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

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
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.

Lesson 114 – Living with Śiva

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

Are You Ready?

When you control your emotions, you are bringing through your spiritual being. It is only your spiritual being, your soul in action, bringing through the spirit, or bringing through God, that can control the mind. When you are living in an emotional state, you are only experiencing the mind temporarily out of control. And like anything that gains its own momentum, even if you do not control it, it will subside automatically after a period of time until it builds up again. This is all caused by subtle transgressions of natural laws of the mind, in this life and in previous lives.

There are many subtle laws. For instance, if you are planning to do something for someone and then you decide for some reason that you won’t, all of the spiritual power that you had previously brought through from your spiritual being will be coagulated and blocked by your hesitation. Then tomorrow will not be as good as today was. It will be worse.

To keep your spirit flowing, always allow yourself to be in the line of understanding. In other words, do not allow misunderstanding to arise in your mind. Should misunderstanding arise, sit down, be quiet and do not get up until you understand the problem. You might have to sit for an hour. Instinctively your animal nature will not allow you to do that, but if you use willpower and persist, tomorrow will be a perfect day. Now, this is easy to talk about, and also easy to understand, but it takes a very discerning mind, utilizing the power of discrimination, to master these laws of the mind.

Train your mind to awaken the spiritual being. This is as difficult to do as it is to train a person to dance or to swim, or to accomplish any athletic feat requiring a highly trained body. You have to always be the master, and be attentive to your goals in life.

What is your goal in this life? Is your goal to sit and wallow in the emotions? Is it to memorize a lot of things that different people have said so you can quote from them? Or is your goal in life to find first your Infinite Being within yourself? If you could only once gain just a glimmer of your true Being—the spiritual Being flowing through the mind which you always thought was you. Instead, you have things that you have to do that you haven’t done, things that you will do, and things that you will not do, things that you haven’t made up your mind to do as yet and things you thought you would like to do but decided you wouldn’t do. All of this is going on as a process within yourself, and it keeps you nicely confused.

A confused mind creates the form to which you give a name, and you become Mr. or Mrs. Somebody from Somewhere. You go along like that for years and years until all of a sudden you drop dead and give up the physical body. Then what happens? What happens to this mind that is so concerned about “What will my friends think?” All of these various concepts that make up your personality, when you lay down your physical body and die, just what happens to them? Are you ready for that experience of death? You should always be ready, especially nowadays when the opportunities are so great. Always be ready, spiritually ready.

Are you spiritually ready? Have you done your duty to your family? Have you done your duty to your temple? Have you done your duty to yourself? Or do you shirk some of your responsibilities? It’s not up to your swāmī to know all those things about you. Somebody once said, “Well, Gurudeva just knows everything about me.” What good does that do? It’s up to you to take a running total on yourself, daily, through feeling. You can’t do it through thought; you’ll get all mixed up. Are you ready to become a spirit, a spiritual being, an illumined mind, at the moment of death? Or at the moment of death are you ready to become a completely confused, congested mass of gaseous matter, which is what a confused mind looks like? These are vital religious questions that the individual must face and find the answers to.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 114: THE WRITTEN MARRIAGE COVENANT
Śiva’s followers compose a written promise to one another before marriage, defining the duties, responsibilities and expectations of their life together. At key junctures in life, they rewrite this vital agreement. Aum.

Lesson 114 – Merging with Śiva

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

Torn Between Past and Future

What is the instant? That is what we have to discover through a moment of concentration. What is the moment? We all know what the past is—many people live in the past, over and over again, and they never catch up with the present. Other people live in the future—but of course when they do, they are really only living in the past, too, and they never find the present either.

Just as an example, how many times have you gone to the temple without being fully there? Part of you was there, part of you was living in the past, part of you was trying to live in the future; and there you were, emoting over the things that happened that should never have happened, and fearful of things that might happen in the future, which probably won’t happen unless you continue being fearful of their happening until you create them!

Do you know that the ability to live right now, in the instant, is a spiritual power, reflecting the awakening of the soul and requiring a subconscious control of the mind? Your soul is never bothered with the things that disturb the rest of the mind! The mind lives in the past, and the mind tries to live in the future. But when you quiet your mind, you live in the present. You are living within your soul, or the higher state of your mind which is undisturbed by the things of time.

Also, when you live in the present, you eliminate fears, worries and doubts. Of course, you might feel a little out of place for a while, as if you weren’t anybody, if for years and years you have been accustomed to making fears, worries and doubts your cherished possessions—more important to you than anything. There are people who just wouldn’t know who they were if you took away from them their fears, worries and doubts. But if you want to be somebody, something, a state of being, you want to live in the eternal now.

There is a simple formula for attaining the eternal now. If you can remember it, you can center yourself within yourself very quickly and experience living right this instant. Imagine yourself now, worried, bothered and disturbed, and in the midst of your disturbance say to yourself, “I am all right, right now. Just this instant, I am all right.” What a shock to the disturbed part of your mind! It will not only be shocked, it will be shattered out of its disturbance when you declare the truth that you are all right in the eternal now.

Lesson 113 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Do Our Prayers Reach the Gods?

ŚLOKA 113
Through temple worship, the three worlds become open to one another, and the beings within them are able to communicate. By means of the mystical arts of pūjā, the worlds act in concert, and prayers are received. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The three worlds are connected when pūjā is performed and worship is begun. There are certain rites that can be performed to enable individuals to communicate directly with beings in the inner worlds. Prayers are given and received in many ways. Among the most intimate, personal forms of communication is the written prayer to the devas or to God. Burned in Agni’s sacred fire, it disintegrates in the physical world and quickly re-forms in the astral world. When a prayer is burned in a temple wherein this practice is consecrated, its astral image is received and read by the devas, and properly dispatched and answered, within the confines of our karmic pattern. Prayers may also be conveyed by slowly, mentally enunciating the words, visualizing them rising up the spine, through the top of the head, reaching beyond to the feet of God. The devas will not intervene unless asked. This is the inner law. The Vedas avow, “He shines forth at dawn like the sunlight, deploying the sacrifice in the manner of priests unfolding their prayerful thoughts. Agni, the God who knows well all the generations, visits the Gods as a messenger, most efficacious.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.