Yoga, Training, the Master of Yourself
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: Feel love welling up from your deepest resources and radiating out to everyone you meet. Stand alone in completeness. In meditation the mysteries of life will unfold before your inner vision once the instinctive mind is mastered. Look at all individuals as souls and wish them well on the spiritual path. In Shum, 'bihayishum' is the feeling of completeness and contentment under all circumstances. Expanded consciousness brings you into your intuitive, superconscious mind which is nearer than you think. The intuitive state of consciousness, the resting place in the fourth dimension is called in Shum simvumkami. "Guru Chronicles." Master Course Trilogy, "Merging with Siva" Chapter 10.
Transcription:
[We are continuing Chapter Ten of "Merging with Siva" entitled "From Darkness to Light" which was given in 1965 at the San Francisco Temple. First, reading from Guru Chronicles 1965. It starts with Gurudeva speaking:]
"In the early 60s I became conscious that more and more of the people who came to me for counseling wanted to talk over aspects of their experience in higher states of the mind, states of the mind that had been opened through psychedelic experience. Their interest was in relating these experiences to yoga and the consciousness attained through meditation. These people were highly enthusiastic about their new world, for it seemed like sort of a canned meditation, something they could get very quickly without entering into the sometimes tedious yoga training that may take years to open the individual to the within of himself. People all over the nation now are becoming awakened to the world within.
"I have interviewed seekers who have had a few psychedelic experiences and have come through them more vibrant, more alive, and more ready to face the challenges of a new world. I have met others who only stand and look at you blankly, who have lost their desire, even their self-respect. They have lost, shall we say, the structure through which their mind force previously flowed, and it has not been replaced.
"I don't want to see a nation or worldwide movement built around a little bit of 'acid.' I don't want to see this, because of the young souls for whom this would be devastating. Some young souls who have been opened up without preparation stumble into psychic ability. They may read thought forms, see auras or travel astrally. In yoga we would say that this path of psychism must be avoided until you have attained Self Realization. This is because in opening up the mind to higher forces and beautiful experiences, we also open ourselves up to the unpleasant experiences of the shadow world of the chakras below the muladhara center at the base of the spine, areas of consciousness which we cannot control without preparation and training.
"In yoga, the guru knows how to protect his students in the opening- up process by closing off the lower realms as the higher ones open. He knows how to do this, but it is a steady training and does require time. I have met people who have had the psychedelic experience who cannot walk down the street past certain houses because they have become so sensitive to the contention, the negative forcefield, emitted from a certain home. Some of these people are opened up to the more subtle forces of the lower mind.
"I believe that the gap which has been created between 'turned on people' and 'turned off people' can best be bridged through meditation, gaining control of the mind so that the individual can become master of himself. When you become master of yourself, you truly stand alone in completeness, not in loneliness. In doing so, you are able to bring forth knowledge and wisdom from yourself through the process of meditation, through being able to sit down and think through a problem, ultimately seeing it in full, superconscious perspective and bring forth an answer, a workable answer filled with life. Meditation is a dynamic process. It is much more than just sitting around and waiting. It creates a highly individualistic type of mind. (End of quote.)
And there is a caption on the painting on this page which reads:
"In the 60s and 70s, America's time of foment, drug experimentation and spiritual questing, Sri Subramuniya undertook a series of lectures at major universities in America and Europe, teaching the Advaita Path to all who would listen."
That's the end of our "Guru Chronicles" and now we have Lesson 67, from 1965:
"Understanding Other People
"Love is the source of understanding. You know intellectually that within you resides the potential, expressed or not, for all human emotion, thought and action. Yet, you no doubt meet or observe people occasionally whose life and actions are repellent or unacceptable to you. The absence of love has created a vacuum of understanding. For the meditating person, there should not be a single human being whose actions, habits, opinions or conduct lies beyond your ability to love and understand.
"Try this. This week look at everyone you meet, and feel, from your fingertips right down to your toes, love welling up from your deepest resources and radiating out to them through every cell of your body and especially through your face. There are thousands of things that most people do not understand from their confused states of mind, and they therefore act in unseemly ways, due to the ignorance of past karma. Should their ignorance confuse you? Should it cloud your own understanding? Certainly not! We do not love the flower and hate the muddy roots from which it grew, and we cannot hate the instinctive roots of mankind."
So my comment:
It is important to develop a way to accept people who you previously would have considered their actions repellent or unacceptable. In this paragraph Gurudeva is suggesting the technique of saying to yourself "I like you" and really feeling it. The technique I suggested in the last talk was to look at these individuals as souls and wish them well in making progress on the spiritual path. So the basic idea is find a way that works for you. There's not one correct way to do this but find the approach that works best for you so that you don't find other peoples' actions repellent or unacceptable; you find a way to accept it, it's just where they are.
"With understanding, a great thing happens--your life becomes even, balanced and sublime. The ups and downs within yourself level out, and you find yourself the same in every circumstance, find yourself big enough to overcome and small enough to understand. Then you can really begin to do something. When emotional ups and downs are allowed, what happens? Your poor nerve system is terribly strained in a constant state of frenzy and uncertainty. All of your energies are then devoted to coping with yourself, and not much is reserved to accomplish creative, productive projects. As your life evens out by using the great power of understanding, the emotional self of you heals and grows strong. Your nervous system, believe it or not, grows, and it grows strong if you feed it correctly by handling your mind. Understanding is the best nourishment for the emotional body."
So we have a Shum word, the state of finding yourself the same in every circumstance is bihayishum, feeling of completeness and contentment under all circumstances. So that's what we're trying for bihayishum, feeling of completeness and contentment under all circumstances.
"You must have a basis for understanding your fellow man, and a very good basis is: 'I perceive him with my two physical eyes. He appears to be forty years old, but I intuit him to be emotionally a little younger and mentally about sixty--a learned person. I know he is a being of pure awareness going through the experiences he needs to evolve further. Therefore, I shall understand him in this light and make allowances accordingly.' This is not something to think about and appreciate philosophically. It must become as much a part of you as your hands and feet. It's an easy process if we apply it and a difficult process if we ignore its practice."
So my comment is:
Gurudeva is suggesting we look at individuals as comprised of three components. Each can have a different age of maturity and they can differ quite a bit: physical maturity, emotional maturity, intellectual maturity; physical age, emotional age, intellectual age.
"Understanding, loving and making allowances--these are the strengths of the soul awakened through sadhana, once the emotional ups and downs and the barriers of the instinctive influences of fear, jealousy, anger, deceit and disappointment are conquered. If you are creative, you will begin to truly create. If you are a mystic, you will have deeper and ever more fulfilling insights in your daily meditations. All of the mysteries of life will unfold before your inner vision once the instinctive mind is mastered in your life."
And then we have Lesson 68:
"Facing Yourself
"So, here we come to a very important state for spiritual unfoldment, and that is to face yourself. Have the courage to admit when you are right or the courage to admit when you are wrong. Have the intelligence to know that these are states of mind through which your awareness is passing and they have nothing to do with you at all, because you are pure spirit. The life force within you is pure spirit. It has nothing to do with the turmoil of the mind. And you have the intelligence to know that through the proper handling of your mind, you control your mind."
So, we mentioned that in last week's talk as well, the idea of identifying as pure spirit which is perfect helps us admit the imperfection of the states of you as awareness have been living in. So, having the inside perfect allows us to acknowledge the outside is imperfect. Part of us is still perfect. Don't have to justify our actions on the outside.
"So, for example, you might face yourself and say, 'All right, so I was wrong. I became angry, and for three days before I became angry, I was sort of angling for it, sort of creating the situation and antagonizing the situation to work myself up into that state. Now, I don't know perhaps why I did that. Perhaps because things were too peaceful and I was bored. So I thought I would create the upset. Of course, I didn't know I would create such an upset and react and feel so badly, but at least it was a change. Things were too quiet and too peaceful, and the person I became angry at was too happy.' When you begin to face your mind like that, you find out how you create every situation, whether you know it or not.
"Mentally look back at the various states of mind through which you have passed. It is like taking a trip in your automobile. Each city and each state has its personality and its experience, and each state of mind through which consciousness has passed has its personality, too, and its experiences. And yet, that You is always the same--the You that lives a little bit behind the conscious mind in which you dwell each day.
"You will have this power if you dedicate each Friday or Monday as a holy day. Work for the sake of work if you have to work on Friday or Monday, dedicating the fruits of your labor to the highest within you. Pray on Friday or Monday and dedicate the fruits of your prayers to the highest within you. Sing on Friday or Monday and dedicate your song to the spirit within you that gave you the power to open your mouth in the first place, and you will find that your consciousness will expand. You will be able to solve your problems from your expanded consciousness all through the week, intuitively. That is what the expanded consciousness brings you into, your intuitive mind, your intuitive, superconscious mind, which is much nearer to you than you think. The only barriers are the confusion of the subconscious and the state of mind which continues that confusion by not following spiritual principles."
So, my comment:
The intuitive state of consciousness Gurudeva is describing in Shum is called, simvumkami. Of course the fourth dimension, subsuperconscious mind, awareness cognizing the interrelated forces of the fifth, fourth and third dimensions, from the detachment we gain the ability to dissolve confusions, conflicts and the various and varied entanglements that are encountered daily. The realm of artistic creativity. Here is the resting place where we look in and up and out and down. Consciousness should never go lower, but when soaring higher returns to this resting place, the fourth dimension. This dimension relates to the kamshumalinga rehmtyenali, the fourth chakra. To experience the portraits within this dimension, look at the world from the chest area.
That's an important idea in Shum. We have seven dimensions and for the higher ones, the fourth one relates to there, the fifth one there, the sixth one there, the seventh one there, so we look at the world from those respective areas to experience the concepts in those dimensions.
Have a wonderful day.