Lesson 132 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Texts Amplify Vedas and Āgamas?

ŚLOKA 132
Many texts support the Vedas and Āgamas. Vedāṅgas detail conduct, astrology, language and etymology. Upavedas unfold politics, health, warfare and music. Upāgamas and Paddhatis elaborate the Āgamic wisdom. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Much of Hinduism’s practical knowledge is safeguarded in venerable texts which amplify śruti. The Vedāṅgas and Upavedas are collections of texts that augment and apply the Vedas as a comprehensive system of sacred living. Jyotisha Vedāṅga delineates auspicious timing for holy rites. Kalpa Vedāṅga defines public rituals in the Śrauta and Śulba Sūtras, domestic rites in the Gṛihya Sūtras and religious law in the Dharma Śāstras. Four other Vedāṅgas ensure the purity of mantra recitation, through knowledge of phonetics, grammar, poetry and the way of words. The Upavedas expound profound sciences: Arthaveda unfolds statecraft; Āyurveda sets forth medicine and health; Dhanurveda discusses military science; Gāndharvaveda illumines music and the arts; and Sthāpatyaveda explains architecture. In addition, the Kāma Sūtras detail erotic pleasures. The Āgamas, too, have ancillary texts, such as the Upāgamas and Paddhatis, which elaborate the ancient wisdom. The Jñāneśvarī says, “The Vedas in their perfection are as the beautiful image of the God of which the flawless words are the resplendent body. The smṛitis are the limbs thereof.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 132 – Living with Śiva

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

People Caring For People

Religion begins in the home under the mother’s influence and instruction. The mother goes to the temple to get strong. That is the reason Hindus live near a temple. They go to the temple to draw strength from the śakti of the Deity, and they return to the home where they maintain a similar vibration in which to raise the next generation to be staunch and wonderfully productive citizens of the world, to bring peace on Earth, to keep peace on Earth. There is an ancient South Indian proverb which says one should not live in a city which has no temple.

If a child is screaming in its cradle, and the babysitter is yelling at him and couldn’t care less about his feelings, and the mother is out working, that child is not a candidate for keeping peace on Earth. That child is going to keep things confused, as they are today. So, it’s all in the hands of the mother; it’s not in the hands of the father. Religion and the future of society lie solely in the hands of the mother. It is in the hands of the father to allow or not to allow the mother to be under another man’s mind out in the world.

Just as World War II took women out of the home, so did another change affect mankind. When the automobile came along, people forgot about breeding, because it replaced the horse, which they cared for and learned to mate with other horses to strengthen the genetics. The automobile did one terrible thing: it made people forget how to breed and how to take care of one another. When people kept horses, horses were a part of the family. People had to care for their horses, and in the process learned to care for one another. People also had to breed their horses, and in that process learned about the value of intelligent breeding. In those days you often heard of the “well-bred” person. You don’t hear of the well-bred person anymore. Although among biologists there is much talk about heredity, ordinary people no longer consider that humans, too, are involved in the natural process of breeding. They have become forgetful of these important laws, and this has led to lack of forethought and discipline, to bodies indiscriminately procreating more bodies. Who is living in them nobody quite knows, and too many simply don’t care. That’s what we as a society forgot when the automobile replaced the horse. When you had a horse, you had to feed and water it. You had to train it, you had to harness it, curry it, stable it and breed it. In breeding, you had to choose a stud for your mare or find a suitable mare for your stallion. The qualities of both the sire and the dam were closely observed, and the resultant combination of genetics was consciously planned. It was therefore natural for people in those days to seek proper mates for their children, and the results were the vital, creative and industrious children of the children. As a civilization, we are slowly forgetting such basic things, being more and more careless about our children’s future, about their lives and their mates.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 132: THE WIFE’S DHARMA
Each of Śiva’s married women followers strives to fulfill female dharma, perpetuating the race, family and the faith through remaining in the home to nurture, guide and strengthen her dear husband and children. Aum

Lesson 132 – Merging with Śiva

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

In God’s Presence

In the beginning stages of worship, a Hindu soul may have to wrestle with disbelief in the Gods. He may wonder whether they really exist, especially if his own intuition is obscured by assimilation of Western, existentialist beliefs and attitudes. Yet, he senses their existence, and this sensing brings him back to the temple. He is looking for proof, immersed in the process of coming to know the Gods for himself. He is heartened and assured by hundreds of saints and ṛishis who have fathomed and found close and enduring relationships with the Gods, and who then extolled their greatness in pages of scripture and chronicle.

The devotee stands before the sanctum and telepathically tells the Gods a problem, and with hopeful faith leaves and waits. Days or weeks later, after he had forgotten about his prayer, he suddenly realizes the problem has disappeared. He attempts to trace the source of its solution and finds that a simple, favorable play of circumstance and events brought it about. Had the Gods answered his prayer, or would it have happened anyway? He brings another prayer to the Gods, and again in time an answer appears in the natural course of his life. It appears to him that the Gods are hearing and responding to his needs. Trust and love have taken root. He goes on, year after year, bringing the Gods into his secular affairs, while just as carefully the Gods are bringing him into their celestial spheres, enlivening his soul with energy, joy and intelligence.

The Hindu looks to the Gods for very practical assistance. He devoutly believes that the Gods from their dwelling in the Third World are capable of consciously working with the forces of evolution in the universe and they could then certainly manage a few simpler problems. He devoutly believes that the Gods are given to care for man on the planet and see him through his tenure on Earth, and that their decisions are vast in their implications. Their overview spans time itself, and yet their detailed focus upon the complicated fabric of human affairs is just as awesome.

When a devotee settles upon his Ishṭa Devatā, the one God to whom his endearment and devotion will be directed, that Deity assumes the position of his spiritual parent. Many of you are parents and know the inestimable value that correction and timely discipline serve in the raising of children into responsible, mature adults. The Gods are our spiritual parents. When a devotee is not living up to his best, betraying his own silent vows taken unto himself, his Ishṭa Devatā, or personal Deity, is present enough in his life, alive enough in his mind, to know this. The God has the ability to scan ahead in time and make a sharp and often painful adjustment or severe penalty in the life of the devotee to protect him from an even greater impending tragedy or mental abyss.

Lesson 131 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Do Smṛiti and Sacred Literature Differ?

ŚLOKA 131
Hindu sacred literature is a treasury of hymns, legend, mythology, philosophy, science and ethics. From among this vast body of writings, each lineage recognizes a select portion as its secondary scripture, called smṛiti. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
While the Vedas and Āgamas are shared as part of every Hindu’s primary scripture, śruti, each sect and lineage defines its own unique set of smṛiti. The sacred literature, puṇya śāstra, from which smṛiti is drawn consists of writings, both ancient and modern, in many languages. Especially central are the ancient Sanskritic texts, such as the Itihāsas, Purāṇas and Dharma Śāstras, which are widely termed the classical smṛiti. In reality, while many revere these as smṛiti, others regard them only as sacred literature. Smṛiti means “that which is remembered” and is known as “the tradition,” for it derives from human insight and experience and preserves the course of culture. While śruti comes from God and is eternal and universal, the ever-growing smṛiti canon is written by man. Hinduism’s sacred literature is the touchstone of theater and dance, music, song and pageantry, yoga and sādhana, metaphysics and ethics, exquisite art and hallowed sciences. The Vedas inquire, “In whom are set firm the firstborn seers, the hymns, the songs and the sacrificial formulas, in whom is established the single seer—tell me of that support—who may He be?” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 131 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Psychic Force Field

We learn so many important things from the mother. This learning is not just from the things she explains to us, but from the way she lives her life. If she is patient, we learn patience. If she is angry and unhappy, then we learn to be angry and unhappy. How wonderful it is for a mother to be in the home and give her children the great gifts of life by her example. She can teach them so many things, bring them into profound understandings about the world around them and offer them basic values and points of view that will sustain them throughout their life. Her gift of love is directly to the child, but indirectly it is a gift to all of humanity, isn’t it? A child does not learn much from the father until he is older, perhaps eight or nine, or ten years of age.

We have a book in our library which describes a plan made by the Christians to destroy Hinduism in Sri Lanka and India. One of their major tactics is to get the Hindu women out of their homes and working in the world. They knew that the spiritual force within the home is created by the unworldly woman. They knew that a secure woman makes for a secure home and family, a secure husband and a secure religion. They knew that the Hindu woman is the key to the perpetuation of Hinduism, as long as she is in the home. If the woman is in the home, if she is happy and content and the children are nurtured and raised properly, then the astral beings around the home will be devonic, friendly and beneficial. But if she is out of the home and the husband is out of the home, the protective force-field around the home disintegrates, allowing all kinds of astral asuric beings to enter. Such a neglected home becomes inhabited by base, asuric beings on the lower astral plane. You cannot see these beings, but they are there, and you can sense their presence. Things just don’t feel right in a home inhabited by negative forces. You have the desire to leave such a home as soon as you enter it. The children absorb these vibrations, these feelings. Children are open and psychically sensitive to such influences, with little means of self-protection. They will become disturbed, and no one will know the reason why. They will be crying and even screaming. They will be constantly disobedient. Why should they become disobedient? Because there is no positive, protective force field of religion established and upheld by the mother. This leaves the inner force field vulnerable to negative and confusing forces of all kinds, especially in modern, overpopulated cities where destructive psychic influences are so strong. These negative vibrations are penetrating the inner atmosphere of the home, and the children are psychic enough to pick them up and suffer.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 131: THE HUSBAND’S DHARMA
Each of Śiva’s married men followers strives to fulfill male dharma, safeguarding the integrity of society and the family through protecting and providing abundantly for his beloved wife, children and parents. Aum.

Lesson 131 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Centrality Of Temples

Like the Hindu religion itself, the Hindu temple is able to absorb and encompass everyone. It never says you must worship in this way, or you must be silent because there is a ceremony in progress. It accepts all, rejects none. It encourages all to come to God and does not legislate a single form of devotion. Hindus always want to live near a temple, so they can frequent it regularly. People arbitrate their difficulties in the vicinity of the temple. The Hindu people treat the temple very seriously and also very casually. It’s a formal-informal affair. Between pūjās, some may sit and talk and chat while others are worshiping. You might even find two people having a dispute in the temple, and the Deity is the arbitrator of their quarrel, giving clarity of mind on both sides.

Each Hindu temple throughout the world has its own rules on how to proceed and what to do within it. In some temples, in fact most temples in South India, all the men are required to take off their shirts and enter bare-chested. However, if you are in a business suit in the South Indian temple in New York, that’s all right. You are not required to take off your shirt. Every temple has its own rules, so you have to observe what everybody else is doing the first time you go.

Hinduism is the most dynamic religion on the planet, the most comprehensive and comprehending. The Hindu is completely filled with his religion all of the time. It is a religion of love. The common bonds uniting all Hindus into a singular spiritual body are the laws of karma and dharma, the belief in reincarnation, all-pervasive Divinity, the ageless traditions and our Gods. Our religion is a religion of closeness, one to another, because of the common bond of loving the same Gods. All Hindu people are a one family, for we cannot separate one God too far from another. Each in His heavenly realm is also of a one family, a divine hierarchy which governs and has governed the Hindu religion from time immemorial, and will govern Sanātana Dharma on into the infinite.

Hinduism was never created, never founded as a religion. Therefore, it can never end. Until the Persians attached the name Hindu to those people living east of the river Indus, and the name Hinduism later evolved to describe their religious practices, this ancient faith bore a different title—the Sanātana Dharma, the Eternal Truth. The understanding was that within every man the germ or cell of his total affinity with God exists as the perennial inspiration of his spiritual quest and wellspring of all revelation. This enduring sense of an ever-present Truth that is God within man is the essence of the Sanātana Dharma. Such an inherent reality wells up lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, unfolding the innate perfection of the soul as man comes more fully into the awakened state of seeing his total and complete oneness with God.

Lesson 130 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Are the Āgamas Significant Today?

ŚLOKA 130
While the Vedas, with myriad Deities, bind all Hindus together, the Āgamas, with a single supreme God, unify each sect in a oneness of thought, instilling in adherents the joyful arts of divine adoration. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
God is love, and to love God is the pure path prescribed in the Āgamas. Veritably, these texts are God’s own voice admonishing the saṁsārī, reincarnation’s wanderer, to give up love of the transient and adore instead the Immortal. How to love the Divine, when and where, with what mantras and visualizations and at what auspicious times, all this is preserved in the Āgamas. The specific doctrines and practices of day-to-day Hinduism are nowhere more fully expounded than in these revelation hymns, delineating everything from daily work routines to astrology and cosmology. So overwhelming is Āgamic influence in the lives of most Hindus, particularly in temple liturgy and culture, that it is impossible to ponder modern Sanātana Dharma without these discourses. While many Āgamas have been published, most remain inaccessible, protected by families and guilds who are stewards of an intimate hereditary knowledge. The Tirumantiram says, “Nine are the Āgamas of yore, in time expanded into twenty-eight, they then took divisions three, into one truth of Vedānta-Siddhānta to accord. That is Śuddha Śaiva, rare and precious.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 130 – Living with Śiva

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

Working in The World

A mother’s place is within the home and not out in the world working. When she is in the home all day, she brings love and security to the children, sensitivity and stability to the husband. By raising her children, she changes the course of history. How does she do that? She raises strong children, good and intelligent children. They will grow up to be the great men and women in the community, the leaders of the nation. They will be the worthy farmers, artists, businessmen, the teachers, the doctors, the lawyers, the architects, the presidents and, most importantly, the spiritual leaders. They will be the good mothers, the homemakers and child-raisers, scientists and inventors, pioneers and poets, artists and sculptors and creators in all dimensions of life. It is such men and women who change the course of human history. This is the great power held by the mother and by no one else: to properly mold the mind and character of her children. And she trains her daughters to do the same by example and gentle guidance.

Of course, she also holds the opposite power, expressed through neglect, to allow her children to grow up on their own, on the streets where they will learn a base life. Such children will as surely change society and human history, but negatively. They will be the common men and women, or fall into mental and emotional abysses, there to express the instinctive nature and become the exemplars of violence and lust, of dependence and crime. The very direction of mankind is right there in the early years, to be turned toward a great potential through love and attentiveness or allowed to decay through neglect. The mother is the child’s first guru, and she alone can shape the mind in those impressionable years. So, you can all see the truth in the old saying: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

Take the case of a mother who is at home every day, morning and night, attending to her children. As she rocks the cradle, her love and energy radiate out to the infant, who then feels a natural peacefulness and security. She has time for the child, time to sing sweet lullabies and console when the tears come, time to teach about people, about the world, about the little things in growing up, time to cuddle for no reason except to express her love. On the other hand, the working mother has no time to do extra things. When the infant cries, she may, out of her own frustrations of the day, become impatient and scold him, demanding that he keep quiet. “I told you to be quiet!” she shouts. The infant doesn’t even understand the language yet. You can imagine this helpless child’s feelings as he receives an emotional blast of anger and frustration directed toward his gentle form. Where is he to turn? He cannot find refuge even in his mother’s arms.

What will the next generation be like if all the children are raised under such circumstances? Will it be strong and self-assured? Will it radiate kindness to others, never having had kindness given to it? Will it be patient and understanding? No. It is a proven fact that most prison inmates were seriously neglected or beaten as children. It is also a proven fact that nearly all parents who mistreat their children were themselves mistreated by their parents. Unless mothers care for and love their children, society will inherit an entire generation of frustrated adults who were once frustrated children. These will later be the people who rule the world. Then what happens? They in turn raise their children in the same manner, for that is the only example of parenthood they have. They will think that neglect is natural, that children can get along on their own from an early age or be raised by a governess or nurse or at a day-care center. It’s a circle: a childhood of neglect produces a bitter adult life; a childhood of love and trust produces a loving and happy adult life.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 130: HELPING ONE ANOTHER
Śiva’s followers see that the spirit of helping and taking care of one another prevails between family and family, monastery and family. The group helps the individual, and the individual helps the group. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 130 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Meaning Of Icon Worship

Hindu temples are new to this side of the planet, and the knowledge of the very special and entirely esoteric nature of the Hindu temple is unknown in the West. One of the first misunderstandings that arises in the West is the purpose and function of the “graven image.” The Judaic-Christian tradition firmly admonishes against the worship of graven images, though, of course, in Catholicism saints and images, and in Eastern Orthodoxy their pictures, are reverently worshiped. The Hindu doesn’t worship idols or graven images. He worships God and the great godlike Mahādevas. The image is only that, an icon or representation or channel of an inner-plane Deity that hovers above or dwells within the statue. The physical image is not required for this process to happen. The God would perform His work in the temple without such an image, and indeed there are Hindu temples which have in the sanctum sanctorum no image at all but a yantra, a symbolic or mystic diagram. There are other Hindu temples which have only a small stone or crystal, a mark to represent the God worshiped there. However, the sight of the image enhances the devotee’s worship, allowing the mind to focus on the sacred bonds between the three worlds, allowing the nerve system to open itself to the darshan.

Sight is very powerful. Sight is the first connection made with the Deity. The sight of the icon in the sanctum stimulates and enhances the flow of uplifting energies, or prāṇas, within the mind and body. Each Deity performs certain functions, is in charge, so to speak, of certain realms of the inner and outer mind. Knowing which Deity is being worshiped, by seeing the image of the Deity there, unfolds in the mind’s eye a like image and prepares the way for a deeper devotion.

In a Hindu temple there is often a multiplicity of simultaneous proceedings and ceremonies. In one corner, an extended family, or clan, with its hundreds of tightly knit members, may be joyously celebrating a wedding. At another shrine a lady might be crying in front of the Deity, saddened by some misfortune and in need of solace. Elsewhere in the crowded precincts a baby is being blessed, and several groups of temple musicians are filling the chamber with the shrill sounds of the nāgasvaram and drum. After the pūjā reaches its zenith, brāhmin priests move in and out of the sanctum, passing camphor and sacred ash and holy water to hundreds of worshipers crowding eagerly to get a glimpse of the Deity. All of this is happening at once, unplanned and yet totally organized. It is a wonderful experience, and such a diverse array of devotional ceremonies and such an intensity of worship can only be seen in a Hindu temple. There is no place on Earth quite like a Hindu temple.

Esoterically, the Gods in the temple, who live in the microcosm, can work extraordinarily fast with everyone. There is so much going on that everyone has the sense of being alone. The weeping woman is allowed her moment of mourning. No one feels that she is upsetting the nearby wedding. No one even notices her. The temple is so active, so filled with people, that each one is left to worship as he needs that day—to cry or to laugh or to sing or to sit in silent contemplation in a far-off corner.

Lesson 129 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of the Holy Āgamas?

ŚLOKA 129
The Āgamas, Sanātana Dharma’s second authority, are revelations on sacred living, worship, yoga and philosophy. Śaivism, Śāktism and Vaishṇavism each exalts its own array of Āgamas, many over 2,000 years old. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
In the vast Āgamic literature, tradition counts 92 main Śaiva Āgamas—10 Śiva, 18 Rudra and 64 Bhairava—77 Śākta Āgamas and 108 Vaishṇava Pañcharātra Āgamas. Most Āgamas are of four parts, called pādas, and possess thousands of metered Sanskrit verses, usually of two lines. The charyā pāda details daily religious observance, right conduct, the guru-śishya relationship, community life, house design and town planning. The kriyā pāda, commonly the longest, extols worship and temples in meticulous detail—from site selection, architectural design and iconography, to rules for priests and the intricacies of daily pūjā, annual festivals and home-shrine devotionals. The yoga pāda discloses the interior way of meditation, of rāja yoga, mantra and tantra which stimulates the awakening of the slumbering serpent, kuṇḍalinī. The jñāna pāda narrates the nature of God, soul and world, and the means for liberation. The Tirumantiram declares, “Veda and Āgama are Iraivan’s scriptures. Both are truth: one is general, the other specific. While some say these words of God reach two different conclusions, the wise see no difference.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.