Lesson 89 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

How Do Hindus Regard Art and Culture?

ŚLOKA 89
Hindus of every sect cherish art and culture as sacred. Music, art, drama and the dance are expressions of spiritual experience established in śāstras by God-inspired ṛishis as an integral flowering of temple worship. Aum.



BHĀSHYA
Art and culture, from the Hindu perspective, are the sublime fruits of a profound civilization. Every Hindu strives to perfect an art or craft to manifest creative benefits for family and community. The home is a spiritual extension of the temple. Graced with the sounds of Indian sacred music, it is adorned with religious pictures, symbols and icons. The shrine is the most lavish room. Children are raised to appreciate Hindu art, music and culture, carefully trained in the sixty-four kalās and protected from alien influences. Human relationships are kept harmonious and uplifting through the attitudes, customs and refinements of Asian protocol, as revealed in Living with Śiva. Hindu attire is elegantly modest. Sectarian marks, called tilaka, are worn on the brow as emblems of sectarian identity. Mantra and prayer sanctify even simple daily acts—awakening, bathing, greetings, meals, meetings, outings, daily tasks and sleep. Annual festivals and pilgrimage offer a complete departure from worldly concerns. The Vedas proclaim, “Let the drum sound forth and let the lute resound, let the strings vibrate the exalted prayer to God.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 89 – Living with Śiva

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

Guardian Angels

When the devas within your home see you performing your sādhana each day, they give you psychic protection. They hover around you and keep away the extraneous thought forms that come from the homes of your neighbors or close friends and relatives. They all mentally chant “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya,” keeping the vibration of the home alive with high thoughts and mantras so that the atmosphere is scintillating, creating for you a proper environment to delve within yourself. The fact that the devonic world is involved is one more good reason why you must choose a specific time for sādhana and religiously keep to that time each day, for you not only have an appointment with yourself but with the devas as well.

By performing the pañcha nitya karmas, living the yamas and niyamas to the best of your ability and performing your daily sādhana, your religion becomes closer and closer to you in your heart. You will soon begin to find that God Śiva is within you as well as within the temple, because you become quiet enough to know this and experience that Lord Śiva’s superconscious mind is identical to yours; there is no difference in Satchidānanda. From this state, you will experience the conscious mind as “the watcher” and experience its subconscious as the storehouse of intellectual and emotional memory patterns. In daily life you will begin to experience the creativity of the subsuperconscious mind, as the forces of the First World are motivated through love as you fulfill your chosen dharma in living with Śiva.

Thus our religion is an experiential religion, from its beginning stages to the most advanced. You have already encountered the magic of the temple, and you have had uplifting experiences within your home shrine. Now, as you perform your sādhana, you will enjoy spiritual experiences within yourself on the path of self-transformation.

It is up to you to put your religion into practice. Feel the power of the Gods in the pūjā. If you don’t feel them, if you are just going through ritual and don’t feel anything, you are not awake. Get the most out of every experience that the temple offers, the guru offers, the devas offer, that your life’s experiences, which you were born to live through, offer. In doing so, slowly the kuṇḍalinī begins to loosen and imperceptibly rise into its yoga. That’s what does the yoga; it’s the kuṇḍalinī seeking its source, like the tree growing, always reaching up to the Sun.

It is up to you to make the teachings a part of your life by working to understand each new concept as you persist in your daily religious practices. As a result, you will be able to brave the forces of the external world without being disturbed by them and fulfill your dharma in whatever walk of life you have chosen. Because your daily sādhana has regulated your nerve system, the quality of your work in the world will improve, and your mood in performing it will be confident and serene.

When your sādhana takes hold, you may experience a profound calmness within yourself. This calmness that you experience as a result of your meditation is called Satchidānanda, the natural state of the mind. To arrive at that state, the instinctive energies have been lifted to the heart chakra and beyond, and the mind has become absolutely quiet. This is because you are not using your memory faculty. You are not using your reason faculty. You are not trying to move the forces of the world with your willpower faculty. You are simply resting within yourself. Therefore, if you are ever bothered by the external part of you, simply return to this inner, peaceful state as often as you can. You might call it your “home base.” From here you can have a clear perception of how you should behave in the external world, a clear perception of your future and a clear perception of the path ahead. This is a superconscious state, meaning “beyond normal consciousness.” So, simply deepen this inner state by being aware that you are aware.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 89: FULFILLING ALL HER NEEDS AND WANTS
Śiva’s devotees who are husbands practice the mystical law of caring for and giving the wife all she needs and all she wants, thus releasing her śakti energy from within, making him contented, successful and magnetic. Aum.

Lesson 89 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Step Five: Self Realization

This, then, leads to samādhi, the very deepest samādhi, where we almost, in a sense, go within one atom of that energy and move into the primal source of all. There’s really nothing that you can say about it, because you cannot cast that concept of the Self, or that depth of samādhi, you cannot cast it out in words. You cannot throw it out in a concept, because there are no areas of the mind in which the Self exists, and yet, but for the Self the mind, consciousness, would not exist.

You have to realize It to know It; and after you realize It, you know It; and before you realize It, you want It; and after you realize It, you don’t want It. You have lost something. You have lost your goal for Self Realization, because you’ve got it.

I realized, went through that deep samādhi, right through these steps. I was taught these steps at a very young age: attention, concentration, meditation and contemplation, and then into the very deepest, deepest samādhi. After I went through that, I came out into contemplation, into meditation, into concentration, and thought, “How simple. Where was I, wandering around all this time, not to have been able to perceive and be the obvious?” The Çhāndogya Upanishad expresses it so beautifully: “The Infinite is below, above, behind, before, to the right, to the left. I am all this. This Infinite is the Self. The Self is below, above, behind, before, to the right, to the left. I am all this. One who knows, meditates upon and realizes the truth of the Self—such a one delights in the Self, revels in the Self, rejoices in the Self. He becomes master of himself and master of all the worlds. Slaves are they who know not this truth. He who knows, meditates upon and realizes this truth of the Self finds that everything—primal energy, ether, fire, water and all the other elements, mind, will, speech, sacred hymns and scriptures, indeed the whole universe—issues forth from it” (7.25.1-2; 7.26.1, upp, p. 118).

Lesson 88 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Are Āyurveda and Jyotisha Used?

ŚLOKA 88
Āyurveda is the Hindu science of life, a complete, holistic medical system. Jyotisha, or Vedic astrology, is the knowledge of right timing and future potentialities. Both are vital tools for happy, productive living. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Āyurveda, rooted in the Atharva Upaveda, deals with both the prevention and cure of disease. Its eight medical arts, with their mantras, tantras and yogas, are based on spiritual well-being and encompass every human need, physical, mental and emotional. Āyurveda teaches that the true healing powers reside in the mind at the quantum level. Wellness depends on the correct balance of three bodily humors, called doshas, maintained by a nutritious vegetarian diet, dharmic living and natural healing remedies. The kindred science of Vedic astrology, revealed in the Jyotisha Vedāṅga, likewise is vital to every Hindu’s life. It propounds a dynamic cosmos of which we are an integral part, and charts the complex influence on us of important stars and planets, according to our birth chart. Knowing that the stars enliven positive and negative karmas we have brought into this life, in wisdom we choose an auspicious time, śubha muhūrta, for every important event. An orthodox Hindu family is not complete without its jyotisha śāstrī or āyurveda vaidya. The Vedas beseech, “Peaceful for us be the planets and the Moon, peaceful the Sun and Rāhu.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya

Lesson 88 – Living with Śiva

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

Questions and Challenges

When you first begin your daily sādhana, it is likely to begin in an awkward way, and you may come to know yourself in a way that you don’t want to know yourself. Don’t be discouraged when the mind runs wild as you sit quietly and are unable to control it. Don’t be discouraged if you find that you are unable to even choose a time to sit quietly for one half hour on a regular daily basis. If you persist, soon all this will be overcome and a firmness of mind will be felt, for it is through the regular practice of sādhana that the mind becomes firm and the intellect pure. It is through the regular practice of concentration that awareness detaches itself from the external mind and hovers within, internalizing the knowledge of the physical body, the breath and the emotions. Concentration of the forces of the body, mind and emotions brings us automatically into meditation, dhyāna, and into deeper internalized awareness.

The spiritual practice should be reasonable, should not take up too much time, and should be done at the same time every day. Often seekers who become associated with Hindu sādhana go to extremes and proceed with great vigor in an effort to attain results immediately. Sitting two or three hours a day, they wear themselves out and then stop. Here’s a formula for beginners: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, twenty minutes to a half an hour of sādhana at the same time every day; Saturday and Sunday, no sādhana.

The keys are moderation and consistency. Consistency is the key to the conquest of karma. If you go to extremes or are sporadic in your sādhana, you can easily slide backwards. What happens when you slide backwards? You become fearful, you become angry, you become jealous, you become confused. What happens when you move forward? You become brave, you become calm, you become self-confident and your mind is clear.

It is often feared that meditation and religious devotion cause a withdrawal from the world. The practice of sādhana I have described does not detach you from or make you indifferent to the world. Rather, it brings up a strength within you, a śakti, enabling you to move the forces of the world in a positive way. What is meant by “moving the forces of the world”? That means fulfilling realistic goals that you set for yourself. That means performing your job as an employer or as an employee in the most excellent way possible. That means stretching your mind and emotions and endurance to the limit and therefore getting stronger and stronger day by day. You are involved in the world, and the world is in a technological age.

The sādhana that you perform will make your mind steady and your will strong so that you can move the forces of the physical world with love and understanding, rather than through anger, hatred, antagonism, cunning, jealousy and greed. Daily sādhana performed in the right way will help you overcome these instinctive barriers to peace of mind and the fullness of being. If you have children, the rewards of your sādhana will help you educate your children properly in fine schools and universities and see that all of their physical needs are met through the flow of material abundance that automatically comes as you progress in your inner life.

Through daily sādhana we shall come to know the body, we shall come to know the emotions, we shall come to know the nerve system, we shall come to know the breath and we shall come to know the mind in its totality. Each one of you will soon be able to mentally pick up all of the dross of your subconscious, throw it within, into the great cavity of inner knowing at the feet of the Gods, there to be absorbed, dissolved and disappear. All this and more can be unfolded from within each one of you through your daily practice of sādhana. Sādhana is one of the great boons given to us in our religion.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 88: COMMUNICATING DAILY
When away from home, each of Śiva’s married men devotees contacts his wife every day to express his love and inquire about her day. He avoids rowdy company and never visits another woman’s home alone. Aum.

Lesson 88 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Step Four: Contemplation

Out of meditation, we come into contemplation. Contemplation is concentrating so deeply in the inner areas of the mind in which that flower and the species of it and the seed of it and all exist. We go deeper, deeper, deeper within, into the energy and the life within the cells of the flower, and we find that the energy and the life within the cells of the flower is the same as the energy within us, and we are in contemplation upon energy itself. We see the energy as light. We might see the light within our head, if we have a slight body consciousness. In a state of contemplation, we might not even be conscious of light itself, for you are only conscious of light if you have a slight consciousness of darkness. Otherwise, it is just your natural state, and you are in a deep reverie. In a state of contemplation, you are so intently alive, you can’t move. That’s why you sit so quietly.

Yogaswami once said, “I went in and in and in, so deep within, that a bird was sitting on my head.” That is the type of teaching he would give to cause people to think that the physical body was so quiet, and quiet for so long, that a bird was just sitting on his head, didn’t even know it was a man sitting there—“I went in and in and in and in so deeply that a bird was sitting on my head.” Go in and in and in and in so deeply that a bird could sit on your head, through the stages of attention, concentration, meditation and contemplation of the inner energies of the universe itself.

When you are in the mind of energy, in that rarefied consciousness, you are not conscious of the Earth or any planets. You are just conscious of the stratum of energy that runs through Earth, space and planets. It’s not even really energy. We are only conscious of energy when we are conscious of something that seems to be not energy. However, this is contemplation, the very source of that which is within and running through form.

Lesson 87 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Are the Hindu’s Daily Yoga Practices?

ŚLOKA 87
Devout Hindus perform daily vigil, called sandhyā upāsanā, usually before dawn. This sacred period of pūjā, japa, chanting, singing, haṭha yoga, meditation and scriptural study is the foundation of personal life. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Each day hundreds of millions of Hindus awaken for the last fifth of the night, bathe, don fresh clothing, apply sectarian marks, called tilaka, and sit in a clean, quiet place for religious disciplines. Facing east or north, the devotional pūjā rites of bhakti yoga are performed. Haṭha yoga, hymn singing, japa and chanting are often included. Then follows scriptural study and meditation, listening to the sound current and contemplating the moonlike inner light during brāhma muhūrta, the auspicious hour-and-a-half period before dawn. The duly initiated practice advanced yogas, such as those revealed in Merging with Śiva—but only as directed by their guru, knowing that unless firmly harnessed, the kuṇḍalinī can manifest uncontrollable desires. Through the day, karma yoga, selfless religious service, is performed at every opportunity. Besides these yogas of doing, Hindus practice the central yoga of being—living a joyful, positive, harmonious life. The Vedas declare, “The mind, indeed, is this fleeting world. Therefore, it should be purified with great effort. One becomes like that which is in one’s mind—this is the everlasting secret.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 87 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Five States of Mind

In Merging with Śiva we embarked on a great study of the mind in its totality. Here we shall review the five states of mind. The conscious mind is our external mind. The subconscious mind contains our memory patterns and all impressions of the past. The sub of the subconscious mind holds the seeds of karmas that are not yet manifest. The subsuperconscious mind works through the subconscious mind, and intuition flows daily as a result. Creativity is there at your bidding. Your superconscious mind is where intuitive flashes occur. The accomplished mystic can consciously be in one country or another instantaneously, according to his will, once he has, through the grace of Lord Śiva, attained a full inner knowing of how to remain in Satchidānanda, the superconscious mind, consciously, without the other states interfering.

Yes, sādhana begins in the home, and it begins with you. It must be practiced regularly, at the same time each day—not two hours one day, one hour the next and then forgetting about it for three or four days because you are too busy with external affairs, but every day, at the same time. Meeting this appointment with yourself is in itself a sādhana. In the technological age nearly everyone finds it difficult to set one hour aside in which to perform sādhana. This is why in your sādhana vrata you promise to dedicate only one half hour a day. In the agricultural era, it was easy to find time to perform sādhana two to three hours a day. Why? The demands of external life were not as great as they are now, in the technological age. Half an hour a day, therefore, is the amount of time we dedicate for our sādhana.

Brahmachārīs and brahmachāriṇīs, celibate men and women, in their respective gurukulas dedicate their time to the performance of sādhana. They rise together early in the morning, perform their sādhana as a group, and then are off to their daily work. The regular practice of sādhana, they have found, enables them to get along admirably well with one another because of their newly acquired abilities of absorbing their difficulties, thus avoiding argument and confrontation. In these gurukulas, found worldwide, various kinds of sādhanas are performed, such as scriptural study, chanting the names of the Lord on the japa beads, group chanting of bhajanas, the singing of Devarams and the yogic concentration of holding the mind fixed on one point and bringing it back to that one point each time it wanders. The more disciplined gurukulas religiously administrate group sādhana at the same time each day, every day without fail. Daily life revolves around this period of sādhana, just as in a religious Śaivite home life revolves around the shrine room and each one’s daily personal vigil.

Ask yourself what you put first in your daily life. Do your emotions come first? Does your intellect come first? Do your instinctive impulses come first? Does your striving to overcome worries and fears and doubt come first inside of you? Does your creativity, your love for all humanity, your search for God and peace within yourself come first inside of you? What are your priorities? The pañcha nitya karmas outline our basic religious priorities. Your inner priorities in implementing these five duties must be just as well defined, and you must define them for yourself and therefore, come to better “Know thyself.”

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 87: RESTRAINT WITH OTHER WOMEN
Śiva’s married men, in the workplace and in the world, hold a courteous aloofness toward all women, whether young, older, single, married, divorced or widowed. They reserve their affections for wife and family. Aum.

Lesson 87 – Merging with Śiva

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

Step Three: Meditation

After we are able to hold awareness hovering over that which we are concentrating upon, we come into great powers of observation. We are able to look into and almost through that which we are concentrating upon and observe its various parts and particles, its action and its reaction, because we are not distracted. Even observation in daily life, as a result of regular participation in the practice of concentration, comes naturally. We are able to see more, hear more, feel more. Our senses are more keen and alive. Observation is so necessary to cultivate, to bring awareness fully into the fullness of meditation.

This leads us then into our very next step, meditation. Meditation and concentration are practically the same thing, though meditation is simply a more intense state of concentration. The state of meditation is careful, close scrutiny of the individual elements and energies which make up that flower. You are scrutinizing the inner layers of the mind, of how a flower grows, how the seed is formed. You are observing it so keenly that you have forgotten that you are a physical body, that you are an emotional unit, that you are breathing. You are in the area of mind where that flower exists, and the bush that it came from, and the roots and the seed and all phases of manifestation, all at the same time. And you are seeing it as it actually is in that area of the mind, where the flower is that you first put awareness at attention upon, then began to concentrate upon. Then you are meditating on the actual inner area of the mind where, in all stages of manifestation, that particular species actually is within the mind.

Lesson 86 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

How Do We Overcome Life’s Obstacles?

ŚLOKA 86
Just as a small leaf can obscure the sun when held before our eyes, so can the past cloud the present and hide our divinity. With Vedic methods, or tantras, we remove impediments to reveal the ever-present inner light. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
An ancient Upanishad defines twenty obstacles, upasarga, to spiritual progress: hunger, thirst, laziness, passion, lust, fear, shame, anxiety, excitement, adversity, sorrow, despair, anger, arrogance, delusion, greed, stinginess, ambitiousness, death and birth. Another obstacle is the intellect which, unguided by intuition, merely juggles memory and reason as a way of life. The experience of these impediments creates reactions that combine with the sum of all past impressions, saṁskāras, both positive and negative. Residing in the subconscious mind, these are the source of subliminal traits or tendencies, called vāsanās, which shape our attitudes and motivations. The troublesome vāsanās clouding the mind must be reconciled and released. There are beneficial tantras by which absolution can be attained for unhindered living, including āyurveda, jyotisha, daily sādhana, temple worship, selfless giving, the creative arts and the several yogas. The Vedas explain, “Even as a mirror covered with dust shines brightly when cleaned, so the embodied soul, seeing the truth of ātman, realizes oneness, attains the goal of life and becomes free from sorrow.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.