Bodhinatha’s Latest Upadeshas:“Accept the World, Take Responsibility” (June 28,2016)

What is happening in the world is supposed to be happening, not because God wants it to happen but because man created it. There is no advantage, as a normal citizen, to get disturbed by violence in the world. Impact your own sphere of influence by being a peaceful person, radiating compassion and concern for others. Take responsibility, realizing karma is the source, our creation, attracting the people we encounter, the experiences we go through.

Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva, Lesson 106.

Click here to go to an index of all of Bodhinatha’s and Gurudeva’s online audio.

Today marked the moon's passage into the lunar mansion (nakshatra) known as Ardra. Ardra nakshatra is associated with Lord Siva, specifically with the eponymously named star within it. The star known as Ardra is known as Betelgeuse in astronomy, and is 1.5 billion times larger than our sun. Think about that. Keep in mind that our sun is a million times larger than the size of our earth to begin with. This affords us the opportunity to meditate on the microcosm/macrocosm concept. Lord Nataraja's image conveys the constant activity of our natural universe in His dance. It occurs every millisecond within every subatomic particle. This is Parasakti.

Today's photo captions are the entirety of Gurudeva's third lesson of Dancing with Siva, "What Is Meant by 'Dancing with Siva?'."

Please also enjoy also this quotation from Saint Thirumular on Siva's Dance.

"The thirty-six elements dance. Sadasiva dances. Consciousness dances. Siva-Sakti dances. The animate and inanimate dance. All these and the Vedas dance when the Supreme dances His dance of bliss. The seven worlds as His golden abode, the five chakras as His pedestal, the central kundalini sakti as His divine stage, thus in rapture He dances, He who is Transcendent Light. He dances with the celestials. He dances in the golden hall. He dances with the three Gods. He dances with the assembly of silent sages. He dances in song. He dances in ultimate energy. He dances in souls--He who is the Lord of Dances. Tat Astu."
-- Saint Thirumoolar

During the ladies retreat, by popular request, three "bhajan satsangs" were held with Brahmanathaswami. They sang Natchintanai, practiced the shum alphabet, worked on memorizing some core Vedic chants and practiced affirmations. Swami read from Yogaswami's biography, from which we can see how central he held singing to the Gods to be a core sadhana for his devotees. Swami also read from Gurudeva's teachings on affirmations. The key is to understand the meaning of what you sing and chant, so that the songs and chants become powerful affirmations of spiritual truths that can remold the entire subconscious, while also connecting you directly to God, Gods and Guru in the inner worlds through bhakti.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEoH5m6TrNk

During Satguru's time in London, he visited the Shree Ghanapathy Temple in London where he gave a presentation he created entitled, "What is Saivism?" The purpose of the presentation is to clarify Saivism's uniqueness from other Hindu schools of thought, mostly in an effort to have the distinction between it and the prevailing idea of Sankaracarya's Advaita Vedanta clear in the mind of practicing Saivas. Part One of Five is embedded above, which shows the heartfelt welcoming of Satguru at the temple. Below, we offer links to the remaining four sections in which the actual presentation is contained. The YouTube channel on which these videos are posted is London Hindu Temples, which hosts a collection of beautiful videos of the many festivals and other events happening in and around London's Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu community. We encourage you to watch other videos on their channel and subscribe. Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSW_r9hFg_4 Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gNVEjpsOn4 Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ5i6UJdyZc Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDd4_nzHsso

On this final day of the Gregorian year, we are setting off silent fireworks to mark the end of a successful 2015 Digital Dharma Drive. Our goal was $70,000 this year, and as of this morning we have a little over $84,000. This is great. It will allow our little team to make important progress on our educational and spiritual resources in the months ahead and to access critical expertise we don't have.

In celebration, our team would like to present each of you with an upgrade to our heretofore stodgy (and, yes, non-responsive on mobile devices) Hinduism Today website! After many years, the HT website was in drastic need of an update, especially considering how many readers of the magazine are accessing it on their phones. This upgrade is mainly to the look and feel of the site. Being fully responsive, it scales itself to the size of the screen you're using, allowing for readability in any circumstance. All of our content is still there and now easier to find, with quick links to important content and our HPI news feed right on our homepage. For those who speak the language of the interwebs, we'd like to give thanks to the open-source bootstrap framework and to our trusty Xoops database for helping to make this upgrade a success. But most of all, a big thank you to the readers who inspire and support our work. Let the New Year begin! See HinduismToday.com

As promised, here is Side B of the 1977 cassette that Gurudeva requested be prepared and distributed to all his devotees. In this short piece he briefly describes the purpose of Saiva Siddhanta Church and then leads us in the repetition of the Twelve Beliefs of Saivism. Join him as he requests us to affirm the great truths of our ancient religion. The Twelve Beliefs of Saivism

Magical divine synchronicity happened these past few days. We have been meditating on key knowledge that is missing in the mind of youth today. One of these is the understanding of the Three Worlds. Background discussions with our team on creating short digital illustrated educational modules on this subject have been in progress for weeks. Out of the blue Vayudeva writes: "I found this old cassette of Gurudeva, from 1977. Side A is - 'This is Religion' and Side B is 'Beliefs of Saivism.' " Side A is actually all about the Three Worlds. We looked into our archives and there it was! Gurudeva gave these two talks in 1977 and then he commissioned a professional to edit them, add vina music, reproduce on cassettes and distributed them to all his devotees. We did not have the software or tools to do this ourselves in those days, so he must have felt it was very important to get this message out. We are happy to bring you this new treasure from Gurudeva's audio archives -- a vision dear to his heart that he hoped to pass on to all. His message is renewed and will live on. Stay tuned for Side B tomorrow.

Three Worlds - This Is Religion

Jayanatha gives his report on the ground: "Our trip has been busy so far. We landed in LA at 9:30pm and waited until 10:20pm for the bus service to our nearby hotel. There we checked in and slept for a few hours, waking up at 3:00am to catch our next flight to Denver. Flying east, we soon reached the sunrise. The cloud layer was thick below us and above the only visible sights through the upper atmosphere were the moon and Venus (?). Then a breathtaking sunrise. After landing at the Denver airport we made our way to our next gate. The closer we got, the smaller the airport became. The ceiling lowered, the walls closed in and the cowboy hat density increased. We were in the right place! We boarded a tiny plane which flew us a sleep-deprived, semi-conscious hour southeast to Midland, Texas. We then checked into our hotel and fell fast asleep for three hours before waking up to go to the Interfaith event. It went well and people really liked Acharya's well-prepared material."

Yesterday's TAKA post on the special puja at Chidambaram Temple inspires us to offer some background for the event that provoked asking Siva Nataraja for His Profound Grace to fall upon Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami on his nakshatra day, Purvashada. So here we go….
 
Chidambaram. The very word sends subtle shockwaves down the spine!
 
Ananda Nataraja Rajamurthy and Sivakamasundari preside over the innermost shrine, Ponnambalam or Golden Dome. And, yet the main deity here is Siva as Space, formless, unbounded, immeasurable. Symbolically, He who abides here as Space, is represented by strings of golden bilva leaves. And, that is the Chidambara Rahasyam or the Secret of Chidambaram. 

So, picture yourself standing before the main shrine. In the center is Nataraja at the end of His Ananda Tandavam, where His locks fall to His shoulders, not flying around as found in most murthis, His glance pours out love, His smile so compassionate, His raised foot offers everything your heart desires and much that you don't even have knowledge enough to desire, His right hand showers blessings .... He is unbelievable! To his right, are the bilva strands and to His left stands Sivakamasundari. The Sphatika Lingam, Ratna Sabapathy ruby Lingam and Swarna Akarashana Bhairavar, all are present here. Patanjali and Vyagrapada stand worshipfully at His Feet. 
 
The temple, spread over 51 acres, has surely seen better days. The four gopurams or towers at the 4 entrances really do tower over this quiet town. It appears that all the activity is centered around the Temple, along the four Veedhis or streets. It is along these lanes that Nataraja comes out in procession twice a year and hence these are called North Car Street, East Car Street and so on. After 28 years, repair, renovation and reconsecration of the main towers and the numerous smaller shrines in the Temple concluded with Mahakumbhabhishekam on May 1, 2015. The ceremonies started 10 days prior and will conclude one mandalam or 48 days later. Various pujas and homas are conducted each day, invoking, restoring and amplifying the energies of this sacred space.
 The Diksithar community, comprising 366 priests now, conduct these proceedings as one body, decisions taken after meetings every afternoon. All expenses are born by individuals or organizations that step up and bear costs. They do not advertise or ask for donations. They send out invitations, on receiving which, one may be prompted to ask, "How may I participate?" Options are then presented and you may choose what stirs your heart and fits your pocket!
 
Forty-five of the Mandala Puja days, starting May 4, were open to individual sponsorship of Rs.400,000 per day (that's about $6,300). A small group of Satguru Bodhinatha's devotees contributed and chose Day 5 to dedicate the Mandala Puja to Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, because his janma nakshatra Poorvashada prevails on that day, with the prayer that Nataraja of the East and Nataraja of the West pour forth blessings on him, so he may fulfill the sacred, massive mission he has dedicated his life to. What you saw in the photos yesterday are scenes from this puja. 

May all who helped make this happen be blessed again and again, and then again! As Yogaswami said, "Eppavo mundintha kariyam!" Yes, those present said it did feel like witnessing an event that had happened long ago.

From Chapter 13 of the Mrgendra Agama:

The final dissolution of the worlds created in the order of samasta takes place at the time of complete dissolution (maha pralaya), and the dissolution of the worlds created in the order of vyasta takes place at an intermediate time of dissolution (avantata pralaya). Creation takes place at two levels. Since the time of existence precedes the time of dissolution, the duration of existence is explained here first. Listen to this exposition. The duration of the four yugas-–kruta, treta, dvapara and kali--makes one cycle of time known as a caturyuga. A cycle of 1000 caturyugas is considered as one day of Brahma, and another of the same duration is one night of Brahma. In this way, 2000 caturyugas make one day of Brahma. Three hundred and sixty days of Brahma make one year of Brahma. At the lapse of one parardha (50) of such years of Brahma, a secondary dissolution (avantara pralaya) takes place for the worlds of the impure path--asuddha adhva. Here all the tattvas, beginning from Maya, down to the earth, meet dissolution in the reverse order of creation. At that time, the one hundred Rudras, Virabhadra, Srikantha, Krodhesa, Canda, Samvarta and other Lords who are maintaining the worlds of the impure path, continue to exist, keeping under their possession the worlds which are now in a subtle form, being absorbed into their respective causes, and the souls which are associated with their own karmic impulses and with a subtle body constituted of the tattvas from pruthvi to kala and which are in the prakruti (original nature, first intelligence). They would continue to exist until the completion of the primary dissolution. Subsequently, at the beginning of the next intermediate creation, Anantesvara, being commissioned and directed by Lord Siva, would prompt and direct Srikantha and the other Rudras to create the worlds of the impure path in the same order as adopted before. These Rudras, having created the worlds from their respective sources, would then hold authority over these worlds.

Download the full Mrgendra Agama Here