Lesson 110 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Does the Pujārī Do During Pūjā?

ŚLOKA 110
During the pūjā, through mantras, mudrās and mystical ritual, the priest invokes the Deity. All observances are precisely detailed in the Āgamas; every act, every intoned syllable is rich in esoteric meaning. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
The pujārī performs strict ablutions and disciplines to prepare himself for his sacred duty. Before the pūjā, he ritually purifies the atmosphere. As the pūjā begins, he meditates on Lord Gaṇeśa, praying that all obstacles may be removed. He then beseeches the God to indwell the image, to accept the prayers of the votaries, and to shower blessings and love on all. Calling the name of the Deity and chanting mantras and hymns from the Vedas and Āgamas, the pujārī makes offerings of unbroken rice, burning camphor, incense, holy ash, water, red turmeric powder, flowers and food. Sometimes offerings of milk, rose water, sandalwood paste and yogurt are poured over the mūrti as an oblation, called abhisheka. Bells are loudly rung, conch shells sounded, and musicians may play the temple drums and woodwinds. The pujārī treats the Deity with utmost care, attending to Him as the King of kings. When the pūjā has ended, the pujārī passes the now sanctified offerings to those present. The Vedas state, “Daily the sacrifice is spread. Daily the sacrifice is completed. Daily it unites the worshiper to heaven. Daily by sacrifice to heaven he ascends.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 110 – Living with Śiva

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

The Two Great Transmutations

It is important to gain an intellectual concept of what it is like to experience through a prolonged term the deep, inner will of Śiva—for, granted, we are always experiencing something. Therefore, it is easy to categorize in one of three departments just where the impulses are coming from that cause our motivations. Number one: the instinctive impulses are from us and from others, and mainly concern our body and baser emotions. These are easy to distinguish, as these impulses provide most of the daily activities. Number two: the impulse to speak and to think, begun through one’s own efforts or those of another. This is generally based on recurring knowledge accumulated in the past, churned up through present observations and conjecture about the future. This is also easy to distinguish, as these impulses generally fill any gaps that the instinctive impulses have made in a typical day. We can easily see that unless some break occurs, there is absolutely no room for number three, which is simply for Śiva’s will to occur.

Therefore, the process is one of breaking up the patterns of instinct and intellect, separating the impulses of them both, through regular and regulated periods of sādhana and meditation, so that the divine will, spiritual energy and infinite awareness can filter in and cause a new intellect to form. Beginning the sādhana, and the continued practice, is the first sign that Śiva’s will is being done in the aspirant’s life. New energy abides within him because of the transmutation from the base to the Divine. New knowledge comes forth from within him as he builds upon it through remembering his accumulated inner experiences as if they occurred but a moment ago.

Should you wish to separate number one from number two and experience the dominance of number three, Śiva’s will, simply begin to say to yourself, “Śiva’s will be done,” throughout each day as the occasions arise. Be careful to categorize each impulse, so that it is clear to your intellect which category you are aware in, just as by being more aware of the Sun than the Earth you begin to forget the Earth and come to know the Sun. Śiva’s will is being done always. By being more aware of the inner processes and impulses of willpower than the outer configurations of other people, their thoughts and feelings, you will soon live in the world contentedly and come to know the Śi, the Absolute Self beyond all form, time and causation, and the Va, the All-Pervading Self, as actinic energy permeating all form, and you will rest blissfully in this new knowledge on your new intellectual threshold. “Śiva’s will be done”—the first sādhana on the path. “Śiva’s will be done”—the last sādhana on the path, after all others have been perfected.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 110: THE FIRST STEP OF RENUNCIATION
Śiva’s young men devotees inclined to throw down the world and enter the monastery should read and accept the Holy Orders of Sannyāsa and adjust themselves to its ideals before requesting training. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 110 – Merging with Śiva

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

Living Positively

The mystic lives within himself and deals positively with the events and forces outside himself. He is always consciously striving to realize that limitless Reality within him. That is his practice. Yet he welcomes the challenges of the world, not as a karma forced upon him against his will but as his own self-created dharma. If he is really a mystic, he doesn’t run away from these challenges. He inwardly knows that life’s daily difficulties bring forth his inner strength in response to them. He sees the underlying purpose of life. He accepts and doesn’t reject. He searches for understanding, for the lesson that lies behind each experience instead of resenting the experience, which then creates another subconscious barrier for him. He knows that most problems are with man and the way he looks at things.

So, the mystic doesn’t need to retreat from the world. The same process continues regardless of where he goes. He can be as peaceful or as disturbed in New York City as in a secluded Himalayan valley. It all depends on what goes on within him. Nor should he be emotionally concerned with the problems of the world in which he finds himself. A concert sitārist is doing himself and his fellow man no good by saying, “How can I play so beautifully when everyone else plays so poorly?” Similarly, the mystic cannot take the attitude, “How can I be peaceful and content when the world is in such a mess?” We need beautiful music and we need beautiful, peaceful beings.

Actually, the mystic sees the world as a conglomerate of adjusting forces, and through this perspective he is not emotionally involved in these forces. The world is a mirror of ourselves and is perfectly all right to the man who is content within himself. But you have to find this out for yourself, because unless you experience it, nothing I say will convince you that everything you have been through and are going through is wonderful and a fulfillment of the great pattern of your life.

Even a great soul faces difficulties, but he does not take them personally. Generally people take problems too personally by identifying closely with them. When they experience anger, they are angry. When they experience bliss, they are blissful. The mystic identifies with the experiencer instead of the experience. He sees himself as pure awareness that travels in the mind. When he is in San Francisco, he is not San Francisco. Similarly, when he is in anger, he is not anger. He says to himself, “I am pure energy. I am the spiritual energy that floods through mind and body. I am not the body, the mind or the emotions. I am not the thoughts I think or the experiences I experience.” Thus, he molds a new identity of himself as a free being who can travel anywhere in the mind. Such a person is always at the top of the mountain.

We have to examine this concept of who we are. When we begin to totally feel all right about ourself, the meaning of the word I begins to change. I no longer means the body of us. I means energy, awareness and willpower. Soon we gain the total truth that we are living in the body, but we are not the body we live in. Examine the word I and honestly see what it means to you. Does it mean the physical body? Does it mean the emotions? Does it mean the intellect? Does it mean the spiritual energy?

Lesson 109 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Who Are the Priests of Śiva Temples?

ŚLOKA 109
Ādiśaiva priests are the hereditary pujārīs who care for the temple and conduct its varied rites and rituals as humble servants of God. They are trained in the complex arts of worship, generally from a young age. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Every temple has its own staff of priests. Some temples appoint only one, while others have a large extended family of priests to take care of the many shrines and elaborate festivals. Most are well trained from early childhood in the intricate liturgy. Śiva temple pujārīs are usually brāhmins from the Ādiśaiva lineage, though in certain temples they are not. These men of God must be fully knowledgeable of the metaphysical and ontological tenets of the religion and learn hundreds of mantras and chants required in the ritual worship. When fully trained, they are duly ordained as Śivāchāryas to perform parārtha pūjā in a consecrated Śiva temple. Generally, pujārīs do not attend to the personal problems of devotees. They are God’s servants, tending His temple home and its related duties, never standing between the devotee and God. Officiating priests are almost always married men, while their assistants may be brahmachārīs or widowers. The Āgamas explain, “Only a well-qualified priest may perform both ātmārtha pūjā, worship for one’s self, and parārtha pūjā, worship for others. Such an Ādiśaiva is a Śaiva brāhmin and a teacher.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 109 – Living with Śiva

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

Merging into The Self God

When one looks at the Earth and the Sun, one thinks more of the Earth than of the Sun, which is so far away. Traveling through space toward the Sun, the Earth fades into a distant speck and one contemplates the Sun as it looms larger and larger as he draws nearer and nearer. There is no intellect here, you see, for the intellect is connected to the Earth in its exterior ramifications of worldliness. The devotee’s path is to merge into the Sun. The devotee’s path is to merge—in the totality of his awareness, willpower and life force—into the Self, God, Śiva. Śiva is the ancient name of the Self, God. Mystically, Śi is the Absolute state. Va is the All-Pervading Self flowing through the mind. It is only when the devotee, through yoga disciplines under the direction of his satguru, traverses the thought strata of his mind that he begins to experience what he has been learning philosophically. Then the Sun, his Śiva, the Self God, blooms paramount before his vision. Earthiness, worldliness, humanness, instinctiveness fade into a speck within his memory patterns; and like the astronaut hurtling through space toward the Sun, awe-struck as to the impending annihilation of the remnants of his identity, the devotee piercing his inner depths awes at the magnificence of Śiva.

This then brings willpower into its crowned usage. The transmuted force of the divine will of the devotee compellingly guides the last remnants of intellect and passions, and in total surrender, when confronted to respond, he voices, “I know not. Śiva’s will be done.” The will of Śiva—the totality of all force that is active, quiescent force and nonforce as found in Śi and Va—begins to take over the dharma and the karma and floods through the being of the devotee on the threshold of Reality. And so, while in a dual state of assuming some personal identity, he states, “Śiva’s will be done,” as his new and most refined sādhana of giving up the last of personal worldliness to the perfect timing of the infinite conglomerate of force and nonforce within him. This he says as a mantra unto himself when he sees and hears in the external world. But when eyes and ears are closed, through the transmuted power of his will he merges into the samādhi of Va and Śi and Śi and Va, experiencing Reality as himself and himself as Reality.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 109: THE BRAHMACHĀRĪ PATH
Śiva’s men devotees choosing not to marry may take up celibate life, keeping simple vows and wearing white. To be a swāmī candidate, they must begin an 8-to-12-year period of monastic training before the age of 25. Aum.

Lesson 109 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Meditative Perspective

Someone asked, “What happens in a person’s daily life when he first starts to meditate?” Many things can and do happen to you when you first start to meditate. For instance, your friends may think that you’re withdrawing from them. They’ll say you’re afraid of the world so you’re trying to get away from it all by meditating. Other people will quickly congratulate you and say, “You’re finally on the path. We’ve waited a long time for you to find the path.” Then you’re taken into a certain social group who are also on the path, who have long since stopped meditating but do appreciate it when you do! They will talk to you so much about the path, they will finally get you to stop meditating, too. All sorts of things will happen to you.

The best thing to do when you begin meditation is to live in a good environment, among good people. Meditate alone and don’t talk about it to anyone except the person who is helping you on the path. Do it inconspicuously, privately. It’s an inner process, so it should be performed alone. Then only inner things will happen to you, and your outer life will become better and better and better. You’ll get into a blissful flow with life—a perfect timing in your outer life. You will find yourself standing in the right place at the right time, every day. You will be in the energy flow with life, guided by your intuition. All the wonderful things that you should be experiencing on this planet will begin to come to you.

By changing yourself, you don’t necessarily outwardly alter world events. But you do find where the world is and that it is functioning just as it should be, in a perfect balance of adjusting forces. From his position at the pinnacle of consciousness, my guru, Yogaswami, saw the harmony of life. From the top of the mountain looking down, you see the natural role of a raging ocean and the steep cliffs below—they are beautiful. From the bottom of the mountain, the ocean can appear ominous and the cliffs treacherous. Yogaswami looked at the universe from the inside out and saw that there is not one thing out of place or wrong. You can gain that perspective through meditation, which releases the human concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, easy and difficult. This is the perspective you find on the inside of yourself.

Man is in a perfect state of being right now. The great sages and ṛishis found this truth. They were not more perfect than their contemporaries, just more aware. You are perfect this very moment. You are all that you will ever be. If you don’t see it that way, then you live in a difficult state of affairs, striving toward perfection and being imperfect along the way.

Awareness of perfection is attained by sitting down and arriving at the state of expanded cosmic consciousness inside yourself. It’s there, only to be discovered. You can do that in nine minutes, nine hours, nine days or nine years. Take as long as you like. The fact remains that deep inside you is perfection. So, you see, you have a choice. You can remain in the valley, live in fear of the stormy ocean of life and death, or you can scale the nearby mountain and see from the top how it is from that perspective. Either way, you and everyone in the world are all right in the now.

Lesson 108 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of Image Worship?

ŚLOKA 108
We worship God Śiva and the Gods who by their infinite powers spiritually hover over and indwell the image, or mūrti, which we revere as their temporary body. We commune with them through the ritual act of pūjā. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The stone or metal Deity images are not mere symbols of the Gods; they are the form through which their love, power and blessings flood forth into this world. We may liken this mystery to our ability to communicate with others through the telephone. We do not talk to the telephone; rather we use a telephone as a means of communication with another person who is perhaps thousands of miles away. Without the telephone, we could not converse across such distances; and without the sanctified mūrti in the temple or shrine we cannot easily commune with the Deity. His vibration and presence can be felt in the image, and He can use the image as a temporary physical-plane body or channel. As we progress in our worship, we begin to adore the image as the Deity’s physical body, for we know that He is actually present and conscious in it during pūjā, aware of our thoughts and feelings and even sensing the pujārī’s gentle touch on the metal or stone. The Vedas exclaim, “Come down to us, Rudra, who art in the high mountains. Come and let the light of thy face, free from fear and evil, shine upon us. Come to us with thy love.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 108 – Living with Śiva

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

Harnessing Willpower

In the beginning stages on the path, you will surely experience your mind wandering. This is what “the mind wandering” means, that awareness is totally identified with everything that it is aware of. This gives us the sense, the feeling, that we are the mind, or that we are the emotions or the body. And so, when you are sitting for meditation, myriad thoughts bounce through the brain, and it becomes difficult to even concentrate upon what is supposed to be meditated upon—in some cases, even to remember what it was. That is why the sādhana of the practices of yoga given in Merging with Śiva must be mastered to some extent in order to gain enough control over the willpower and subtle sense organs to cause the meditation to become introverted rather than extroverted.

The grace of the guru can cause this to happen, because he stabilizes the willpower, the awareness, within his disciple, as a harmonious father and mother stabilize the home for their offspring. If one has no guru, or has one and is only a part-time disciple whose guru is a picture on the wall, then he must struggle in his efforts as an orphan in the institution of external life. I feel some of the basic tools to struggle along with are clearly explained in this book, and every effort made toward the Divinity of oneself only serves to bring forth blessings, which may not immediately be seen, but will manifest in years to come.

It is the regular practice of sādhana that really counts, for the habit patterns of the subconscious mind must be gently guided into new channels of expression. It is only when this begins to occur that some results will be visibly seen.

Willpower is first identified through the processes of self-control when the devotee finds himself impelled by instinctive impulses into directions that he has long since passed through and experienced. Thus, self-control, of the appetite, the fantasies, the reactions, is diligently sought for through performance of his sādhana—chanting on the beads, performing regulated religious routine and ritual during the day and various other more personal disciplines given to him by his satguru. It is not without great effort that this control of the little “self” is attained.

The next challenge then is the use of the willpower to control the intellect. A precisely controlled intellect pierces deeply beyond the veil of words into the threshold of spiritual experience. The noble devotee uses his willpower to discriminate philosophically as to the nature of his quest. It is the elimination of words and thoughts, which are the intellect, that is his goal. He already has a great deal of self-discipline through having conquered, somewhat, the emotions and passionate instincts of his past. Now comes the more advanced practice of prāṇāyāma, the control of breath and inner direction of prāṇa in transmutation toward the highest goal, of realization of the Self, that he hopes one day to attain.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 108: THE BRAHMACHĀRIṆĪ PATH
Śiva’s women devotees electing not to marry may live the brahmachāriṇī’s celibate life, keeping simple vows and always wearing white. By this the world knows they are unavailable, having chosen the path of devotion. Aum.

Lesson 108 – Merging with Śiva

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

Realization Is the Key

What does it mean to “get centered” and to “be centered”? Actually, what it means is to feel the primal source within, to feel so centered that you are the center. And we always are something of what we feel, our hands or our legs or our bodies or our emotions or our desires. Most people on the path have the desire to get rid of their desires. It’s an impossible battle. Have you ever tried to get rid of your desires? If you would stop trying to get rid of your desires, then you would be centered, because you then take the energy out of desire. You take awareness away from that world of desire, and you get right in the primal source of the energy which flows through the physical body. It flows through the emotional network, right through the intellectual mind. That primal source of energy is flowing through the spine in each and every one of us this very moment. Feel it?

The entire spiritual unfoldment process, oddly enough, is designed to throw you off center so that you have to work to pull yourself on center. First life throws you off center. You have all kinds of experiences. You make mistakes and, with your indomitable will, have to control that fluctuating awareness to get it right on center and be all right, right now. Feel that powerful energy flowing through every nerve current and be that energy rather than the fluctuating nerve current. Then, one day, when you really get good at it, you find a guru. You are firmly on center, and he tries to throw you off.

My guru, Yogaswami, would always throw his disciples off center and set them spinning. They had to work hard with themselves to get on center again. That strengthens the sinews and the muscles of man’s becoming himself, becoming totally aware that he is aware and then controlling his mind by not allowing his awareness to get caught up in the vast illusion of the externalities of the mind. How’s that? That’s a good one—the vast illusion of the externalities of the mind!

What is this center? Well, it’s like the inside of an empty glass. You know something is there, and when you’re aware of it, you know that you’re aware inside that empty glass. However, when you’re aware of the glass itself, that’s something else. When you’re aware of the outside of the glass, that’s something else again. When you’re aware of the table the glass is sitting on, again that’s something else. Now imagine you are like the glass. Become aware of the space inside. That is the tangible intangible you have to grasp.

The best way to work this is a very simple way. Let’s try it now. Just open and close your hands and feel the muscles and the bones. Now feel an intangible something, an intangible energy, which is that life force, and soon you will feel a force within that. That is your force of awareness that gives the command to the life forces, to the muscles and sinews which open and close your hand. So, be that intangible force rather than the hand. Be the commander who commands the muscles to relax and tense, to open and close. It’s an intangible reality. This you realize. You don’t think about it. Your intellect cannot give it to you. Your instinct and emotions cannot give it to you. It’s something you have to realize. When you grasp it, you start to unfold and awaken spiritually. It comes from the deeper chakras, the higher chakras. And it’s very easy. You either have grasped it or you haven’t grasped it. So, work with that and grasp that. Then the unfoldment process begins. Finally you begin to see light within the head, light within the body. You begin to have beautiful, beautiful inner experiences. Everybody these days wants to have profound inner experiences without the use of drugs, or without the use of anything but their own positive willpower. That’s the goal of the unfoldment of the people of all nations today, according to my own poll. And it is the right and mature goal.

Lesson 107 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Special Rite Called Archana?

ŚLOKA 107
Archana is an abbreviated form of temple pūjā in which the name, birth star and spiritual lineage of a devotee are intoned to the God by the priest to invoke special, individual, family or group blessings and assistance. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
If we wish to receive the Deity’s blessing for something special that is happening in our life, we may request an archana. This is arranged and paid for within the temple itself. We give a basket or tray to the priest, or pujārī, upon which have been placed certain articles to be offered to the Deity: usually a flower garland, bananas and a coconut (carefully washed and not even breathed upon), holy ash, incense, camphor, rosewater and a contribution for the pujārī. The pujārī asks for our name, which we tell him aloud, and our nakshatra, or birth star. Then he asks for our gotra—the name of the ṛishi with which our family is associated. He then intones these, our credentials, before the Deity along with a Sanskrit verse. A brief pūjā, in which the 108 names of the God are chanted, is then performed specifically on our behalf and special blessings received. At the end, the pujārī will return most of the offerings as prasāda. The Vedas implore, “By your favors granted enable us, O Lord, once again to leap over the pitfalls that face us. Be a high tower, powerful and broad, for both us and our children. To our people bring well-being and peace.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.