Lesson 122 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is a Saint, a Sage and a Satguru?

ŚLOKA 122
Saints, devoid of ego, reflect the peace, humility and purity of a devout life. Sages, though perfectly liberated, may outwardly appear detached and ordinary. Satgurus, also fully enlightened, guide others on the path. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The saints, or sants, of Hinduism are honored as exemplars of our faith. Often living the householder dharma, they teach us how to act and how to serve the Gods. The purity of the saint’s heart is evident in his or her words and deportment. There are others in our religion who are inwardly pure and awakened, but who do not outwardly display their attainment. These are known as sages and often live as secluded munis or wander as homeless mendicants, remaining aloof from the world. Satgurus are the masterful guides and mystical awakeners who bring us into the fullness of spiritual life. They are initiated swāmīs of recognized spiritual lineages. Sages and satgurus are the most honored among holy men, beings of the highest attainment. Both are unmarried renunciates. Sages are generally nirvāṇīs, reposing within their realization; satgurus are upadeśīs, actively guiding others to Truth. The Vedas offer this praise, “We celebrate with dedicated acts the greatness of the illustrious supermen amidst enlightened persons, who are pure, most wise, thought-inspirers, and who enjoy both kinds of our oblations—physical and spiritual.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 122 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Esoterics Of Penance

The inner process of relieving unwanted karmic burdens occurs in this order: remorse and shame; confession (of which apology is one form); repentance; and finally reconciliation, which is making the situation right, so that good feelings abide all around. Therefore, each individual admission of a subconscious burden too heavy to carry must have its own reconciliation to clear the inner aura of negative saṁskāras and vāsanās and replenish the inner bodies for the struggle the devotee will have to endure in unwinding from the coils of the lower, instinctive mind which block the intellect and obscure spiritual values. When no longer protected by its ignorance, the soul longs for release and cries out for solace. Prāyaśchitta, penance, is then the solution to dissolve the agony and bring śānti.

The guru has to know the devotee and his family karma over a long period of time before prāyaśchitta is given. Otherwise, it may have the wrong effect. Penance is for religious people, people who practice daily, know the philosophy and have a spiritual head of their family, people who genuinely want to reach a state of purity and grace. It is not for nonreligious people. Just as in the Catholic Church, penance, to be most effective, is given to you by the spiritual preceptor. It is not a “do-it-yourself,” New-Age kind of thing. Those who try to do it alone may overdo it. It takes a certain amount of talking and counseling to gain an understanding of what is involved. Before undertaking any of the physical prāyaśchittas, I have devotees do the mahā vāsanā daha tantra—“great purification of the subconscious by fire”—writing down and then burning ten pages of memories, called saṁskāras, good and bad, for each year of their life to the present day.

Anything can be written down that concerns you: friends, home, family, relatives, sports, TV shows, vacations, work, pastimes, indulgences, anything that is in your mind. This may automatically clear up events of the past. The idea is to remove the emotions from the experience and bring yourself to the eternal now. Forgetting the past, concern yourself with the now, move with life day to day and create a glorious future for yourself and others. Also, I’ve experienced that sometimes just making the confession to the satguru is a sufficient prāyaśchitta and nothing else is necessary. What the troubled conscience thought was bad may not have been bad at all, just normal happenings, but the conscience suffers until that fact is known.

It is important to note that the vāsanā daha tantra must be done by hand, with pen and paper. Various devotees have tried it on the computer and found it not effective. Writing is uniquely effective because in the process the prāṇa from the memory flows from your subconscious through your hand, through the pen and is embedded in the paper, bringing the memory out in the open to be understood, defused and released when the paper is burned. Some devotees have also tried sitting and pondering the past, meditating on it and even visualizing themselves writing down their recollections and burning them. This often does more harm than good, as it only stirs up the past.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 122: THE ONLY REASON TO DIVORCE
In marriages of Śiva’s followers, divorce by man’s law may be resorted to in cases of persistent physical abuse to protect the abused spouse. This is the singular regrettable exception to the permanence of marriage. Aum

Lesson 122 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Find Your Security Within

What is it all about when we are burdened? This is only the external odic force fields of magnetic energy in the area of the mind called the world and the subconscious. When we are totally aware in this limited state of consciousness, we have the feeling of being burdened. When we are aware in this state of mind, it is impossible to seek out an explanation or to accept an explanation from another. How many times during your life have you explained to your friends who were totally aware in the external area of the mind the reasons for their being there and the way to release themselves from these areas and soar within? You knew they knew what you were talking about, but they would not accept what you had to say, possibly because they had not thought of it first. The magnetic areas of the odic force field of the external mind are that strong. They were burdened by the conscious and subconscious limited areas of the mind. Awareness had become submerged.

The only real security comes from within. Gain security, and if your security comes from within you, you become unburdened. However, if one gains his security from the external mind, then of course he will not accept help if help is given. What is help anyway, but man sharing with man? Who is the helper and who is the one who is helped? You have often heard teachers say, “Every time I give instruction, I learn more than my students.” Is the teacher giving the opportunity to the students to learn, or are the students giving the opportunity to the teacher? Obviously, it is quite mutual. The external ego does not give us help. It only ramifies awareness into even more externalized areas of the mind. The mind of light, your superconsciousness, is the only area of the mind where permanent bliss, security and steadfastness occur when awareness flows through it, even in the outer areas of your nature. The mind of light is the only thing that can uplift awareness, shuffling off the burdens of the external mind. It is the great teacher.

Lesson 121 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Who Are Hinduism’s Spiritual Leaders?

ŚLOKA 121
The saints, sages and satgurus who commune with God and Gods through devotion and meditation are Hinduism’s holy men and women. We revere them and strive to follow their example and words of wisdom. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
There are and have always been many holy men and women within the Sanātana Dharma. They are considered holy because of their loving surrender to God and the Gods, their dedication to our faith, their accomplishments and profound realizations. Their knowing is more important than their learning, their purity more essential than their position. It is very difficult to be so disciplined and devoted, and so we honor and love those who have attained God’s grace, and worship the Divine within them, not their personality or humanness. Because of Hinduism’s great diversity and decentralized organization, holy ones are not universally canonized, for there is no single ecclesiastical hierarchy to do this. Still, saints, sages and satgurus are sanctified by followers within their own sampradāya. Each within his or her own sphere of devotees is the authority on religious matters, listened to and obeyed as such. The Vedas declare, “Not understanding, and yet desirous to do so, I ask the wise who know, myself not knowing: ‘Who may He be, the One in the form of the Unborn, who props in their place the six universal regions?’” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 121 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Confession And Penance

As a mature being in the higher nature, above the mūlādhāra chakra, ever seeking higher plateaus through sādhana, the Śaivite seeks peace whenever the mind is troubled. How does such a Śaivite confess? How does one tell of the reactions to misdeeds performed in all innocence when but a child in the lower consciousness, living in the lower nature, below the mūlādhāra chakra? How and whom does one tell of misdeeds performed during a lapse of conscience, even when living a life of dharma? A Śaivite confesses to God Śiva, the Gods or his guru. To confess to God Śiva, go to His temple and mentally, psychically place your burden at the holy feet of the mūrti in the sanctum sanctorum. To confess to Gods Murugan or Gaṇeśa, go to their temple and place your confession at their holy feet. Or go to your satguru and tell him of your inner plight, holding nothing back. This is how a Śaivite confesses inner burdens as he emerges out of the instinctive mind of the lower nature into the purified intellect of the higher nature.

Yes, reconciliation is food for the soul. After the soul has unburdened itself of the dross of the lower mind through honest confession, a resolution must be made not to reenter the lower states or rekindle the flames of the chakras below the mūlādhāra. To achieve reconciliation by apology for hurts caused another, or to atone by performing acts of penance if a long time has passed since the apology could have been made and received, is truly food for the soul.

There are many forms of penance, prāyaśchitta, such as 1,008 prostrations before Gods Gaṇeśa, Murugan or Supreme God Śiva, apologizing and showing shame for misdeeds; performing japa slowly 1,008 times on the holy rudrāksha beads; giving of 108 handmade gifts to the temple; performing manual chores at the temple for 108 hours, such as cleaning, making garlands or arranging flowers; bringing offerings of cooked food; performing kavadi with miniature spears inserted in the flesh; making a pilgrimage by prostrating the body’s length again and again, or rolling around a temple. All these and more are major means of atonement after each individual confession has been made.

The keynote in serious cases is asking one’s satguru to give a specific penance once the problem has been revealed. Once the satguru is asked for penance, the penance must be performed exactly according to his instruction. It should be done with full energy and without delay. Deliberate delay or refusal to perform the penance shows the devotee has rejected the assistance of the satguru. Further advice and guidance will not be forthcoming until the instruction has been fulfilled. Therefore, a devotee in such a condition does not approach the satguru. He may, however, beseech the guru’s assistance and continued guidance if he is in the process of fulfilling the penance over a period of time.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 121: VALID CAUSES FOR SEPARATION
In marriages of Śiva’s followers, adultery, severe neglect, verbal abuse and abandonment may be valid causes for separation but not divorce. Spiritual law recognizes no divorce, and separation is hoped to be temporary. Aum.

Lesson 121 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Love Conquers Selfishness

Love may also be thought of as the full expression of the intuitive mind, a continuing flow from the source of Being. Most people would not be able to withstand the reaction to this force were it to be fully released within them. To suddenly relieve a person of all tension would be like making a poor man rich overnight. The instinctive mind feels lost and insecure under the impact of any sudden change in evolution. As the soul, the superconscious mind, or the light of God, begins to shine through the rest of the mind, the mind will either become reactionary or cooperative. Some people have a terrible fight within themselves as the soul begins to shine forth, and yet their only lasting satisfaction in life is in the outpouring of their individual soul qualities.

Sometimes students of Inner Being are able to control their actions or their speech when they become disturbed, but the thought force projected by their suppressed sulking is just as negatively effective. Seeking to understand the condition that has upset you will give control of the negative force and eventually lift you into the state of love which conquers all things.

Of course, the practice of understanding must begin at home. You must train yourself to know where you are in consciousness at all times. When you can become fully aware of the states of consciousness through which you pass, there will be no one whom you cannot understand, no one with whom you could not communicate through the medium of love. Until you learn the operation of this law as the sum of all laws, you will continue to harbor contention, to prefer argument and to walk the path of difference. Through bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, the combative mind becomes erased, absorbed into the consciousness of the One Self, the Being permeating all beings.

With the help of devotion, you can soar within. You cannot only pull away detachedly from unwholesome areas of the mind, but it is possible to keep yourself in an inward state of expanded consciousness.

Lesson 120 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Are the Holy Orders of Sannyāsa?

ŚLOKA 120
The holy orders of sannyāsa are lifetime vows of poverty, obedience and chastity, never to be relinquished or rescinded. The sannyāsins are the religious leaders, the bedrock of the Sanātana Dharma. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
The sannyāsin’s first sacred vow is renunciation, the surrendering of the limited identity of the ego that the soul may soar to the depths of impersonal Being. It is a repudiation of worldly dharma and involvement, and thus includes poverty and simplicity. The sannyāsin owns nothing, not even the robes he is given to wear. The second vow is obedience—a pledge to follow the traditional ways of the sannyāsa dharma and the specific directions of his satguru. It embraces obedience to his own conscience, to scripture, to God and the Gods and to his illustrious guru paramparā. The third vow is purity—a pledge to remain pure in thought, word and deed, to be continent throughout life, to protect the mind from all lower instincts: deceit, hatred, fear, jealousy, anger, pride, lust, covetousness and so forth. It includes the observance of ahiṁsā, noninjuriousness, and adherence to a vegetarian diet. Some orders also give vows of humility and confidentiality. The Vedas elucidate, “Henceforth being pure, clean, void, tranquil, breathless, selfless, endless, undecaying, steadfast, eternal, unborn, independent, he abides in his own greatness.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 120 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Means of Atonement

Vitalized by bhakti’s grace, a devotee’s conscience is aroused, bringing the desire to confess, repent and make up for misdeeds. Through divine sight, the soul perceives unwise actions, performed when in the lower nature, as a hindrance to spiritual progress. Tantras are many to release the soul from these burdensome bonds. Penance well performed propels the soul into its natural state of bliss.

Chakras look like lotus flowers. There are four petals on the mūlādhāra chakra, which is situated at the base of the spine. These petals unfold one after another as a person’s consciousness emerges upward from jealousy, anger and fear into memory, reason and willpower. Only then awakens the consciousness of religiousness and the ability to admit the existence of God and angelic beings. This new humility causes the devotee to admit that grace is needed to progress on the spiritual path and resolve unwholesome karmas of the past, to admit that wisdom is needed to avoid making new unwholesome karmas in the future. The four petals of the mūlādhāra can be described as unrestrained remorse, confession, repentance and reconciliation.

All help is given by the divine devas to those who admit their mistakes and are seen performing a sincere penance. These devas that oversee those in a penitent state of mind are similar to doctors and nurses gathered to help their patient become well again. The angelic helpers surround their “patient,” assisting in the relief of mental and emotional illness caused by transgression of dharma and the guilt that follows. When the penitent is undergoing penance, it is a form of tapas, described by some as psychic surgery performed by the devas working together to bring the soul from darkness into light. It truly is a happy event, but only long after it is over.

When penance is given, it must be fulfilled, especially when requested. Otherwise, the life of the penitent is vulnerable to the company of asuras. Penance is given after a certain degree of remorse is shown and the urgency is felt by the devotee to rid his mind of the plaguing matter. Admitting a transgression, I have discovered, is often preceded by one of three forms of denial: casual denial, soft denial or hard denial. Say a boy steals some candy from a store. Casual denial is making little of the matter, “Big deal! Why is everyone so upset?” Soft denial is rationalizing, “Yes, I took the candy, so what? It was only two dollars’ worth!” Hard denial is to say, “I didn’t do it. They have me mixed up with another boy!”

We all know the refined, uplifting feeling of bhakti. Every religious person in the world has experienced this at one time or another. It is the total surrendering of oneself to God and the Gods. As the soul emerges out of the lower aspects of the instinctive mind, the mūlādhāra chakra begins to unfold because of the bhakti that has been awakened through daily worship and sādhana. Admission and honest confession then bring up repentant feelings through the subsuperconscious mind quite unbidden. When this happens within the devotee, it is truly a boon, marking progress on the spiritual path. Confession, the voice of the soul, can now be heard. As the intellect clears, the honest truths of experience, formerly hidden to oneself as well as to others, are revealed. The soul, the conscience, emerges in all honesty and remorsefully confesses the burdens it has been carrying. Yes, confession is truly the voice of the soul. Nothing is hidden to oneself when dharma supersedes adharma.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 120: CELIBACY IN MARRIED LIFE
Śiva’s followers who have raised their family may, by mutual consent and with satguru’s blessings, choose to live in celibacy, as brother and sister, and thus transmute their vital energies into the Divine. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 120 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is Pure Love?

Love is the sum of all the spiritual laws. We may say that love is the heart of the mind. Anything that comes before you in life can be conquered through universal love, a force which is a demonstration of the soul. Universal love has nothing to do with emotional infatuation, attachment or lust. It flows freely through the person whose mind is unclouded by resentment, malice, greed and anger. But in persons whose minds are partially out of control and under the control of another, the force of the soul ends up as infatuation or attachment.

Pure love is a state of Being. Whereas everyone is running around trying to get love, it is found in giving. When a person begins to lose the idea of his own personality through concern for others, he will attract a like response to himself. The outgoing force of the soul in action brings freedom to the lower states of mind. The instinctive person is ordinarily so preoccupied with his own self, so wrapped up in his own shell, that he cannot give a thought to the welfare of another. He cannot give anything of himself. Such a person usually feels sorry for himself and finds other people unloving and unresponsive. He is still far from any realization of the Self within.

The unfortunate person who is burdened by resentment, for instance, feels that the world owes him more kindness than he is receiving. When he loses his resentment for the world simply by becoming interested in people, the world will once again reflect back the expression of this soul force, known as universal love. You may visualize this pure state of love as a force of light flooding out from the center of your Being. If you place sheets of paper too close to a light source, you temporarily block the light and scorch the paper. People are always scorching themselves by holding up against their own “inner-light paper” qualities such as resentment, malice and greed. Spontaneous acts of benevolence and selflessness, prompted by a will to perfection, lift the striving soul in feeling and begin slowly to remove the coverings from the light which is the soul. You can’t expect immediate action, of course, because you may still carry the seeds of destructive qualities within you, and it is these seeds which continue to hold man in lower states of consciousness.

The action and reaction of the self-centered state of mind creates tension and discord in mind and body. Often, when the diaphragm is tight, the muscles are tense, breathing is difficult and your whole disposition is on edge. A person attains relaxation and peace through a benevolent act in which he loses himself in another’s happiness. The cycles of tension and release, tension and release—which are constantly given birth to in the instinctive and intellectual state of mind—are only broken as the unfolding soul expresses itself in devotion, breaking up the crust of personal concern and hurt feelings.

Lesson 119 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Sannyāsin’s Initiation Rite?

ŚLOKA 119
Young, unmarried men of the Hindu religion may qualify for renunciation, called sannyāsa dīkshā, which may be conferred by any legitimate sannyāsin. But the most spiritually potent initiation comes from a satguru. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Traditionally, sannyāsa dīkshā is restricted to unmarried men, though some modern orders have accepted qualified women. As a rule in most orders, if a candidate enters monastic training before age twenty-five and meets other qualifications, he may, generally after a minimum of twelve years of preparation and training, take the sannyāsin’s lifetime vows, called holy orders of sannyāsa. Only a sannyāsin can bring another into the ancient order of sannyāsa. However, since the purpose is God Realization, most candidates seek initiation from a spiritually advanced knower of God who can bring them into Paraśiva. Sannyāsa dīkshā is given in simple or most formal ways. The formal rites include the shaving of the head, conveyance of certain esoteric teachings, abjuration of the worldly life and dharma, administration of monastic vows, conducting of the novitiate’s funeral rites and the giving of the kavi vestments. The Vedas proclaim, “The Self within the body, pure and resplendent, is attained through the cultivation of truth, austerity, right knowledge and chastity. When their impurities dwindle, the ascetics behold Him.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.