaivite Hindu Religion. We have religious leaders and institutions, and a tradition that is vastly more ancient than any other. We have our holy temples and our great Gods. We are proud to be Śaivites. We are proud to worship God Śiva and the Gods. We have all this and more. Thank you very much.” And then close the door!

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 340: QUALIFICATION TO PERFORM TEMPLE PŪJĀ
All my Śaiva monastics who qualify may perform the parārtha pūjā in their temples. Should they not renew their vows or be dismissed, they are prohibited to perform or teach this pūjā thenceforth. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 340 – Merging with Śiva 

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Distractions And Sidepaths

In the ākāśa, he would be able to go into all sorts of psychic phenomena. We don’t want that. We don’t want to utilize the ākāśa in that way, because then we cause the growth of gross matter in the subconscious mind, which is capable of imprinting into the ākāśa things that we want to happen. Then we could go in the ākāśa and see them. We will see those forms change shape from what we have, from our own subconscious, imprinted in the subconscious. Then, through the power of the light, it takes form in the ākāśa, and we can have a little world of our own going around on the inside, and that is called psychism or occultism. We don’t want that. Nor do we want to tune in with anybody else who is also in the ākāśa, because that leads us away from the purity of yoga.

Now, for instance, if I were in the ākāśa and two other adepts were in the ākāśa, then we could tune in with one another, and I might even see their faces in the ākāśa. We would guard against this, because that would be allowing the superconscious mind to take form. When the superconscious mind takes form, then that means the consciousness is lowered and we are being led away from our goal, and the next thing we knew we would come through the subconscious back to the conscious mind. We want to avoid this. We don’t want to come through the subconscious to the conscious mind. From samādhi, we want to come directly from the superconscious into the conscious. So, we avoid all form and colors that we might see in the ākāśa.

When the sannyāsin arrives at that state, the next lesson will occur. He will be in a pure state of consciousness, pure bliss. It will appear to him as spaceless. He will be having a feeling of timelessness, a feeling of formlessness, but it is not the Self. It is taken as the Self, but it is not the Self, for it still has consciousness. In summary, we have discovered how to come out of darkness into light in the practice of samādhi, and how to go through two different stages of light into a realm of pure consciousness which we call the ākāśa.

As we have previously studied, there are seven different states in the superconscious mind, seven different states and usages. The very first is the light. And the pure consciousness state that we just discussed is the seventh state. All the others we want to avoid. It is not that it wouldn’t be possible to get into them and develop them, but we want to definitely avoid them, because they are, shall we say, deterrents to the purities in the Self. So, we shall avoid them by going from basic inner light to a more intense light and popping out into a pure state of consciousness. The sannyāsin will still have an overall consciousness of the physical body. As a matter of fact, when he is looking down at the physical body, it might just appear like a shadow to him. It is not advisable for him to look down at the physical body in consciousness, for that will lead him down into the sixth or fifth plane of consciousness, and we don’t want to be there in the superconscious. Then other things will intervene, and he won’t achieve the samādhi. He will have to come out and start over again. So, these investigations we want to avoid, because they are not necessary, ever, though they are not impossible. When he is in his pure state of consciousness, then he has to look for the continuation of the kuṇḍalinī force or, shall we say, the continuation of the nerve currents that house the kuṇḍalinī force. In conscious-mind terms, that will look like a tube or a nerve current which would be issued right from the top of the head.

In this state of pure consciousness, like in outer space, he tries to find just one nerve current right at the top of the head. When he finds this nerve current at the top of the head, he is taught to concentrate on it from where it begins at the top of the head right up to the end of it, and soon he finds the end of it. The experience of experiences. Of course if he has a mishmash in his subconscious mind, he won’t be able to hold this pure state of consciousness. The subconscious mind in its power and intensity of this contemplation will begin picking up, and he will be coming right back into outer consciousness. But if his subconscious is fairly clean and under control, then he will be able to hold it, and he will hold it quite naturally. It will be a natural state to him after Self Realization.

So, then the next thing to do is to find this nerve current. In conscious-mind terms, it may be about one-half inch in diameter. In superconscious-mind terms, it may be eleven feet in diameter, because the superconscious mind can magnify or it can diminish. It has that power almost at will. He must try to find the center of this nerve current, and then he comes into the core of this ākāśa, the very atomic structure that makes it up.

Lesson 339 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Why Are We Not Omniscient Like Śiva?

ŚLOKA 29
The three bonds of āṇava, karma and māyā veil our sight. This is Śiva’s purposeful limiting of awareness which allows us to evolve. In the superconscious depths of our soul, we share God Śiva’s all-knowingness. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
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. Pāśa is the soul’s triple bondage: māyā, karma and āṇava. Without the world of māyā, the soul could not evolve through experience. Karma is the law of cause and effect, action and reaction governing māyā. Āṇava is the individuating veil of duality, source of ignorance and finitude. Māyā is the classroom, karma the teacher, and āṇava the student’s ignorance. The three bonds, or malas, are given by Lord Śiva to help and protect us as we unfold. Yet, God Śiva’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 Śiva. The malas perish, birth’s cycle ends and the lustrous light of wisdom dawns.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.