January 30, 2015 - Lesson 293
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Sloka 138 from Dancing with Siva
Is Initiation Necessary to Perform Japa?
The most precious of all Saivite mantras, Namah Sivaya is freely sung and chanted by one and all. Mantra diksha bestows the permission and power for japa yoga. Without this initiation, its repetition bears lesser fruit. Aum.
Bhashya
The Panchakshara Mantra is the word of God, the name and total essence of Siva. But to chant Namah Sivaya and to be empowered to chant Namah Sivaya is likened to the difference between writing a check without money in the bank and writing a check with money in the bank. Namah Sivaya is the gateway to yoga. Initiation from an orthodox guru is given after preparation, training and attaining a certain level of purity and dedication. The guru bestows the authority to chant Namah Sivaya. After initiation, the devotee is obligated to intone it regularly as instructed. This forges the shishya's permanent bond with the guru and his spiritual lineage, sampradaya, and fires the process of inner unfoldment. From the lips of my Satgurunatha I learned Namah Sivaya, and it has been the central core of my life, strength and fulfillment of destiny. The secret of Namah Sivaya is to hear it from the right lips at the right time. Then, and only then, is it the most powerful mantra for you. The Siva Samhita affirms, "Only the knowledge imparted by a guru, through his lips, is powerful and useful; otherwise it becomes fruitless, weak and very painful." Aum Namah Sivaya.
Lesson 293 from Living with Siva
Emotional Slumps
Everybody falls into negative slumps at one time or another when they deny the God principle within themselves, when they deny their knowing power, absolutely, deliberately deny it, by allowing their thinking principle--what they themselves think as a little ego--to take hold and cancel off, just like an eraser on the blackboard of life, the soul's attempts to express itself.
For example, you are going along fine, just wonderful, you are feeling great, and a little opportunity to serve comes up and you miss it. You know you should, but you don't think it is quite the time, when it would be just as easy to fulfill whatever you know you should fulfill. But you think, "Well, this isn't exactly the best time for me." You have very good reasons to say no, excellent reasons, because the thinking mind is always filled with excellent reasons. They are wonderful for the time, but they wear out. That is why we don't exercise our memory and remember all the reasons we had for our actions.
If I asked why did you do this and that and those unseemly actions, you might say, "Yes, I know what you're thinking. I had a very good reason at the time, but I can't recall it just now." You don't want to remember the reason, because you know it was only an excuse sufficient for a time. Yet the action remains, along with the reason, which was a weak one, vibrating in the subconscious mind. If you accumulate two or three such incidents, pretty soon you fall into a negative slump, where you don't feel like doing anything and nothing seems to make sense to you in the spiritual world or any other world. You just drag along and say, "Oh my, the burdens of life are getting pretty heavy." Eventually that condition wears out, too, and you swing back and get a little light in you. That is why people turn to stimulants, excesses of chocolate, sugary yum-yums (the junk food business makes millions on the negative slumpers) and various innervating beverages, such as coffee and soft drinks, to pep up the physical body. But the body can take only so much of these negative slumps before it reacts and, in its reaction, becomes unhealthy. Finally it succumbs to disease; it is not at ease within itself because the subconscious mind is not at ease.
When you refrain from denying that soul source within you and fulfill what you know you should do, then you are filled and thrilled with life force. Your soul is shining out in the material plane. You don't go into negative slumps. You become like the people who don't just get up to do things, they jump up and are happy to do anything they have an opportunity to do. But deny your knowing principle, and it becomes an effort to do anything--even an effort to remember how you should respond and what you should do.
Many people know they should do certain things to help out, to help their families, their relatives and friends. But as the weeks go by, what they know they forget, because they really didn't want to do it in the first place. They didn't think they had time; they didn't think they could help; they didn't think they could afford it. They have so many limitations. They put their poor old soul into a cage. Excuse me, I am going to rephrase that. They put their poor young soul into a cage, because old souls manifest consideration. Young souls are just learning how. And this poor young soul climbs right into this little cage and sits, like a newborn baby, waiting for the subconscious mind--which has been filled with negative activity, negative thoughts and a negative approach to life--to unwind itself. But the soul within has to first watch itself wind up--and it winds up through the many lives, with all its negative creations, all of its thinking versus knowing, and thinking winning out every time. Then it has to unwind, and when it does unwind, pretty soon knowing gets stronger than thinking. Then we notice a spiritual unfoldment. Then we know that observation is taking hold.
Do you know how I can tell when someone is spiritually unfolding? When I suggest something, and he takes me up on the suggestion and observes and thinks of the next step before I think of it, I know that he is spiritually unfolding, because through his observation he is producing knowing, and through his knowing he is being considerate of his fellow man, just as he expects everyone to be considerate of him.
Sutra 293 of the Nandinatha Sutras
Living Near Saiva Temples
My devotees wisely settle in areas where Ganesha, Murugan or Siva temples exist for their frequent pilgrimage, worship and spiritual security. None should live farther than a day's journey from such sacred sanctuaries. Aum.
Lesson 293 from Merging with Siva
Consciousness And the Chakras
Gaining stability in any of the chakras above the muladhara avails a certain control over the related chakras below the muladhara. For example, the muladhara has power over the second, fourth and six chakras below the base of the spine, the centers of anger, confusion and absence of conscience. Manipura, the third chakra, has power over the muladhara and the same Narakaloka centers in an even more expansive way. The reason center, svadhishthana, chakra two, controls the centers of fear, jealousy and so on. The cognition, seeing-through-worldliness chakra--anahata--the fourth center above the muladhara, controls the reason chakra, and the centers of fear, jealousy, egotistic self-preservation and so on.
All the chakras, indeed, are functioning in everyone, as everyone has willpower, memory, reason and so on. But each soul has a home base. The ahimsa person whose home base is anahata chakra would not harm others because he perceives the unity of all. The person living in the ajna chakra above could never harm others because he is immersed in divine love. The home base of the terrorist who takes pleasure, joy and pride, and receives medals of honor for his disdain of human rights, is the patala chakra, at the bottom. The average person, and this is what makes him average, functions predominantly in about six chakras. These would be six below the muladhara for someone for whom fear is the high point. Three within that six are the sustaining elements.
The upper seven chakras spin clockwise, and this spinning creates the shanti, or ever-growing peace, within an individual dominated by them. The lower seven spin counterclockwise, and this produces an ever-growing turmoil within one so affected. The vulnerable part of spiritual unfoldment is when someone is in the higher chakras--for example will and reason--and has one or more lower chakras open as well. This means one set of chakras is spinning clockwise and the other set is spinning counterclockwise, which accounts for great mood swings, elation, depression, self adulation, self condemnation. So, brahmadvara, the doorway to the Narakaloka just below the muladhara, has to be sealed off so that it becomes impossible for fears, hatreds, angers and jealousies to arise. Once this begins to happen, the muladhara chakra is stabilized and the renegade becomes a devotee of Lord Ganesha. You cannot come to Ganesha in love and respect if you are an angry or jealous person. That is our religion.
As awareness flows through the first three higher chakras, we are in memory and reason patterns. We see the past and the future vividly and reside strongly in the conscious and subconscious areas of the mind. When awareness flows through the anahata and vishuddha chakras, our point of view changes. We begin to see ourselves as the center of the universe, for now we are looking out and seeing through the external world from within ourselves. We look into the primal force within ourselves and see that this same energy is in and through everything.
The chakras also relate to our immediate universe. Put the sun in the center, representing the golden light of sushumna. The Earth is the conscious mind; the moon is the subconscious mind. The vibratory rates of the planets are then related to the seven chakras; the first chakra, muladhara, to Mercury; the second chakra, svadhishthana, to Venus; the third chakra, manipura, to Mars; and so forth. In this way, if you know something of Vedic astrology, you can understand the relationship of the influence of the planets as to the formation of the individual nature, and how these various chakras come into power, some stronger than others, depending upon the astrological signs, for they have the same rate of vibration as the planets. Now you can see how it all ties together.
Through the knowledge of the chakras, you can watch people and see what state of consciousness they are functioning in. It is helpful to know that all souls are inwardly perfect, but they are functioning through one force center or another most of the time, and these force centers determine their attitudes, their experiences, how they react to them and more.