Lesson 117 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Are the Goals of Renunciate Life?

ŚLOKA 117
The two fundamental objectives of sannyāsa are to promote the spiritual progress of the individual, bringing him into God Realization, and to protect and perpetuate the religion through his illumined leadership. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Renunciation and asceticism have been an integral component of Vedic culture from the earliest days, the most highly esteemed path of the Hindu Dharma. Monastic life has both an individual and a universal objective. At the individual level, it is a life of selflessness in which the monastic has made the supreme sacrifice of renouncing all personal ambition, all involvement in worldly matters, that he might direct his consciousness and energies fully toward God Śiva. Guided by the satguru along the sādhana mārga, the initiated sannyāsin unfolds through the years into deeper and deeper realizations. Ultimately, if he persists, he comes into direct knowing of Paraśiva, Transcendent Reality. At the universal level, Hindu monasticism fosters the religion by preserving the truths of the Sanātana Dharma. Competent swāmīs are the teachers, the theologians, the exemplars of their faith, the torchbearers lighting the way for all. The ancient Vedas elucidate, “The ascetic who wears discolored robes, whose head is shaved, who does not possess anything, who is pure and free from hatred, who lives on alms, he becomes absorbed in Brahman.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 117 – Living with Śiva

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

To Realize the Spirit Within

When you have nothing in your subconscious that particularly bothers you, it is easy to turn the mind inward. But if you are bothered or disturbed, the subconscious acts as a barrier and makes it difficult to turn within. When you try to do so, up from the subconscious come all the remnants of the experiences which you hold on to through regret. If this is the case, you will have one more experience to go through before your mind does turn within. You will have to experience the understanding of all your experiences—not through analysis, not through reason (although the “whys” may come to you intuitively), but through the higher experience of pure understanding. You will find it is possible to have an understanding of yourself without going through the process of analysis.

A disturbed mind which is not permeated with Śivaness is strong in a negative sense, strong in that it will keep you from the realization of God. When the mind is disturbed, it is outwardly strong. The mind that is not disturbed is inwardly strong. Your inner strength is always more dependable than your outward display of strength. When you have gained your inner strength, you will be able to sit in meditation for at least a half hour every day and practice being the guardian of every thought and the ruler of every feeling within your body. If you do this, you will realize That which is the center of your Being. You will be uplifted, elevated, through the purification that you have brought to your mind.

Hold your consciousness high, keep your mind alive and alert so that your soul is alive and alert. You have heard me say many times, “Observation is the first awakening of the soul.” If your observation is intense and accurate, your mind is not bothered and you are not regretting things that have happened to you in the past. But people who have poor observation often do hold on to their regrets, and they rationalize most of what happens to them, putting the blame for their own experiences on someone else. It is so much easier to close the door on these reactions and live more like on a spring day rather than in the dead of winter. Life is meant to be lived joyously. The awakened soul is a joyous soul with a positive mind. The practice of observation will bring you closer and closer to this state of consciousness.

If you feel that your observation is not keen, begin observing things more closely. Observe the different colors in a store window. Study the shadows and the shades of color in one tree. Listen to the sounds of the city. How many can you distinguish? What do they mean to you? If your observation is already good, you can participate more fully in life and find yourself living above the dreary happenings of the day.

Recognizing that all experience is but a fading dream, you are closer to the permanence within you that never changes. You can sense it. It is God. It is Śiva. It has never changed. It will never change. You have all felt this permanence at one time or another, but then perhaps you find that you lose this feeling, this consciousness, and you drift out into the mind and find yourself thinking again that the mind is real. But then, maybe tomorrow, you will face it again. And as soon as you have found it, you leave it again, for the mind cannot bear the intensity of God, and you forget all about it. But then, a little later, you face that permanence within you yet again. And little by little you find that you are turning inward, opening up the inner channels more and more each day, making a greater and greater contact with God by turning within, drawing yourself ever closer to the pole at the center, the core of your Being. You will go through many different tests to prove your own realization to yourself. Face each test graciously. Welcome each test, and welcome each temptation that shows you the strength of your will over the chaotic senses. You have only to quiet all things of the mind to realize your identity with the eternity of God Śiva, the spirit, the Eternal Self within you.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 117: SUPPORTING RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
Śiva’s married followers all encourage their spouses to ardently fulfill sādhana, religious service, meditation, yoga, ritual worship, festivals and pilgrimage. They never discourage such noble expressions of dharma. Aum.

Lesson 117 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Quest For Security

You have at one time or another watched yourself pick up a new idea: “I shall do this and this and this!” Then, because you had a reaction over something, your enthusiasm died; you forgot the idea and bounded off onto something else. This is the way the mind works. You forget when you reach a part of your mind that has no inclination to understand. That is a part of the instinctive mind. If you run up against a habit pattern that is too strong for your will, it is like going along in a straight line and suddenly ricocheting off in another direction. But while this happens for a long time, after a lot of study and constant self-discipline—without which the study does not do too much good—the principles of the spiritual life finally become permeated through your entire being, and you become close to your soul in the eternal now.

This week, when you think about it, you will say to yourself, “I’m all right, right now,” and you will feel uplifted in knowing that this is so. But next week you will forget to do it. It makes you feel too complete, too secure. And being too secure is like being insecure, isn’t that true?

I met a family from the South recently that was having quite a time trying to adjust to the security of success! The husband has been a salesman all of his life, only just meeting the more or less routine needs of his family, three girls and one boy. He and his wife had always nurtured a desire for a lot of money so that the family could live in complete security, and every month for years they had put away just a little savings, with an eye to making the type of investment, at the right time, which would satisfy their dream.

Not long ago they found themselves able to buy into land with “remote possibilities of oil.” By spending the last of their savings to initiate drilling, by remote chance they did strike oil, bringing them almost immediate affluence through a chain of circumstances that has changed the entire pattern of their life. Now they feel more insecure than ever. When their money finally came in abundance, they found they really did not know what to do with it. They were worried because they had no experience in handling it. They felt totally transplanted, totally insecure in their apparent security.

After several conversations, they began to see that they had found their security in the desire for money; feeling that they did not have enough had become an integral part of the family’s subconscious. Because they were not able to live in the eternal now, they could not catch up with their new condition of life. Many people who find security in material desires are not able to become accustomed to something they are not already acquainted with.

Lesson 116 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Hindu Monastic Tradition?

ŚLOKA 116
In the Hindu tradition there have always existed among men a few for whom the world held no attraction and karmas were on the wane. Some are solitary mendicants. Others reside with their brothers in monasteries. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Certain men are by nature inclined toward realization of the Self, and disinclined toward desires of family, wealth and property. Some among them are sādhus dressed in white. They are anchorites living in the seclusion of distant caves and remote forests or wandering as homeless mendicants, itinerant pilgrims to the holy sanctuaries of Hinduism. Others dwell as cenobites assembled with fellow monastics, often in the āśrama, aadheenam or maṭha of their satguru. These monks, both anchorite and cenobite, may live with no formal vows or take certain simple vows. When initiated into the order of sannyāsa, they don the saffron robes and bind themselves to a universal body of Hindu renunciates whose existence has never ceased. Scriptural doctrine states that the two paths, householder and renunciate, are distinct in their dharmas and attainments, affirming that true renunciation may not be achieved by those in the world even by virtue of a genuine attitude of detachment. The holy Vedas declare, “The man who has found Him becomes a silent monk. Desiring Him alone as their world, ascetics leave their homes and wander about.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 116 – Living with Śiva

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

Daily Mental Maintenance

Shall we all close our eyes for just a moment and think and feel what living with Śiva really means? When you are tired of playing in the emotions, that will indicate that your soul is ready to take over and control the lower states of mind. Śiva is always within you, always there. Through silence, quieting your mind, you can become That which you truly are and shine out through that which you thought you were. Your experience will have a healing effect upon the mind and burn away the past. Intensify the spirit within you and heal any wounds that the mind may have. As Mother Nature heals the body, so does Śiva, the Self, heal the mind. Give yourself in to the real you. Turn your mind inward. Turn your will inward and live that glorious spiritual life and be ready as a spiritual being to meet the experience of death.

Morning pūjās are excellent opportunities for you to practice self-discipline, to offer yourself opportunities to change, to alter the habit patterns that have been built into your mind during the year. In these early morning meditations, you may learn to cease criticizing yourself and begin having a greater understanding of yourself. When you learn to stop criticizing yourself, you are able to appreciate the many experiences that you have been through during the year, rather than regretting them. Regret possibly is an experience more harmful than the experience you have been regretting. Some people actually live by a righteous code of ethics which offers a justification for constantly hurting themselves through regret, guilt or related emotions. Through your meditation you will appreciate your experiences for what they are—good or difficult. Simply make a resolution not to repeat the difficult ones and have faith enough to correct what your experiences have caused in the world as a result of your going through them. The first step in learning to rejuvenate your mind is being able to look objectively at your experiences. You will find this difficult to do, because you are so closely associated and identified with your mind. The mind claims you, and therefore you think that your experiences are the real you, but they are not.

After your morning pūjā, take five minutes to write down on a piece of paper those things which disturb you. Write concisely and honestly, without reason or justification, what is burdening your subconscious mind. In doing so, you will release yourself from the reactions to those experiences. Burn the paper in a fireplace or garbage can (not in your shrine room), and realize that the experience is complete, finished, except for the wisdom which you have now derived from it. You will find that this practice, known in Sanskrit as vāsanā daha tantra, does much to make your subconscious transparent and give you a greater power and control over your mind. Making the subconscious mind transparent is a basic religious practice. Only when this is first done is it possible to make progress in seeking God. Try now to find Śiva within you, the permanent Reality that never changes.

Sri Ramakrishna, the great Indian saint, compared the mind’s turning inward, seeking to connect itself to God, with the image of a little boy holding on to a rope tied to a post. The little boy swings on the rope and it winds him around and around the post. Then he swings the other way, still holding on to the rope, and the rope wraps him around the post again. The little boy represents man simply having fun and enjoying the experiences of life. He is perfectly safe as long as he holds on to the rope and the rope is connected to the post, for the post is God, and That doesn’t move. The little boy we would call mind. The rope connecting mind to God is the soul, the indomitable will. And so, Sri Ramakrishna went on to say, if man turns his mind inward and keeps his mind looking within, he will see the reality of Spirit and the transient nature of all of the mind’s activity. He may live in and enjoy the activity of the mind and never be hurt or harmed so long as he holds on to that rope, maintains his inward vision constantly and holds himself connected to the permanence of his own Being.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 116: THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE
Śiva’s followers look upon their marriage as a spiritual partnership for the purpose of uplifting each other and bringing through higher souls. It is a union not only of a man and woman, but of two entire families. Aum.

Lesson 116 – Merging with Śiva

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

Progress Takes Persistence

When you find yourself with your mind calmed, your future automatically works itself out. I have had so many people ask me questions, seeking advice. I very seldom give advice, because very few people really want it. The majority have already made up their own minds, and what they are looking for is permission to go ahead and do what they have already decided upon. But if a person asks a question three, four, five times, then you know they are seeking advice. It is a rare person, however, who can take that advice.

Often enough, some people may bring to you their problems. They tell you all their troubles, and you tell them how to work them out, because you can see a little bit farther than they can, due to the fact their minds are confused and yours is calm. But they end up by taking their problems right back again, and instead of working them out, they only add to the confusion. That is like going to a university, sitting in on a class, skipping the rest of the classes and expecting to pass the final exam when you have had only one lesson. It does not work there, and it doesn’t work in spiritual life either.

There are those who run from one teacher to another, staying with each one only long enough to find enough fault with him or his organization to be able to avoid the teaching and to run on to another teacher. These people are far from the stability of living in the eternal now, for as soon as they find fault with themselves and face overcoming their problems, they have to blame it all on someone else and run away.

Spiritual unfoldment is not unlike a university in this sense: you have to go through with all it has to offer for a number of years. If you skip from one university to another and back again and expect to graduate, you find that you are always being set back before you can go ahead! It just does not work.

It takes the average person some time before he can bring his entire mind and all his actions into the focus of the eternal now. Just hearing about it is not going to give you a birth into that state of consciousness. You will have to struggle and strive to hold the eternal now. It will take constant practice of spiritual principles to permeate the grosser layers of the mind with the clarity of the eternal now.

Lesson 115 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Home Shrine’s Significance?

ŚLOKA 115
Every Śaivite maintains a home shrine. It is the most beautiful room in the house, an extension of the temple, the abode for Deities and devas, and a holy refuge for daily worship and meditation. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Every Śaivite home centers around the home shrine, a special room set aside and maintained to create a temple-like atmosphere in which we conduct pūjā, read scripture, perform sādhana, meditate, sing bhajana and do japa. Here the presence of the Gods is always felt, and we remember them especially morning and evening and before meals, which we offer to them before we partake. Worship traditionally begins before dawn, with the simple act of dedication for the coming day. After a bath, morning pūjā is performed which includes the repetition of the Gāyatrī or other mantras and is followed by sādhanas given by one’s guru. The form of home worship, ātmārtha pūjā, is simple: the Deities are invoked and offerings are made. After the final āratī, or offering of the light, we supplicate them to bestow their grace on us, our family and all devotees. Evening devotionals include a simple āratī, bhajana, meditation and reading of scripture, which carries one to lofty celestial realms during sleep. The Āgamas affirm, “Worship of one’s chosen Liṅga by anyone in their own home for divine protection is called ātmārtha pūjā.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 115 – Living with Śiva

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

You Must Purify Yourself

Ask yourself, “Have I followed all the good advice given me?” You come to hear my upadeśa. Your coming is the asking for advice. You get advice, and many of you ignore it and you have your own opinion. If you have your own opinion, why come? Opinions are just of the instinctive and intellectual mind. Most opinions are only moldy concepts! You come to have your opinions changed. You come to have them changed from within you through your own spiritual insight. But if you come with the armor of your opinions, then you are very foolish. You might as well stay home and live with your opinions, because there will be no spiritual progress or unfoldment for you for many, many years, maybe many lives.

Ask yourself these vital questions. What are you going to do with the past that keeps bothering you and sometimes makes today a hell on Earth for you? It is really easy to transcend this state of mind. Just remember and try to understand that the spirit within you flows through you, flows through the mind, like water flows through the Earth. If you build barriers, then you fight your own spiritual Being flowing through you. You develop qualities of jealousy, hatred, anger, revenge, and malice. Negative qualities are just congested masses of mind-stuff that are temporary and do not allow the spirit to flow through. If you have negative qualities as boulders in your mind, the spirit cannot flow through you; but as it tries to flow through, it will automatically set a part of your mind out of control, and you will be emotional. You can’t help it.

So, you must purify yourself. You purify yourself by being kind to others, being generous until it hurts, being benevolent, being ready to serve at all times until you are strained in serving. Put a smile on the faces of other people. Gain your happiness and your positive states of mind by making other people happy. Negative people are always worried about themselves. Positive people are concerned with the happiness of others. Be strong enough to understand, and do not allow yourself to sleep at night until you have understood the problems of the day. If you go to sleep with problems on your mind, you will go into a confused state of mind, and you will toss around and later say, “That is just the dream world” or “I had a nightmare.” All you did was lose your consciousness in a troubled subconscious state. But if you practice yoga, and you sit and master each problem before falling asleep, even if it takes you several hours, you will gain enough rest for the next day, for you will have made this day a perfect day.

If you refuse to do what you should do when you have the chance to do it, what hope is there for anybody else who does not even know what he should do? If you resist a spiritual life, possibly the responsibility for others falls on your shoulders, because everything starts with the one and multiplies into the many. It behooves you to understand very acutely and discriminatingly these basic principles and immediately put them into action in your life. Seize every spiritual opportunity you have to advance your soul, because when you do, the reaction is glorious on you. But when you resent and when you fight within yourself, the reaction is disastrous unto yourself, because you lose the battle when you begin to fight your own inner Self. You win the battle when you begin to express yourself spiritually, when you begin to live with Śiva.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 115: THE ALL-IMPORTANT SUPPORT GROUP
Each marriage within a Śaivite community enjoys support, strength and encouragement from the satguru and all of Śiva’s followers, and counsel from elders when needed, especially in times of trial. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 115 – Merging with Śiva

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

I’m All Right, Right Now

It is one thing to say “I am all right, right now,” and it is another thing to feel it. Can you feel that you are all right, right now? Can you really believe it? Can you hold that feeling, so that this affirmation becomes permeated through your subconscious mind? Let this feeling permeate so deeply through your subconscious mind that it begins working within you, the same way your involuntary subconscious keeps your heart beating and the other processes of your body going.

“I’m all right, right now.” Let the feeling of these words vibrate within you. Then every time you abide in the luxury of worry—and the luxury of worry is one luxury you cannot afford—say to yourself, “I’m all right, right now,” and forget about where you are going, forget about where you have been and just be where you are, where your physical body is, in its immediate surroundings.

When you do that, you find that where you were going and what you were worried about has to do with the egotistical you—your pride and the various qualities that you hasten to rid yourself of when you think you should improve yourself. So, it is really very practical to live now and be all right in all the nows. But remember, since living in the eternal now lifts you into a higher state of consciousness than you have been accustomed to, you have to continue to feel that you are all right, right now. When you continue in the consciousness of the eternal now, something mysterious and wonderful begins to happen—your soul, your superconscious, begins to work out your spiritual destiny. When you quiet your mind, and only when you quiet your mind, you give your soul a chance. What difference does it make if you do have problems? They will work themselves out if you can keep the confusion of your lower states of mind out of the way.

Visualize your soul now as a shaft of light. Visualize your mind as various layers surrounding that soul, covering up the brilliancy of that light. If you live in the layers around the soul, which only cover up the brilliancy of the light, you add to the confusion around the soul. But you can live in that shaft of light. By realizing that you are all right this instant, that light of your soul has a chance to shine through the surrounding layers of the mind just a little, enough to calm your future. For your future is made in the present, in the eternal now.

Lesson 114 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Do Śaivites Worship Only in Temples?

ŚLOKA 114
One can worship God anywhere and be in contact with the inner worlds—in the temple, in the home shrine and in the yogī’s contemplation. However, in the holy Śiva temple the three worlds most perfectly commune. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
In the shrine room gather messengers of the Mahādeva being worshiped to hear the prayers of the devotee and carry them to their Master. The Gods can be worshiped anywhere when the proper saṅkalpa, preparation, has been performed. God’s presence is everywhere, through everything, in everything, for Śiva is the creator of all things, the manifestor of time, form and the space between forms. Śiva is worshiped in the mind, in the heart, through the throat, in the head of the yogī locked in yoga. So great is the power of worship, communion and communication with the centillion devas, that when a little bell is rung, a flame appears in the lamp, the vermilion spot is placed, the flower appears and is offered, God Śiva and the Gods are invoked. Contemplating the aftermath of pūjā or abhisheka, we feel the sānnidhya or divine presence of Parāśakti, tender motherly love, permeating to the outer walls around the temple. The Vedas proclaim, “Assemble all, with prayer to the Lord of Heaven, He is the One, the all-pervading, the guest of men. He, the ancient of days, abides in the present. Him, the One, the many follow on their path.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.