Lesson 97 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Are the Primary Festivals to Śiva?

ŚLOKA 97
Mahāśivarātri, Śiva’s great night, venerates Paraśiva. Kṛittikā Dīpam celebrates the infinite light of Parāśakti. Ārdrā Darśanam invokes the blessings of Parameśvara— Lord Śiva Naṭarāja in His blissful Cosmic Dance. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Mahāśivarātri is the night before the new-moon day in February-March. We observe it both as a discipline and a festivity, keeping a strict fast and all-night vigil, meditating, intoning Śiva’s 1,008 names, singing His praise, chanting Śrī Rudram, bathing the Śivaliṅga and being near the vairāgīs as they strive to realize Paraśiva. On Kṛittikā Dīpam, the Kṛittikā nakshatra in November-December, we honor—with oil lamps everywhere, village bonfires and special temple āratī—God Śiva as an infinite pillar of light. This is an important festival in Murugan temples. On Ārdrā Darśanam, during the Ārdrā nakshatra of December-January, Lord Naṭarāja receives elaborate abhisheka and is beseeched for yogic union, prosperity and matrimonial success. He is again lavishly invoked on the Uttarāphalgunī nakshatra in June-July and on four other days each year. Special monthly days for Śiva worship are the two 13th tithis, called pradosha. The Vedas proclaim, “The Lord, God, all-pervading and omnipresent, dwells in the heart of all beings. Full of grace, He ultimately gives liberation to all creatures by turning their faces toward Himself.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 97 – Living with Śiva

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

Control Of Breath

Control of the breath, to be learned properly, might take months or even years. That’s all right. If you were learning to play a musical instrument, it would take months or even years to perfect the basic principles of making chords and putting chords together into a melody. There is no hurry. Hurry is the age we want to bypass when we meditate. The control of the breath is exactly the same as the control of awareness, so it is good to be patient in the early stages and perfect each element of practice.

As we learn to breathe rhythmically and from the diaphragm, we also release tensions in the solar plexus. We learn to be spontaneous and free on the inside, and life force runs through us in an uninhibited way. We achieve and learn to maintain contentment, santosha. All of these things come through the simple techniques we practice while in meditation. But the practice of meditation is not the end. It is the total being of man that is the end to be sought for—the well-rounded, content, spontaneous being that is totally free.

After you have quieted the body, and the breath is flowing regularly, close your eyes. Close your ears and shut off the external sense perceptions. As long as you are aware of sights and sounds on the outside, you are not concentrated. It is a fallacy to think you have to find a totally silent place before you can go within. When your senses are stilled, you don’t hear any sounds. You’re in a state of silence. You don’t hear a car that passes, you don’t hear a bird that sings, because your awareness has shifted to different perceptions. It helps, but it’s not necessary, to have a totally silent place. This is not always possible, so it is best not to depend on outer silence. We must discover silence within ourselves. When you are reading a book that is extremely interesting, you are not hearing noises around you. You should be at least that interested in your meditations.

Having thus quieted the outer forces, we are prepared to meditate. Just sitting is not enough. To meditate for even ten or fifteen minutes takes as much energy as one would use in running around a city block three times. A powerful meditation fills and thrills us with an abundance of energy to be used creatively in the external world during the activities of daily life. Great effort is required to make inner strides. We must strive very, very hard and meet each inner challenge.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 97: BEING MODEST WITH OTHER MEN
Śiva’s married women maintain a kindly and modest reserve toward all men, be they young, older, single, married, divorced or widowed. They shower all their love and attention on their husband and family. Aum.

Lesson 97 – Merging with Śiva

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

Awakening Willpower

This is why you were born. The one and only reason why you are existing in your material body is first to unfold into your clear white light, then penetrate deeper and deeper, touch into the Self, become a knower of the Self, Sat­chid­ānanda, and then deeper still into nir­vi­kalpa samā­dhi, Self Realization, preparing for the next steps on the classical yoga path—moksha, freedom from rebirth, and viśvagrāsa, merging with Śiva. You will soon realize that you create the mind in any way that you want, that you are master of your mind. To become master of your mind, you must realize that understanding is fifty percent of control of the mind, and you have to work at it as an accountant would work to balance his books, as a musician has to work to master his instrument.

To know yourself is why you are on Earth. You were born to realize the Self. You are not here to make money, to clothe yourself or to entertain yourself. These are incidentals. You are here on this planet to realize the Self God, and the only way to experience Self Realization is to awaken within you a dynamic, indomitable, actinic will. To do this, the steps are: first, find out what and where the willpower is. Everyone has it. Willpower is that quietness within, that serenity that is likened to a light so bright that you cannot see it with the physical eyes. Second, learn to use this actinic will. Begin with little things that you do. Become satisfied with everything that you do. To you, it must be a work of art, even if it is just drying a dish, cleaning a floor or painting a picture. Your work must satisfy you, and if it does not satisfy the inner you one hundred percent, you must use your indomitable willpower and keep striving until it does.

You must become a perfectionist unto yourself, but first decide what your standard for perfection is. You must control the quality of your work. Take on no responsibility that you cannot handle. By doing this, you will find that you have much more control over the physical body and emotions than you ever thought possible. You will begin to demonstrate to yourself your powers of control over material creations, the physical body and the emotions of the instinctive area of the mind. Demonstration comes as you use your indomitable willpower.

Lesson 96 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Are the Festival Days of Śaivism?

ŚLOKA 96
Festivals are special times of communion with God and Gods, of family and community sharing and sādhana. Śaivites observe numerous festivals in the temple and the home, and special holy days each week and month. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Monday is the Hindu holy day in the North of India, and Friday in the South, set aside each week for attending the temple, cleaning and decorating the home shrine, devout prayer, japa and scriptural study. These are not days of rest, for we carry on our usual work. Among the major Deity festivals are Mahāśivarātri, Vaikāsi Viśākham, Gaṇeśa Chaturthī, Skanda Shashṭhī, Kṛittikā Dīpam, Vināyaka Vratam, Ārdrā Darśanam and Tai Pusam. Temples also hold a ten-day annual festival called Brahmotsava, often on the Uttarāphalgunī nakshatra in March-April, as well as honor the anniversary day of their founding. Festivals are auspicious and sacred days of family and community togetherness, and of sādhana, fasting, meditation, worship and retreat from worldly concerns. Śaivites offer special prayers to Śiva, Gaṇeśa and Kārttikeya on propitious days each month according to the Hindu sacred calendar. The Vedas proclaim, “Behold now a man who unwinds and sets the thread, a man who unwinds it right up to the vault of heaven. Here are the pegs; they are fastened to the place of worship. The Sāma Veda hymns are used for weaving shuttles.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 96 – Living with Śiva

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

The Right Conditions

We now come to the practical aspects of meditation. In the beginning, it is best to find a suitable room that is dedicated solely to meditation. If you were a carpenter, you would get a shop for that purpose. You have a room for eating, a room for sleeping. Now you need a separate room just for the purpose of meditation. When you find it, wash the walls and ceiling, wash the windows. Prepare a small altar if you like, bringing together the elements of earth, air, fire and water. Establish a time for your meditations and meet those times strictly. There will be days when you just don’t feel like meditating. Good. Those are often the best days, the times when we make strong inner strides. The finest times to meditate are six in the morning, twelve noon, six in the evening, and twelve midnight. All four of these times could be used, or just choose one. The period of meditation should be from ten minutes to one-half hour to begin with.

By sitting up straight, with the spine erect, we transmute the energies of the physical body. Posture is important, especially as meditation deepens and lengthens. With the spine erect and the head balanced at the top of the spine, the life force is quickened and intensified as energies flood freely through the nerve system. In a position such as this, we cannot become worried, fretful, depressed or sleepy during our meditation. But if we slump the shoulders forward, we short-circuit the life energies. In a position such as this, it is easy to become depressed, to have mental arguments with oneself or another, or to experience unhappiness. So, learn to sit dynamically, relaxed and yet poised. The full-lotus position, with the right foot resting on the left thigh and the left foot above, resting on the right thigh, is the most stable posture to assume, hands resting in the lap, right hand on top, with the thumbs touching.

The first observation you may have when thus seated for meditation is that thoughts are racing through the mind substance. You may become aware of many, many thoughts. Also the breath may be irregular. Therefore, the next step is to transmute the energies from the intellectual area of the mind through proper breathing, in just the same way that proper attitude, preparation and posture transmuted the physical-instinctive energies. Through regulation of the breath, thoughts are stilled and awareness moves into an area of the mind which does not think, but conceives and intuits.

There are vast and powerful systems of breathing that can stimulate the mind, sometimes to excess. Deep meditation requires only that the breath be systematically slowed or lengthened. This happens naturally as we go within, but can be encouraged by a method of breathing called kalībasa in Shūm, my language of meditation. During kalībasa, the breath is counted, nine counts as we inhale, hold one count, nine counts as we exhale, hold one count. The length of the beats, or the rhythm of the breath, will slow as the meditation is sustained, until we are counting to the beat of the heart, hṛidaya spaṇḍa prāṇāyāma. This exercise allows awareness to flow into an area of the mind that is intensely alive, peaceful, blissful and conceives the totality of a concept rather than thinking out the various parts.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 96: SHE WORSHIPS HER WEDDING PENDANT
Each of Śiva’s married women devotees each morning worships her wedding pendant, for it betokens her dear husband, whom she reveres as Śiva Himself, and the spiritual bond and goals she shares with him. Aum.

Lesson 96 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Art of Being Constant

There is an art which you can learn which will make all of your decisions easier. It is the art of being constant. Consistency wins. Consistency is one of the most important qualities of a devotee. It is only through consistency in your daily life that you gain the awareness which enables you to cognize the experiences of life, taking from them their real lessons. It is only through consistency that you can avoid many of the boulders that lie in your way on the classical yoga path to enlightenment. Practice the art of being constant, and you will unfold your destiny, discover what you were born to do and learn how to accomplish it in this life. For in that security you will awaken and fulfill your destiny and realize the Self. Thus having your feet planted firmly on the ground, your consciousness can dwell freely in the spirit born of Self Realization.

Study your approach to life today as you practice this exercise. Take some of the experiences from your subconscious state of mind. Add them up and see how well your life balances out. Visualize a scale before you. Put the total of the experiences understood and the lessons derived from them on one side. Put on the other side of the scale the total number of experiences that you do not fully understand and from which you can still reap lessons. See how they balance. If they balance evenly, you are well on your way to becoming steadfast and constant. If they overbalance on the reactionary side, you are on the right track because you now have the power to balance your scale—your subconscious. If they overbalance on the understanding side, you should consider dedicating your life to the service of others.

Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Look deep within and trace back to the peak experiences that have happened through your life from your earliest days. Quickly fan through the pages of your life and pinpoint each climax, and know that that climax was the sum total of many experiences, forming one great experience out of which one great lesson of life was born.

Take the experiences that you are not quite sure of—all the ones that you cannot form into a solid stone of understanding. Take those experiences and resolve to trace down each intuitively. Don’t analyze. Just look at the sum total of the experiences, and after awhile you will get your clarification in a flash of intuition. This will be of great benefit to you. The great lessons that those experiences offer will become apparent as you progress in your practice of concentration. Do this, and you will do much for yourself.

Lesson 95 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Are There Rites for the Wisdom Years?

ŚLOKA 95
Entrance into the elder advisor stage at age 48, the marriage renewal at age 60, and the dawn of renunciation at 72 may be signified by ceremony. Funeral rites, antyeshṭi, solemnize the transition called death. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Hindu society values and protects its senior members, honoring their experience and heeding their wise advice. Age 48 marks the entrance into the vānaprastha āśrama, celebrated in some communities by special ceremony. At age 60, husband and wife reaffirm marriage vows in a sacred ablution ceremony called shashṭyābda pūrti. Age 72 marks the advent of withdrawal from society, the sannyāsa āśrama, sometimes ritually acknowledged but never confused with sannyāsa dīkshā. The antyeshṭi, or funeral ceremony, is a home sacrament performed by the family, assisted by a priest. Rites include guiding the individual’s transition into the higher planes, preparing the body, cremation, bone-gathering, dispersal of ashes, home purification and commemorative ceremonies, śrāddha, one week, one month and one year from the day of death, and sometimes longer, according to local custom. Through the antyeshṭi, the soul is released to the holy feet of Śiva. The Vedas counsel, “Attain your prime; then welcome old age, striving by turns in the contest of life. May the Ordainer, maker of good things, be pleased to grant you length of days.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 95 – Living with Śiva

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

Dealing With Doubt

Not only does the subconscious create barriers in our own minds, it also draws to us the doubts and worries of other people for us to face and resolve. There is such a vast warehouse of negative conditioning against meditation that it is almost useless to begin if we believe any of it at all. We have all heard a few of the fears: “Something terrible must have happened to you as a child if you want to go into that.” “You don’t love me anymore. That’s why you meditate—you’re withdrawing.” “You’re just afraid of society and responsibility. It’s an escape from the real world that you can’t cope with.” “You’re going to be poor if you meditate. Everyone who meditates is broke, you know.” And so it goes, on and on.

We do have to answer these objections for the subconscious and thus settle all doubts within ourselves. Of course, the results of meditation will themselves convince the subconscious of the benefit of inner sādhana as we bring forth perceptive insights, renewed energy, a happy and balanced life and spiritual attainment. Negative conditioning breaks down as we prove to ourselves according to our own experience that it was wrong. Such conditioning is inhibiting to some and has to be corrected. To counteract it, we can ask ourselves, “Why? What is it all about? How did I attract these problems? Do I still have such doubts in my subconscious, consciously unknown?” We can further ask, “Who has done the conditioning? What was their life like? Were they happy people?” Finally, from our own positive efforts to cognize, we actually remold the subconscious, erase false concepts and become free.

The mind in its apparently endless confusion and desires leads us by novelty from one thing to the next. The reaction to this causes the miseries of the world, and miseries of the world happen inside of people. But occasionally we have to call a halt to the whole thing and get into ourselves. That’s the process of meditation. It’s an art. It’s a faculty we have within ourselves which, when developed, gives a balance and a sense to life. And everyone, whether they know it or not, is searching, trying to find out what life is all about.

So many people tell me, “Oh, I would like to study yoga, but I just don’t have the time,” “I can’t get quiet enough,” or “The kids make too much noise,” or some excuse like that. They don’t realize that you don’t become quiet automatically. Becoming quiet is a systematic process. You become quiet systematically. It might take you two weeks of practice before you can sit down and feel that you’ve made any progress at all, or even feel like sitting down and trying to become quiet. But it’s one of those things you eventually have to do. You get up and cook breakfast because you have to eat. You are hungry. And when you become hungry enough to get quiet within yourself, you will do so automatically. You will want to. And then what happens? You will sit down, and your mind will race. Say, “Mind, stop!” and see how fast you can make your mind stop and become quiet. Say, “Emotions, you are mind-controlled,” and see how quiet you become.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 95: NOT CONTROLLING MEN EMOTIONALLY
Śiva’s women devotees never become angry with a man, maliciously belittle or verbally abuse him, or use other emotional controls, such as disdain, accusation, crying, or prolonged pouting or silence. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 95 – Merging with Śiva

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

We Create Our Mind Each Instant

I always try to keep the approach to the study of life and the un­fold­ment of the inner Self very simple by giving examples of the flower that begins as the little seed and grows into a stem forming a bud. We know nothing of the blossom until the bud opens, and we know little of the bud after it has become a blossom. However, each process within that growth to maturity is an experience for the plant. The seed contains within itself its basic laws of growth. The stem will tell its own story as it grows. The bud contains many experiences and has contained within it a complete story of its own. As the blossom unfolds, it tells a radiant autobiography of beauty.

In the philosophies of the Orient, the inner mind is often depicted as the lotus flower. That is what the mind would look like if you could see the mind. We can look at things on the material plane. The ugly things tell us how ugly the mind can become. When we look at the beautiful creations of nature, we see how lovely the mind can be.

It is up to us to choose how we want to create the mind, conscious and subconscious. I say “how we want to create the mind” because we are creating our mind each instant. There is no past! That dream as it passes before our vision is right now. We call it the past because we say we remember, but as we are remembering, we are recreating what we are remembering in the present. There is no future! That is also a dream or a vision, just like the past, because when we think of the so-called future we are recreating it before our vision right now. Therefore, there is no past; there is no future. Now is the only apparent reality! Now is the only apparent reality, and it is up to us to decide how we want to create our mind, because we do create our mind each instant.

We can make basic decisions. “I would like to be nice to a certain friend of mine. That is the one who has not been too friendly to me lately.” This is a basic decision. Go out today, and if someone does harm to you, or your friend is not kind to you, show your love by doing something kind for him. It is up to us to decide how to face life, be it “love your neighbor,” or “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It is up to us to fathom the reaction we are going to cause in ourselves and others by each of our decisions. Since each decision will bring its own reward, it is up to us to determine whether we want to suffer through a reaction as a result of an action that we have not duly considered in the light of dharmic principles.

Life is a series of decisions. Each instant, as we create the instant, we are creating the decision. We are facing the reaction we caused to come before us, and in facing it with the power of principle we are building the so-called future. So, a man has two paths, and every moment is a moment of judgment. Good judgment comes from concentration—directing the flow of thought. It does not always have to be difficult to choose.

Lesson 94 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Are the Child-Bearing Sacraments?

ŚLOKA 94
The essential child-bearing saṁskāras are the garbhādhāna, rite of conception; the punsavana, third-month blessing; the sīmantonnaya, hair-parting ceremony; and the jātakarma, welcoming the newborn child. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Conception, pregnancy’s crucial stages and birth itself are all sanctified through sacred ceremonies performed privately by the husband. In the rite of conception, garbhādhāna, physical union is consecrated through prayer, mantra and invocation with the conscious purpose of bringing a high soul into physical birth. At the first stirring of life in the womb, in the rite called punsavana, special prayers are intoned for the protection and safe development of child and mother. Between the fourth and seventh months, in the sīmantonnaya, or hair-parting sacrament, the husband lovingly combs his wife’s hair, whispers sweet words praising her beauty and offers gifts of jewelry to express his affection and support. Through the jātakarma saṁskāra, the father welcomes the newborn child into the world, feeding it a taste of honey and clarified butter and praying for its long life, intelligence and well-being. The Vedas proclaim, “That in which the prayers, the songs and formulas are fixed firm like spokes in the hub of a cartwheel, in which are interwoven the hearts of all beings—may that spirit be graciously disposed toward me!” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.