Lesson 71 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Central Purpose of Marriage?

ŚLOKA 71
The two purposes of marriage are: the mutual support, both spiritual and material, of man and wife; and bringing children into the world. Marriage is a religious sacrament, a human contract and a civil institution. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Through marriage, a man and a woman each fulfill their dharma, becoming physically, emotionally and spiritually complete. He needs her tenderness, companionship and encouragement, while she needs his strength, love and understanding. Their union results in the birth of children and the perpetuation of the human race. Marriage is a three-fold state: it is a sacrament, a contract and an institution. As a sacrament, it is a spiritual union in which man and woman utter certain vows one to another and thus bind themselves together for life and for their souls’ mutual benefit. As a contract, it is a personal agreement to live together as husband and wife, he to provide shelter, protection, sustenance, and she to care for the home and bear and nurture their children. As an institution, marriage is the lawful custom in society, bringing stability to the family and the social order. Marriage is a jīvayajña, a sacrifice of each small self to the greater good of the family and society. The Vedas exclaim, “I am he, you are she, I am song, you are verse, I am Heaven, you are Earth. We two shall here together dwell, becoming parents of children.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 71 – Living with Śiva

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

Examining Your Total Diet

Each day that we live, we are striving for the middle path, the balanced life, the existence which finds its strength beyond joy and sorrow, beyond pleasure and pain, beyond light and darkness. But in order to arrive at this state of contemplative awareness, we must begin at the beginning, and this week our study is diet: physical, mental and emotional foods. According to the ancient science of āyurveda, nature is a primordial force of life composed in three modes, qualities or principles of manifestation called guṇas, meaning “strands” or “qualities.” The three guṇas are: sattva, “beingness;” rajas, “dynamism;” and tamas, “darkness.” Sattva is tranquil energy, rajas is active energy and tamas is energy that is inert. The nature of sattva is quiescent, rarefied, translucent, pervasive. The nature of rajas is movement, action, emotion. The nature of tamas is inertia, denseness, contraction, resistance and dissolution. The tamasic tendency is descending, odic and instinctive. The rajasic tendency is expanding, actinodic, intellectual. The sattvic tendency is ascending, actinic, superconscious. The three guṇas are not separate entities, but varied dimensions or frequencies of the single, essential life force.

The food we eat has one or more of these qualities of energy and affects our mind, body and emotions accordingly. Hence, what we eat is important. Sattvic food is especially good for a contemplative life.

Tamasic foods include heavy meats, and foods that are spoiled, treated, processed or refined to the point where the natural values are no longer present. Tamasic foods make the mind dull; they tend to build up the basic odic energies of the body and the instinctive subconscious mind. Tamasic foods also imbue the astral body with heavy, odic force.

Rajasic foods include hot or spicy foods, spices and stimulants. These increase the odic heat of the physical and astral bodies and stimulate physical and mental activity. Sattvic foods include whole grains and legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables that grow above the ground. These foods help refine the astral and physical bodies, allowing the actinic, superconscious flow to permeate and invigorate the entire being.

People who are unfolding on the yoga path manifest the sattvic nature. Their path is one of peace and serenity. The rajasic nature is restless and manifests itself in physical and intellectual activities. It is predominant in the spirit of nationalism, sports and business competition, law enforcement and armed forces and other forms of aggressive activity. The tamasic nature is dull, fearful and heavy. It is the instinctive mind in its negative state and leads to laziness, habitual living, physical and mental inertia. As it is by cultivating the rajasic nature that tamas is overcome, so it is by evolving into the pure sattvic nature that the continual ramification of rajas is transcended. It is important to maintain a balance of our several natures, but to attain toward the expression of the rajasic and sattvic natures in as great a degree as possible.

As you examine a menu closely, you will find that you may allow your inner guidance to tell you what is most appropriate to eat. The desire body of the conscious mind may want one type of food, but the inner body of the subsuperconscious may realize another is better for you. It is up to you to make the decision that will allow a creative balance in your diet. This awakens the inner willpower, that strength from within that gives the capacity for discrimination.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 71: SEXUAL FAITHFULNESS
Devout Hindus observe the eightfold celibacy toward everyone but their spouse, renouncing sexual fantasy, glorification, flirtation, lustful glances, secret love talk, amorous longing, rendezvous and intercourse. Aum.

Lesson 71 – Merging with Śiva

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

Affirmation Is a Power

The power of affirmation changes and remolds the putty-like substance that makes up the subconscious areas of the mind. For years we have repeated sayings and statements, attached meaning to them in our thoughts and through listening to ourselves speak. This has helped form our life as we know it today, for the subconscious brings into manifestation the impressions we put into it. Therefore, to change the subconscious pattern and increase the spinning velocity of it, we must remold with new ideas and new concepts its magnetic forces. This can be done through the power of affirmation.

Affirmation, when used in wisdom for spiritual reasons, is a power, and should be understood through meditation. Before beginning to work with an affirmation, we must understand completely from within what we are doing, being sure that when our subconscious has been remolded we can take the added responsibilities, the new adventures and challenges that will manifest as a result of breaking out of one force field and entering into another. Only when we face and accept fully the new effects of our effort should we proceed with an affirmation. First we must understand the nature of this power.

An affirmation is a series of positive words repeated time and time again in line with a visual concept. Such a statement can be repeated mentally or, preferably, verbally. Words in themselves, without a pictorial understanding, make a very poor affirmation. To choose the affirmation best suited to our needs, first we must realize what we do not want, and then we must take steps to change it, in the very same way we would discriminate in giving away or throwing away our possessions in order to purchase new ones. Whether one is dealing with home and possessions, thoughts and concepts, self-created inhibitions or blocks and barriers of the subconscious, the principle is basically the same. If one feels, “I can’t,” he cannot. If he is always criticizing himself and lamenting over what he cannot do, then he has to reverse this pattern and change the flow of magnetic mental force, enliven its intensity by saying orally and feeling through all the pores of his body, “I can. I will. I am able to accomplish what I plan.”

In applying this tantra, begin by repeating the affirmation fifty or a hundred times a day. In watching your reactions, you may find that the subconscious will not accept these three statements, “I can. I will. I am able.” You may still have feelings of “I can’t. I won’t. I am not able.” This then begins a period to live through where the mind’s magnetic forces fight with one another, in a sense. The aggressive forces of your nature are trying to take over and reprogram the passive ones that have been in charge for so many years. Of course, the aggressive forces will win if you will persist with your verbal and visual affirmation. You must not give up saying, “I can. I will. I am able,” until you find the subconscious structure actually creating situations for you in which you can and are able to be successful, happy and acquire what you need, be it temporal goods or un­fold­ment on the inner path.

Lesson 70 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Can Peace on Earth Be Achieved?

ŚLOKA 70
Peace is a reflection of spiritual consciousness. It begins within each person, and extends to the home, neighborhood, nation and beyond. It comes when the higher nature takes charge of the lower nature. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Until we have peace in our own heart, we can’t hope for peace in the world. Peace is the natural state of the mind. It is there, inside, to be discovered in meditation, maintained through self-control, and then radiated out to others. The best way to promote peace is to teach families to be peaceful within their own homes by settling all conflicts quickly. At a national and international level, we will enjoy more peace as we become more tolerant. Religious leaders can help by teaching their congregations how to live in a world of differences without feeling threatened, without forcing their ways or will on others. World bodies can make laws which deplore and work to prevent crimes of violence. It is only when the higher-nature people are in charge that peace will truly come. There is no other way, because the problems of conflict reside within the low-minded group who only know retaliation as a way of life. The Vedas beseech, “Peace be to the Earth and to airy spaces! Peace be to heaven, peace to the waters, peace to the plants and peace to the trees! May all the Gods grant to me peace! By this invocation of peace may peace be diffused!” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 70 – Living with Śiva

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

Inner-Plane Education

The goal of perfect brahmacharya is the continual re-channeling of sexual desire. This is also the practice, for one does not suddenly reach a point where desire goes away. Desire is life. Desire can be directed according to the personal will. Living life according to basic spiritual principles is your sādhana. Through sādhana you can gain mastery over all the forces of your mind and body. As man leaves his instinctive-intellectual nature and unfolds spiritually, the forces of that nature must be brought under his conscious control.

We hope that you have been able to set aside half an hour a day, or at least fifteen minutes, for the study of these lessons. If not, don’t be discouraged. Keep trying. If nothing more, please try to read a little from your daily lesson each night before you retire to sleep. These holy teachings will then draw you naturally into the more spiritual areas of the Devaloka while you sleep. Many inner-plane people are there to help you. You are not alone in your study and desire for spiritual unfoldment. It is known by all mystically minded people that “As we think, so we become.” Thinking of the great Mahādevas and Deities of high evolution stimulates our own evolution. Our spiritual unfoldment is hastened.

Each night you are taught many wonderful things on the inner plane during sleep. You may not realize this upon awakening or even remember what you have learned. This is because the astral brain functions at a much higher rate of vibration than the physical brain. Most nights, you probably spend several hours learning from gurus and guides in Śaivite schools within the spiritual areas of the Devaloka, the astral world. Sometimes dozens, even hundreds, of devotees with similar interests gather together to learn. They are all in their astral bodies, on the astral plane, while their physical bodies are asleep. When one is firm in the practice of brahmacharya, it is possible to remain for long periods of time in inner-plane schools and absorb much more of the teaching being given there. Those who are not strong in brahmacharya are often seen appearing and then disappearing from among the group as they are drawn back to their physical bodies by emotions and desires.

Remember, your own soul knows the reasons why you were born in this life. It knows what you need to accomplish in this birth. As a soul, you know what obstacles and challenges you need to face and overcome to grow stronger and conquer past karmic patterns through fulfilling your chosen dharma. These and other matters are examined by you and your teachers in the Devaloka schools while your physical body sleeps. The more fully established you are in bramacharya, the more religious you become and the more able to face the world with a positive mental attitude.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 70: CONSERVING THE GIFTS OF NATURE
All Śiva’s devotees are frugal and resourceful, avoiding waste and conserving nature’s precious resources. They wisely store a three-to-twelve-month supply of food according to the family’s means. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 70 – Merging with Śiva

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

Finding Time For a Break

People who live under tension all of the time are like a machine. They are a product of the material world. Only when they release that tension may they become creative again, products of the soul. In a relaxed state, happiness is found, and the qualities of the soul shine forth. Selfish, greedy people are tense, concerned, often inhibited. Tension breeds negative thinking. Relaxation gives birth to positive creations. If you have little or no control over your mind, it will be difficult for you to find even five minutes during your day in which to place your body in a prone position. Watch then the tendency of your mind to live over and recreate the circumstances that were occupying your mind before you began your yoga break. If you are going to relive the details of your day during your five-minute yoga break, neither your body nor your mind will relax enough to allow the inrush of spiritual energy that should be yours. And if you cannot take even five minutes out of your day to enjoy the relaxation of a yoga break, if you are so wound up and so busy, you may be headed for an illness of some kind. A nervous disorder may finally catch up with you as the years go by, because the physical forces cannot stand constant tension.

The best time to take a yoga break is when you feel that you have the least time. If your world were suddenly to fall down around you, leaving you standing alone with no one to lean on, no finances, no family, no friends, where would your power come from? You would have to, in that moment, reexperience the same power that you felt flooding through you as you lay concentrated and relaxed upon the floor. That effulgent, rejuvenating power is the Self, the real You, flowing through “your” mind and “your” body.

Freedom from worldly tensions is only achieved to the degree in which people are able to control the forces of their own mind. In this control they are able to lean upon the power of their own inner security, found in the eternity of the moment. In that moment, your inner strength is found. So, take your yoga break whenever you feel even a little tired physically, a little nervous, a little distraught. That is the time, not when you have time.

Lesson 69 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Is Vegetarianism Integral to Noninjury?

ŚLOKA 69
Hindus teach vegetarianism as a way to live with a minimum of hurt to other beings, for to consume meat, fish, fowl or eggs is to participate indirectly in acts of cruelty and violence against the animal kingdom. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The abhorrence of injury and killing of any kind leads quite naturally to a vegetarian diet, śākāhāra. The meat-eater’s desire for meat drives another to kill and provide that meat. The act of the butcher begins with the desire of the consumer. Meat-eating contributes to a mentality of violence, for with the chemically complex meat ingested, one absorbs the slaughtered creature’s fear, pain and terror. These qualities are nourished within the meat-eater, perpetuating the cycle of cruelty and confusion. When the individual’s consciousness lifts and expands, he will abhor violence and not be able to even digest the meat, fish, fowl and eggs he was formerly consuming. India’s greatest saints have confirmed that one cannot eat meat and live a peaceful, harmonious life. Man’s appetite for meat inflicts devastating harm on the Earth itself, stripping its precious forests to make way for pastures. The Tirukural candidly states, “How can he practice true compassion who eats the flesh of an animal to fatten his own flesh? Greater than a thousand ghee offerings consumed in sacrificial fires is not to sacrifice and consume any living creature.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 69 – Living with Śiva

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

Redirecting Sexual Desire

Brahmacharya literally means Godly conduct, which in practice and by tradition means celibacy, complete abstinence from sexual relations. Brahmacharya is practiced traditionally by: 1) monastics; 2) young persons living at home with parents prior to entering marriage or a monastery; 3) single persons living alone in the world; and 4) married couples who observe celibacy in later life, generally after age sixty. In our traditional and strict organization, the formal title brahmachārī (or brahmachāriṇī) is used only by single men (or women) who have taken lifetime vows of celibacy under the auspices of our Śaivite Hindu Church.

To aid in fulfilling the principles of purity, the devotee commencing this discipline is encouraged to take a vow of celibacy and purity, known as brahmacharya vrata. In fulfillment of this solemn oath, the individual vows to value and protect purity in thought, word and deed, and chastity in body, and to sublimate and transmute the sexual energies and the instinctive impulses of anger, jealousy, greed, fear, hatred and selfishness. In our Hindu Church, all young persons take such a pledge and promise to remain virgin until such time as they are married, preferably to another Śaivite Hindu by arrangement of the parents of both families and with the blessings of the satguru. The sacred cord is worn around the waist to betoken this solemn oath. The formal study of the Śaivite religious teachings is begun under an authorized catalyst and with the supervision of parents. The parents share in his oath and accept full responsibility to see that it is fulfilled. As the fourth yama, or restraint, brahmacharya is emulated in married life in the sense of fidelity, confining all sexual thoughts and expressions to one’s spouse.

Brahmacharya is transmutation—the changing of a grosser form or force into a finer one. It can be likened to the boiling of water into steam to give a greater power. As the fluids are reabsorbed by the bloodstream, the actinic force of them feeds each of the seven chakras in turn. The Tirumantiram states, “If the sacred seed is retained, the body’s life does not ebb, and great strength, energy, intelligence and alertness are attained” (1948). Transmutation of the sacred fluids does not mean to suppress, repress or inhibit.

Just lift your arm. It took energy to lift it. If you were tired, it took even more energy than usual. This energy does not come from a power plant outside you. It comes from within you, of course. Your stamina, the actinic glow in your eyes, the radiance of your personality—these are all manifestations of energy, of your creative life force. And so are the male and female reproductive fluids. They comprise aggressive and passive forces drawn from the piṅgalā and the iḍā currents within the soul body. They are sparked with pure spiritual force from the door of Brahman, at the core of the sahasrāra chakra. When correctly channeled, the subtler forms of this creative energy are the essence of artistic, intellectual and spiritual expression. Those who practice transmutation awaken many latent talents from within. It becomes second nature for them to create and express, being in tune with the essence of creative energy.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 69: RESPECTING EARTH’S PLANTS AND ANIMALS
All Śiva’s devotees refuse to acquire or condone the use of endangered plants, animals or products from exploited species, such as furs, ivory, reptile skin, tortoise shell, or items produced using cruel animal testing. Aum.

Lesson 69 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Yoga Break

The yoga break is a break in time in which one may penetrate the eternity of the moment. It is practiced in this way. If you find yourself nervous, upset, confused, drained of energy, lie down on the nearest flat, hard surface, not a bed or sofa, for they will not offer the proper support to your spine. Stretch out, preferably on the floor, take a deep breath and command your body and your mind to relax, to release, to let go of all thoughts and tensions of the moment. Don’t bother trying to make your mind blank, but simply visualize yourself floating, relaxed on a cloud buoyed up in space, as it were, apart from all the problems and tensions of the Earth. Your eyes are closed, your hands are relaxed by your side, and as you inhale, gently lift the stomach muscles so that the lower part of the lungs fill with air before the upper part of the chest does. Visualize a powerful light flooding into your solar plexus as you breathe in, charging all the batteries of the nervous system, filling your body and mind with energy and positive will. As you exhale, feel this light energy diffusing into every part of your body, filtering down through the legs, through the arms, out through your fingers, up through the top of your head. As this light floods and fills your body while you breathe out, it expels ahead of it all the bothers and tensions of the day. After a few minutes, your breathing will have gained a deep rhythm. You will feel the life force within you build, and you will be regenerated through the lifting of the spiritual force within your own body. With the inrush of new energy you will feel inspiration returning to your mind, for as the body relaxes, so does the mind relax. If you are especially tense before you begin the yoga break, your muscles may relax quickly, and they will sometimes give a little jerk or twitch as the nervous system disentangles itself. By the time five minutes have passed in the supine position, with your mind solely occupied with the rhythm of your breath and the visualization of the physical body floating on a cloud—filling itself with light as it inhales, distributing the light throughout the body as it exhales—you may feel the inrush of energy flooding through you, as if a hose had somewhere been opened. The yoga break gives perspective in the middle of the busy day, when your mind tends to become tensely narrowed by details.

Lesson 68 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Inner Source of Violence?

ŚLOKA 68
Violence is a reflection of lower, instinctive consciousness—fear, anger, greed, jealousy and hate—based in the mentality of separateness and unconnectedness, of good and bad, winners and losers, mine and yours. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Every belief creates certain attitudes. Attitudes govern our actions. Our actions can thus be traced to our inmost beliefs about ourself and the world around us. If those beliefs are erroneous, our actions will not be in tune with the universal dharma. For instance, the beliefs in the duality of self and other, of eternal heaven and hell, victors and vanquished, white forces and dark forces create the attitudes that we must be on our guard, and are justified in giving injury, physically, mentally and emotionally, to those whom we judge as bad, pagan, alien or unworthy. Such thinking leads to rationalizing so-called righteous wars and conflicts. As long as our beliefs are dualistic, we will continue to generate antagonism, and that will erupt here and there in violence. Those living in the lower, instinctive nature are society’s antagonists. They are self-assertive, territorial, competitive, jealous, angry, fearful and rarely penitent of their hurtfulness. Many take sport in killing for the sake of killing, thieving for the sake of theft. The Vedas indicate, “This soul, verily, is overcome by nature’s qualities. Now, because of being overcome, he goes on to confusedness.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.