Lesson 333 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is Lord Gaṇeśa’s Special Duty?

ŚLOKA 23
As Lord of Obstacles, Gaṇeśa wields the noose and the goad, icons of His benevolent power of preventing or permitting events to happen in our life. Thus, we invoke His grace and wisdom before any worship or task. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Lord Gaṇeśa, the God of time and memory, strategic­ally seated on the mūlādhāra chakra, poised between the high­er and lower chakras, stabilizes all sentient beings. He holds the architect’s plans of the divine masterpiece of universal past and future. Only good comes from Lord Ga­ṇeśa, who by taking the form of an elephant distinguishes Himself from other Gods. The charyā pāda be­gins with His worship. He staves off misfortune for those who perform penance in His name. He guides our karma from with­in us through the timing of events. Before any im­por­­tant un­dertaking, we supplicate Him to clear ob­sta­cles from the path, if it be His will. This Lord of Ob­stacles prevents us from hurting ourselves through living under an in­complete concept or making a request un­needed or be­ginning an endeavor not well thought out. Before we petition Him, He ex­pects us to use all of our faculties to arrive at the decision He would have made. The Āgamas declare, “These Lords who, it is said, on the pure path, attend to the various duties deriving from a higher realm of māyā are at the prow of the ef­fects of the higher realm of māyā.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 333 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Disciplined Leadership

Monastics are the religious leaders of Hinduism. Continuing this noble renunciate monastic tradition is essential for the perpetuation of the faith. Therefore, when a young boy expresses the desire to become a monk, parents should never discourage that inclination, but strongly encourage it in all ways. It is a great blessing for the family to have a son become a sannyāsin. Each father should guide his sons who express an inclination toward monastic life into learning more of sannyāsa by teaching them of the lives of great yogīs and swāmīs, encouraging them in the arts of meditation, haṭha yoga and personal purity, having them read and study the Vedas, and bringing them to receive the darśana and advice of the satguru and swāmīs whenever possible. They regard any son destined for the monastery not as their own child, but as the satguru’s spiritual progeny in their trusted care. They work closely with the satguru in guiding his training so as to cultivate skills and character traits that will enhance his future as a monastic. Many devout families seek to birth a son for the monastery. Prior to conception, they mix with the swāmīs and pray to the Gods to bring through a soul destined to perpetuate the holy lineage.

Once a brahmachārī has entered the monastery under vows, he is a very special person living a very special life. He should be treated by everyone, including his own family, as a holy person. He now stands apart from family and former friends. Parents when visiting respect his chosen path and keep family problems from his knowledge. They exclude him from news of marriages, divorces, illness, deaths and other householder events. They should show great interest in what he is learning and speak of high philosophical matters.

A life of discipline is not an easy life, but it is a joyous one, with many soul-satisfying rewards. Monastics follow their rigorous twenty-four-hour protocol even in their dreams. Those who are born to perform this service are to be respected and not distracted by family pulls or the desires of former friends. They should be tested, yes, in their beginning years, to be assured that their commitment is firm, their energies secure and their loyalties well understood. Traditionally, at this time family and friends play an important role by bringing temptations to them and valid reasons why they should renounce renunciation. But when their robes turn to yellow or when in white the rudrāksha beads are worn, their path is clear and a new protocol on both sides must be firmly kept. All relationships have now changed.

The power of brahmacharya makes the monks very magnetic, and the temples they serve in powerful. Monastics are therefore careful to keep their distance and not become involved with devotees who attend the temples. In turn, the cultured devotees keep a respectful distance from the monks—physically, emotionally and psychically, not even thinking of them, let alone psychically pulling on them, even in their dreams. Nothing should happen to distract a monk from his chosen path. This code of nonintervention is even more strict for the monk’s parents, who share in his renunciation of worldly life for the life of selfless service to the Sanātana Dharma.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 333: SUPPORTING HINDU PRIESTS AND PANDITS
Śiva’s monastics honor and support the good causes of Hindu lay ministers, priests and pandits of all lineages to create a dynamic solidarity in diversity to carry Sanātana Dharma to each succeeding generation. Aum.

Lesson 333 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Maturation Of the Soul

There is nothing separate from Lord Śiva, who pervades all. The seeming separateness is the forgetting, lack of awareness or inability to be aware at all. Thus, all souls—Gods and men—are inseparable, tied into, a direct extension of Śiva, immanently close. The fearful distance is the state of the soul in the kevala or sakala avasthās, not in the śuddha avasthā, in which the enjoyment of the bliss of the oneness is felt. But the oneness is no less there in the kevala state. Souls, young and old, are directly connected to Lord Śiva—closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet. He is the eye within the eyes of the beholder of His form, in souls young and old. Therefore, sight is the first experience of darshan.

You become everything when you merge in Śiva, but you are no longer you. The final destiny of the soul is to fully mature its soul body, at which time it would be identical to Śiva. This process leads the soul through three states or avasthās: kevala, sakala and śuddha. Once having been spawned, the soul exists in a quiescent condition, not being aware of itself. This is the kevala state. Eventually it hits matter, magnetizes matter around its first etheric body. This etheric body slowly develops into a mental, then emotional and astral body, and finally a physical body. This begins the sakala state—soul being aware of the mental plane, astral plane and finally the physical world. It is in the latter stages of the sakala state that religion begins, when the soul has completed enough of this process to realize its individual identity, apart from the mental matter, the emotional or astral matter and the physical matter. All through this process, the all-pervading Śiva nurtures the soul into its maturity on the onward march of its evolution. Lord Śiva does not create a soul, then, unattached from it, wait for it to return on its own volition. Rather, He creates the soul and energizes it through its entire evolution until, at the end of the śuddha avasthā, the final merger occurs, viśvagrāsa, absorption, by His grace.

All souls, Mahādevas, devas, people—and in all states, śuddha, sakala, kevala—have exactly the same relationship with Śiva. None is more favored, more dear or cared for than another. In the śuddha avasthā, the mental body is purified in the soul’s maturity and thus reflects its nature, Śiva’s nature, more than in the kevala or sakala state. Therefore, those older souls are doing the same work as the Lord naturally does. This is the loving caring for other souls. This is the innate nature of the soul and the absolute nature of Śiva. As the light cannot detach itself from its rays, Lord Śiva cannot withdraw Himself from His creations.

Lesson 332 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of Lord Gaṇeśa?

ŚLOKA 22
Lord Gaṇeśa is the elephant-faced Patron of Art and Science, the Lord of Obstacles and Guardian of Dharma. His will prevails as the force of righteousness, the embodiment of Śiva’s karmic law in all three worlds. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Lord Śiva, the Almighty Power, created Heaven and Earth and the God Lord Gaṇeśa to oversee the in­tricate karmas and dharmas within the heavens and all the earths. Lord Gaṇeśa was created as a governor and interplanetary, intergalactic Lord. His knowledge is infinite, His judgment is just. It is none other than Lord Gaṇeśa and His mighty band of gaṇas who gently help souls out of the Naraka abyss and adjust them into high­er consciousness after due penance has been paid, guiding them on the right path toward dhar­mic destiny. He is intricate of mind, loving pomp, de­lighting in all things sweet and enjoying adulation. Lord Śiva proclaimed that this son be worship­ed first, even before Himself. Verily, He is the Lord of Karma. All Ma­hā­devas, minor Gods, devas and sentient beings must wor­ship Gaṇeśa before any res­ponsible act could hope to be successful. Those who do not are subject to their own barriers. Yea, worship of Him sets the pattern of one’s destiny. The Tirumantiram says, “Five-armed is He, elephant-faced with tusks pro­truding, crescent-shaped, son of Śiva, wisdom’s flow­er, in heart enshrined, His feet I praise.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 332 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

An Order of Renunciates

Sannyāsa is the life, way and traditions of those who have irrevocably renounced duties and obligations of the householder path, including personal property, wealth, ambitions, social position and family ties, in favor of the full-time monastic quest for divine awakening, Self Realization and spiritual upliftment of humanity. Traditionally, and in our order, this dharma is available to men under age twenty-five who meet certain strict qualifications. Some orders are more lenient and accept men into sannyāsa after age twenty-five. The rules pertaining to homeless anchorites are, for obvious reasons, more lenient. Other orders will accept widowers, and a few initiate women, though Hindu custom prefers that women who wish to follow the monastic path take simple vows of brahmacharya and not take sannyāsa.

Women in today’s liberal Hindu orders who do take sannyāsa should wear white. Women donning orange robes is a new, very new, fashion. My perception over the past decades is that this generally does not work out well in the long run. Those women of history who have been recognized and honored as celibate seekers, as great souls, even as gurus, have worn the color white. This was then and is still the order of the day and will be far into the future for many very good esoteric reasons.

The householder naturally comes into the sannyāsa āśrama, stage of withdrawal, at age seventy-two, having lived through life’s three prior stages: student (brahmacharya), householder (gṛihastha) and elder advisor (vāṇaprastha). This fourth stage is a time of turning inward, devoting oneself more fully to worship, introspection, scriptural study and meditation. This step for householder men and women may be ritually acknowledged in a home blessing but is not in any way construed as sannyāsa dīkshā, which is a monastic initiation. While traditions vary, after commencing the fourth stage of life, the elder husband and wife, now as brother and sister, turn more fully to religious pursuits while continuing their associations with the family, though they may seek accommodations that offer more privacy for their meditations and worship.

An elder man whose wife has passed on and whose children are grown may upon reaching age seventy-two take up the mendicant life fully and then diligently pursue his spiritual sādhana in a state of genuine renunciation and not in the midst of his relatives. This is expressed in sūtra 210: “Śiva’s unmarried men and widowers may renounce the world after age seventy-two, severing all ties with their community and living as unordained, self-declared sannyāsins among the holy monks of India.” Sannyāsins who were formerly married are not generally afforded the same respect as sannyāsins who never entered the family dharma.

Though it is sometimes done, it must be noted that it is against dharma for a householder to abandon his wife and children on the pretext of renouncing the world. Becoming a self-declared sannyāsin after age seventy-two is also not traditional, for one who has been divorced and whose former spouse is still living. Marriage is a lifetime commitment, and once taken cannot be rescinded.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 332: REMAINING APART FROM THE UNQUALIFIED
Śiva’s monastics restrain their support for sannyāsins in saffron robes who are married, who have personal income, live with birth family, deny or dilute Hinduism, have left their guru or are known philanderers. Aum.

Lesson 332 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Realization And Evolution

The soul merged out of Śiva as the Self in His timeless, causeless, spaceless, unmanifest state and from Śiva as the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer in His manifest state of all form. The core of the merger between these two states, or the apex, causes a cell which breaks loose another cell, thus spawning souls. Each time the Being of Śiva goes from His manifest to His unmanifest state, it spawns a soul.

Where the Śakti unites with the unmanifest and Śiva unites with the manifest, this natural process, which continues even into the sahasrāra of man, is the core from whence creation comes.

Each God has a vehicle through which he is represented—Gaṇeśa the mouse, Murugan the peacock, and Śiva rides in man. The origin of man—being spawned from Śiva, the birthless, deathless God—therefore, is as a pure, taintless soul. After thus being spawned, the soul goes through a maturing process. This slow growth is in three basic categories: karma exercises, āṇava clouds, māyā distorts. This classroom of these experiences finally matures an intelligence free enough from the bondage of the classroom of āṇava, karma and māyā to realize its own Divinity and at-one-ment with Śiva as a taintless, pure soul. This, then, is the foundation, after once attained, for final liberation, Self Realization, to be sought for.

When the soul is spawned, it is a release of energy. This energy, once released, accumulates more energy around it from the manifest world, which is also Śiva. The impact of the spawning is so strong that finally a body is created around this tiny cell, which looks exactly like the Primal Soul body of the God that spawned the soul into being. The word soul in itself, meaning core, refers to this cell. The body of the soul, the actinic causal body, as it becomes denser, moves into another plane of manifest being and begins on its own to create, preserve and destroy, for it now is form, taking on the same nature, which is its nature, of Śiva in manifest form. The only difference now between this soul and Śiva is that Śiva can be in unmanifest state, but the soul is caught in the activity, the so-called bondage, of the manifest state. It has not yet completed the cycle. Once this soul has completed the cycle of the manifest state, then quite naturally it merges back into itself and realizes, or is, the unmanifest state.

After realization of the Self, to attain actual liberation from rebirth requires the willful and deliberate act of the adept at the point of death to direct the course. If he feels and knows that he has yet to perform actions of service on this planet, once the physical body has been parted from, he will find himself on an inner plane in which he can prepare to return at the proper place and proper time to fulfill his desire. However, should he have felt well satisfied with his many lives, as they play before his vision during his transition from his physical body, now ready to go on in this liberated state, he would find himself on an inner plane whence it would be impossible to reenter flesh. Thus, moksha, kaivalya, liberation from earthly birth, has been attained, and the way is open to further evolution on the subtle planes.

Embodied souls have attributes that are constantly refining themselves as they traverse the instinctive nature toward the Divine. These qualities are becoming more and more like Lord Śiva’s. His personality, attributes and qualities are described by the 1,008 names given to Him, for no single name is adequate to depict His attributes. Similarly, a person could not be adequately explained by one word. Now you can see the similarity between Lord Śiva and His offspring.

Lesson 331 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Do Other Gods Exist Apart from Śiva?

ŚLOKA 21
Supreme God Śiva has created all the Gods and given them distinct existence and powers, and yet He pervades them wholly. They are separate but inseparable. At the deepest level, nothing exists apart from Him. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
God Śiva is the Su­preme Being, the Lord of lords. He alone prevails everywhere. Not an atom moves except by His will. Gaṇeśa, Kārttikeya, Indra, Agni and all the 330 million Gods of Hinduism are beings just as we are, created by Lord Śiva and destined to en­joy un­ion with Him. The Gods are souls of high evolution. They are very old and mature souls, mighty beings who live in the Śivaloka. Though neither male nor fe­male, they may be popularly de­picted as Gods and Goddesses. The devas are be­nevolent beings of light abiding in the higher Antar­loka. They help guide evolution from their world between births. The asuras are demonic be­ings of darkness, im­mature souls who temporarily in­habit Na­raka, the lower Antarloka. Devas and asuras are usually subject to rebirth. We worship Śiva and the Gods. We neither worship the devas nor invoke the asuras. Kārtti­keya, Gaṇeśa and all the Gods, devas and asuras worship Śiva. The Vedas explain, “From Him, also, are born the Gods, in manifold ways, the celestials, men, cattle, birds, the in-breath and the out-breath, rice and barley, austerity, faith, truth, chastity and the law.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 331 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Mission Of the Mission

A legacy of devas from the entire paramparā accompanies our monastic order, providing silent, unseen inner guidance and protection for old and young alike. As long as at least one person within the entire group of maṭhavāsis is going into and coming out of Paraśiva once a day, the doorway to the Third World remains open to the hereditary entourage of devonic forces that has been building up for over two thousand years. This is because the brahmarandhra, the door of Brahm at the top of the head, remains open when Paraśiva is daily experienced within a maṭhavāsi community. It could be within the oldest monk or within the youngest. This great realization occurring time and time again within someone day after day keeps the door of Brahm open for the entire prāṇa chakravāla of monastics, keeping vibrantly strong the inner, actinic connection with all gurus of our paramparā, as well as with other sādhus, ṛishis and saints who have reached these same attainments, and with the sapta ṛishis themselves who guide our order from deep within the inner lokas.

My Śaiva swāmīs, or Nātha swāmīs, are distinguished by their orange robes, gold Nātha earrings and three strands of rudrāksha beads. They are the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, known as the Saiva Swami Sangam when they gather in ecclesiastical conclave. The saṅgam does not follow the protocol of unanimous decision. Rather, it works in intuitive one-mindedness to carry out instructions from the Kailāsa Pīṭham, our spiritual seat of authority, to better the Śaivite mission and the individuals dedicated to its success.

These sannyāsins are not looked upon as individuals so much as an integrated council, assembled and working in unison to perform a holy work as Sivanadiyars, servants of God Śiva. Guided by the satguru, the Saiva Swami Sangam forms the ecclesiastical body of our Hindu Church which works in a humble way to protect the purity of the faith among all Hindu sects, through inspiring publications and other means of encouragement. Specifically, our order’s mission is to protect, preserve and promote the Śaivite Hindu religion as embodied in the Tamil culture, traditions and scriptures of South India and Sri Lanka.

Our monastic order follows the cenobitic pattern in which monastics live in community and work together toward common objectives. Sannyāsins of this order are not wandering sādhus or silent contemplatives, known as anchorites, rather they are members of a brotherhood working closely and industriously with their satguru and with their brother monastics. At the time of sannyāsa dīkshā, each has accepted the mission of the Kailāsa Paramparā as his own: to protect and perpetuate Śaivism; to serve Hindus the world over; to provide, teach and disseminate scripture, religious literature and practical instruction; to promote temple construction and to exemplify the dignity and enlightenment of our Nandinātha Sampradāya. Living under lifetime vows of renunciation, humility, purity, confidence and obedience, these sannyāsins are bound to fulfill their unique role in the Śaiva culture of religious exemplars and staunch defenders of the faith. Their ideal is to balance outward service (Sivathondu) and inward contemplation-realization (Śivajñāna) for a rich, fulfilling and useful life.

There are two other groups of monks within our monasteries: the yellow-robed yogī tapasvins and the white-robed sādhakas, living under renewable two-year vows of humility, purity, confidence and obedience.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 331: ENCOURAGING OTHER QUALIFIED MONASTICS
Śiva’s monastics support sādhus, yogīs, swāmīs and gurus of other orders, male or female, even if their beliefs differ, as long as they promote the Vedas, the Hindu religion and the renunciate ideals of monasticism. Aum.

Lesson 331 – Merging with Śiva 

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

How the One Becomes Many

The Self is timeless, causeless and formless. Therefore, being That, it has no relation whatsoever to time, space and form. Form is in a constant state of creation, preservation and destruction within space, thus creating consciousness called time, and has no relationship to timelessness, causelessness or formlessness. The individual soul, when mature, can make the leap from the consciousness of space-time-causation into the timeless, causeless, formless Self. This is the ultimate maturing of the soul on this planet.

Form in its cycle of creation, preservation and destruction is always in one form or another, a manifest state or a gaseous state, but is only seeming to one who has realized the Self. Śiva in His manifest state is all form, in all form and permeating through all form, and hence all creation, preservation and destruction of form is Śiva. This is the dance, the movement of form. No form is permanent. Śiva in His unmanifest form is timeless, causeless, spaceless—hence called the Self God. Hence, Śiva has always existed, was never created, as both His manifest and unmanifest states have always existed. This is the divine dance and the mystery revealed to those who have realized the Self.

As I explained to a group of devotees in 1959, “The Self: you can’t explain it. You can sense its existence through the refined state of your senses, but you can’t explain it. To know it, you have to experience it. And the best you can say about it is that it is the depth of your Being. It’s the very core of you. It is you.

“If you visualize above you nothing; below you nothing; to the right of you nothing; to the left of you nothing; in front of you nothing; in back of you nothing; and dissolve yourself into that nothingness, that would be the best way you could explain the realization of the Self. And yet that nothingness would not be the absence of something, like the nothingness inside an empty box, which would be like a void. That nothingness is the fullness of everything: the power, the sustaining power, of the existence of what appears to be everything.

“But after you realize the Self, you see the mind for what it is—a self-created principle. That’s the mind ever creating itself. The mind is form ever creating form, preserving form, creating new forms and destroying old forms. That is the mind, the illusion, the great unreality, the part of you that in your thinking mind you dare to think is real. What gives the mind that power? Does the mind have power if it is unreal? What difference whether it has power or hasn’t power, or the very words that I am saying when the Self exists because of itself? You could live in the dream and become disturbed by it. Or you can seek and desire with a burning desire to cognize reality and be blissful because of it. Man’s destiny leads him back to himself. Man’s destiny leads him into the cognition of his own Being; leads him further into the realization of his True Being. They say you must step onto the spiritual path to realize the Self. You only step on the spiritual path when you and you alone are ready, when what appears real to you loses its appearance of reality. Then and only then are you able to detach yourself enough to seek to find a new and permanent reality.”

Lesson 330 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Are God Śiva’s Traditional Forms?

ŚLOKA 20
Our adoration of the one great God Śiva is directed toward diverse images and icons. Primary among them are Śivaliṅga, Naṭarāja, Ardhanārīśvara, Dakshiṇāmūrti, Hari-Hara, Bhairava and the triśūla. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Every form is a form of Śiva. Tradition has given us several of special sacredness. The Śivaliṅga was the first image of Di­vin­ity. After it all other icons evolved from mystic vis­ions. We con­­template God Śiva as Paraśiva when we worship the Śiva­liṅg­a. Its simple elliptical shape speaks si­lently of God’s un­­speakable Absolute Be­ing. We exalt Śiva as Parāśakti or Sat­chid­­ānanda, God’s living omni­presence, when we wor­­ship any form of His never-separate Śakti, especially Ardhanārīśvara, whose right half is mas­cu­line and left half is feminine, and in whom all opposites are reconciled. We adore Him as Par­am­eś­vara, the Primal Soul, when we worship Naṭa­rā­ja, the Divine Danc­er who animates the universe. Thus we worship Śiva’s three perfections in three forms, yet knowing that He is a one Being, fully present in each of them. He is also Dak­shi­ṇā­­mūr­ti, the silent teacher; Hari-Hara—half-Śiva, half-Vish­ṇu—and Bhai­­rava, the fierce wield­­er of tri­śūla, the trident of love, wis­dom and ac­tion. The Tirumantiram declares, “Everywhere is the Holy Form. Everywhere is Śiva-Śakti. Everywhere is Chid­­am­ba­r­am. Everywhere is Divine Dance.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.