Lesson 57 – 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.

Lesson 57 – Living with Śiva

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

Vrata: Sacred Vows

Vrata, taking of sacred vows, is the eighth niyama and something every Hindu must do at one time or another during his lifetime. The brahmacharya vrata is the first, pledging to maintain virginity until marriage. The vivāha vrata, marriage vows, would generally be the next. Taking a vow is a sacred trust between yourself, your outer self, your inner self, your loved ones and closest friends. Even though they may not know of the vow you may have taken, it would be difficult to look them straight in the eye if you yourself know you have let yourself down. A vow is a sacred trust between you and your guardian devas, the devas that surround the temple you most frequent and the Mahādevas, who live within the Third World—which you live in, too, in your deep, innermost mind, in the radiant, self-luminous body of your soul.

Many people make little promises and break them. This is not a vrata, a sacred trust. A vrata is a sacred trust with God, Gods and guru made at a most auspicious time in one’s life. Vrata is a binding force, binding the external mind to the soul and the soul to the Divine, though vrata is sometimes defined generally as following religious virtues or observances, following the principles of the Vedas, of the Hindu Dharma. There are vratas of many kinds, on many different levels, from the simple promise we make to ourself and our religious community and guru to perform the basic spiritual obligations, to the most specific religious vows.

Vratas give the strength to withstand the temptations of the instinctive forces that naturally come up as one goes on through life—not to suppress them but to rechannel them into a lifestyle fully in accord with the yamas and niyamas. The yamas should be at least two-thirds perfected and the niyamas two-thirds in effect before vratas are taken.

We must remember that the yamas are restraints, ten clues as to what forces to restrain and how to restrain them. Some people are better than others at accomplishing this, depending on their prārabdha karmas, but the effort in trying is the important thing. The practices, niyamas, on the other hand, are progressive, according to the perfection of the restraints. Commitment to the first yama, noninjury, ahiṁsā, for example, makes the first niyama, remorse, or hrī, a possibility in one’s life. And satya, truthfulness, brings santosha—contentment, joy and serenity in life. The first five practices, niyamas, are tools to keep working with yourself, to keep trying within the five major areas they outline.

If one wants to progress further, he does not have to take on a guru—to study scriptures or develop a spiritual will or intellect—that would come naturally, nor to take simple vratas, to chant Aum as japa and to perform certain sādhanas and penance. These are all available. But a guru naturally comes into one’s life when the last five yamas—steadfastness, compassion, honesty, a moderate appetite, and purity—give rise to the last five niyamas—siddhānta śravaṇa (choice of lineage), mati (cognition and developing a spiritual will with the guru’s guidance), vrata (sacred vows before a guru), japa (recitation after initiation from guru) and tapas (austerities performed under the careful guidance of a guru). We can see that the last five practices are taken on two levels: guru involvement, and community and personal involvement.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 57: SUICIDE
Śiva’s devotees are forbidden to escape life’s experience through suicide. However, in cases of terminal illness, under strict community regulation, tradition does allow fasting as a means of mors voluntaria religiosa. Aum

Lesson 57 – Merging with Śiva

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

Emanations From Within

Man is like an egg. He lives and moves within the shell of his own concepts; and within a certain area of the mind that is comfortable to him he finds security. Within this area of the mind there are certain strata of thought flow with which he becomes familiar, emotional stresses that he has adjusted to as he matured. Within the eggshell he finds the pressures of his maturing pressing upon the boundaries of his accustomed area of mind and emotion. One day the shell breaks, and man steps out in all his glory.

In this new area of expanded consciousness, he feels insecure. At this time, the mystical teachings that have come down through the ages are of value to him. These mystical teachings become the new circumference of mind, thought and feeling in which he lives. After each new experience that he encounters, he turns toward the teachings of wisdom for confirmation, encouragement and renewed understanding of the path. He unfolds naturally into a new philosophy, a new outlook on life, and seeks to put into practice all he has learned from within himself. To sharpen his sense perception, he turns to the practices of monistic Śaiva Siddhānta and finds that his own individual willpower plays a part in maturing and stabilizing the force fields around him. Previously, when he was unfolding inside the eggshell and experiencing the breaking of the eggshell, his individual will had no part to play. Now, as a more unfolded being, he discovers his inner willpower and, through the perspective of monistic Śaiva Siddhānta, he is able to use it to move his individual awareness into a greater enlightenment and thus intensify life.

This then begins a series of inner experiences that become so vibrant and vital to him that he recognizes them even more strongly than the experiences of everyday life in the external areas of the mind known as the world. We speak here of some of these experiences man encounters after the eggshell that surrounded him in his infancy on the path has broken. Relate this to yourself personally. In doing so, you will note areas where you have been in the inner mind.

Visualize within yourself a lotus. Have you ever seen a lotus flower? I am sure you have. Now visualize this lotus flower centered right within the center of your chest, right within your heart. You have read in the Hindu scriptures that the Self God dwells in the lotus within the heart. Let’s think about that. We all know what the heart is, and we know what happens when the heart stops. Try to mentally feel and see the heart as a lotus flower right within you. Within the center of the lotus, try to see a small light. Doubtless you have read in the Hindu scriptures that the Self God within the heart looks like a brilliant light about the size of your thumb—just a small light. This light we shall call an emanation of your effulgent being. We could also call it your atomic power, the power that motivates, permeates, makes the mind self-luminous. It is dwelling right within. The Self God is deeper than that. The lotus is within the heart, and the Self God dwells deep within that lotus of light.

The subconscious area of the mind consumes many different things. Begin now to think about all the things that you own in your home and all of your personal possessions. The subconscious area of the mind is attached magnetically to each of them. They not only exist in the external world, they also exist, quite alive, within the subconscious area of your mind, along with all the ramifications connected to them. Each item that you own has a story attached to it which, of course, you remember. This story, too, dwells within the subconscious mind and is carried along with you all of the time.

But it is easy to rid yourself of the attachments to material things by going within, once you know how. The light which emanates from the lotus of the heart knows nothing about what the subconscious area of the mind consumes, because the total area of the mind in which we are aware is a composite of many things.

Lesson 56 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is Dharma? What Are Its Forms?

ŚLOKA 56
Dharma is the law of being, the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature and destiny. Dharma is of four main divisions, which are God’s law at work on four levels of our existence: universal, human, social and personal. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
When God created the universe, He endowed it with or­der, with the laws to govern creation. Dharma is God’s di­vine law prevailing on every level of existence, from the sustaining cosmic order to religious and moral laws which bind us in harmony with that order. We are main­tained by dharma, held in our most perfect relationship within a complex universe. Every form of life, every group of men, has its dharma, the law of its being. When we follow dharma, we are in conformity with the Truth that in­heres and instructs the universe, and we naturally abide in closeness to God. Adharma is opposition to di­vine law. Dharma pre­vails in the laws of nature and is ex­press­ed in our culture and heritage. It is piety and ethi­­cal practice, duty and ob­ligation. It is the path which leads us to libera­tion. Univer­sal dharma is known as ṛita. Social dharma is varṇa dhar­­ma. Hu­man dharma is known as āśrama dharma. Our per­sonal dharma is sva­dharma. Hin­­duism, the purest expression of these four timeless dharmas, is called Sanātana Dharma. The Vedas proclaim, “There is nothing higher than dharma. Ver­ily, that which is dharma is Truth.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 56 – Living with Śiva

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

Transmuting Willpower

Willpower is a prāṇic force which exudes out of the maṇipūra chakra. This energy, when directed downward, can be used up through excessive reason, excessive memorization, fear and amplification of fears, anger, the perpetuation of resentment without resolution, amplified by instinctive jealousies, all of which eventually dissipate the semi-divine energy of willpower and eventually close the maṇipūra chakra. But when this same energy of willpower is upwardly directed, it pulls memory into a purified memory, making it forget what has to be forgotten, namely wrong knowledge, and remember what has to be remembered—siddhānta, the final conclusions of the ṛishis who live within the sahasrāra chakra, the siddhas who are contacted through great tapas.

There is no reason to believe that developing and unfolding the ten petals of the maṇipūra chakra comes easily. To develop an indomitable will capable of the accomplishments needed as a prerequisite to make the upward climb to the anāhata, viśuddha, ājñā and sahasrāra chakras, and to sustain the benign attitudes of humility, is certainly not an easy task. But it comes naturally to one who has attained such in prior lifetimes, an older soul, I would say. Fulfilling each task one has begun, putting the cap back on the toothpaste tube after squeezing the toothpaste on the brush, the little things, and perfecting the yamas and the niyamas, especially contentment, austerity, giving, faith and regular worship, builds this indomitable will. These are mini-sādhanas one can perform on his own without the guidance of a guru. Yes, it is the little things that build the indomitable will that dominates the external intellect, its memory and reason abilities, and the instinctive impulses of fear, anger and jealousy. Doing this is just becoming a good person.

Willpower is the muscle of the mind. We lift weights, exercise, run a mile, all to develop the muscles of the physical body. The more we perform these practices, the more muscular we become. The process of strain reshapes the cellular properties and the structure of the muscles. Intermittent rest allows them to build up double. Strong muscles appear on the body as a result. The maṇipūra chakra is the sun center of the physical body and of the astral body, the place where all nerve currents of these two bodies meet and merge. It emanates the power of life. It is the seat of fire, the agni homa. It is the bridge between the ultimate illumination and a prolonged, ongoing, intellectual processing of ideas, coupled with instinctive willfulness. Let there be no mistake, we must get beyond that by transmuting this tool, willpower, into mati, cognition, where its energies are usable yet benign. Therefore, the more you use your personal, individual willpower in your religious service, in your business life, your personal life, your home life, your temple life, in fulfilling all the yamas and niyamas, the more willpower you have. It is an accumulative, ever-growing bank account.

Of course, you can lose some of it through lapses into fear, anger and jealousy, just as in an economic depression one loses money. But you can also court an inflation by seeking higher consciousness in the viśuddha chakra of divine love through the anāhata chakra of direct cognition, through understanding the oneness of a well-ordered, just universe, both inner and outer.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 56: NONINJURY
Śiva’s devotees do not intentionally kill or harm any person or creature. Nonviolence, physically, mentally and emotionally, is their highest code. Full of compassion, they are never a source of fear or hurtfulness. Aum.

Lesson 56 – Merging with Śiva

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

Springboard To Eternity

The uninitiated might ask: “What is it like to be in the clear white light?” The young aspirant may reply, “It is as simple as sitting in a darkened room, closing the eyes in deep concentration and finding the entire inside of the cranium turning into light.” At first it may be only a dim, moon-like glow, a pale flicker of several different colors, but then it becomes as bright and intense as the radiance of the noonday sun, then crystal clear and white. It all depends upon the composition of the mind states of reactionary patterns as to how the light in the cranium will first appear.

Of course, clear white light is not absolute, for light invariably implies the existence of shadow. The shadows that sometimes fade out inner light are the instinctive functions that hold the physical body intact. These are represented as attributes in the external mind and character of man.

Attachment, for instance, holds our cells together; it is also the root of much suffering, for attachment to material objects or people keeps man’s awareness externalized, incapable of expressing itself in full freedom. Man who is caught in the magnetic forces is prone to resentment. Not being able to cognize various fears as they occur, he stores them up into a conscious resentment of all threats to the false securities found in attachment. Resentment burrows deeply into the outer mind’s layers, undermining much of a person’s creative endeavor. The reactionary conditions resentment is capable of agitating are subconscious and cast many shadows over clarity of perception for long periods of time.

Those who resent are often jealous, another shadow or character weakness which stems from feelings of inferiority, a limited view of one’s real Self. After one burst of clear white light has occurred, the force fields of attachment, resentment and jealousy are shattered. An increased control of the mind, an expanded consciousness, is maintained which frees man, little by little, from ever again generating the magnetic holds consuming his consciousness in these shadows. When man allows himself to routine his external thinking and action to settle into uncreative, static conditions, pressures of various sorts build up, and the undisciplined mind releases itself to the emotion of anger, a state of consciousness which renders a man blind to the existence of inner light in any degree.

Fear is another shadow which causes man to have an inability to face a critical moment, even in the intimacy of his deepest meditation. But fear is a protective process of the instinctive mind, allowing time to temporarily avoid what must later be faced. Fear, being an intense force in the mind’s, as well as the body’s, structure, must be handled positively, for when man thinks under the shadow of fear, he causes his fears to manifest. The flickering shadows of worry brought on by allowing the mind to irrationally jump from one subject to another, never centralizing on any one point long enough to complete it, must be handled through disciplining the flow of thought force, for worry provokes a darker shadow—fear. Fear when disturbed causes anger, submerged anger, resentment, causing a jealous nature. Hence the constant play of the clear white light versus its shadows.

By becoming conscious of the way in which the mind operates in even a small degree, the young aspirant to light finds it easy to fold back the shadows into shafts of clear white light.

Lesson 55 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Does God Ever Punish Wrongdoers?

ŚLOKA 55
God is perfect goodness, love and truth. He is not wrathful or vengeful. He does not condemn or punish wrongdoers. Jealousy, vengefulness and vanity are qualities of man’s instinctive nature, not of God. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
There is no reason to ever fear God, whose right-hand gesture, abhaya mudrā, indicates “fear not,” and whose left hand invites approach. God is with us always, even when we are unaware of that holy presence. He is His crea­tion. It is an extension of Himself; and God is never apart from it nor limited by it. When we act wrongly, we create negative karma for ourselves and must then live through ex­pe­r­iences of suffering to ful­fill the law of karma. Such karmas may be pain­ful, but they were gen­­er­ated from our own thoughts and deeds. God never punishes us, even if we do not be­lieve in Him. It is by means of wor­ship of and meditation on God that our self-created sufferings are softened and assuaged. God is the God of all—of the be­lievers within all religions, and of the non­­believ­ers, too. God does not destroy the wicked and re­deem the righteous; but grants the precious gift of liberation to all souls. The Āgamas state, “When the soul gradually reduces and then stops altogether its par­tici­pa­tion in darkness and inauspicious powers, the Friend of the World, God, reveals to the soul the limitless character of its knowledge and activity.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 55 – Living with Śiva

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

Purifying The Intellect

There are many things which have their claim on people’s minds. For many it is the physical body. The hypochondriac thinks about it all the time. Then there is the employer who has bought the intellect of the employee. The emotions consume the intellect with hurt feelings and the rhetorical questions that ensue, elated feelings and the continued praise that is expected. And then there is television, the modern viśvaguru that guides the intellect into confusion. As a dream leads only to waking up, television leads only to turning it off. Yes, there are many things that claim the intellect, many more than we have spoken about already.

The intellect is guided by the physical; the intellect is guided by the emotions, by other people, and by mechanical devices. And the intellect is guided by the intellect itself, like a computer processing and reprocessing knowledge without really understanding any of it. It is at the stage when anger has subsided, jealousy is unacceptable behavior and fear is a distant feeling, when memory is intact, the processes of reason are working well, the willpower is strong and the integrity is stable, when one is looking out from the anāhata chakra window of consciousness, when instinctive-intellectual thought meets the superconscious of the purusha, the soul, that the inner person lays claim on the outer person.

There is a struggle, to be sure, as the “I Am” struggles to take over the “was then.” It’s simple. The last mala, the āṇava “mālā,” has to start losing its beads. The personal ego must go for universal cosmic identity, Satchidānanda, to be maintained. This, then, is the platform of the throat chakra, the viśuddha chakra, of a true, all-pervasive, never-relenting spiritual identity. Here guru and śishya live in oneness in divine communication. Even if never a word is spoken, the understanding in the devotee begins to grow and grow and grow.

Some people think of the intellect as informing the superconscious or soul nature, instructing or educating it. Some people even think that they can command the Gods to do their bidding. These are the people that also think that their wife is a slave, that children are their servants, and who cleverly deceive their employers and governments through learned arts of deception.

These are the prototypes of the well-developed ignorant person, even though he might feign humility and proclaim religiousness. It is the religion that he professes, if he keeps doing so, that will pull him out of this darkness. When the first beam of light comes through the mūlādhāra chakra, he will start instructing his own soul as to what it should do for him, yet he still habitually dominates his wife, inhibiting her own feelings as a woman, and his children, inhibiting their feelings in experiencing themselves being young.

But the soul responds in a curious way, unlike the wife and children, or the employer and government who have been deceived through his wrong dealings. The soul responds by creating a pin which pricks his conscience, and this gnawing, antagonistic force within him he seeks to get rid of. He hides himself in jealousy, in the sutala chakra, until this becomes unacceptable. The confusion of the talātala chakra is no longer his pleasure. He can’t hide there. So, he hides himself in anger and resentment—a cozy place within the vitala chakra—until this becomes unbearable. Then he hides himself in fear, in the atala chakra, fear of his own purusha, his own soul, his own psyche, his own seeing, until this becomes intolerable. Then he hides himself in memory and reason, and the being puts down its roots. The change in this individual can only be seen by the mellowness within his eyes and a newborn wisdom that is slowly developing in his conversations among those who knew him before.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 55: INCANTATION AND SACRIFICE
All Śiva’s devotees do japa daily, counting recitations on rudrāksha beads. Embracing tapas through simple austerities, they sacrifice often, carry out penances as needed and perform sādhana regularly. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 55 – Merging with Śiva

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

Turning to the Inner Light

Thousands of young aspirants who have had bursts of inner light have evolved quickly. Assuredly, this has been their natural evolutionary flow. This over-sensitization of their entire mind structure, so suddenly intensified into transcendental realms, caused the materialistic states to decentralize attachments to their present life-pattern, school interests and plans for the future. A springboard is needed. A new balance must be attained in relating to the materialistic world, for the physical body still must be cared for to unfold further into the human destiny of nir­vi­kalpa samā­dhi, the realization of the Self beyond the states of mind. Enlightened seers are turning inward to unravel solutions in building new models to bring forth new knowledge from inner realms to creatively meet man’s basic needs, and to bring through to the external spheres beauty and culture found only on inner planes, thus heralding the Golden Age of tomorrow and the illuminated beings of the future who, through the use of their disciplined third eye and other faculties, can remain “within” the clear white light while working accurately and enthusiastically in the obvious dream world.

Should he come out too far into materialism in consciousness, the inner voice may be falsely identified as an unseen master or a God talking into his right inner ear, but when in the clarity of white light, he knows that it is his very self. Realizing he is the force that propels him onward, the aspirant will welcome discipline as an intricate part of his internal government, so necessary to being clear white light.

It is a great new world of the mind that is entered into when first the clear white light dawns, birthing a new actinic race, immediately causing him to become the parent to his parents and forefathers. When living in an expanded inner state of mind, he must not expect those living in materialistic consciousness to understand him. On this new path of “the lonely one,” wisdom must be invoked to cause him to be able to look through the eyes of those who believe the world is real, and see and relate to that limited world in playing the game as if it were real, thus maintaining the harmony so necessary for future un­fold­ments. To try to convince those imbedded in materialism of the inner realities only causes a breach in relationship, as it represents a positive threat to the security they have worked so hard to attain.

First we had the instinctive age, of valuing physical strength and manly prowess, followed by the intellectual age, facts for the sake of facts, resulting in the progress of science. Now we are in an age of new values, new governing laws, an actinic age, with new understanding of the world, the mind, but most of all, the Self. Understanding is preparation for travel, for it is an age of the mind, and in the mind, much more intense than the speed of light, exist spheres which seers are only willing to speak of to those who have the inner ear with which to listen.

The mind of man tends either toward light or toward darkness, expanded awareness or materialistic values. Depending upon the self-created condition of the mind, man lives either within the clear white light of the higher consciousness, or in the external mind structure which reflects darkness to his inner vision.

Lesson 54 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Consequence of Sinful Acts?

ŚLOKA 54
When we do not think, speak and act virtuously, we create negative karmas and bring suffering upon ourselves and others. We suffer when we act instinctively and intellectually without superconscious guidance. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
We are happy, serene and stable when we follow good conduct, when we listen to our conscience, the knowing voice of the soul. The superconscious mind, the mind of our soul, knows and inspires good conduct, out of which comes a re­fined, sustainable culture. Wrong­doing and vice lead us away from God, deep into the darkness of doubt, despair and self-condemnation. This brings the asuras around us. We are out of harmony with ourselves and our family and must seek com­pan­ionship elsewhere, amongst those who are al­so crude, unmindful, greedy and lacking in self-control. In this bad company, burdensome new karma is created, as good conduct cannot be followed. This pāpa ac­cum­ulates, blinding us to the religious life we once lived. Pen­ance and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God and the Gods are the only re­lease for the unvirtuous, those who conduct them­selves poorly. Fortunately, our Gods are compassionate and love their devotees. The ancient Vedas elu­cidate, “The mind is said to be twofold: the pure and al­so the impure; impure by union with desire—pure when from desire completely free!” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.