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During the Nartana Ritau we focus on Dancing with Siva as our spiritual text. Gurudeva says:
What Is Meant by “Dancing with Siva”?
All motion begins in God and ends in God. The whole universe is engaged in a whirling flow of change and activity. This is Siva’s dance. We are all dancing with Siva, and He with us. Ultimately, we are Siva dancing. Aum.
Bhashya
The world is seen as it truly is–sacred–when we behold Siva’s cosmic dance. Everything in the universe, all that we see, hear and imagine, is movement. Galaxies soar in movement; atoms swirl in movement. All movement is Siva’s dance. When we fight this movement and think it should be other than it is, we are reluctantly dancing with Siva. We are stubbornly resisting, holding ourselves apart, criticizing the natural processes and movements around us. It is by understanding the eternal truths that we bring all areas of our mind into the knowledge of how to accept what is and not wish it to be otherwise. Once this happens, we begin to consciously dance with Siva, to move with the sacred flow that surrounds us, to accept praise and blame, joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity in equanimity, the fruit of understanding. We are then gracefully, in unrestrained surrender, dancing with Siva. The Vedas state, “The cosmic soul is truly the whole universe, the immortal source of all creation, all action, all meditation. Whoever discovers Him, hidden deep within, cuts through the bonds of ignorance even during his life on earth.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
Hurditya Deva as a young man from Thailand studying in the US, found Gurudeva on the internet. He came for task force and met Gurudeva. Then he followed through on his Himalayan Academy studies and became a full-fledged Hindu. He is a top-notch singer studying opera and is in the process of moving to London to pursue his opera career. Hurditya Deva has been studying Sanskrit and Tamil and during our Sun One Homa he chanted Sri Rudram along with the swamis.
It is wonderful to have him with us again. He wanted to come to Kauai before going off to the UK. He has an interesting karma… every time he comes it seems it is the changing of the seasons and he joins us for the flag raising ceremony. He doesn’t plan it this way… it just happens.
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Click for most recent TAKA page with an Iraivan Temple progress update. |
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Work continues on the next issue of Hinduism Today. Here is a photo shoot of some of the books we are using as references in the Anger Management insight section.
Meanwhile today was the 2nd day of the phase and our Pilliyar Kulam gave its phasely report. The worldwide distribution of Ten Questions brochure continues in a tidal wave of enthusiasm. It’s a good thing we printed 80,000 of them! Those communities who have received them are delighted. Copies just reached the UK where Hindus there are excited and want to order 2,000 more copies. E-mail just arrived from Brazil asking permission to translate this into Portuguese and print it there for distribution. Another man is going to sponsor copies to send to India and every few days another teacher from somewhere finds it on the internet… like this morning a Pundit in Edmonton, Canada ordered 50 copies for his classes. He writes:
“I am a volunteer teacher at our local Sanatan Hindu temple in Edmonton, Alberta. I would like to order 50 copies of the “Ten Q’s brochure. I would like to know the total cost. Also, I was wondering if you have power point slides of the Yamas and Niyamas ready to present as a slide show? Thank you.”
Kumud Acharya
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If you want to see what all the excitement is about click here to view the new brochure as PDF files. And yes, you can go here to get a digital presentation of the Yamas and Niyamas at our Study Hall.
We look back at our recent retreat. The initiative to create a source of water under pressure continues. Sannyasin Arumugaswami spearheads the project and today he took Kartikeya Katir and Sadhaka Adinatha along as helpers to bring over a big stand and water tank. The ram pump that pumps water out of the stream under simple gravity pressure will fill this tank. Because it is up high we will then have plenty of water under pressure. All without engines or motors of any kind.
Kartikeya shows us just how big our Case tractor is… he fits nicely inside the wheel.
It was also silpi outing retreat and as the silpis always enjoy going to fancy hotels, this month we went to Princeville. It was a spectacularly beautiful day….surf’s up!
Overlooking the north shore seaside… always an uplifting vision.
The view from here overwhelms one with the infinite expanse and power of the ocean, causing one to inwardly sense the grand destiny that awaits every soul that is bound to merge in the Ocean of Consciousness.
We continue with some large format photos from India and have to thank Jutikadevi for her wonderful photo eye and choice of angles. Today we feature some of the spectacular architecture and stone work… Here we are at Madurai in the 1000 pillared hall with the exhibit of Lord Nataraja at the end…
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Images from the Recent 2004 Indian OdysseyJanuary 19, 2004 – February 5, 2004 Bangalore, Madurai, Tanjavur, Chennai and |
She, like everyone of us, was enthralled with the Big Temple Brihadisvarar in Tanjavur… Here is a view from the side of the temple look at the Nandi Mandapam and the main entrance to the temple.
The sign with the simple, but ubiquitous Saivite mantra:
“Siva, Siva”
The main temple Vimanam — the 80-ton capstone was put up with a ramp that began 4 kilometers away from the temple.
Andrew Schoenbaum, has been studying Gurudeva’s teachings for 30 years or more. From the looks of his lotus pose he is still as good a yogi as he was in his younger days when he used to come to the monastery on task force in Virginia City, Nevada and help the monks with the publications work. He’s always a bright- eyed, gentle soul with spiritual outlook on life.
More Chola pillars and roofs.
Along the outer wall of Brihadisvarar, are rows and rows of Siva Lingams. We find each one adorned with a flower today.
Nulifer Clubwala is our dear “Akka,” (elder sister) who has known Gurudeva and the monks for many years and been a long time supporter of our work. A well-known pediatrician, she accepted to fill the position of “resident physician” on the trip and took care of everyone’s physical challenges with selfless grace and professional expertise. Thank you Nulifer!
The Northeast corner of the Big Temple has a small cave like shrine with an unusual image of Siva in it. Several Innersearchers went there to meditate and returned with rapturous faces about the inner power of the place.
Jnanideva Cevvel from Canada, another long-time devotee of Gurudeva and dedicated supporter. He’s been to India before and has been a Hindu for a long time. It’s always great to have a strong veteran like Jnanideva to keep up the morale of the whole group.
A flash to the distant past… 1983 Innersearch and one of our first important contacts with Malaysia. Here is Gurudeva at a puja… I think this is the Pudu Vinayagar temple or possibly the Rajarajeswari temple.
That same Innersearch passed through Jaffna. Here we are at the Sri Subramuniya Kottam, Gurudeva’s ashram in Alaveddy — the very first mission work he did after being initiated by Yogaswami. We pray for peace in Sri Lanka, and for the day when we can once again hold classes for the children and have monks stay there as we did many years ago.
Gurudeva with the police force in Chennai.
At Chidambaram… where Swarnamukhi performed many of the 108 dance poses of Lord Siva — a phenomenal feat.
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Date: December_26_2003
Title: Resolving Difficulties with Others
Category: Relationships
Duration: 8 min., 40 seconds
Date Given: November 2, 2003
Given by: Bodhinatha
Our last few weeks have been filled with two very special events. First, we had Gurudeva’s Mahasamadhi Observances and then Skanda Sashti. The high point of the Mahasamadhi observances was the final day’s Guru Puja performed by Janahan. Many of the pilgrims tangibly felt Gurudeva’s powerful presence during the Puja and were quite uplifted by it. Others mentioned that the meditation that was held at the Svayambhu Lingam was the best meditation they ever had in their life. And, still others found the suggestions of how to deepen one’s inner-plane contact with Gurudeva during sleep to be quite meaningful.
Skanda Sashti was special this year, in that devotees performed walking prostrations as a penance. Some even decided spontaneously after doing it once, to do it on the following day, as well. For those listening to or reading this talk on the web, let me explain this practice a little. Traditionally, at the time of a major festival for Lord Murugan such as Tai Pusam and Skanda Sashti, Hindus worldwide perform penance as a way of burning up negative karma and atoning for misdeeds. The specific form of penance that Gurudeva sanctioned for the Aadheenam is walking prostrations on our San Marga path, starting at the Rudraksha Forest and ending at the Svayambhu Lingam. The basic idea is that you prostrate and then take a few steps forward to the spot where the top of your head reached, then prostrate again and keep repeating the process. To go from the Rudraksha Forest to the Svayambhu Lingam takes a few hours in this manner.
With these two wonderful festivals passed, we are settling down to a normal routine at the Aadheenam and are recollecting that we have six weeks left in our current sadhana season, which is the Jivana Ritau from mid-August to mid-December. The Master Course book for this ritau is ‘Living with Siva’ and gives us, just by the title, the general focus for this ritau, which is to think about our life, actions and conduct in the external world and strive to bring into it more refinement and more religion. Gurudeva also describes the season as the natural time for work, that it is a physical time, a time of exercise and exertion in the physical world, a magnetic time for action and willpower. It focuses on preserving what has been created, manifesting goals and fulfilling plans made in the past and finishing jobs already started. It is a natural time for caring for the practical details of the external world, including the environment.
Gurudeva gave us a number of special sadhanas for the Jivana Ritau. The main study is the Nandinatha Sutras both at home and at the mission satsang. Specifically go through the Sutras, as well as review your daily sadhanas, looking for the ones that have been neglected or totally ignored. Strive to make improvements in those areas. Bring up-to-date all vratas and sadhanas in which you have gotten behind. In addition to these general sadhanas, which apply to every year’s Jivana Ritau, this year we have also been working on the specific sadhana, which is facing difficult situations. This sadhana is described as follows.
As we know, life can give us difficult situations to face. We are treated unfairly. Our friends seem to turn against us and no longer be trustworthy. Our feelings are hurt by how we have been spoken to and treated by another. Sound familiar? It is easy to be happy and content when we are not facing difficult situations. The challenge is to find a way to be happy and content even in the most difficult of situations. Handling these difficult situations without emotion and with wisdom is of course, the key. The suggested response has three principles, which we are all familiar with. Forego retaliation. Accept responsibility. Forgive the offender. The Tirukural has a verse that encompasses all three of these principles together. “If you return kindness for injuries received and forget both, those who harmed you will be punished by their own shame.”
That is a subtle form of retaliation. You get back at them by their own shame! Very subtle.
This Kural gives us an effective insight to the problem of man having a tendency to retaliate and not forgive. It shows that human nature has not changed much since 2200 years ago, when the verse was written. Of course, we all know that this is great advice and are of course, striving to follow it. However the question is, how well are we following it? How can we effectively evaluate our application of these principles to our lives? A simple but effective way of self-evaluation is to look at the nature of relationships with others. How many of the people we relate to regularly, do we feel close to and speak freely with? How many do we dislike and only speak the minimum to? Of course, it is this latter group that is the basis of self-evaluation. For someone to be in this group means they said or did something to us in the past, for which we have not forgiven them and forgotten the event. The larger the group, then the more we are not following the principle in our life.
Gurudeva gives us some very useful advice in this regard. “Holding hard feelings against other people without letting them go and realizing that it is all in the experience of life itself. Whatever happened to us is our own creation. To run away from the situation, without solving the situation, without making amends, without harmonizing the prana flow of energy between us and others or between us and ourselves, is detrimental because it creates more karma.”
One reason we may tend to hold grudges, is that when we are growing up, our parents and other elders in our family, often did so. Therefore, we think that this is an acceptable form of behavior. However, as Gurudeva points out that, “For those on the spiritual path, it definitely is not acceptable, as it keeps the lower chakras stimulated.”
In summary, an important part of making progress on the spiritual path is resolving misunderstandings, hard feelings and disagreements as soon as they occur. Don’t give in to the tendency to classify someone as a person you dislike and take delight in holding the grudge against them for how they treated you or what they said to you. Set as a goal, having all of your relationships in the category of those we feel close to and none in the category of people we dislike.
As Gurudeva puts it, “A spiritual man always has to have the upper hand on the lower nature.”
Aum Namah Sivaya!
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Color Trilogy Complete! We are happy to announce that the new edition of the enormously popular Dancing with Siva is now available in hard back with all new color artwork. It’s truly an amazing and beautiful work, with more art than any of the collection. This completes the fulfillment of the vision that Gurudeva had of his Master Course Trilogy being produced in full color. In addition, Bodhinatha is taking pro-active steps to bring Gurudeva’s teachings out in a new forms that can be broadly disseminated in the mass mind. With this in mind we, are also pleased to announce that the Dancing with Siva pocketbook is also available. Keep the three-pound book in your shrine room, and take the little one with you on the airplane or subway! How little? It’s just 3″ by 4.5″ — truly pocket-sized, and just over half an inch thick. Yet it is a full 375 pages, containing ALL of the 155 sutras. Available now at our online store. The complete Trilogy is being offered at a discount. |
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