Lesson 215 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Personal Dharma?

ŚLOKA 60
Personal law, or svadharma, is our own perfect individual pattern in life. It is the sum of our accumulated seed karmas as they relate to the collective effect on us of ṛita, āśrama and varṇa dharma. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Each human being has an individual, personal dharma. This dharma is determined by two things: the karmas, both good and bad, from past lives; and the three dharmas of this life—universal, human and social. Svadharma, “one’s own law,” is molded by our background and experiences, tendencies and desires—indicated by astrology—all of which determine our personality, profession and associations. The key to discovering and understanding personal dharma is the worship of Lord Gaṇeśa, the God of memory, time and wisdom, who knows our past lives and can clarify our most perfect pattern, our right path in life. When we follow this unique pattern—guided by guru, wise elders and the knowing voice of our soul—we are content and at peace with ourselves and the world. Dharma is to the individual what its normal development is to a seed—the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature and destiny. A Vedic prayer implores, “That splendor that resides in an elephant, in a king, among men, or within the waters, with which the Gods in the beginning came to Godhood, with that same splendor make me splendid, O Lord.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 215 – Living with Śiva

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

The Web’s Vast Potential

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/ No, that’s not a typographical error or a foreign language. It’s HINDUISM TODAY’s World Wide Web address. If you have access to a computer, you can read our Hindu family magazine from any of Earth’s hundreds of millions of Internet nodes, for free. True, you would not get all those wonderful photos or art, but the text is there for anyone searching the net for dharma. Years ago, before the Internet really took off, I meditated on what it would mean for Sanātana Dharma and could see a time when Hindus would all be connected on the Internet. An āśrama in Fiji could download explanations for saṁskāras. A yoga society in Orissa would be able to locate graphical information about chakras for a public slide show. A pilgrim could call up a home page with all the sacred sites, temples, tīrthas and āśramas his family can visit on their way back to Bhārat, complete with maps, train schedules and cost of A/C rooms. I saw more, much more. A pañchāngam, sacred Hindu calendar, we all use together, would be available, listing the holy days and festivals. I noted that our own timeline of Hindu history, from Hinduism’s Contemporary Catechism, was already on the Net. It has stirred historians to write us many letters and discuss the new way India’s history is being understood. Even now you can access it and search for when Ramakrishna was born, when the Vedas were written down or when South Indian Chola kings set sail for Indonesia.

I foresaw interactive courses. A teacher in South Africa could download wonderful resources to enrich the lessons she prepares for her students—photos, maps, Vedic verses, illustrations and sounds, all the things that interest children. How about an encyclopedia of Hinduism online? How about a library of dharma graphics which anyone could log onto, find that perfect piece of art for illustrating a brochure, download it and never leave their desk? The possibilities are endless.

Say your daughter just had a new baby and you want a special name. What to do? Search for Hindu names on the Net, through thousands of names on numerous sites, for the perfect name, with the meaning and the right pronunciation. Need a good time to start a business, sign an important contract or leave on a trip? Just call up the WWW home page on astrology for a computer analysis of the auspicious moment.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 215: THE MOMENT OF GRAND DEPARTURE
Śiva’s devotees strive at the moment of death to depart the body through the crown chakra and consciously enter the clear white light and beyond. A perfect transition culminates in God realization. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 215 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Sheath Of Vitality

In the West we have only a few close equivalents for the Sanskrit word prāṇa, and they are odic force, actinic force and energy. But prāṇa is not really a form of energy or a force; it is the sum total of all energy, all force, in its various manifestations. Science has proven that all matter is in vibration, that the difference in these vibrations are what gives matter its form. At one time scientists believed the atom to be the smallest unit within matter, but progressively smaller units have been discovered. When the smallest subdivision of matter is reached, prāṇa, or pure energy, remains. Prāṇa is the sum total of energy, because the whole material universe is, in a sense, manifested from it.

The odic prāṇic sheath is the health body, prāṇamaya kośa, hovering just within and through the physical body, extending out from the physical body about two to five inches. Odic prāṇa is physical vitality. Actinic prāṇa and willpower are one and the same.

You have probably read of cases of suspended animation, men buried alive for hours or days without air or food. When this actually occurs and it is not faked, it is usually due to the control of prāṇa. After extensive training, odic force can be stored in a static state in the body and then used in the absence of air or food, for it is the essence of air or food. Some animals that hibernate do this as well. Frogs have been found buried in earthen mounds in the United States and are said to have been hibernating there hundreds of years without food, water, or air, yet once liberated they showed every sign of life. And man can do it, too, with proper training over a long period of time. This, of course, is not a complete unfoldment of the meaning of life. It is only the conquest of the second aspect of man, odic prāṇa.

Breathe deeply in and out, in and out, in and out. As you breathe in, feel as though you are pulling odic prāṇa into you as well as air. As you breathe out, feel as though you are sending out the air, but keeping the odic prāṇa in the body, all the time storing it in the solar plexus. Soon you should begin to feel full of energy, solid and stable.

Here is another exercise. Select a dimly lit place that you can use as a background against which to view your hand, such as a closet. Open your right hand, in which you have been storing odic prāṇa, and hold it against the dark background. With your eyes half open, gaze at your hand relaxed. Don’t try too hard. You should be able to see the odic prāṇa around each of your fingers. It will be seen as a cloudy, vaporous substance. If you are in perfect health, the odic prāṇa will be clearer and more readily apparent. Some sensitive yoga students can see the odic prāṇa around the physical body of people.

Lesson 214 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Human Dharma?

ŚLOKA 59
Human law, or āśrama dharma, is the natural expression and maturing of the body, mind and emotions through four progressive stages of earthly life: student, householder, elder advisor and religious solitaire. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The four āśramas are “stages of striving,” in pursuit of the purushārthas: righteousness, wealth, pleasure and liberation. Our first 24 years of life are a time of intense learning. Around age 12, we enter formally the brahmacharya āśrama and un­dertake the study and skills that will serve us in later life. From 24 to 48, in the gṛi­hastha āśra­ma, we work to­gether as husband and wife to raise the family, increasing wealth and knowledge through our profession, serving the community and sus­taining the members of the other three āśramas. In the vāna­prastha āśrama, from 48 to 72, slowly retiring from public life, we share our ex­perience by advising and guiding younger generations. After age 72, as the physical forces wane, we turn fully to scripture, worship and yoga. This is the sannyāsa āśrama, which differs from the formal life of ochre-robed monks. Thus, our human dharma is a natural awakening, expression, ma­turing and withdrawal from worldly involvement. The Vedas say, “Pursuit of the duties of the stage of life to which each one belongs—that, verily, is the rule! Others are like branches of a stem. With this, one tends upwards; otherwise, downwards.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 214 – Living with Śiva

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

War Toys And Real War

The subconscious mind consists of all of our memory patterns. Especially potent are those that are bound to emotions. It is a rather dumb state, for it records and holds only that which is put into it. These memory banks are like a recordable CD or DVD, which for a baby freshly born has nothing upon it at first. But with that first cry, the subconscious is activated and begins to record all the impressions. Those that get there first shape the experiences of later life.

Of course, there are positive and creative computer games, but not that many. More are needed. Perhaps there are among our readers programmers who could develop a series of games based on dharma. That would be nice. In the meantime, we may think a Nintendo game or a toy gun is harmless because it does not actually kill anybody. But what it does do is give permission to kill and makes psychological preparations to kill, and that is very dangerous. Survival and conquest by ruthless elimination of competitors become the inner goals. As their vocabulary develops, little ones are speaking of invasion, commandos, assault, combat, war, battle, destruction, using all the words of hurtfulness and violence. No wonder they argue and fight with sisters and brothers instead of getting along. That’s what they learned from their heroes.

A Sri Lankan citizen told me a story that shows how war toys and real-life conflicts are not unrelated. For generations there were no war toys in the Hindu communities of northern and eastern Sri Lanka. But when the ethnic clashes began in 1983, guns became popular among kids. They played soldier in the streets, like the big boys, and when they grew up, moved on to real guns. Toy imports from Europe supplied the need, and soon many homes had a toy gun collection.

When the Sinhalese army moved through Tamil homes looking for hidden weapons, they were sometimes fooled by the realistic plastic guns. This caused them so much trouble, they took to beating the men of households that had toy guns. Soon the toys became less popular. The world of toys and the world of real war are not always separated.

Technology today, especially computer technology, the Internet, can enhance everything you want to do. It is not unlike the ākāśic memory banks of the inner world. Tuning in to the Internet, you can find out almost anything you want to know within a split second. We are communicating electronically and instantaneously with āśramas in the Himalayas and the jungles of South America. It used to take a letter one month to arrive, and we would sometimes wait two to three months to get a reply, if any ever came. Now we are communicating with Rishikesh, high in the Himalayas, and receiving e-mail back within a day, sometimes within minutes. The e-media has enhanced communication tremendously.

It has also enhanced pornography. It has enhanced terrorism. It will enhance anything that you want. It is up to you and your powers of decision to decide what you want to put into your subconscious mind and live with, perhaps for the rest of your life. We are not in the agricultural era anymore. We are in the technological age. We are in the communication age. It’s the age of the mind, where the mind is in technology, working through technology. We can’t change that. It’s not going to go away. It is up to each individual to decide within himself how he wants to use the technology available to him.

The computer is just like the mind. It has memory, a certain amount of reasoning ability, a certain motivation. But it doesn’t have the controls that you, as a human, are able to exert within yourself, such as willpower and the power of viveka, discrimination, which is so central to our religious tenets. Therefore, ask yourself, what is spirituality to you? What is important to you? What do you want to impress in your inner mind to perhaps manifest in this or your next life? You can use these tools to enhance what is important to you, and thereby benefit not only your own life but the lives of others.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 214: SEEKING A NATURAL DEATH AT HOME
Śiva’s devotees welcome life-saving medical interventions, but in their last days avoid heroic, artificial perpetuation of life and prefer not to die in a hospital but at home with loved ones, who keep prayerful vigil. Aum.

Lesson 214 – Merging with Śiva

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

Tuning Up With Haṭha Yoga

When we live in our personality, we are limited, but our individuality reigns supreme. A balance of actinic and odic forces running through the physical body bursts forth into individuality within the aspirant on the spiritual path. This cherished individuality, the feeling that you are the center of the universe, and your created world revolves around you, does not make one egotistical, but rather forms within the consciousness a deep humility, or a deep feeling of the realities of life, thus laying a solid foundation for meditation.

Haṭha yoga is a science of perfecting the physical body through the use of certain postures, or āsanas. In a deeper sense, it is a system of handling the physical body so that you are able to gain a conscious, actinic control of the odic forces of your subconscious mind. When the body is tuned up to a rhythmic pitch, you can single out the seeds of basic odic desires and destroy them.

The practice of haṭha yoga places the physical body in different āsanas in a regular, routine arrangement, so that the nerve currents in the body area are tuned up to a perfect pitch. No stretching, no straining, no pulling, no stresses. Once you have memorized the correct postures of haṭha yoga in their progressive order, you will find that after practicing them for only a few minutes, your mind will be able to concentrate itself without any effort whatsoever. You will be in an automatic state of subconscious concentration because you will have no nerve strain to distract your mind or bottle up the odic force. You will find yourself more alive consciously, and much more alive subconsciously, than you have ever been before. A child can do most of the haṭha yoga postures quite naturally. When you can, too, you will have that youthful freedom of mind-flow again.

Haṭha yoga, practiced correctly over a period of time, makes the mind so acute that you become able to “single out the seed of desire by disregarding all other corresponding erroneous thoughts.” In other words, in the practice of this science alone, the yoga student begins to burn out congested seeds of desire from within without even thinking about them. As you become more and more perfected in haṭha yoga, the odic forces, both passive and aggressive, become adjusted, balanced and controlled.

Through the practice of haṭha yoga, the physical body becomes a perfect vehicle for the mind to live in. The tensions which have been built up through the years become fleeting, and the mind becomes actinically alive. This enables the yoga student, as he presents himself to the yoga master for personal training, to single out the seed of desire and, in the light of understanding, destroy it. This retroactively brings forth a great wisdom through the conscious use of the subsuperconscious mind. When this happens, you don’t have to think to know. You know, and thinking is the result. Affectionate detachment from friends and relations is automatically accomplished, and a greater love for them flows in through actinic understanding.

Lesson 213 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Social Dharma?

ŚLOKA 58
Social law, or varṇa dharma, consists of the occupation, duties and responsibilities we must fulfill as a member of our nation, community and family. An important aspect of this dharma is religious and moral law. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Every human society defines a complex stratification of community interaction. Scholarly, pious souls of exceptional learning are the wise brāhmins. Lawmakers and law-enforcers are the guardian kshatriyas. Bankers and businessmen are merchant vaiśyas. Laborers, workers and artisans are śūdras. In addition to these four classes, or varṇas, are hundreds of castes, or jātis. In Hindu societies, class and caste, which dictates one’s occupation and community, is largely hereditary. However, these birth-imposed categories can be transcended by the ambitious who enter new careers through education, skill and persistence. Social dharma is fulfilled in adherence to the laws of our nation, to our community responsibilities and to our obligations among family and friends. A comprehensive system of duties, morals and religious observances make up God’s law at work in our daily life. Rightly followed, varṇa dharma enhances individual and family progress and ensures the continuity of culture. The Vedas say, “When a man is born, whoever he may be, there is born simultaneously a debt to the Gods, to the sages, to the ancestors and to men.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 213 – Living with Śiva

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

Games That Kill

Nintendo—it’s a toy, but it’s not a game. Toys have real influence in shaping young minds and emotions, more than parents realize. When kids play in an open field or in the woods, they are experiencing nature and learning how to relate to natural things. So many messages are going into their minds, so much information is being absorbed. It’s very different when our kids spend their hours alone with popular video games like Nintendo, which work within the subterranean stratum of the subjective mind, aligning vāsanās in the chitta to kill, kill, kill.

Nintendo—it awakens the desires to succeed through intimidation and force. Nintendo—it teaches kids that the world is full of enemies to be slayed, opponents to be conquered, attackers to be attacked first. Nintendo—it complements a strategy to develop a nation of terrorists within every home that harbors this asuric mechanism. For those who don’t know, Nintendo is a Japanese-produced video computer system that plays a variety of arcade-type games. And there are many other such games that you can buy on CD-ROM or play interactively on the Internet.

To develop sattvic youth for a brave new world, we have recently asked moms and dads and the youths themselves to disarm themselves of toy guns and knives, and of Nintendo and all other kinds of computerized killer games. Among the families in our fellowship, this has been accomplished. Lots of seven-year-old children have burned their guns and dismantled or sold their Nintendos in the name of ahiṁsā, the dharmic principle of not harming others—even in one’s mind, even in one’s dreams—physically, mentally or emotionally. The big games, Nintendo and Genesis, and all the similar computer and video games and toy guns and knives and cannons have been taken out of my followers’ homes and thrown into the garbage cans.

Instead of learning the “us-versus-them” world, our children are learning about the “us-helping-them” world of civilized society. It took a little courage, because these games are amazingly popular, and children become attached to them, even addicted. But our homes have all been disarmed, with no more violence masquerading as fun. What about your home? These video and computer games, as well as toy guns and knives and other weapons of death and destruction, educate children that this is the way to live on planet Earth. They learn that to solve a problem, it’s “bang, bang, bang, you’re dead.” You don’t have to reason with anyone, negotiate, compromise or use any form of intelligence. “Bang, bang, bang, you’re dead” solves the problem. Is that what we want them to learn? Playing like this hour after hour teaches children that life is cheap, meaningless. Those with the bang-bang-you’re-dead subconscious mind, how will they ever learn that life is precious? How will we ever teach them that living with asuras is different from living with Śiva?

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 213: DRAWING WITHIN, RELEASING THE WORLD
Śiva’s devotees who are dying concentrate on their mantra and find solace in the holy Vedic teachings on the soul’s immortality, ever seeking the highest realizations as they consciously, joyously release the world. Aum.

Lesson 213 – Merging with Śiva

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

Personality and Individuality

You can only detach yourself from your odic physical body when you know that a higher you exists, when you have gained stability by identifying yourself as actinic force. Don’t mistake your personality or ego for your actinic individuality.

Often the two terms individuality and personality are taken to be synonymous, but this is far from true. In classical yoga teachings we look at individuality as being the actinic energy, or the clear white light, the pure energy substance of the mind, which is constant, ever unfolding itself, peaceful and controlled. The personality we consider as the various masks or personae which cover the individuality. The personae which are heavy, dark and glued on to one’s face, so to speak, are those of an intense ego, congested odic force. They are most difficult and rather painful to drop off, or even to pull off. The personae which are transparent allow the clear white light from the actinic being to shine through. One can have many of these personalities and have fun using them constructively in the world, doing things of the world, always recognizing that the clearness of actinic vision shines through the mind-constructed personality of the individual’s race, occupation, social background and various accomplishments.

Many people become attached to their personality and suffer when it changes. One cannot, however, be attached to his individuality. In identifying the difference between personality and individuality, we can say that man’s individuality is the actinic, superconscious mind, which is constant, permanent, ever-unfolding and secure, and deep within, at a more intense rate of vibration than his odic conscious and subconscious mind, which make up the ever-changing personality. It is conceivable that man can have many different personalities, but he can have only one constantly unfolding individuality. And so it is the ego or personality masks we must identify as being the unreal and impermanent, and the actinic individuality as being the permanent, secure, ever-unfolding and refined actinic phase of the mind. This week do an internal concentration on the words personality and individuality. Try to locate your individuality by identifying your several masks or personalities that you have created in this life and write your findings on why you can get attached to personality but cannot get attached to individuality.

You perhaps have had a series of good, positive and constructive experiences. They have gone deep into your subconscious mind. The subconscious mind has reorganized itself, giving you a more positive, constructive, fruitful outlook on life. As a result, several weeks later your friends say to you, “You look different. Your face has a glow. You appear eight years younger.” These compliments also go into your subconscious mind, and you begin to feel good about your physical body. These good feelings, constructive, healthy feelings, again go into the subconscious mind and build from within itself a new atomic structure for the physical body. You take a new lease on life. Your body grows younger because your mind has had good impressions placed within it.

Think on this. Be renewed by a change of your mind, and seek for the constructive experiences with a positive reaction. Allow the reaction to bear fruit within the subconscious mind. Concentrate and feel the good feelings permeating the nerve currents running through the physical body, thus being renewed actinically from within. Good feelings are like food to the physical body. Food from deep within the nervous system, fed out through the circulatory system, right out to the skin, makes for an inner glow which can be seen on your face and through the rest of the body. This constitutes happy organs. In other words, all of the organs of the body are working in perfect timing, one with another, being proportionately fed by actinic energy and the vital odic forces. A good, well-balanced “force diet” makes for healthy organs and controlled, calm, central and sympathetic nerve systems.

Lesson 212 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is Signified by Universal Dharma?

ŚLOKA 57
Universal law, known in the Vedas as ṛita, is cosmic order, God’s rule at work throughout the physical province. It is the infinite intelligence or consciousness in nature, the sustaining cosmic design and organizing force. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Ṛita is the underlying divine principle and universal law regulating nature, from the voyage of stars in vast galactic orbits to the flux of infinitesimal subatomic energies. Ṛita is the Tao. It is destiny and the road to destiny. When we are in tune with universal dharma, and realize that man is an integral part of nature and not above it or dominating it, then we are in tune with God. All Hindus feel they are guests on the planet with responsibilities to nature, which when fulfilled balance its responsibilities to them. The physical body was gathered from nature and returns to it. Nature is exquisitely complex and orderly. The coconut always yields a coconut tree, a lotus a lotus, a rose a rose, not another species. How constant nature is, and yet how diverse, for in mass producing its creations, no two ever look exactly alike. Yes, the Hindu knows himself to be a part of nature and seeks to bring his life into harmony with the universal path, the sustaining cosmic force. The Vedas proclaim, “Earth is upheld by Truth. Heaven is upheld by the sun. The solar regions are supported by eternal laws, ṛita. The elixir of divine love is supreme in heaven.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.