Lesson 134 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Are There Other Types of Sacred Texts?

ŚLOKA 134
India’s lofty philosophical texts expound diverse views in exacting dialectics. Yoga treatises unveil the mysterious path to ultimate samādhis. Intimate devotional hymns disclose the raptures of consummate Divine love. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
In addition to the epics, legends and supplements to the Vedas and Āgamas, there is a wealth of Hindu metaphysical, yogic and devotional writings. Considered foundational are the early texts defining the six philosophical darśanas: the sūtras by Kapila, Patanjali, Jaimini, Badarayana, Kanada and Gautama. Hailed as leading occult works on yoga, āsanas, nāḍīs, chakras, kuṇḍalinī and samādhi are the Yoga Sūtras, Tirumantiram, Yoga Vāsishṭha, Śiva Sūtras, Siddha Siddhānta Paddhati, Jñāneśvarī, Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā and Gheraṇḍa Saṁhitā. Widely extolled among the bhakti literature are the Bhagavad Gītā, Nārada Sūtras, Tiruvasagam, the Vachanas of the Śivaśaraṇās and the hymns of mystic poets like Surdas, Tukaram, Ramprasad, Mirabai, Andal, Vallabha, Tulasidasa, Tayumanavar, Lalla, Tagore, Auvaiyar and the saintly Nayanars and Alvars. The Bhagavad Gītā explains, “As a blazing fire reduces the wood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge reduce all activity to ashes. There is nothing on Earth which possesses such power to cleanse as wisdom. The perfect yogin finds this knowledge in himself by himself in due time.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 134 – Living with Śiva

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

Sanctity of The Home

From the point of view of the Second World, or astral plane, the home is the family temple, and the wife and mother is in charge of that spiritual environment. The husband can come into that sanctum sanctorum but should not bring the world into it. He will naturally find a refuge in the home if she is doing her duty. He will be able to regain his peace of mind there, renew himself for the next day in the stressful situations that the outside world is full of. In this technological age a man needs this refuge. He needs that inner balance in his life. When he comes home, she greets him at the entrance and performs a rite of purification and welcome, offering āratī to cleanse his aura. This and other customs protect the sanctity of the home. When he enters that sanctuary and she is in her soul body and the child is in its soul body, then he becomes consciously conscious in his soul body, called ānandamaya kośa in Sanskrit. He leaves the conscious mind, which is a limited, external state of mind and not a balanced state of mind. He enters the intuitive mind. He gets immediate and intuitive answers to his worldly problems.

How can he not be successful in his purusha dharma in the outside world when he has the backing of a good wife? She is naturally perceptive, naturally intuitive. She balances out his intellect, softens the impact of the forces which dash against his nervous system from morning to night. Encouragement and love naturally radiate out from her as she fulfills her strī dharma. Without these balancing elements in his life, a man becomes too externalized, too instinctive.

If a woman is working, she cannot provide this balance. She has to start thinking and acting like a man. She has to become a little tougher, create a protective shell around her emotions. Then the home loses its balance of the masculine and the feminine forces. Take for example the situation in which the wife rushes home from work fifteen minutes before the husband. She’s upset after an especially hard day at work. The children come over from Grandmother’s house or she tells the babysitter to go home. She scurries to prepare something for dinner before he comes home, then rushes to get herself looking halfway decent. Emotionally upset, she tries to calm herself, tries to relax and regain her composure. Her astral body is upset. The children’s astral bodies are upset. The husband enters this agitated environment—already upset by being in the world—and he becomes more disturbed. He was looking forward to a quiet evening. But is he going to get it? No. He begins to feel neglected, disappointed, and that leads him to become distraught, to say angry words that make everything even worse. The prāṇic forces are spinning out of control. It seems like a totally impossible situation for both of them. Furthermore, it’s not going to get better, but exceedingly worse, as the days wear on.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 134: CARING FOR ELDERS
Śiva’s followers who are householders care for their parents and close relatives all through life. The elderly especially must be comforted, honored at auspicious times and never left alone for extended periods. Aum.

Lesson 134 – Merging with Śiva

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

Lord Gaṇeśa, The Gatekeeper

Lord Gaṇeśa is the first God a Hindu comes to know. As the Lord of Categories, His first objective is to bring order into the devotee’s life, to settle him into the correct and proper flow of his dharma—the pattern of duties, responsibilities and expectations suited to the maturity of his soul. As the Lord of Obstacles, He deftly wields His noose and mace, dislodging impediments and holding avenues open until the individual is set in a good pattern, one that will fulfill his spiritual needs rather than frustrate them.

Always remember that Gaṇeśa does not move swiftly. He is the elephant God, and His gait is slow and measured. As the God of the instinctive-intellectual mind, His darshans are carried on the slower currents of mind, and so His response to our prayers is usually not overnight or sudden and electric, but more deliberate and gradual. Yet, our patience is rewarded, for His work is thorough and powerful, of matchless force, persisting until our lives and minds adjust and our prayer has become reality.

Lord Gaṇeśa is also known as the Gatekeeper. Access to all the other Gods comes through Him. It is not that He would want to keep anyone from another God, but He prepares you to meet them and makes the meeting an auspicious one. This preparation can mean lifetimes. There is no hurry. It is not a race. Gaṇeśa will faithfully bar access to those who do not merit a divine audience and an ensuing relationship with the other Deities whose darshans are faster. Should a devotee gain unearned access and invoke the powers of other Deities before all preparations were concluded, karma would accelerate beyond the individual’s control. Worship of Lord Gaṇeśa, however, may begin at any time.

Gaṇeśa is the ubiquitous God. There are more shrines, altars and temples for Lord Gaṇeśa than for any other God. Gaṇeśa bhakti is the most spontaneous worship and the simplest to perform. It requires little ritual. Just the ringing of a small bell at the outset of a project before His picture or the burning of camphor or the offering of a flower is enough to invoke His presence and protection. Throughout India and Sri Lanka, there are small, unadorned shrines to Gaṇapati under shaded trees, along country roads, at bus terminals, along footpaths and in the city streets. His blessings are indeed everywhere. Helping Gaṇeśa, whose powers of mind outreach the most advanced computers we can conceive, are His gaṇas, or devonic helpers. These ministering spirits collect the prayers of those in need, ferret out and procure the necessary information and bring it before Lord Gaṇeśa’s wisdom.

As we come closer to the wonderful Gods of Hinduism, we come to love them in a natural way, to be guided by them and to depend on them more than we depend on ourselves. The exuberant enthusiasm so prevalent in the West, of holding to an existential independence and expressing an autonomous will to wield the direction of our lives, loses its fascination as we mature within the steady radiance of these Gods and begin to realize the divine purpose of our Earthly sojourn.

One might ask how the Hindu can become so involved in the love of the Gods that he is beholden to their will? Similarly, one might ask how does anyone become so involved and in love with his mother and father, trusting their guidance and protection, that he is beholden to them? It works the same way. Where you find the Hindu family close to one another and happy, you find them close to the Gods. Where they are not close, and live in a fractured or broken home, the Gods will unfortunately have been exiled from their lives. They will not be invoked, and perhaps not even believed in.

Lesson 133 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Does Hinduism Have Epics and Myths?

ŚLOKA 133
The Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa are Hinduism’s most renowned epic histories, called Itihāsa. The Purāṇas are popular folk narratives, teaching faith, belief and ethics in mythology, allegory, legend and symbolism. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Hinduism’s poetic stories of ṛishis, Gods, heroes and demons are sung by gifted paṇḍitas and traveling bards, narrated to children and portrayed in dramas and festivals. The Mahābhārata, the world’s longest epic poem, is the legend of two ancient dynasties whose great battle of Kurukshetra is the scene of the Bhagavad Gītā, the eloquent spiritual dialog between Arjuna and Kṛishṇa. The Rāmāyaṇa relates the life of Rāma, a heroic king revered as the ideal man. The Purāṇas, like the Mahābhārata, are encyclopedic in scope, containing teachings on sādhana, philosophy, dharma, ritual, language and the arts, architecture, agriculture, magic charms and more. Of eighteen principal Purāṇas, six honor God as Śiva, six as Vishṇu and six as Brahmā. The witty Pañchatantra, eminent among the “story” literature, or kathā, portrays wisdom through animal fables and parables. The Bhagavad Gītā proclaims, “He who reads this sacred dialog of ours, by him I consider Myself worshiped through the sacrifice of knowledge. And the man who listens to it with faith and without scoffing, liberated, he shall attain to the happy realm of the righteous.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 133 – Living with Śiva

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

The Impact Of Television

Television has not helped society to raise its children. In fact, it has virtually stopped the proper education of the child in those communities where it is watched for hours each day. Instead of developing an active curiosity by adventuring for hours through a forest or climbing a tree, instead of discovering the wonders of nature and art, music, literature and conversation, instead of becoming involved in sports and hobbies, children are mentally carried along by television stories through positive and negative states of mind. They become uncreative, passive, inactive, never learning to use their own minds. Admittedly, not all television is negative. Some of it can be quite educational; but hours and hours each day of passive absorption is not good for a child’s mental and emotional development. Children need to be active, to involve themselves in a wide variety of experiences.

If the mother is there, she can intelligently guide their television, being careful that they do not get in the habit of watching it for hours on end, and watching that bold sex, casual and brute violence, raw language and other bad influences are not a daily experience. When the program is over, she can send them out to play. Or, better still, she can take a few minutes to explain how what they just saw on TV relates, or often does not relate, to real life. Of course, if she is gone, they will watch anything and everything. For the young, television is one of the most senseless pastimes there is, carrying the mind further and further away from the true Self.

I think you will all agree that our values, the values found in the holy Vedas, Tirukural and other sacred scriptures, are rarely found on television. Instead, TV, at this time in our history, gives our children a brutal, romantic and unbalanced view of life which distorts in their minds how life really is. These are very serious issues. It is the mother who protects her children from negative influences, guiding their young minds into positive channels of expression.

Take the case of a farmer who raises livestock, who milks cows and goats. He works hard. He gets up early and takes care of his animals. He cannot succeed if he is also working part-time in the grocery store downtown. Those animals need attention. There is no sensible man who would run a farm, with cows and goats and chickens, and not be there to take care of them, because those animals need a lot of help. He stays there and takes care of his business. He is a farmer and that is his duty, and he knows it.

Well, what’s more important than the child? He needs twenty-four-hour-a-day care. He is learning to walk, to speak, to learn, to think. He falls down and needs consoling. He catches the flu and needs to be nursed back to health. It is the mother’s duty to provide that care. No one else is going to do it for her. No one else can do it for her. She brought that soul into a physical body, and she must prepare that child for a positive and rewarding life.

If the farmer neglects his animals, he creates a serious karma. The animals suffer. The farm suffers. The community suffers when the farm fails, and the man himself suffers. There is a grave karma, too, for the woman who neglects her strī dharma, who goes out into the world and does not nurture the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of her children. She knows this within herself, but she may be influenced by ill-advised people, or by a mass movement that tells her that she has only one life to live and that she cannot find fulfillment in the home, but must express herself, venture out, seek her own path, her own fortune. You have all heard these ideas. I tell you that they are wrong. They spell the disillusionment of the mother who heeds them, then the disintegration of the family that is sacrificed by her absence. Finally, they result in her own unhappiness as she despairs at the loss suffered by her family and herself.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 133: THE STRENGTH OF THE EXTENDED FAMILY
Śiva’s followers know the most stable societies are based on the extended family. They often merge individuals with families and families with families in one home or complex, for economy, sharing and religiousness. Aum.

Lesson 133 – Merging with Śiva

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

How the Gods Work with Man

The Gods do not treat everyone alike. The attitude that all souls are equal and subject to equal standards of right and wrong behavior is not an Eastern understanding. Nor is it the way the Gods view the souls of men. There are younger souls and older souls, just as there are children and adults. They live worlds apart in the same world. Souls living side by side may actually be hundreds of lives apart in their spiritual maturation, one just learning what the other learned many lives ago. The Gods discern the depth of the soul, and when they are approached they see the devotee not only as he is but as he was and will be. They help the devotee in understanding within the sphere of intelligence which they command.

Often one God will primarily direct one specialized mind stratum. He will come to know the problems and nuances indigenous to that mind region. Thus, the same misdeed performed by three souls of different ages under similar circumstances is viewed as three different misdeeds by the Gods. An older soul is more aware, more able to control himself and therefore more responsible for his actions. He should have known better and finds that his transgression brings painful retribution. Another less mature soul is still learning control of the emotions that provoked his misdeed, and he is sharply scolded. Still another soul, so young that awareness has not yet fathomed the laws of karma, of action and reaction, and who remains unawakened to the emotional mastery the situation demanded, is lightly reprimanded, if at all.

The Gods in their superconscious judgment of human deeds and misdeeds are infinitely fair and discerning. Their judgments are totally unlike the notion of a God in heaven who arbitrarily saves or condemns. In Hinduism all men are destined to attain liberation. Not a single soul will suffer for eternity. Therefore, the Gods in their deliberations are not making what we would consider personal judgments. Their decrees are merely carrying out the natural law of evolution. They are always directing the soul toward the Absolute, and even their apparent punishments are not punishments, but correction and discipline that will bring the soul closer to its true nature. Now, of course, human law is not like this, especially today, but in civilizations past and in the great religious Hindu empires of India, there were such equitable courts of law, with enlightened men of justice, where sentences and punishments were meted out upon careful scrutiny of the individual, his particular dharma and the duties and expectations it bound him to uphold.

It is through the sanction of the Gods that the Hindu undertakes the practice of yoga—that orthodox and strictly Hindu science of meditation that leads to merger of the many with the one. Yoga is the culmination of years of religious and devotional service and can only be successful with the support of the Gods who are the sentries guarding the gates of the various strata of consciousness. This sanction, once obtained, can and does allow the kuṇḍalinī force within the core of the spine to safely rise and merge with the Supreme that all Hindus know is the Absolute—timeless, causeless and spaceless. But first, much work has to be done.

Lesson 132 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Texts Amplify Vedas and Āgamas?

ŚLOKA 132
Many texts support the Vedas and Āgamas. Vedāṅgas detail conduct, astrology, language and etymology. Upavedas unfold politics, health, warfare and music. Upāgamas and Paddhatis elaborate the Āgamic wisdom. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Much of Hinduism’s practical knowledge is safeguarded in venerable texts which amplify śruti. The Vedāṅgas and Upavedas are collections of texts that augment and apply the Vedas as a comprehensive system of sacred living. Jyotisha Vedāṅga delineates auspicious timing for holy rites. Kalpa Vedāṅga defines public rituals in the Śrauta and Śulba Sūtras, domestic rites in the Gṛihya Sūtras and religious law in the Dharma Śāstras. Four other Vedāṅgas ensure the purity of mantra recitation, through knowledge of phonetics, grammar, poetry and the way of words. The Upavedas expound profound sciences: Arthaveda unfolds statecraft; Āyurveda sets forth medicine and health; Dhanurveda discusses military science; Gāndharvaveda illumines music and the arts; and Sthāpatyaveda explains architecture. In addition, the Kāma Sūtras detail erotic pleasures. The Āgamas, too, have ancillary texts, such as the Upāgamas and Paddhatis, which elaborate the ancient wisdom. The Jñāneśvarī says, “The Vedas in their perfection are as the beautiful image of the God of which the flawless words are the resplendent body. The smṛitis are the limbs thereof.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 132 – Living with Śiva

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

People Caring For People

Religion begins in the home under the mother’s influence and instruction. The mother goes to the temple to get strong. That is the reason Hindus live near a temple. They go to the temple to draw strength from the śakti of the Deity, and they return to the home where they maintain a similar vibration in which to raise the next generation to be staunch and wonderfully productive citizens of the world, to bring peace on Earth, to keep peace on Earth. There is an ancient South Indian proverb which says one should not live in a city which has no temple.

If a child is screaming in its cradle, and the babysitter is yelling at him and couldn’t care less about his feelings, and the mother is out working, that child is not a candidate for keeping peace on Earth. That child is going to keep things confused, as they are today. So, it’s all in the hands of the mother; it’s not in the hands of the father. Religion and the future of society lie solely in the hands of the mother. It is in the hands of the father to allow or not to allow the mother to be under another man’s mind out in the world.

Just as World War II took women out of the home, so did another change affect mankind. When the automobile came along, people forgot about breeding, because it replaced the horse, which they cared for and learned to mate with other horses to strengthen the genetics. The automobile did one terrible thing: it made people forget how to breed and how to take care of one another. When people kept horses, horses were a part of the family. People had to care for their horses, and in the process learned to care for one another. People also had to breed their horses, and in that process learned about the value of intelligent breeding. In those days you often heard of the “well-bred” person. You don’t hear of the well-bred person anymore. Although among biologists there is much talk about heredity, ordinary people no longer consider that humans, too, are involved in the natural process of breeding. They have become forgetful of these important laws, and this has led to lack of forethought and discipline, to bodies indiscriminately procreating more bodies. Who is living in them nobody quite knows, and too many simply don’t care. That’s what we as a society forgot when the automobile replaced the horse. When you had a horse, you had to feed and water it. You had to train it, you had to harness it, curry it, stable it and breed it. In breeding, you had to choose a stud for your mare or find a suitable mare for your stallion. The qualities of both the sire and the dam were closely observed, and the resultant combination of genetics was consciously planned. It was therefore natural for people in those days to seek proper mates for their children, and the results were the vital, creative and industrious children of the children. As a civilization, we are slowly forgetting such basic things, being more and more careless about our children’s future, about their lives and their mates.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 132: THE WIFE’S DHARMA
Each of Śiva’s married women followers strives to fulfill female dharma, perpetuating the race, family and the faith through remaining in the home to nurture, guide and strengthen her dear husband and children. Aum

Lesson 132 – Merging with Śiva

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

In God’s Presence

In the beginning stages of worship, a Hindu soul may have to wrestle with disbelief in the Gods. He may wonder whether they really exist, especially if his own intuition is obscured by assimilation of Western, existentialist beliefs and attitudes. Yet, he senses their existence, and this sensing brings him back to the temple. He is looking for proof, immersed in the process of coming to know the Gods for himself. He is heartened and assured by hundreds of saints and ṛishis who have fathomed and found close and enduring relationships with the Gods, and who then extolled their greatness in pages of scripture and chronicle.

The devotee stands before the sanctum and telepathically tells the Gods a problem, and with hopeful faith leaves and waits. Days or weeks later, after he had forgotten about his prayer, he suddenly realizes the problem has disappeared. He attempts to trace the source of its solution and finds that a simple, favorable play of circumstance and events brought it about. Had the Gods answered his prayer, or would it have happened anyway? He brings another prayer to the Gods, and again in time an answer appears in the natural course of his life. It appears to him that the Gods are hearing and responding to his needs. Trust and love have taken root. He goes on, year after year, bringing the Gods into his secular affairs, while just as carefully the Gods are bringing him into their celestial spheres, enlivening his soul with energy, joy and intelligence.

The Hindu looks to the Gods for very practical assistance. He devoutly believes that the Gods from their dwelling in the Third World are capable of consciously working with the forces of evolution in the universe and they could then certainly manage a few simpler problems. He devoutly believes that the Gods are given to care for man on the planet and see him through his tenure on Earth, and that their decisions are vast in their implications. Their overview spans time itself, and yet their detailed focus upon the complicated fabric of human affairs is just as awesome.

When a devotee settles upon his Ishṭa Devatā, the one God to whom his endearment and devotion will be directed, that Deity assumes the position of his spiritual parent. Many of you are parents and know the inestimable value that correction and timely discipline serve in the raising of children into responsible, mature adults. The Gods are our spiritual parents. When a devotee is not living up to his best, betraying his own silent vows taken unto himself, his Ishṭa Devatā, or personal Deity, is present enough in his life, alive enough in his mind, to know this. The God has the ability to scan ahead in time and make a sharp and often painful adjustment or severe penalty in the life of the devotee to protect him from an even greater impending tragedy or mental abyss.

Lesson 131 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Do Smṛiti and Sacred Literature Differ?

ŚLOKA 131
Hindu sacred literature is a treasury of hymns, legend, mythology, philosophy, science and ethics. From among this vast body of writings, each lineage recognizes a select portion as its secondary scripture, called smṛiti. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
While the Vedas and Āgamas are shared as part of every Hindu’s primary scripture, śruti, each sect and lineage defines its own unique set of smṛiti. The sacred literature, puṇya śāstra, from which smṛiti is drawn consists of writings, both ancient and modern, in many languages. Especially central are the ancient Sanskritic texts, such as the Itihāsas, Purāṇas and Dharma Śāstras, which are widely termed the classical smṛiti. In reality, while many revere these as smṛiti, others regard them only as sacred literature. Smṛiti means “that which is remembered” and is known as “the tradition,” for it derives from human insight and experience and preserves the course of culture. While śruti comes from God and is eternal and universal, the ever-growing smṛiti canon is written by man. Hinduism’s sacred literature is the touchstone of theater and dance, music, song and pageantry, yoga and sādhana, metaphysics and ethics, exquisite art and hallowed sciences. The Vedas inquire, “In whom are set firm the firstborn seers, the hymns, the songs and the sacrificial formulas, in whom is established the single seer—tell me of that support—who may He be?” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.