Lesson 160 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

What Is the Ultimate Goal of Earthly Life?

ŚLOKA 5
The ultimate goal of life on Earth is to realize the Self, the rare attainment of nirvikalpa samādhi. Each soul discovers its Śivaness, Absolute Reality, Paraśiva—the timeless, formless, spaceless Self God. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
The realization of the Self, Paraśiva, is the destiny of each soul, attainable through renunciation, sustained medi­tation and frying the seeds of karmas yet to germinate. It is the gateway to moksha, liberation from re­birth. The Self lies be­yond the thinking mind, beyond the feeling na­ture, beyond action or any movement of even the highest state of consciousness. The Self God is more solid than a neutron star, more elusive than empty space, more intimate than thought and feeling. It is ul­timate reality itself, the innermost Truth all seekers seek. It is well worth striving for. It is well worth struggling to bring the mind under the dominion of the will. After the Self is realized, the mind is seen for the unreality that it truly is. Because Self Realization must be experienced in a physical body, the soul cycles back again and again into flesh to dance with Śiva, live with Śiva and ultimate­ly merge with Śiva in un­dif­ferenti­at­ed oneness. Yea, jīva is actually Śiva. The Vedas explain, “As water poured into water, milk poured into milk, ghee into ghee be­come one without differentiation, even so the individual soul and the Supreme Self become one.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 160 – Living with Śiva

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

Growing Up Together

Now let us suppose that a young boy and girl are pushed, even forced, into marriage together who are not astrologically, intellectually and spiritually compatible. That would be like trying to graft a pine tree upon an apple tree, which just would not work. The chemistry of the inner forces of this boy and the girl simply would not mix, and naturally the marriage would not be a happy one. This is often the case when two different types of people, who are basically not suited to one another, marry at a later age and thus do not have the chance to grow and mature together. In this case, they are only “glued” together, and when the circumstances of their companionship become too intense, the glue melts and they fall apart.

This indicates why we see so little of early match-making for youths today. There is simply not sufficient knowledge widespread in our society to make proper matches between children. This sophisticated knowledge must be present in both families. Furthermore, both must necessarily be mature and traditional religious families. Similarly, where there is no proper experience in grafting, trees never get grafted.

Among my initiates, we arrange marriages at a slightly later age, such as twenty-one for the boy and seventeen for the girl, and we always require the blending of the two families as a one family and the unequivocal consent of the young man and woman, as well as a written agreement between the couple. There is a lot to be said for marriages that are arranged at these formative ages, because after age twenty-five, personal patterns are already set, and it is more difficult for anyone to adjust to a marriage partner and be guided by community elders.

Years ago in the West, before the two World Wars, it was looked down upon, even unheard of, if there was not at least a three- to five-year difference between the groom and the bride. And to keep genetics strong, cousins never, ever married. The boy was always older, of course. It has been my observation that there is more strain and misunderstanding in marriages when the woman is of the same age or older than the man. When younger, he may feel like a boy, and she like a mother. Whenever the husband is older, his masculinity and sense of protective caring is stimulated, as his wife is younger than he and therefore depends upon him, as eventually do the children.

In today’s world the new trend is to marry when the professions are well established and earning power is up—enough to support a nuclear family. But what about the children? The generation gap is humongous, or at least very big, for them. The mom who marries as a child herself, around sixteen or even earlier and having a baby ten months later, would be only about sixteen or seventeen years older than her first child. By the time she and her husband are fortyish and in the stressful throes of male and female menopause (yes, men go through it, too), their children will be in their early twenties and totally able to help handle their parents’ traumas.

Compare this to a young woman of twenty-five marrying a man who is thirty or older. Mom will be fortyish and dad, too, when the children are in puberty. Hot flashes for mom, while dad is wondering whatever happened to his youth and resisting having an affair. In the midst of all this, the children are demanding their freedom as they experience their own budding powers of procreation. Under these circumstances, the emotional ups and downs in the home can be almost unbearable for everyone, including the neighbors, who sometimes have to listen to loud, high-pitched voices and banging of doors.

Many nuclear families blow up because of the simultaneous release of the biological forces of bodily change experienced by both generations, which inevitably happens in families who marry late in life—father going through middle age crisis while his teenage son is coping with “testosterone poisoning,” mother going through menopause while her adolescent daughter is transforming into an estrogen-powered woman. Of course, the generation gap of twenty-five to thirty years or more between mom and dad and their offspring also contributes to deeper misunderstandings.

What price profession, a well-established financial plan and enough income to maintain a nuclear family? The divorce lawyers get their share, and so do the marriage counselors and psychiatrists—and, oh yes, the doctors, the druggists and the hospitals all take a cut. So, there is a lot to be said, in contemporary Hindu families, for marriage beginning around sixteen for girls and twenty for boys. By this age such children are practically young adults, which even present-day laws recognize.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 160: ENDOWMENTS AND WILLS
Śiva’s devotees dutifully save for their future through Hindu Heritage Endowment and prepare a formal, final will and testament, even when young, that provides funds for their family and temple. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 160 – Merging with Śiva

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

Getting the Most from Japa

There are some who in their spiritual exuberance follow the practice of doing 10,000 or 100,000 mantras a day in their japa, hundreds of thousands a month, millions a year. This is totally beneficial if under the direction of a guru who supervises the process. Most likely it would be given to an individual to conquer pride and arrogance. If a seeker is performing such intensive japa without the guidance of a guru, he then would be forcing a situation, using the mantra and the practice of japa like a drug, holding no concept in his mind of the results to be attained or even knowing if he has attained the results he should be attaining. It is the guru who always knows the results of the practice. But he never tells the results to the initiate. Attainment is never revealed intellectually until attainment has unfolded from within the individual, lest the intellectual knowledge of the attainment yet to be attained become a barrier to the attainment itself.

Each guru has his own methods of mantra initiation from his own sampradāya. It’s a school of verbal teaching. Most importantly, preparation must be attained and maintained in order to convince an orthodox guru that the commitment is strong enough to make the initiation beneficial. Initiation from an orthodox guru begins a process of learning. It is not the end of a process of preparation after which the devotee is totally on his own once he pays his fee. There are many orthodox gurus in every country of the world. Choose your guru carefully by observing the devotees around him and what they have accomplished. If he has a preparation of training prior to initiation, qualifications to meet, such as vegetarianism, scriptural study, the performance of certain disciplines over a selective period of time if he receives no fee for the initiation other than a gratuitous dakshiṇā afterwards—the amount left to the discrimination of the devotee, a love offering, or a contribution toward the payment of a pūjā in a temple to the priest—and if he provides ongoing, more intensive training and education, scripturally and culturally, after the initiation, preparing the devotee for the next stage of initiation, then you have a traditional satguru.

For the ultimate benefit in performing the japa sādhana, look on the Hindu Vedic calendar, pañchāṅga, and choose the amṛita yoga days. These are the most auspicious. Next are the siddha yoga days. On any given day, the most auspicious time is during gulika kāla. These are the times when the forces of the universe—this means the entire universe, and most especially our galaxy—promote spiritual unfoldment. Of course, the daily experience of 108 repetitions should persist. Any intensification of this—1,008 times, for instance—would be best performed at a specially auspicious day and time. Other auspicious times of day are before sunrise and at sunset. The very best place and time to perform japa is in the temple after the pūjā, when all is quiet. This is the most ideal surrounding to repeat japa 108 times to gain maximum benefit. When performing japa, just breathe normally. Japa may be preceded by the prāṇāyāma practice that you have been taught by your guru.

Japa is a very good preparation for meditation. And you meditate on the mantra as you do the mantra. You can’t meditate on the mantra without repeating the mantra inwardly. When the mantra is linked with meditation, it should be pronounced slowly so that you can meditate on each syllable of the mantra that is being repeated. You must remember that japa is the repetition of a few words or a few syllables. That is the sādhana of japa. Everything else is something else.

Lesson 159 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

How Can We Learn to Dance with Śiva?

ŚLOKA 4
Dance is movement, and the most exquisite dance is the most disciplined dance. Hindu spiritual disciplines lead to oneness with God through self-reflection, surrender, personal transformation and the many yogas. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
To progress on the path, we study theVedas, other scriptures and our guru’s teachings and make every ef­fort to apply these philosophical truths to daily experience. We strive to un­der­stand the mind in its fourfold na­ture: chitta, con­scious­ness; manas, instinctive mind; buddhi, in­tellectual mind; and ahaṁ­­kāra, ego or I-maker. We per­form japa, meditation and yoga each day. Such spiritual discipline is known as sādhana. It is the mystical, mental, physical and devotional exercise that enables us to dance with Śiva by bringing inner advance­ment, changes in perc­eption and improvements in character. Sādhana al­lows us to live in the refined and cultured soul nature, rather than in the outer, in­stinctive or intellectual spheres. For consistent progress, sādhana should be performed regularly, without fail, at the same time each day, preferably in the early hours before dawn. The most im­portant sādhanas are the chal­lenges and practices given by one’s guru. The Vedas caution, “The Self cannot be at­tained by the weak, nor by the careless, nor through aim­­less dis­ciplines. But if one who knows strives by right means, his soul enters the abode of God.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 159 – Living with Śiva

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

Marriages and Social Problems

When a marriage takes place after the boy or girl have already dissipated their sex energy in one way or another, the main force that holds the two together is one which the woman emanates from within herself in order to stabilize her own security. This is a psychic force which projects subconsciously from her solar plexus. To psychic vision, this force looks like a long, translucent white rope, about six inches in diameter and up to fifty yards in length, which is manifested by the woman’s desire for security and is sent out from herself to “hook” onto the frame of a man and wind round and round his spinal column, thus binding him to her, even at times against his conscious will. This is why you find so many weakened men over whom women have gained an inner, psychic control, holding them in lower states of consciousness. Some mothers exert this kind of control over their sons, too, from time to time, when they do not have their husbands. When a man feels “edgy” and “peculiar” without knowing why, he may well be under the psychic domination of a woman.

When this is the only binding force of a marriage, it is not a marriage at all. Women are inwardly very unhappy in using this force, because it leads them into a lower, instinctive plane of consciousness as well. Until they renounce the use of it, they are never able to contact the faculties of their own soul or to find the Divinity within. Until a man frees himself from these psychic forces, he can never realize freedom within himself or realize his true Divinity. Yet this is the basis upon which our new culture, or nonculture, in the West has formed.

Even in Asia today, which is now tending toward later marriage, the boys and girls are making up their own minds about marriage. But basically they aren’t making up their own minds at all. Instead of the soul forming the marriage, it is done the other way around. First the body makes the marriage, then the emotions make the marriage, then the couple become intellectual partners in marriage and spend all their time and energy trying to see eye to eye on many subjects which they can’t see eye to eye on. When the intellect makes such a marriage, it never becomes a spiritual marriage. It can’t be, because the power of the spirit, which was not harnessed in chastity at an early age, is gone. As man loses the power of a spiritual marriage, his life depends more and more upon his instinctive nature, upon his instinctive drives, and fulfilling his instinctive drives becomes popular, becomes the cultural way of life, the social custom.

The news media are now making us aware of the terrible social problems being created by the tradition of late marriage in America. Child marriage is not considered modern, and yet each day the percentage of children engaging in intercourse, and of teen pregnancy out of wedlock, is increasing, especially with the help of the Internet’s pornographic enticements. Hotmail is not only e-mail! What proper guidance, what dharmic fulfillment, is given to the Western, and now Eastern, boy and girl at the age of puberty? Very little, very little.

In 1962 someone gave me an article telling about the many families in the United States who were considering entering their children into early marriage with the consent and support of the two families through a legal contract and agreement. Even in our own state of Hawaii, the law sets the age of consent for intercourse, and hence marriage, at a youthful fourteen. This is a basic social issue for us to think about and consider. If you know two people who were married at an early age without prior sexual experience, compare their lives with a couple who married later in life after many affairs and experiences. Early marriage has long been practiced by many cultures and civilizations of the world, including the early Jews, Christians and Muslims. Such practices are not thought out intellectually but are arrived at through observation and the intuitive knowing of the tremendous forces in the instinctive nature of man.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 159: HANDLING MONEY WISELY
Śiva’s devotees keep a regular monthly and yearly accounting of income and expenses, and accurate records of all transactions. In every business deal, they make sure that all parties are benefited and are content. Aum.

Lesson 159 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Esoterics Of Japa

Knowing the meaning of the mantra is very helpful when the devotee is visualizing it at the same time. Then he also knows when he reaches the goal which the mantra is supposed to produce within him. Since most mantras are in Sanskrit, it is easy enough to find the meaning in the Sanskrit dictionary. We must remember that the first mantras were given in the language spoken by the people. Sanskrit mantras were given to people who spoke Sanskrit. Yet, mantras could be phrased in other ancient sacred languages as well. It is just that the Sanskrit language relates to the unfoldment of the inner being, which most other languages don’t do as much. However, even in the English language, or any language, rituals are performed that do invoke the spirit forces of the religion. It just so happens that in Hinduism, Sanskrit is the most accepted language of all, agreed upon by the Hindu hierarchy of all three worlds.

Japa is a sādhana, and all sādhana is repetitive. Japa is taking a few words as a mantra and repeating it over and over again for mind control and personal enlightenment. This would attract good beings on the astral plane and strengthen the protective aura of the individual doing japa. There is no reason to think that performing japa would affect the astral world in any way other than to bring forth goodness, compassion and admiration of the beings there toward the devotee performing this discipline.

Namaḥ Śivāya Aum and Aum Śaravaṇabhava have been revealed for spiritual unfoldment. They are not for magical purposes. Nor is japa intended for healing or other aims in the physical realm. True, Japanese Buddhists chant Aum Namo Myoho Renge Kyo for success, jobs and wealth, but this is not japa in the Hindu understanding. This is more along the lines of affirmation. Japa is very close to rāja yoga. Japa leads to spiritual renunciation, rāja yoga to enlightenment, stimulating the chakras of the head. Japa is never used in the Hindu tradition to pray for material things. Hindus do pray for material blessings, health and abundance but not through the use of mantras or japa. For these they turn to prayers, songs and ritual which stimulate the chakras of willpower, reason and cognition, giving the worshiper physical, emotional and mental vigor to bring the worldly goods into his hands. Mantras for japa are usually short, but not always. The Gāyatrī Mantra, consisting of thirteen words, is an example of a rather long mantra. In summary, japa is religiously repeating just a few important, well-defined words, syllables or “seed sounds,” called bīja, to awaken the higher nature.

Where did mantras come from? Mystical ślokas came from the ṛishis of ancient times who held conversations with the great Mahādevas and devas of the inner worlds. Out of this developed certain rituals that could, when performed properly, create certain causes in the physical world. In the English language we sometimes call these affirmations. An affirmation, as presented in our teachings, is generally for self-improvement. One is talking to his own subconscious mind.

Because every sound has a color and creates a form on the astral plane when pronounced, the mantra must be pronounced properly, slowly, thoughtfully, with feeling, mentally seeing the color, mentally hearing the sound. The ideal way to perform japa 108 times is by also listening to the nāda-nāḍī śakti, the high “eee” sound one hears within the head when in a high state of consciousness. To perform japa quickly, as in a marathon, sometimes called “machine gun japa,” brings little benefit. If you don’t have time to do japa, don’t do it at all. It should not be a meaningless ritual. It should be a very meaningful experience.

When we perform japa aloud, it is easier to concentrate the thought. The mantra is heard and therefore our mind does not wander. We must remember that letting the mind wander into irrelevant thoughts mitigates the benefits of the japa. Therefore, we must remain concentrated. We perform japa, which is a sādhana, for pragmatic benefits. There is no other reason. Therefore, we should keep our mind on what we are doing. Visualize the proper colors that the mantra produces from one stage to the next. In Śaravaṇabhava Aum we visualize light blue fading into white and fading back into light blue, back and forth—“Śaravaṇabhava Aum, Śaravaṇabhava Aum, Śaravaṇabhava Aum.” Blue is the color of the ākāśa, ether, and Śaravaṇabhava takes you there. Once the japa is perfected aloud, it may be done silently, simply by moving the lips but not making a sound, and then later making the sound internally without moving the lips. The ultimate accomplishment in the performance of japa is the yoga of going to sleep while verbally and mentally pronouncing the mantra, which continues during the sleeping hours. Upon awakening, the same mantra is still being repeated, mentally and then verbally, without a break in continuity. This is quite an accomplishment, but it has been done.

Lesson 158 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

What Is Meant by “Dancing with Śiva”?

ŚLOKA 3
All motion begins in God and ends in God. The whole universe is engaged in a whirling flow of change and activity. This is Śiva’s dance. We are all dancing with Śiva, and He with us. Ultimately, we are Śiva dancing. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The world is seen as it truly is—sacred—when we be­hold Śiva’s cosmic dance. Everything in the universe, all that we see, hear and imagine, is movement. Galaxies soar in movement; atoms swirl in movement. All movement is Śiva’s dance. When we fight this movement and think it should be other than it is, we are reluctantly dancing with Śiva. We are stubbornly resisting, holding ourselves apart, criticizing the natural processes and move­ments around us. It is by understanding the eternal truths that we bring all areas of our mind into the knowledge of how to accept what is and not wish it to be otherwise. Once this happens, we begin to consciously dance with Śiva, to move with the sacred flow that surrounds us, to ac­cept praise and blame, joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity in equanimity, the fruit of un­­der­stand­ing. We are then gracefully, in unrestrained surrender, dancing with Śiva. The Vedas state, “The cosmic soul is truly the whole universe, the im­mortal source of all creation, all action, all meditation. Whoever discovers Him, hidden deep within, cuts through the bonds of ig­­no­r­­ance even during his life on Earth.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 158 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Drawbacks of Late Marriages

The further a culture strays from the basic laws of early marriage, the more difficulty do its people have mentally and emotionally, and the more difficult it is for them to awaken spiritually. They have to struggle to internalize and utilize the laws of willpower, concentration and meditation; whereas in a spiritually adjusted Asian home, inner knowledge and inner peace are more or less second nature.

Now let us consider marriage the way we know it today in the West. Boys and girls grow up and may not enter into marriage until eighteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty or later. Along the way they enter into various relationships, and each time they wonder, “Is this the right one?” They compare one experience with another, and each experience they have in this line makes them more unsure of themselves than the last. When marriage finally does happen, instead of the wife going to the husband’s home and looking to him completely for her security, she goes to him with reservation.

Prior to many Western marriages, the years of looking around, wondering, investigating, experimenting and dating only build up an unnatural conscience, because during the crucial, early years, the young men and women are going against the natural inclinations of their own soul, and the resulting states of uneasy conscience only make them insecure. The man who does marry with a foundation of such insecurity can no longer depend fully upon himself, and he finds himself depending upon his wife. She, in turn, is only half depending upon him. They are like two rickety posts leaning up against each other. Jar them a little bit, and they both fall down. By contrast, a well-raised man who marries early develops, with the support of his family, a natural reliance upon his own inner being, and the wife depends upon her husband.

Perhaps you wonder what this force is that amalgamates a husband and wife at their early age. It is an inner force of the nervous system. Perhaps you are somewhat familiar with the central nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. The arms and legs could be likened to the gross projections of our nervous system which can be seen with the two eyes. But there is also a subtle projection of man’s nervous system composed of millions of tiny nerve currents which radiate out from his body and which form an aura about him. When you are close to someone, it is through this subtle nerve force of the aura that you can feel how that person feels.

Before a young boy or girl reaches puberty, the nervous system is pure and strong and vital in its growth, providing the child is not beaten or abused and lives in a harmonious home. If you could see psychically the subtle nervous system that permeates the physical body and extends beyond it, you would find that it has little hooks at the end of the nerve force. In an early marriage, these little hooks come together, connecting the boy and the girl like interlocking fingers, and thus the subtle nervous system of each grows together.

The soul brings the boy and girl together, the mind brings them together, and finally the nervous system in this manner binds them closer and closer together in an actual amalgamation. Once the subtle forces are completely intertwined, they cannot be torn apart. This is why children scheduled for an early marriage are watched very closely, because until the marriage actually takes place, the power to properly amalgamate the subtle forces and projections of this nervous system may be lost. This virginal power may be dissipated in an instant, never to be regained until a new birth. The children are watched so that they do not have any sexual experience with another of the opposite sex before their intended marriage. If they do, the pristine amalgamating power of the subtle nervous system is lost; and though they could still come together in marriage, there would not be the same binding force to hold their lives together. Thus, early marriage as described above is the ideal only when both boy and girl are virgins.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 158: RESPONSIBLE MONEY MANAGEMENT
Śiva’s devotees keep a monthly budget and regulate expenses according to their revenues. They never abuse credit or indulge in extravagant buying, for they know that spending in excess of income invites misery. Aum

Lesson 158 – Merging with Śiva

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

Preparation And Propriety

The mantra is the name of the inner-plane being whom you are calling. If you say, “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya,” are you ready to see what Śiva will show you, once He comes and lifts the veils? Maybe a little preparation—cleaning a few things, straightening up the house, the subconscious basement—is in order first. If you say, “Aum Śaravaṇabhava,” is your mind really ready to become peaceful, or is it disturbed by fits of anger? But every soul is ready to say, “Aum,” and come to the feet of the Lord of Categories, who will set everything in order from the many yesterdays.

If you are in the temple worshiping Lord Murugan, the mantra Aum Śaravaṇabhava obviously has a total, overall effect. If you say “Aum, Aum, Aum” in front of Gaṇeśa, Gaṇeśa becomes conscious of your presence. The Deities are present in the temple. They may not be present in a person’s home or under a tree. The main effect the mantra would have there would be to focus the concentration and quiet the mind.

If someone is already meditating and is self-instructed, not under a guru, and working for an eventual initiation to receive a mantra upon which to do japa, then whatever japa is performed should neither be too much nor too intense. We suggest for the non-Hindu Aum, and for the unitiated Śaivite Aum Śaravaṇabhava, 108 repetitions prior to meditation. This is totally on the safe side and will greatly enhance the meditation.

There is an idea that there is a special mantra for each person, and that a mantra should be secret. It has been my experience that gurus who are amassing wealth from unsuspecting Americans and Europeans will give all kinds of mantras. And they will be couched in a format that is sellable, like packaged merchandise. They will be made secret. But none of the traditional mantras that produce true realization and are lauded and acclaimed are secret. They are well known by every Hindu in the world. Each Hindu throughout the world knows whether he has purified himself or not, and prepared himself or not, sufficiently to pronounce them—though he may pronounce them at any time he wishes, and an impact and a beneficial effect will follow in his life. But the spiritual impact of pronouncing a mantra after earning an initiation (this does not mean paying for it, but earning it through study and practice, character building, improving, proving oneself to one’s guru) that effect is life-altering. It cleans the karmas of many past lives, perfects the lives of the future, and lays the foundation for moksha at the end of this or a future life. Let this not be misunderstood.

There are two classes of mantras, not powerful and powerful, meaning potentially dangerous. The only danger that a powerful mantra could have is opening a person to himself. The problem is not with the mantra, but with what is inside the individual when the chakras open and he can see his karmas of the past and his impending karmas of the future. That’s why a mantra is carefully given, like a medical prescription. You don’t give two aspirins to a baby. You give a half of one, or a quarter. And just as a child’s physical body takes years to grow up, so do the mind and emotions. If the early adult years are put into training and purification through karma yoga, bhakti yoga and study of Vedānta, then there are no troubles on the path to enlightenment. To turn on a light in a dark room with a flick of a switch is quite a shock to the darkness of the room itself. Would we want this to happen within the individual on the path? No. We want to turn up the dimmer very slowly so he or she can gradually adjust to the brightness that was there all the time.

Many people want initiation because they want to get away from something. They want something to cure their ills. Others don’t know what they want. They are disturbed, distraught with their prārabdha karmas, and they want relief. What they should be given is Śaiva Siddhānta—a comprehensive path of accomplishment. They should not be given a high-powered mantra that will, when it opens the mind, cause more frustration and disturbance from what the seeker sees. But once given such initiation—having no tools, mentally, emotionally or physically, to conquer the past karmas that the experiential emotions are intensifying (which should have been conquered through karma yoga and bhakti yoga)—the seeker falls into despair. It is the conscientious guru’s responsibility to provide an on-going, progressive training prior to initiation and to continue it afterwards. Those who make their living by selling mantras would be considered fraudulent by traditional Hindu standards.

Lesson 157 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Where Am I Going? What Is My Path?

ŚLOKA 2
We are all growing toward God, and experience is the path. Through experience we mature out of fear into fearlessness, out of anger into love, out of conflict into peace, out of darkness into light and union in God. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
We have taken birth in a physical body to grow and evolve in­to our divine potential. We are inwardly al­ready one with God. Our religion contains the knowl­edge of how to realize this one­ness and not create un­wanted ex­­periences along the way. The peerless path is following the way of our spiritual forefathers, discovering the mystical meaning of the scrip­tures. The peerless path is commitment, study, discipline, prac­tice and the ma­tur­ing of yoga into wisdom. In the beginning stages, we suffer un­til we learn. Learning leads us to service; and selfless service is the be­ginning of spiritual striving. Service leads us to understanding. Understanding leads us to medi­tate deep­­ly and without distractions. Fin­ally, meditation leads us to surrender in God. This is the straight and certain path, the San Mārga, leading to Self Real­iz­a­tion—the inmost purpose of life—and sub­sequently to moksha, freedom from rebirth. The Vedas wisely af­firm, “By aus­terity, goodness is obtain­­ed. From good­­­ness, understanding is reached. From understanding, the Self is obtained, and he who obtains the Self is freed from the cycle of birth and death.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.