Lesson 355 – Living with Śiva

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

Strength of Commitment

What is our strength? One Supreme God and many Gods. First we have to decide who is the Supreme God. Are you a member of the Śaivite Hindu religion? The Vaishṇavite Hindu religion? The Śākta Hindu religion? The Smārta Hindu religion? Having made that decision, you will have hope and peace of mind. You will have solace when you need it, and something to pass on to your children. Knowledge is strength. Commitment is strength. Knowing where you stand and what you are, that is strength. Worshiping many Gods is our way, but they are not all the Supreme God. They are His helpers, His creations. There is only one Supreme God, though we call Him by various names. The many Gods, the Mahādevas, will help us. They are specialists created by God.

Hinduism today is a religion of today and tomorrow. It is not just a religion of history books and yesterday. Our religion gives us strength today. It is a religion which worships one Supreme God, with vast scriptures that prescribe the worship and illumine our minds with knowledge about the one Supreme God. Never forget this. Never forsake your Vedic Hindu Dharma, but fulfill it, and you will be rewarded, generation after generation after generation.

There is a movement from within Hinduism itself which poses yet another threat to our religion, a threat to all the sects. I call it “liberal Hinduism.” Liberal Hinduism is a “Chellappa stew,” a confused mixture of many things thrown into a one bowl. This movement was started by your forefathers, and it has to be corrected by us through being good Śaivites in this life.

What does liberal Hinduism teach? It teaches that it is not necessary to go to the temple, that yoga is not necessary, that all religions are one, that we need not listen to the swāmīs, and that sectarianism is wrong. What the followers of liberal Hinduism don’t seem to realize is that if they destroy the temples, the sects and the swāmīs, they will be destroying Hinduism itself.

Liberal Hindus hold an idea that all religions are one. They must not have studied the various religions, or they would have to conclude, as we did in America after years of comparative research, that all religions are not one, not at all alike. I was told that all religions are fundamentally one when I was young, and I believed it until I found out years later that it is a lie. All religions are good insofar as they teach devotion and good conduct, but they are not one. The Christians know that their religion is totally different from Hinduism. They live under no illusions, because they know that the very foundations of Śaivism—namely, karma, reincarnation, yoga, God’s existence in all things and the soul’s ultimate merger in God—these beliefs are not their beliefs. Did you know that for a Christian to believe in any of these things is heresy? Absolute heresy. There is very little beyond a belief in a Supreme God and some good moral laws that is common to nearly all religions, but there are many, many differences.

As Śaivites, we love everyone. We appreciate and encourage all religious paths. That is our way. But that does not mean that we should abandon our beliefs and practices to embrace Islam or Buddhism. That does not mean that we should put Jesus on the altar in our shrine room, which is exactly what the liberal Hindus do. I was at a Śaivite institution the other day and was shocked to find that Jesus, Kṛishṇa and Buddha were there together on the altar in the prayer room. There was no image of Gaṇeśa or Murugan or Śiva, yet they called themselves Śaivites. I asked what it meant. They explained, “We believe in all religions, Swāmī.” They were worshiping every God except their own! That complacent syncretism is the result of faulty, liberal Hindu thinking.

The Christians don’t have Lord Gaṇeśa presiding over Sunday services. Of course not. It would be unthinkable. For Śaivites to put Jesus or Mary on the altar is an invitation to every Christian missionary to enter your home, to enter the minds of your children. It is the first sign of the breaking of your faith. That is certainly how the Christians take it. They will see you as a prime target, and they will say among themselves, “It won’t be long now.”

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 355: DEMURENESS IN CONVERSATIONS
My Śaiva monastics, in respect, stand no closer than an arm’s length during conversations. When speaking to men and women together, they direct their attention mostly to the men, as is traditional. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 355 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Does the Universe Ever End? Is It Real?

ŚLOKA 45
The universe ends at mahāpralaya, when time, form and space dissolve in God Śiva, only to be created again in the next cosmic cycle. We call it relatively real to distinguish it from the unchanging Reality. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
This universe, and indeed all of existence, is māyā, Śiva’s mir­ific energy. While God is absolutely real, His em­anated world is relatively real. Being relatively real does not mean the universe is illusory or nonexistent, but that it is im­permanent and subject to change. It is an error to say that the universe is mere illusion, for it is entirely real when ex­pe­r­ienced in or­din­ary con­sciousness, and its existence is required to lead us to God. The universe is born, evolves and dissolves in cycles much as the seasons come and go through the year. These cycles are in­­conceivably im­mense, ending in mahāpralaya when the un­i­­­verse un­dergoes dissolution. All three worlds, including time and space, dissolve in God Śiva. This is His ultimate grace—the evolution of all souls is per­fect and complete as they lose in­dividuality and re­turn to Him. Then God Śiva exists alone in His three per­fec­tions until He again issues forth creation. The Ved­as state, “Truly, God is One; there can be no second. He alone governs these worlds with His powers. He stands facing beings. He, the herdsman, after bringing forth all worlds, re­absorbs them at the end of time.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 355 – Merging with Śiva

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

An Event Worth Celebrating

The tunnel of light that is experienced by so many people at the point of death is the portal they are going through, the window, the chakra. It is a tunnel, and it has distance, because it takes time, consciousness, to go from one end to the other. Passing through the tunnel is leaving this world and going into another. You do that in meditation, too. You leave the light of the physical plane and go into the light in the inner world. Death takes place in a short period, but is a foreboding affair to those who have never meditated. But dying is not such a dramatic experience really. Every night you “die” and leave your physical body. It is very similar. Every night mystics leave their physical body, go and meet and converse with other mystics on the inner planes. That’s why they know each other when they meet on the physical plane. Samādhi, the exalted meditative state, which literally means “holding together completely,” is also a word used to describe dying. Why is that? Because deep contemplation is similar to a death experience; only the silver cord is not separated. This cord is an astral-prānic thread that connects the astral body through the navel to the physical body. It is a little like an umbilical cord. The only full separation comes when the cord is cut at mahāsamādhi, the true death of the physical body. People die all the time, but if the cord is not broken, they come back. You die all the time. The cord being broken makes for a twenty-four-hour consciousness in the inner world, as compared to a sixteen-hour consciousness in the physical world.

Many people wish that they were dead and give up on life, look at death as an escape rather than a fulfillment. These cumulative thoughts and desires can create the near-death experience. The welcoming devonic helpers of Lord Yama, the benevolent God of the death experience, don’t pay any attention, because they know the person is not going to die. The person thinks he is going to die, but they know he is not. He has just conjured it up. Just like a conjured illness.

If a person knows he is terminally ill, that knowledge is a blessing, for he can prepare. He should not hesitate to tell his relatives he is going to die, and that is a wonderful blessing for them, as they can prepare for his great departure. Now all know he has finally arrived at the end of his prārabdha karmas and is going to fly. In turn, family and friends should release him, be happy—he is going to be happy with no physical body—for they know they will be as close to him in his astral and soul body as they were in his physical body. They will visit him every night when they sleep, in the inner worlds, and learn many things from him as to how to prepare for their own great departure, be it sudden or prolonged. Don’t cry; you will make him unhappy. You should be happy for him, because he is going to be happy. It is not a sad occasion. For Hindus, death is a most exalted state, an incredible moment that you spend your whole life preparing for. Birth is the unhappy occasion. Death should be a big party. He has just gone through his day of Brahma.

The sadness at death comes from Western attitudes. Western thought has to be reversed. Here a child comes into birth. It is sad, because he was all right before he was born. Now his prārabdha karmas are going to start to explode. He has to deal with his past, which he did not have to deal with in the Devaloka. He has a chance to make new karmas. The time of birth is the grave time. When he dies, that means that section of the jyotisha is finished and he can go and have a great rest and be with intelligent people. It is great inside there and difficult out here.

When people tell me they or a loved one have cancer, AIDS or some other incurable disease, my counsel is this. Everyone dies, but it is a blessing to know when you are going to die, because then you can prepare for it, make a decision whether you are going to be reborn, do intense sādhanas, make preparations. Eastern men don’t fight terminal cancer or AIDS. They go to an astrologer or palmist, ascertain their time of death, then prepare themselves. It’s really a blessing. It’s best not to fight it or “cure it,” since you are interrupting your timing. Just let it happen. Heed the wisdom of the Vedas, “When a person comes to weakness, be it through old age or disease, he frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, a fig or a berry releases itself from its stalk.”

Hindus go to special sacred places to die, because that’s where holy people live, in that part of the astral plane. That place has access to other planets, or to the moon. A lot of people go to the moon when they die and live there. Jews who die go to Israel. That’s their holy land. You can get caught in the astral plane or some bardo mind-flow that would contain you for a long time, and then get a bad birth if you do not go to a special place to die. So, you want at least to die near a temple. A temple is connected to the three worlds. We brought India to the West with our temples and by encouraging more to be built. These days, Indian Hindus don’t mind dying in the West since all the temples are here. They love all the temples they have built, especially our Kadavul Temple, for it feels so sacred to them. All of the temples in the West are connected to other temples in Sri Lanka and India.

Lesson 354 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of the Causal Plane?

ŚLOKA 44
The causal plane, or Śivaloka, pulsates at the core of being, deep within the subtle plane. It is the superconscious world where the Gods and highly evolved souls live and can be accessed through yoga and temple worship. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The causal plane is the world of light and blessedness, the highest of heavenly regions, extolled in the scriptures of all faiths. It is the foundation of existence, the source of visions, the point of conception, the apex of cre­ation. The causal plane is the abode of Lord Śiva and His en­tourage of Ma­hā­devas and other highly evolved souls who exist in their own self-effulgent form—radiant bodies of cen­tillions of quantum light particles. Even for embodied souls, this refined realm is not distant, but exists within man. It is ever-pre­sent, ever-available as the clear white light that illumines the mind, accessed within the throat and cranial chakras—viśuddha, ājñā and sa­has­­­rāra—in the sublime practices of yoga and temple worship. It is in the causal plane that the mature soul, un­­shrouded of the physical body’s strong in­stinc­tive pulls and astral body’s harsh intellectual stranglehold, resides fully conscious in its self-effulgent form. The Śivaloka is the natural re­fuge of all souls. The Vedas intone, “Where men move at will, in the threefold sphere, in the third heaven of heavens, where are realms full of light, in that radiant world make me immortal.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 354 – Living with Śiva

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

The Demise Of Pagan Faiths

There have been civilizations that have become ashamed of and then abandoned their religion and their temples because of Christian and Communist propaganda. Where is the Greek religion today? Their temples are mere monuments. Where is the Native American religion today, with all of its mysticism? And where is the religion of the Native Hawaiian people today? They practiced a profound religion that was in many respects very similar to Hinduism. They worshiped Lord Gaṇeśa, and called Him God Lono. They worshiped Lord Subramaṇya and they called Him God Ku, who is our Kumāra. Their Goddess Pele was Pārvatī, whom they feared. Their Supreme God, our Lord Śiva, was called God Kane, represented by a single upright sacred stone, much like our liṅga.

Then, about a hundred and fifty years ago, Christians came in force to Hawaii. They set about to convert all of the “pagan” Hawaiians. They set up printing presses and schools. They convinced the queens and kings to close the temple doors, which they did. What followed is a sad history of decline and fall. The 1,500-year-old Polynesian culture dwindled and died. Intermarriage began. Today, 200 years later, the language, the culture, the religion, the worship and the race are nearly gone. Of the 500,000 Hawaiians that Captain Cook encountered in 1772, only about 500 are left today. There are virtually no pure Hawaiians anymore, all because the temple doors were closed. Such is the vulturism that the Christians, in their commercial, colonial, imperial expansion, perpetuated on the Hawaiian people. We live in Hawaii. We know all of this.

We do not want Hinduism in mainland America to suffer that fate, and so we urge all of you to protect yourselves from the forces that may try to demean and destroy our Hindu temples. By protecting the temples, we protect the religion. Proceed with confidence. With a united will, a solidarity, a Hindu front, we are a loving fortress unto ourselves.

You are all to be commended for your efforts to open the temple doors in this community. I ask each and every one of you to bring your heritage, the best you understand it, all of it, here to the United States of America. Don’t try to create a new religion here, a Neo-Indian religion. The one you have is perfectly fine, the best in the world. Those of you who have been educated in Christian schools, your minds have been turned against Hinduism at a young age by the clever teachers in the school, and thoughts have gone into the subconscious mind that are there militating against your bringing up temples and bringing the culture here, thinking it may be not quite right to do. Release those thoughts from the subconscious mind and realize that we are all in a country that grants us religious freedom through its constitution. It is our privilege and duty to claim that religious freedom, to enforce that religious freedom, to implement it and not be shy about our faith. This is not a shy country.

I visited the Hindu temple in Flint, Michigan, a few days ago. Someone had written in the sand in front of the temple, “Jesus Saves.” I inquired, “How long has that been there?” They said a few days. I asked, “Why didn’t you take your foot and rub that out? No one has the right to come on this property and write such things in front of a Hindu temple.” Everyone was too shy. We need strength, not shyness when these kinds of things happen. We rubbed it out.

How do we show that strength? We have to go to the Christian ministers in that community and tell them politely but firmly that their children are desecrating our temple and demand that this stop. We have to ask them to talk to their congregations, to explain Hinduism to their congregations and tell them that we are not putting up with this sort of nonsense and harassment. If one of the children of the Hindu community went to the Baptist church and wrote “Hare Kṛishṇa” or “Śiva Śiva” on the sand in front of the church, you would hear about it from the Baptists. They would come right over here saying, “I would like to talk to the spiritual leader of this organization about a very important subject.” Then you would have to tell your children not to antagonize the Christians or desecrate their property.

We also have to question our children as to any and all badgering by Christians in their school. This taunting in public schools violates the First Amendment of our Constitution, which guarantees the right to religious freedom. Such abuse should not be allowed in the schoolyard, in the halls, before or after class, in the cafeteria or in the bathrooms. When a child threatens another child, saying his soul will perish or burn forever in Hell, is that not a serious crime? After all, the soul is more important than the body, and if it’s a crime to threaten to harm someone’s body, should it also not be considered a crime to threaten harm to another’s soul, a crime which starts with the priest or minister’s speaking out hatred and bigotry from behind his pulpit?

These are called hate crimes, and more laws are being passed to prevent them. But until the laws are clear, parents should know that complaint is a great power. Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Jains and Buddhists are rising up in one voice and speaking with parents, parish priests, ministers, school teachers, principals and boards of education to give children release from the religious taunting and badgering which they have to put up with day in and day out. How is it possible to study and receive a good education under such unhealthy, antagonistic conditions? We cannot let fear paralyze us. Go to the Christians and state your case. Proceed with confidence. You will prevail.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 354: THE TRADITION OF NOT TOUCHING
My Śaiva monastics maintain a strict nontouching policy. They do not shake hands or embrace. However, if someone unaware of their protocol initiates such contact, they do not recoil, but respond appropriately. Aum.

Lesson 354 – Merging with Śiva

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

Exit via the Highest Chakra

Many have asked what is meant by leaving through a certain chakra at the point of death? Let’s take an example of a person of whom people say, “His mind is in his butt.” They mean his awareness is down at the bottom, so to speak. He is ogling pornography. He’s swearing, angry, self-indulgent all the time. That is the world he would go into if he died in this state of mind, the lower world of selfish self-gratification, where lust is not lust, but a way of life, for nothing else is happening but that—just lust, twenty-four hours a day. Or it is sometimes said, “She is such a motherly woman. She is all heart, really a sensitive lady.” That is where she would go at the moment of death—out through the throat chakra, the universal love chakra, and experience a heaven world beyond expectations, beyond descriptions of any kind. Just as a traveling businessman would go to a hotel where others have come for similar purposes, she would go to a world where everybody is a heart person. That is why you cannot spiritually unfold so much in the inner world, because everybody is the same in each stratum of consciousness. You would have to study and do disciplines to get into the next chakras, but you would never have the lower ones to contend with if you had not been in the lower ones during your physical life.

If somebody dies in the states of anger and fear, he goes into the lower worlds of those states of consciousness. And in that realm there would be hundreds of thousands of people in that same state of consciousness. Whatever is in the mind at that moment—a country, a family, community—will have a strong impact on where he goes in the inner world, and on the nature of future saṁskāras. The thoughts at death are the next saṁskāras of the astral body. Even if you have the thought, “When you’re dead, you’re dead,” your astral body might just float over your physical body and be “dead.” Someone would have to revive you and explain to you that you are in your astral body and are as alive as you ever were, but not physically.

At death, you leave through a nerve ganglia of consciousness, a chakra. Most people live in about three chakras, and they see-saw back and forth among those states of mind. Each one is a window, and at death it becomes a portal, a doorway. So, it is the state of mind at death that gets you into one loka or another within the Śivaloka, Devaloka, Pretaloka or Narakaloka.

The ideal is to leave through the top of the head, through the door of Brahman, to get into the Brahmaloka and not have to come back. The dying person should at the time of transition concentrate awareness at the top of his head and willfully draw up into it all the energies from the left and right legs and arms, one after another, then the energy within the entire torso, and all the energies within the spine, from the mūlādhāra chakra up into the ājñā and sahasrāra. With all the energies gathered at the top of his head, he will leave through the highest chakra he experienced this lifetime. This would put him in a great place in the inner world.

Maybe at age eighteen he reached the viśuddha chakra for a very short time. He will revive that experience just before death as he is going through the playback of his life, and he will go out through that chakra. But if he is thinking about lower things, he will go out through the lower chakras. If he goes out through a lower chakra, or portal, he can in the inner world eventually work his way back to the viśuddha chakra, with a lot of help from the devonic guides and their advisors, but he cannot go beyond it until he gets a new physical body.

The portal is where the physical eyes hook into or go into. Through that portal you go into that world. This is why a departing person, in the spirit of kaivalya, perfect detachment or aloneness, gazes at pictures of God, Gods and guru, and sings or listens to hymns sung by loved ones, so that the experience of death truly does take him to the highest plane he experienced in this birth, or even higher if he experienced a higher state in a previous birth.

The astral body carries the chakras. The chakras are in the astral body. The astral body lives in the physical body, and when death comes, it is going to live without the physical body. The same chakras are within it. At the moment of death, you have the opportunity to stabilize yourself in the highest chakra you have experienced in this life.

Lesson 353 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of the Subtle Plane?

ŚLOKA 43
The subtle plane, or Antarloka, is the mental-emotional sphere that we function in through thought and feeling and reside in fully during sleep and after death. It is the astral world that exists within the physical plane. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The astral plane is for the most part ex­actly duplicated in the physical plane, though it is of a more intense rate of vi­bration. Beings in the higher Antar­­loka are trained in technology, the arts and in­crements of culture to take up bodies in the Bhūloka, to improve and en­hance conditions within it. It is in this more advanced realm that new in­ven­tions are invented, new species created, ideas un­folded, futures envisioned, environments balanced, sci­entists trained and artists taught finesse. We function constantly, though perhaps not consciously, in this subtle plane by our every thought and emotion. Here, during sleep and after death, we meet others who are sleeping or who have died. We attend inner-plane schools, there to advance our knowledge. The Antar­loka spans the spectrum of consciousness from the hell­ish Naraka re­gions beginning at the pātāla chakra within the feet, to the heavenly realm of divine love in the viśuddha chakra with­in the throat. The Vedas recount, “Now, there are, of a truth, three worlds: the world of men, the world of the fathers, and the world of the Gods. The world of the Gods is verily the best of worlds.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 353 – Living with Śiva

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

Solidarity, Not Sameness

Hindu solidarity is not an original idea. It has become very popular in India itself. Whatever our background, we can and we must maintain our sectarian roots and heritage, cultivate our differences and become strong within them, as the Christians did. There exists a common bond between all Hindus. What is that bond? Number one, it is the belief in karma and dharma. The Śaivites and the Vaishṇavites, the Śāktas and the Smārtas all believe in karma and dharma. Number two is reincarnation. Number three is the all-pervasiveness of God and the sanctity of the Vedas. If we accept these three basic beliefs—along with tolerance for all the religions of the world coupled with the belief that all people, whatever their spiritual path, will one day attain to knowledge of God—then we can say, “Yes, we are Hindus.”

Though the branches of Hinduism are many and different, the roots are common to us all. We share so much, and we can never forget this. Sharing a common heritage, we can then, with confidence, follow our own path. If that path is liberal Hindu, fine. If that path is Śaivite Hindu, Vaishṇava Hindu or Śākta Hindu, fine. Let each follow his own path. Let each perfect himself and purify himself within the context of his individual way. We must know and get the strength from the heritage of our roots. That is a real strength; that is a genuine Hindu solidarity. It is not strength for us all to call out for others to be exactly as we are. A tree has one trunk, one root system, but for survival its branches must reach in many directions. The different directions are not a weakness in the tree. In fact, its very life depends on this diversity. The very life of Hinduism has always depended on a similar diversity. That is why I say it is not uniformity or sameness that we seek together. It is solidarity, the strength which comes from appreciating and cultivating our differences, not denying them or trying to restrain or even destroy them altogether.

It is a strange fact that there are temples today that enshrine three Supreme Gods within them—Śiva, Vishṇu and Śakti. This never used to happen, because people were secure and firm in their beliefs. Imagine, three Supreme Gods in one temple. Who can understand such a thing? This is a new phenomenon. It is not Āgamic. It is not traditional. It is like having three prima donnas on one stage, and the only result will be confusion, strife and unhappiness. What are the children going to think about this? As they are growing up, they will say, “When you make up your mind, Mom and Dad, who is Supreme God, let us know. In the meantime, we are going to live, have fun and be Americans. Hey, when you decide, let us know.”

First we need to know, deep inside ourselves, who is the Supreme God. Is He Śiva? Is He Vishṇu, Kṛishṇa, or is She Durgā? Having made that determination, we can gather like-minded people together to design and build a temple to our Supreme God. There is no power in a temple to more than one Supreme God, no power at all. Better not to build such a place, which will just be a social hall. That is not religion. That is opportunistic compromise. That is politics trying to run religion. Rather, build a temple to Śiva and worship there with your whole heart. Build a temple to Vishṇu and worship there with your whole heart. Build a temple to Śakti and worship there with your whole heart. But don’t compromise, don’t confuse yourselves and your children by trying to please everyone in every temple. Let there be good, strong temples to Śiva and good strong temples to Kṛishṇa and to Vishṇu and to Śakti. Each devotee can then worship God or Goddess properly, with full commitment and devotion.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 353: CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRING A SECOND MONK
My Śaiva monastics follow the tradition of not holding serious or lengthy private conversations in person or by telephone without another monk present. Gracious, impersonal small talk in public is, of course, allowed. Aum.

Lesson 353 – Merging with Śiva

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

Disrupting Death’s Timing

People always lament when someone dies quickly, saying, “His life was cut short so suddenly.” But with such a death there is no pain, as the soul knows it’s coming. It’s really so much better than a slow, lingering death. The problem comes when doctors bring the dying back. Then a lot of pain is experienced. The doctors should let them die.

To make heroic medical attempts that interfere with the process of the patient’s departure is a grave responsibility, similar to not letting a traveler board a plane flight he has a reservation for, to keep him stranded in the airport with a profusion of tears and useless conversation. Prolonging the life of the individual body must be done by the individual himself. He needs no helping hands. Medical assistance, yes, is needed to cauterize wounds, give an injection of penicillin and provide the numerous helpful things that are available. But to prolong life in the debilitated physical body past the point that the natural will of the person has sustained is to incarcerate, to jail, to place that person in prison. The prison is the hospital. Prison is the sanitarium. The guards are the life-support machines and the tranquilizing drugs. Cellmates are others who have been imprisoned by well-meaning professionals who make their living from prolonging the flickering life in the physical body. The misery of the friends, relatives, business associates and the soul itself accumulates and is shared by all connected to this bitter experience to be reexperienced in another time, perhaps another lifetime, by those who have taken on the grave responsibility of delaying a person’s natural time of departure.

Āyurvedic medicine seeks to keep a person healthy and strong, but not to interfere with the process of death. Kandiah Chettiar, one of the foremost devotees of Satguru Yogaswami, explained to me fifty years ago that even to take the pulse of a dying person is considered a sin, inhibiting the dying process. In summary, we can see that the experience of dying and death is as natural as birth and life. There is little mystery there to be understood.

To perpetuate life, you perpetuate will, desire and the fruition of desire. The constant performing of this function brings the actinic energies of the soul body into physical bodies. To give up one’s own personal desires is the first desire to perpetuate. Then to help others to fulfill their highest aspirations is the next challenge. Then to seek for ultimate attainment and fulfill that lingering desire takes a tremendous will. Then to lay a foundation for the betterment of peoples everywhere, in spreading the Sanātana Dharma to those open and ready to receive it and make it available to those who are not, is the ultimate challenge. This perpetuates life within the physical body, which of itself renews itself every seven years.

Lesson 352 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of the Physical Plane?

ŚLOKA 42
The physical plane, or Bhūloka, is the world of gross or material substance in which phenomena are perceived by the five senses. It is the most limited of worlds, the least permanent and the most subject to change. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The material world is where we have our experiences, man­ufacture karma and fulfill the desires and duties of life in a physical body. It is in the Bhūloka that consciousness is limit­ed, that awareness of the other two worlds is not always remembered. It is the external plane, made of gross matter, which is really just energy. The world is re­markable in its unending variety and en­thral­ling novelty. Mystics call it the unfoldment of prakṛiti, primal nature, and liken it to a bub­ble on the ocean’s surface. It arises, lives and bursts to return to the source. This phy­sical world, though necessary to our evo­lu­tion, is the em­bodiment of im­permanence, of constant change. Thus, we take care not to become overly at­tached to it. It is mystically subjective, not ob­jective. It is dense but not sol­id. It is sentient, even sacred. It is rocks and rainbows, liquid, gas and conflagration, all held in a setting of space. The Vedas affirm, “The knower, the author of time, the possessor of qualities and all knowledge, it is He who envelopes the universe. Controlled by Him, this work of creation unfolds itself—that which is re­garded as earth, water, fire, air and ether.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.