Lesson 217 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Are Good Conduct’s Four Keys?

ŚLOKA 62
Purity, devotion, humility and charity are the four keys to good conduct. Of these, purity is the cardinal virtue. We cultivate purity by thinking, speaking and doing only that which is conceived in compassion for all. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Purity is the pristine and natural state of the soul. We cultivate purity by refraining from anger and retaliation, by maintaining a clean and healthy body, and by guarding our virginity un­til marriage. We cultivate purity by seeking good company and by living a disciplined life. Devotion is love of God, Gods and guru, and dedication to family and friends. We cultivate devotion through be­ing loyal and trustworthy. We cultivate devotion through worship and selfless service. Humility is mildness, mod­esty, reverence and unpretentiousness. We cultivate hu­m­ility by taking the experiences of life in understanding and not in reaction, and by seeing God everywhere. We cultivate humility through showing pa­tience with circumstances and forbearance with people. Charity is selfless concern and caring for our fellow man. It is generous giving without thought of reward, always sharing and never hoarding. We cultivate charity through giving to the hungry, the sick, the homeless, the elderly and the unfortunate. The Vedas explain, “As to a mountain that’s enflamed, deer and birds do not resort—so, with knowers of God, sins find no shelter.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 217 – Living with Śiva

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

Harnessing Technology

Building up the spiritual vibration in the home requires a control of the computers. Here at our Śaivite Hindu monastery in Hawaii, all of the monastics have a computer. When they take their vows, they are given their robes, their beads, their staff of tapas and their Macintosh! This enables us to serve the very best that we can from our tiny little island. At this āśrama we look at our technology as our tools. We control these tools. They do not control us. We use these tools to enhance our religious work, to amplify the Sanātana Dharma and bring it out into the Western world and throughout the world through written publications and on the Internet. Our tools do not dominate our life. We turn them on at a certain time. We turn them off at a certain time. At twelve noon they are turned off and not turned on again until 3:00PM. At 6:30PM, they’re turned off again and not turned on until after worship and intense guided meditation the next morning. On retreat days—two days each week—we don’t use them at all, except possibly for an hour on rare occasions and only for very important things. What does this do? It allows everyone to talk with everyone else, to communicate, to share, to appreciate each other, to work together for the good of all. It allows us to live a balanced life, a human life in which the spirit within us can shine through and we have time to enjoy the sunset on our 459-acre spiritual sanctuary on the Garden Island of Kauai, to listen to the song of a bird, to meditate and enjoy the company of one another, even in this technological age.

Perhaps the most prevalent electronic media is television. A family watching television together is a togetherness, provided the program is a wholesome choice that everyone enjoys. You can laugh and talk together and discuss what you watched afterwards. But there should be an afterwards and a before. That balances the mesmerizing capacity of television. Television shouldn’t consume all of the family’s time. Before the TV is turned on in the evening, the family should sit together, talk about the day, acknowledge or praise each other and mutually decide what will be viewed. Afterwards, some time should be taken to discuss what was watched and to explain it to the children, especially if they are young, allowing them to partake of the wisdom of the parents. Especially if they see a program you don’t approve of, sit them down afterwards and talk it over with them, discuss the values portrayed in relation to our Śaivite values. Let them be aware of other points of view. This is your duty.

Treat the television like you would going to a movie: the whole family gets in the car as if they are going to a big event. They drive to the movie house, buy the tickets, some popcorn and soda, have a wonderful time and come home and enjoy one another’s company.

Children should not be allowed to watch TV constantly, but made to live a balanced life that includes exercise, games and outdoor activities. Some children can and do watch TV for many hours each day, filling their minds with all kinds of ideas and neglecting their studies. It is up to the parents to set wise rules for TV and to enforce those rules for the benefit of the child’s mind. One such wise rule is to limit daily watching to one or two hours.

Use television if you wish, but use it wisely and you will avoid these problems. Learn to control television. Realize that it is a great instrument for entertainment, but a dangerous instrument if it overcomes you, if it fills up your subconscious mind, if it brings alien thoughts into your home and upsets your family.

While TV has enormous negative potential, music does as well. The type of music played in the home and the message it delivers is crucial. Ideally, it should be beautiful Hindu music played on traditional instruments by Śaiva souls. Great care should be exercised to exclude the crass music and lyrics of lower consciousness. Whatever you listen to brings you into one state of consciousness or another.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 217: THE MYSTICAL BENEFIT OF CREMATION
Śiva’s devotees arrange swift cremation, ideally within 24 hours. The fire and accompanying rites sever ties to earthly life and give momentum to the soul, granting at least momentary access to superconscious realms. Aum.

Lesson 217 – Merging with Śiva

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

Trace the Source of Prāṇa

Prāṇa is not air, of course, yet it is contained in the air in a certain manifestation. Much prāṇa is found in the air among the trees or near the ocean. All of nature and the forces of nature are various manifestations of odic prāṇa that have taken visual shape. Plants feed on the odic prāṇa in the air. You can absorb prāṇa simply by walking through a grove of trees. The air is filled with it. Take a walk today, out into the odic force field of nature and absorb the prāṇa in the air through your breath and through the pores of your skin. You will feel the prāṇa entering into your prāṇic sheath, or vital health body, and remaining there while you exhale.

Sit quietly and use the internal method of concentration when you think on this. Each time your mind wanders, pull it firmly back to the subject of concentration. Remember, in concentration, that the process of making the mind return to the object or subject of concentration forces a flow of odic as well as actinic prāṇa through the most subtle nerve currents, causing them to grow strong, so that soon your concentration will be effortless as your subconscious responds to your conscious-mind concentration efforts, causing a new process called meditation to occur in the wonderful world of the mind.

Concentrate on the prāṇic health body flowing through and just within your physical body. Mentally go over the exercises we have done this week in proving the flow and existence of odic prāṇa to the subconscious habit mind, so that by establishing a new habit pattern, the subconscious will aid instead of barricade your natural unfoldment on the path to enlightenment. Your subconscious needs certain proofs of these inner laws to solicit full cooperation.

Mentally trace odic prāṇa to its source and cause. Does it come to an end? If so, where? Where does actinic prāṇa begin? You will soon find that odic prāṇa does come to an end, for it merges in the subconscious area of the mind into the subsuperconscious. You will find that odic prāṇa depends on the existence of actinic prāṇa for its existence. As you concentrate on the interrelated flow of odic prāṇa and ascertain the area of the inner mind where actinic prāṇa begins, you should conceptually see how you have been controlling odic prāṇa during this entire week through the use of your subsuperconscious state of mind.

You are maturing through the knowledge of the within of your Being, which you have been studying these last few months. Remember, in the wonderful world of the mind, understanding, gaining mental perspectives, finding proof, no matter how small, within ourselves—these form important controls over the mind. The art of concentration, though the basic and most fundamental control of all, is not the only control over the mind on the classical yoga path to enlightenment. Harmony is control of even deeper aspects of the mind, as are understanding and actinic love. As we expand our consciousness on the yoga path to enlightenment, we hear more, see more, feel more, know more within ourselves. This is intense. We must not fear intensity, for intensity is actinic. Your actinic Being is intensity itself, actively alive and always shining out. Man can be thought of as seven aspects of form, but the Self is beyond the mind or beyond form, for mind is form. Mind is consciousness; consciousness is form. The Self is formless. Therefore, you can contemplatively say, “I am That, I am.”

Lesson 216 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Meaning of Good Conduct?

ŚLOKA 61
Good conduct is right thought, right speech and right action. It is virtuous deeds in harmony with divine law, reflecting the soul’s innate purity. As a staff is used to climb a mountain, so must virtue be used in life. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Good conduct, sadāchāra, determines our behav­ior in day-to-day life. We should be uplifting to our fellow man, not critical or injurious. We should be loving and kind, not hate­ful or mean. We should express the soul’s beautiful qual­ities of self-control, modesty and honesty. We should be a good example to others and a joy to be around, not a person to be avoided. Good con­duct is the sum of spir­itual living and comes through keeping good company. When heart and mind are freed of baseness, when desires have been tempered and excesses avoided, dhar­ma is known and followed, and good conduct naturally arises. The Hindu fosters humility and shuns ar­rogance, seeks to assist, never to hinder, finds good in others and forgets their faults. There is no other way to be called a true devotee, but to conduct ourself properly with­in ourself and among our fellow men. The Vedas say, “Let there be no neglect of Truth. Let there be no neglect of dharma. Let there be no neglect of welfare. Let there be no neglect of prosperity. Let there be no ne­glect of study and teaching. Let there be no neglect of the du­ties to the Gods and the ancestors.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 216 – Living with Śiva

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

Hinduism On the Net

The World Wide Web is difficult to say fast, all those w’s one after another. It comes out “wurlwyewep.” The pros just call it the Web. But what is it? I have been learning a little about the Web. It took me a while to get the Internet connection on my Power Macintosh working right, and the monks had to install some special software for me. But soon I was out there on the Infobahn, in the slow lane. I found that the Web is the first user-friendly, interactive global information medium. It extends any individual’s reach, facilitating everything from the sharing of information to finding it. Soon, we hope, all the religionists of the Global Forum for Human Survival and Parliament of World Religions will communicate their thoughts, programs and knowledge on the Web. I remember when in Moscow and Rio de Janiero, at Global Forum gatherings of political and religious leaders, the former US Vice President Al Gore unveiled his vision to expand the Internet, previously only available to the government and universities, into an Information Highway to tie the world together. Congratulations, Mr. Gore. Just three years later your vision of a digital superhighway adds four new users every minute, and we are among them.

From HINDUISM TODAY’s home page, by a click of a button you can bring up a page that allows you to write an instant, postage-free letter to the editor. Another click sends you into the vastness of cyberspace. It’s that easy, and easy to get lost, too. Give it a try. They say the Web has changed things completely. The old Internet was OK for physicists, but it was an unfriendly, type-only, black-and-white technical world. The Web added images, color, a variety of typefaces, pictures, designs, animation and buttons that lead to the next destination. Now it’s everybody’s tool. Click on a button and go to a home page of Vedic verses in Bangalore. Click a button there about astrology and suddenly you’re in San Francisco or browsing a London database on āyurveda. Click again and you’re reading a page on Sanskrit studies in Durban. It’s called hyperlinking. I learned how to make bookmarks yesterday—links to connections you have made, kept by a program in case you want to return but don’t recall the address. Just click and you’re there again. Easy. Another nice thing is the Web is so democratic. Whether you are Birla Pvt. Ltd., IBM or Mrs. Bhatt, a poetess from Pune, everyone is equal on the Web.

Electronic mail is like having the post office in your house. Messages come and go through the phone lines and can be read almost immediately anywhere in the world. Our institutions use the Web to connect the missions we oversee in several countries. We put new information on the home page in Hawaii, and members in Mauritius, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka or Germany can access it instantly. Not only that, it’s nearly free. Most of those big fax and phone bills are gone. Hindu institutions are working hard to upgrade to the Web, driven by an amazing group of Hindu engineers who have become a driving force in the Internet world. These cyberspace networks are all interconnected, but totally disorganized and decentralized, just like Hinduism, so everyone will feel at home there! Let’s meet on the “wurlwyewep” and share our experience, vision and tools.

The editor of a Jain magazine in London once asked, “Gurudeva, how do you feel about using all this modern technology to promote religion?” I said, we marvel at our ancient handwritten scriptures. The stylus and the olai leaf were modern technology at one point in time, the pen and paper at another, as was the old typewriter at yet another point in time. Now we have computers and the Internet—modern technology capable of bringing the spiritual beings and all religious people of the world closely together wherever they live. This one thing the typewriter could not do, the pen and paper could not do, the stylus and olai leaf did not do.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 216: CREMATION AND DISPERSAL OF ASHES
Devout Hindus always cremate their dead. Burial is forbidden by tradition. Embalming is never permitted, and no autopsy is performed unless required by law. Ashes are ceremoniously committed to a river or ocean. Aum.

Lesson 216 – Merging with Śiva

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

Experience Odic Prāṇa

Fill six glasses with water. Place them on a table before you. Take one of these glasses of water and hold it in one hand while with the other hand you shake the fingertips into the glass but without touching the water. Feel the odic prāṇa falling from the hand and fingers into the water, being absorbed into the water and held there. Thus we have mixed two forms of odic power, that of the physical-health odic prāṇa and the odic manifestation of water. This creates magnetism when these two forces come together in the external, odic water. Mark the glass of water that you have magnetized so that only you will later be able to identify it, then place it with the other five glasses. Switch the glasses around so that it is not apparent which glass was magnetized. If you are doing this exercise by yourself, you may close your eyes when you switch the glasses so that you do not identify the glass that has been magnetized. Now, the test. Close your eyes and drink from each glass. You close your eyes so that your taste will be most keen, and you will not be distracted by anything you see, having your entire mind on your taste buds. As you taste each glass of water, you will notice a distinct difference in the taste of the water in the glass you magnetized with odic prāṇa.

You will achieve a great control over your prāṇic sheath by learning to breathe diaphragmatically. The following experiments, coupled with diaphragmatic breathing, will help you awaken your own knowledge of the controls over odic prāṇa and your own odic prāṇic sheath. Take a deep breath through the nostrils, at the same time holding a mental picture of taking odic prāṇa into the body from within the air. You may visualize it in the form of a vapor, like the odic prāṇa you perhaps saw around your hand. Visualize the odic prāṇa going all the way down to your solar plexus, while the air is only held in your lungs. The odic prāṇa stays in your solar plexus while you exhale air from the lungs. From the solar plexus area, the odic prāṇa will automatically flow through the muscle tissue to the blood and begin to store up in various nerve centers in reserve for future use. In mastering this exercise, you will build up the vital body energies and calm the nerves. It is not necessary to do this often, only when you feel the need of storing up odic prāṇa.

Odic prāṇa is often used unknowingly for healing various physical distresses, emotional upsets and mental strains. A child runs to his mother; the odic prāṇa coming from the mother, freely flowing toward the child, comforts any distress the child may be going through. The child runs off vigorously, taking a good supply of odic prāṇa from his mother through absorption. You can supply odic prāṇa to any part of your body that may be ailing and gain some relief. For emotional distress, store odic prāṇa in the solar plexus, and to relieve mental strain, store it in the upper back and chest area.

As you inhale odic prāṇa, draw a mental picture of the process. When you make a mental picture, you are also employing odic force to form the picture, for all mental pictures are made out of odic force. After the mental picture of the physical area in your body that is in distress is well formed, visualize the odic prāṇa being sent to that particular organ or part of the body. Inhale, then hold your breath a few seconds as you visualize the odic prāṇa flowing from the solar plexus to that area of your physical body. When you manage to flow enough odic prāṇa into the distressed area of your physical body and the health body becomes more vibrant, you will notice the distress ease. Do this for short periods of time. Remember, inhale, hold a few seconds while sending the energy to the distressed area, then exhale the air, holding the odic prāṇa in the part of the body that needs extra energy most. “Where awareness goes energy flows.” All breathing should be through the nostrils, not the mouth, deep and slow, natural and rhythmic.

Lesson 215 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Personal Dharma?

ŚLOKA 60
Personal law, or svadharma, is our own perfect individual pattern in life. It is the sum of our accumulated seed karmas as they relate to the collective effect on us of ṛita, āśrama and varṇa dharma. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Each human being has an individual, personal dharma. This dharma is determined by two things: the karmas, both good and bad, from past lives; and the three dharmas of this life—universal, human and social. Svadharma, “one’s own law,” is molded by our background and experiences, tendencies and desires—indicated by astrology—all of which determine our personality, profession and associations. The key to discovering and understanding personal dharma is the worship of Lord Gaṇeśa, the God of memory, time and wisdom, who knows our past lives and can clarify our most perfect pattern, our right path in life. When we follow this unique pattern—guided by guru, wise elders and the knowing voice of our soul—we are content and at peace with ourselves and the world. Dharma is to the individual what its normal development is to a seed—the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature and destiny. A Vedic prayer implores, “That splendor that resides in an elephant, in a king, among men, or within the waters, with which the Gods in the beginning came to Godhood, with that same splendor make me splendid, O Lord.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 215 – Living with Śiva

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

The Web’s Vast Potential

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/ No, that’s not a typographical error or a foreign language. It’s HINDUISM TODAY’s World Wide Web address. If you have access to a computer, you can read our Hindu family magazine from any of Earth’s hundreds of millions of Internet nodes, for free. True, you would not get all those wonderful photos or art, but the text is there for anyone searching the net for dharma. Years ago, before the Internet really took off, I meditated on what it would mean for Sanātana Dharma and could see a time when Hindus would all be connected on the Internet. An āśrama in Fiji could download explanations for saṁskāras. A yoga society in Orissa would be able to locate graphical information about chakras for a public slide show. A pilgrim could call up a home page with all the sacred sites, temples, tīrthas and āśramas his family can visit on their way back to Bhārat, complete with maps, train schedules and cost of A/C rooms. I saw more, much more. A pañchāngam, sacred Hindu calendar, we all use together, would be available, listing the holy days and festivals. I noted that our own timeline of Hindu history, from Hinduism’s Contemporary Catechism, was already on the Net. It has stirred historians to write us many letters and discuss the new way India’s history is being understood. Even now you can access it and search for when Ramakrishna was born, when the Vedas were written down or when South Indian Chola kings set sail for Indonesia.

I foresaw interactive courses. A teacher in South Africa could download wonderful resources to enrich the lessons she prepares for her students—photos, maps, Vedic verses, illustrations and sounds, all the things that interest children. How about an encyclopedia of Hinduism online? How about a library of dharma graphics which anyone could log onto, find that perfect piece of art for illustrating a brochure, download it and never leave their desk? The possibilities are endless.

Say your daughter just had a new baby and you want a special name. What to do? Search for Hindu names on the Net, through thousands of names on numerous sites, for the perfect name, with the meaning and the right pronunciation. Need a good time to start a business, sign an important contract or leave on a trip? Just call up the WWW home page on astrology for a computer analysis of the auspicious moment.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 215: THE MOMENT OF GRAND DEPARTURE
Śiva’s devotees strive at the moment of death to depart the body through the crown chakra and consciously enter the clear white light and beyond. A perfect transition culminates in God realization. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 215 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Sheath Of Vitality

In the West we have only a few close equivalents for the Sanskrit word prāṇa, and they are odic force, actinic force and energy. But prāṇa is not really a form of energy or a force; it is the sum total of all energy, all force, in its various manifestations. Science has proven that all matter is in vibration, that the difference in these vibrations are what gives matter its form. At one time scientists believed the atom to be the smallest unit within matter, but progressively smaller units have been discovered. When the smallest subdivision of matter is reached, prāṇa, or pure energy, remains. Prāṇa is the sum total of energy, because the whole material universe is, in a sense, manifested from it.

The odic prāṇic sheath is the health body, prāṇamaya kośa, hovering just within and through the physical body, extending out from the physical body about two to five inches. Odic prāṇa is physical vitality. Actinic prāṇa and willpower are one and the same.

You have probably read of cases of suspended animation, men buried alive for hours or days without air or food. When this actually occurs and it is not faked, it is usually due to the control of prāṇa. After extensive training, odic force can be stored in a static state in the body and then used in the absence of air or food, for it is the essence of air or food. Some animals that hibernate do this as well. Frogs have been found buried in earthen mounds in the United States and are said to have been hibernating there hundreds of years without food, water, or air, yet once liberated they showed every sign of life. And man can do it, too, with proper training over a long period of time. This, of course, is not a complete unfoldment of the meaning of life. It is only the conquest of the second aspect of man, odic prāṇa.

Breathe deeply in and out, in and out, in and out. As you breathe in, feel as though you are pulling odic prāṇa into you as well as air. As you breathe out, feel as though you are sending out the air, but keeping the odic prāṇa in the body, all the time storing it in the solar plexus. Soon you should begin to feel full of energy, solid and stable.

Here is another exercise. Select a dimly lit place that you can use as a background against which to view your hand, such as a closet. Open your right hand, in which you have been storing odic prāṇa, and hold it against the dark background. With your eyes half open, gaze at your hand relaxed. Don’t try too hard. You should be able to see the odic prāṇa around each of your fingers. It will be seen as a cloudy, vaporous substance. If you are in perfect health, the odic prāṇa will be clearer and more readily apparent. Some sensitive yoga students can see the odic prāṇa around the physical body of people.

Lesson 214 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Human Dharma?

ŚLOKA 59
Human law, or āśrama dharma, is the natural expression and maturing of the body, mind and emotions through four progressive stages of earthly life: student, householder, elder advisor and religious solitaire. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The four āśramas are “stages of striving,” in pursuit of the purushārthas: righteousness, wealth, pleasure and liberation. Our first 24 years of life are a time of intense learning. Around age 12, we enter formally the brahmacharya āśrama and un­dertake the study and skills that will serve us in later life. From 24 to 48, in the gṛi­hastha āśra­ma, we work to­gether as husband and wife to raise the family, increasing wealth and knowledge through our profession, serving the community and sus­taining the members of the other three āśramas. In the vāna­prastha āśrama, from 48 to 72, slowly retiring from public life, we share our ex­perience by advising and guiding younger generations. After age 72, as the physical forces wane, we turn fully to scripture, worship and yoga. This is the sannyāsa āśrama, which differs from the formal life of ochre-robed monks. Thus, our human dharma is a natural awakening, expression, ma­turing and withdrawal from worldly involvement. The Vedas say, “Pursuit of the duties of the stage of life to which each one belongs—that, verily, is the rule! Others are like branches of a stem. With this, one tends upwards; otherwise, downwards.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.