Lesson 112 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Do Devotees Prepare for Worship?

ŚLOKA 112
We visit a Śiva temple after bathing, dressing in clean clothes and preparing an offering, which can be as simple as a few flowers or fruits. We bring the mind to the holy feet of the Deity even as preparations begin. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Visiting the home of God Śiva or of a God, the temple, is not without its trepidation, protocol and proper conduct, preceded by preparation that we administrate ourselves. Our worship is only as meaningful and effective as we make it. Before we attend or conduct a pūjā, we should carefully bathe the body, rinse the mouth and dress in fresh clothing—sārīs for women and dhotīs or veshtis and shawls for men where this is the custom. Throughout these preparations we may sing hymns or chant mantras or God’s holy names silently or aloud, taking care to keep the mind free from worldly matters. We then gather offerings for the Deity. If mealtime is near, we eat only after pūjā has been concluded. Although the outer details of our worship are important, it is our inner feelings and thoughts, our love and devotion, which are the truest offering we can make. The Vedas testify, “The Gods, led by the spirit, honor faith in their worship. Faith is composed of the heart’s intention. Light comes through faith. Through faith men come to prayer, faith in the morning, faith at noon and at the setting of the sun. O faith, give us faith!” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 112 – Living with Śiva

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

Continuity of Consciousness

Students functioning odically and out of actinic harmony with their satguru found that they did not have control of the actinic power and had difficulty in maintaining the continuity of consciousness of the yoga path and its teachings. Something went wrong. In realizing this, these students wondered what they could do to regain and maintain this awakening. They knew the laws of the disciplines, the practices. They entered into concentration and meditation, and yet they were not able to maintain their power. They discovered that it was the law of actinic harmony in effect between themselves and their satguru that maintained them as actinic force channels through a deeper state of comprehension. By working with the law of harmonious flow of actinic forces, they would have been able to enter into complete harmony with all states of their own mind and those of their satguru, whether or not they were in his presence.

This particular yoga master had gained a cumulative power of actinic force within himself through his yoga unfoldment, enabling him to hold the vibration of comprehension for his students. Because his actinic yoga students were in harmony with him, they were tuned into his actinic force reservoir. The odic yoga students analyzed themselves and found that much of the time they were not in harmony with the satguru, that they were mentally criticizing him on worldly matters or debating with him in a way which they did not think would make much difference. And they did not use their actinic power to resolve these differences. In discovering this, they went to the guru and said, “We have realized something about the necessity of being in harmony with you.” The guru said, “Yes, you have realized your own actinic force, and now I am going to start testing you.” In his testing he showed them consciously that they had been attached to their personalities and had not been able to attain any realization at all, because of this attachment.

There are some people who go after a job with the idea of working for advancement. But after they are settled into the routine for awhile, they begin to lose their impetus, their self-reliance. They begin to feel, “Oh, it’s too much trouble; there are too many blocks in the way.” In their mind they keep working for promotion, but never really get around to doing anything to advance themselves. These yoga students were in the same predicament. They had started their yoga training, and then became settled and comfortable in it. They began to lose their impetus for unfoldment subconsciously. In other words, they began to live instinctively, using only the odic force.

To demonstrate the difference between the use of odic and actinic forces, this Indian satguru began to test his students, asking them to do different tasks. He would start them on one thing, and when they were in the middle of it and personally attached to the doing, he would ask them to do something different. The students found it very hard to drop one thing and go into another because, involving themselves in odic power, they had become egotistically attached to what they were doing, instead of just enjoying the action. When the guru showed them how they were more interested in and attached to material things than to awakening an actinic cognition and comprehension of the truths within themselves, they were able at that time to comprehend what he was saying. But the comprehension was projected to them from the guru, maintained by his own actinic vibration at the moment of their harmony. They had yet to awaken this ability on their own.

It is the actinic continuity of comprehension that is the important ability to be awakened and maintained in this study. For instance, if you comprehend formlessness, and then you find that you comprehend the form of a particular experience, you have to maintain that comprehension while you are going through your everyday-world experiences in the external mind. In other words, you must become conscious of having actinically comprehended something that is out of the realms of the lower states of consciousness.

By holding your mind to one particular physical object and seeing how long you can maintain this one-pointedness, you are mastering the art of concentration, controlling the odic forces. You will discover the consciousness of comprehension that encompasses an entire principle, and eventually all the great yogic laws of life. Comprehension is superconsciousness, the actinic force flowing through the mind; and maintaining the consciousness of comprehension is having conscious control of the superconscious mind.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 112: FORCED MARRIAGE IS PROHIBITED
Śiva’s followers are forbidden to force any marriage arrangement that overrides astrological incompatibility, the couple’s feelings or the guru’s advice. To do so would bind them to a life of unsolvable problems. Aum.

Lesson 112 – Merging with Śiva

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

Anticipated Reactions

Last night we drove past Lake Tahoe and the lake was calm. That calmness is what you see within your mind when your problems are solved within you. If you were to look down in the bottom of the lake, you would see old tree trunks, tin cans, garbage and other things, which can be compared to unsolved problems. When the bottom of the lake is sandy, that is like the lake of your consciousness after all your problems are solved. As you know, there are three types of people: the ignorant man laughs and makes fun of things he does not understand; the intellectual man smiles condescendingly and criticizes, using other’s opinions he has read or heard in the past; the wise man will look at what he understands, try to understand it further and later explain it so others can understand it.

As you evolve spiritually, you go through these various states of unfoldment. You never know what state of consciousness you will come into next, since you have never evolved spiritually before. In schooling yourself to live in the eternal now, you overcome anticipated reactions of the subconscious mind, the mind of feeling and habit patterns. Many people have two conflicting approaches to the same problem: one a state of understanding, and the other born of habits of the past. Clear that situation, so that when it comes up you will not have an anticipated reaction; you will cancel it ahead of time. Remain quiet and do not allow your emotional mind to talk to you. You are lost if it does, from reactionary habit patterns of the past, if you listen. As you pray each day, learn to concentrate, meditate and demonstrate your will over your mind. Demonstrate to yourself, and everybody else will see the result. Subdue ancient habit patterns latent in the subconscious mind. Then you will react not from anticipated reaction but from an action born of your intuitive nature. That is how to accomplish understanding.

Let us watch an anticipated reaction—an example of how we think we are going to react. “I am going to be tired tonight,” we say, for instance, after a hard day’s work. You are anticipating a reaction. What are you doing? You are setting up a vibration to be tired when you get home. Instead, you can forget about being tired and jump into a very interesting situation without getting tired by living in the inspiration of the moment.

Remember one thing, we have to get our joy out of the doing, not the result. That is the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental. The Oriental receives his joy in the doing, not the result. The American rushes through his doing, thinking he will get his joy from the result, so is in a state of tension all the time. Life is a constant state of joy in doing. We will have mixed results if we look for joy in results, and our subconscious mind will be frustrated. Receive joy in everything you do.

You have a greater understanding to apply to your life today. In application you set up new habit patterns—the clear, calm sort which allow you to look in the lake and see the sandy bottom. Don’t look for your reactions experienced in the past, and life will hold continuous, joyous surprises. You will hold yourself in sufficient control so that you can concentrate, meditate and contemplate. The study of yoga is a full-time job, started on Monday and carried out twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to see results.

If you are not peaceful, you are still reacting to past habit patterns. If you don’t feel peaceful, pretend that you do. Feel peace. Feel everybody feeling that same calmness right now. Feelings rub off on other people. If you can demonstrate a constant, consistent peace, get acquainted with peace, the chemical ingredients carried with you all day long, and make others feel peaceful, you will be doing something very fine for world peace, because the world starts with you. The little that you do is important, and it will ramify and expand your consciousness and the consciousness of everybody around you. Try it and see. Hold the consciousness of peace within you. The instinctive nature of man does not want to do that. Conquer that, and that promotes peace in itself.

Lesson 111 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Is Temple Worship Only for Beginners?

ŚLOKA 111
Temple worship is for all men and women at every level of spiritual development. Its meaning and experience deepen as we unfold spiritually through the stages of service, devotion, yoga and enlightened wisdom. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
We never outgrow temple worship. It simply becomes more profound and meaningful as we progress through four spiritual levels. In the charyā pāda, the stage of selfless service, we attend the temple because we have to, because it is expected of us. In the kriyā pāda, the stage of worshipful sādhanas, we attend because we want to; our love of God is the motivation. In the yoga pāda, we worship God internally, in the sanctum of the heart; yet even the yogī immersed in the superconscious depths of mind has not outgrown the temple. It is there—God’s home on the Earth plane—when the yogī returns to normal consciousness. So perfect is the temple worship of those who have traversed the jñāna pāda that they themselves become worship’s object—living, moving temples. Yea, temple worship is never outgrown. The Vedas give praise, “Homage to Him who presides over all things, that which was and that which shall be; to whom alone belongs the heaven, to that all-powerful Brahman be homage! From Fullness He pours forth the full; the full spreads, merging with the full. We eagerly would know from whence He thus replenishes Himself.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 111 – Living with Śiva

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

Conscious Comprehension

You have, of course, comprehended something at one time or another. You have a certain power of comprehension latent within yourself, the power to grasp, to encompass with the mind. It is an all-knowing state. In spiritual unfoldment, thinking is not enough. You have to comprehend the yoga path and the steps on the path. You have to comprehend your own nature. That is why in the study of yoga we work to clear the subconscious mind as one of the first steps. Then you can comprehend the subconscious state of your own mind. When the subconscious is comprehended, it no longer holds power over you. It does not have the ability to influence your life by itself. Many people think they comprehend things which they do not comprehend at all. Others do comprehend, but they do not maintain a consciousness of their power of comprehension, or a consciousness of what they have comprehended. By not doing so, they become vulnerable again to the instinctive states of the mind. By holding a consciousness of comprehension, on the other hand, the higher states of mind, the realms of intuition and perception, remain open while living in the everyday world, even while facing some of the reactions of the subconscious.

There is a story told about a great spiritual teacher, a satguru, who lived in India many years ago. In his small group of disciples, two were in perfect harmony with the mind of their gurujī. They could easily comprehend everything that he had to say. The yoga master used to send them on long trips, traveling all over India doing good for other people. When they returned, they found they were able to grasp and master even deeper actinic controls and laws and powers. The continuity of consciousness does not stop. In other words, the continuity of spiritual unfoldment for the chelas did not stop in the satguru’s absence.

However, other disciples who were not in absolute actinic harmony with their teacher, even when they were with him, found that when they were away from him for a few hours they would quickly lose their comprehension of the spiritual path and teachings that were quite natural to them while they were in the radiance of his vibrations.

Have you ever been with someone and found yourself able to understand things of a deeper nature better in his presence than when you are away from him? His actinic vibration opened your actinic force field, harmonizing and quieting your odic forces. Such people unfold in you a certain power of comprehension. But unless it opens up your own actinic force field permanently, the power is really temporary, and when you are away from the vibration, it closes up again. Just so, the students who were in harmony with their Indian satguru traveled all through India maintaining their consciousness of comprehension. They were in full control of that power, for a jñāna yoga master, or satguru, can effect a permanent actinic awakening for his chelas.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 111: CONSIDERATIONS FOR MATCHMAKING
Śiva’s followers arrange the marriages of their children, seeking sameness of lineage, astrological compatibility, harmony of the two families, total consent of both boy and girl and, foremost, their satguru’s blessings. Aum.

Lesson 111 – Merging with Śiva

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

Abiding in the Eternal Now

When we forget who we are, who we really are, we live in a consciousness of time and space, and we relate to the future, to the external us, to the past, and to our subconscious internal us. This can be rather confusing. Most people are therefore confused and seek to distract themselves in an effort to find peace. A conscious awareness of now only comes when we remember who we really are. This doesn’t mean we cannot plan for the future or benefit ourselves by reviewing experiences of the past. It simply means that we always remember that we are the essence of all energy, the source.

Return to the source. Merge with Śiva. At the source there is always peace. The key to this entire practice is to become consciously aware of energy. In this constant remembering we have the feeling of being the center of the universe, with the whole world functioning around us. To be fully anchored in the knowledge of the source of our being, the eternal now can and must be a constant experience. It’s easy to live in the now if you work with yourself a little every day and concentrate on what you are doing each moment. To begin to work toward establishing yourself in the eternal now, first limit time and space by not thinking about or discussing events that happened more than four days past or will happen more than four days in the future. This keeps awareness reined in, focused. Be aware. Ask yourself, “Am I fully aware of myself and what I’m doing right now?”

Once you have gained a little control of awareness in this way, try to sit quietly each day and just be. Don’t think. Don’t plan. Don’t remember. Just sit and be in the now. That’s not as simple as it sounds, for we are accustomed to novelty and constant activity in the mind and not to the simplicity of being. Just sit and be the energy in your spine and head. Feel the simplicity of this energy in every atom of yourself. Think energy. Don’t think body. Don’t think about yesterday or tomorrow. They don’t exist, except in your ability to reconstruct the yesterdays and to create the tomorrows. Now is the only time. This simple exercise of sitting and being is a wonderful way to wash away the past, but it requires a little discipline. You have to discipline every fiber of your nerve system, work with yourself to keep the power of awareness expanded. Regular practice of meditation will bring you intensely into the eternity of the moment. Practice supersedes philosophy, advice, psychology and all pacifiers of the intellect. We have to practice to keep awareness here and now. If you find yourself disturbed, sit down and consciously quiet the forces in yourself. Don’t get up until you have completely quieted your mind and emotions through regulating the breath, through looking out at a peaceful landscape, through seeking and finding understanding of the situation. This is the real work of meditation that is not written much about in books. If you can live in the eternity of now, your life will be one of peace and fulfillment.

Visualize yourself sitting on top of a mountain. There is no place to go except inside yourself. If you were to go down the northern side of the mountain, you would be going into the future and its ramifications, which are only conceptual. If you were to go down the southern side, you would be going into the past and its similar recorded ramifications. So, you stay where you are, at the pinnacle of consciousness, well balanced between past and future. Everything is in its rightful place in the master plan of evolution, so you sit, just watching, sensing the clarity of your own perfect being, learning to live in spiritual consciousness every day. That is your heritage on this Earth.

Lesson 110 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Does the Pujārī Do During Pūjā?

ŚLOKA 110
During the pūjā, through mantras, mudrās and mystical ritual, the priest invokes the Deity. All observances are precisely detailed in the Āgamas; every act, every intoned syllable is rich in esoteric meaning. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
The pujārī performs strict ablutions and disciplines to prepare himself for his sacred duty. Before the pūjā, he ritually purifies the atmosphere. As the pūjā begins, he meditates on Lord Gaṇeśa, praying that all obstacles may be removed. He then beseeches the God to indwell the image, to accept the prayers of the votaries, and to shower blessings and love on all. Calling the name of the Deity and chanting mantras and hymns from the Vedas and Āgamas, the pujārī makes offerings of unbroken rice, burning camphor, incense, holy ash, water, red turmeric powder, flowers and food. Sometimes offerings of milk, rose water, sandalwood paste and yogurt are poured over the mūrti as an oblation, called abhisheka. Bells are loudly rung, conch shells sounded, and musicians may play the temple drums and woodwinds. The pujārī treats the Deity with utmost care, attending to Him as the King of kings. When the pūjā has ended, the pujārī passes the now sanctified offerings to those present. The Vedas state, “Daily the sacrifice is spread. Daily the sacrifice is completed. Daily it unites the worshiper to heaven. Daily by sacrifice to heaven he ascends.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 110 – Living with Śiva

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

The Two Great Transmutations

It is important to gain an intellectual concept of what it is like to experience through a prolonged term the deep, inner will of Śiva—for, granted, we are always experiencing something. Therefore, it is easy to categorize in one of three departments just where the impulses are coming from that cause our motivations. Number one: the instinctive impulses are from us and from others, and mainly concern our body and baser emotions. These are easy to distinguish, as these impulses provide most of the daily activities. Number two: the impulse to speak and to think, begun through one’s own efforts or those of another. This is generally based on recurring knowledge accumulated in the past, churned up through present observations and conjecture about the future. This is also easy to distinguish, as these impulses generally fill any gaps that the instinctive impulses have made in a typical day. We can easily see that unless some break occurs, there is absolutely no room for number three, which is simply for Śiva’s will to occur.

Therefore, the process is one of breaking up the patterns of instinct and intellect, separating the impulses of them both, through regular and regulated periods of sādhana and meditation, so that the divine will, spiritual energy and infinite awareness can filter in and cause a new intellect to form. Beginning the sādhana, and the continued practice, is the first sign that Śiva’s will is being done in the aspirant’s life. New energy abides within him because of the transmutation from the base to the Divine. New knowledge comes forth from within him as he builds upon it through remembering his accumulated inner experiences as if they occurred but a moment ago.

Should you wish to separate number one from number two and experience the dominance of number three, Śiva’s will, simply begin to say to yourself, “Śiva’s will be done,” throughout each day as the occasions arise. Be careful to categorize each impulse, so that it is clear to your intellect which category you are aware in, just as by being more aware of the Sun than the Earth you begin to forget the Earth and come to know the Sun. Śiva’s will is being done always. By being more aware of the inner processes and impulses of willpower than the outer configurations of other people, their thoughts and feelings, you will soon live in the world contentedly and come to know the Śi, the Absolute Self beyond all form, time and causation, and the Va, the All-Pervading Self, as actinic energy permeating all form, and you will rest blissfully in this new knowledge on your new intellectual threshold. “Śiva’s will be done”—the first sādhana on the path. “Śiva’s will be done”—the last sādhana on the path, after all others have been perfected.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 110: THE FIRST STEP OF RENUNCIATION
Śiva’s young men devotees inclined to throw down the world and enter the monastery should read and accept the Holy Orders of Sannyāsa and adjust themselves to its ideals before requesting training. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 110 – Merging with Śiva

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

Living Positively

The mystic lives within himself and deals positively with the events and forces outside himself. He is always consciously striving to realize that limitless Reality within him. That is his practice. Yet he welcomes the challenges of the world, not as a karma forced upon him against his will but as his own self-created dharma. If he is really a mystic, he doesn’t run away from these challenges. He inwardly knows that life’s daily difficulties bring forth his inner strength in response to them. He sees the underlying purpose of life. He accepts and doesn’t reject. He searches for understanding, for the lesson that lies behind each experience instead of resenting the experience, which then creates another subconscious barrier for him. He knows that most problems are with man and the way he looks at things.

So, the mystic doesn’t need to retreat from the world. The same process continues regardless of where he goes. He can be as peaceful or as disturbed in New York City as in a secluded Himalayan valley. It all depends on what goes on within him. Nor should he be emotionally concerned with the problems of the world in which he finds himself. A concert sitārist is doing himself and his fellow man no good by saying, “How can I play so beautifully when everyone else plays so poorly?” Similarly, the mystic cannot take the attitude, “How can I be peaceful and content when the world is in such a mess?” We need beautiful music and we need beautiful, peaceful beings.

Actually, the mystic sees the world as a conglomerate of adjusting forces, and through this perspective he is not emotionally involved in these forces. The world is a mirror of ourselves and is perfectly all right to the man who is content within himself. But you have to find this out for yourself, because unless you experience it, nothing I say will convince you that everything you have been through and are going through is wonderful and a fulfillment of the great pattern of your life.

Even a great soul faces difficulties, but he does not take them personally. Generally people take problems too personally by identifying closely with them. When they experience anger, they are angry. When they experience bliss, they are blissful. The mystic identifies with the experiencer instead of the experience. He sees himself as pure awareness that travels in the mind. When he is in San Francisco, he is not San Francisco. Similarly, when he is in anger, he is not anger. He says to himself, “I am pure energy. I am the spiritual energy that floods through mind and body. I am not the body, the mind or the emotions. I am not the thoughts I think or the experiences I experience.” Thus, he molds a new identity of himself as a free being who can travel anywhere in the mind. Such a person is always at the top of the mountain.

We have to examine this concept of who we are. When we begin to totally feel all right about ourself, the meaning of the word I begins to change. I no longer means the body of us. I means energy, awareness and willpower. Soon we gain the total truth that we are living in the body, but we are not the body we live in. Examine the word I and honestly see what it means to you. Does it mean the physical body? Does it mean the emotions? Does it mean the intellect? Does it mean the spiritual energy?

Lesson 109 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Who Are the Priests of Śiva Temples?

ŚLOKA 109
Ādiśaiva priests are the hereditary pujārīs who care for the temple and conduct its varied rites and rituals as humble servants of God. They are trained in the complex arts of worship, generally from a young age. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Every temple has its own staff of priests. Some temples appoint only one, while others have a large extended family of priests to take care of the many shrines and elaborate festivals. Most are well trained from early childhood in the intricate liturgy. Śiva temple pujārīs are usually brāhmins from the Ādiśaiva lineage, though in certain temples they are not. These men of God must be fully knowledgeable of the metaphysical and ontological tenets of the religion and learn hundreds of mantras and chants required in the ritual worship. When fully trained, they are duly ordained as Śivāchāryas to perform parārtha pūjā in a consecrated Śiva temple. Generally, pujārīs do not attend to the personal problems of devotees. They are God’s servants, tending His temple home and its related duties, never standing between the devotee and God. Officiating priests are almost always married men, while their assistants may be brahmachārīs or widowers. The Āgamas explain, “Only a well-qualified priest may perform both ātmārtha pūjā, worship for one’s self, and parārtha pūjā, worship for others. Such an Ādiśaiva is a Śaiva brāhmin and a teacher.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.