Lesson 173 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is God Śiva’s Pure Consciousness?

ŚLOKA 18
Parāśakti is pure consciousness, the substratum or primal substance flowing through all form. It is Śiva’s inscrutable presence, the ultimate ground and being of all that exists, without which nothing could endure. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Parāśakti, “Supreme Energy,” is called by many names: si­­­lence, love, being, power and all-knowingness. It is Sat­chidānan­da—existence-consciousness-bliss—that pris­tine force of being which is un­differentiated, totally aware of itself, without an ob­ject of its awareness. It radiates as divine light, energy and knowing. Out of Paraśiva ever comes Parāśakti, the first man­i­fes­tation of mind, superconsciousness or infinite know­ing. God Śiva knows in infinite, all-abiding, loving super­con­scious­ness. Śiva knows from deep within all of His creations to their surface. His Being is within every animate and inanimate form. Should God Śiva remove His all-perva­sive Parā­śakti from any one or all of the three worlds, they would crumble, disintegrate and fade away. Śiva’s Śakti is the sustaining power and presence throughout the universe. This un­bounded force has neither beginning nor end. Verily, it is the Divine Mind of Lord Śiva. The Vedas say, “He is God, hidden in all beings, their inmost soul who is in all. He watches the works of creation, lives in all things, watches all things. He is pure consciousness, be­­yond the three conditions of nature.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 173 – Living with Śiva

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

Support at Crucial Times

When the tensions of the burdens of life begin to build, if friends, relatives and community begin to pull away rather than come forward to help, mom and dad are rendered helpless, absolutely helpless. Certain crises are predictable in the course of a marriage. When the first child is born, everything changes. This is the first crisis in their life. He lost his sweetheart and lover when she gave birth to her first child and became a mother. She lost her lover, too, when he became a father. Their roles first began to change during the time of her pregnancy. He had to watch very closely his thoughts toward other women, while feeling neglect because she was thinking about their baby soon to be born more than she was thinking about him. She used to think only of him.

Moving into another home is another crisis time. It’s easy for dad because he is involved in new employment and new friends, but hard for mom because she has to adjust to the change of her entire environment. Is this a time for her to be emotionally upset? Yes it is.

At middle age, around forty, mom goes through menopause—another big crisis. Dad doesn’t admit it—no man ever does—but he goes through a corresponding change at that time, too. At that time they both begin to think how it would have been if they had married somebody else. Dad, maybe, especially is ready for one last fling. They both have a desire to return to the surroundings of their youth. This is another intense crisis time. If dad reaches fortyish first and mom later, then they experience two crisis times instead of one. When their daughter entered puberty, another crisis time occurred for the family. They didn’t know what she was going to do next, and they often blamed themselves and each other for her erratic and sometimes erotic behavior. Another crisis time.

Grandma, Grandpa, great aunts and uncles, the neighbor next door, even the deliveryman, can help in times of crisis. The temple community, the church congregation, the priest, the minister, friends, Rotary Club members, executive at the office, if they don’t help, are all negligent. We can blame them for the failure. Don’t blame mom and dad. They are helpless. Do we blame somebody who is sick for being ill? Of course not. Do we blame a person who is emotionally distraught for being emotionally distraught? Of course not. We try to understand. We try to help. If the help is offered or is not offered, we blame those who do not help.

Therefore, I tell troubled youth, for your own peace of mind, dear child, love your mother and your father. Keep them as one in your mind. Don’t separate them in your mind. You yourself are the greatest marriage counselor. It is only you who at this juncture can become a binding force for the family. Rise above the accepted standards of the nonculture of today, which advise divorce to solve the problem. Remember, don’t take sides.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 173: RULES FOR POLITICAL ACTIVISM
Śiva’s devotees freely pursue the politics of their choice, but never subscribe to doctrines that advocate violent revolution or deny religion. My followers do not organize among themselves for political purposes. Aum.

Lesson 173 – Merging with Śiva

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

Shrouding the Soul Body

If we were alone in a desert, there would not be much of the conscious mind present. Our emotions would subside. Our perceptions would be keen and uncluttered. Our senses would awaken. Our reality would be mostly an inner reality. We would have to call upon our inner resources to subsist. But as soon as a city grew up around us with hundreds of people in it, we would experience the development of a vast conscious mind, for everyone would contribute just a little bit to it. Problems, projects, confusions and involvements of every kind would assert themselves, absorbing our awareness.

Most of the inner resources we relied upon formerly would be forgotten as we ceased to depend upon our own strength and innate intelligence. We would begin depending upon a rule book. We would rely on what someone else thought, on what was taught in the universities, stored in the libraries, legislated by politicians and promulgated by the news media. We would follow opinion religiously and develop an intellect. And one by one, all of these layers of the conscious mind would cover the soul, making the outer more evident than the inner.

The beautiful, radiant body of the soul would be covered in the very same way that we would take a gorgeous lamp glowing with light and put pieces of fabric over it. First we would put a yellow piece of fabric over it, an intellectual coating. Then we might argue about some intellectual concept. Others would say, “I don’t believe you.” And you say, “I know I’m right.” Then we would put a pink piece of fabric over the lamp. Pink is the color of emotion and self-aggrandizement. Perhaps we would continue trying to help our friend, and he would say, “I don’t want any help. Get out of here!” We might become angry with him and put a red piece of fabric over the lamp. And when we are depressed amid all these mixed emotions, we cover the light with a black piece of fabric. When jealous of our fellow man, we drape a dark green piece of fabric over it. Where is the light of the body of the soul, that crystal-clear light? It’s there, temporarily covered.

The body of the soul actually looks like a plastic body filled with light. You have seen mannequins with arms, legs, torso and head made completely out of transparent, neon-like plastic. If you were to put a light in such a mannequin, it would glow. This is what your soul body, your psyche, looks like. The conscious mind has truly become a reality for those who have layer upon layer covering this body of the soul. They are living with all of those emotions vibrating in them. Greed, hate, resentment, jealousy and anger are all totally alive on the inside. Yet, plastered on the outside of it all are beautiful, superficial emotions.

Lesson 172 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is God Śiva’s Unmanifest Reality?

ŚLOKA 17
Paraśiva is God Śiva’s Unmanifest Reality or Absolute Being, distinguished from His other two perfections, which are manifest and of the nature of form. Paraśiva is the fullness of everything, the absence of nothing. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Paraśiva, the Self God, must be realized to be known, does not exist, yet seems to exist; yet existence itself and all states of mind, being and experiential patterns could not exist but for this ul­timate reality of God. Such is the great mystery that yogīs, ṛishis, saints and sages have re­a­l­ized through the ages. To discover Paraśiva, the yogī pen­etrates deep into contemplation. As thoughts arise in his mind, mental concepts of the world or of the God he seeks, he silently repeats, “Neti, neti—it is not this; it is not that.” His quieted consciousness ex­pands into Sat­chidānanda. He is ev­ery­where, permeating all form in this blissful state. He re­members his goal, which lies be­yond bliss, and holds firmly to “Neti, neti—this is not that for which I seek.” Through prāṇāyāma, through man­­tra, through tan­tra, wielding an indom­itable will, the last forces of form, time and space subside, as the yogī, deep in nirvikalpa samādhi, merges into Paraśiva. The Vedas explain, “Self-resplendent, form­less, un­­ori­gin­­­ated and pure, that all-pervading being is both with­in and without. He transcends even the transcendent, un­­man­ifest, causal state of the universe.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 172 – Living with Śiva

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

Whom to Hold Responsible?

HINDUISM TODAY ran a quiz about divorce on the women’s page. The subject struck a nerve among readers. Here’s a question that a young Hindu asked about coping with divorce.

Question: My mother and father got a divorce, and I really resent it. It happened seven years ago when I was sixteen, and almost every day I regret what I missed by not having my mom and dad together in a loving home. How can I deal with the resentment, Gurudeva?

Answer: It’s not easy experiencing the separation and divorce of one’s mom and dad, at any age—six, sixteen or thirty-one. There is a feeling of emptiness; something is lost, never to be regained. The feelings and thoughts of blame grow, they do not diminish, as the years go by. But look at it this way. Any marriage, yours maybe, needs a loving, strong support group that wants to help the young couple, or the older couple, work out their problems rather than avoid them through separation and finally divorce. Basically, when there are children involved as a result of a marriage, there really is no divorce—only separation. Every marriage is truly irrevocable, carved in the ākāśic records when the first child’s umbilical cord is cut. Thereafter, there can be no separation without a great deal of pain and unforeseen karmic repercussions.

Upon whom should the children put the blame? Put it where it truly belongs. Put it on the support groups—the mothers, the grandmothers, the grandfathers, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins, the next-door neighbors, the business partners and friends of the family. Everyone in the community shares the tragedy of the home’s breaking up—the members of the temple society, the marriage counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist, the hairdresser, the gym instructor and the attorney were all responsible to become part of the solution rather than part of the dissolution of the marriage. Put the blame on them, not on your mom and dad.

An extended family that loves one another and looks out for the good of all, a religious group of loving souls who pride themselves on low percentage of divorce in their community or congregation—these and more are all the people who can or should see the tension growing between husband and wife and who have the ability to diffuse it at the early stages. Don’t blame your mother and father. If blame is to be cast, blame all those people that surrounded your family who were not alert enough, good souls that they may be, to help diffuse the tension between your parents.

Obviously, the support group has failed their marriage. You must admit that failure, lest it drag you down to its own depth. Be part of the solution. Don’t perpetuate the problem. Don’t make them feel guilty. For your own peace of mind, transfer the blame, the hurt feelings, the pain and resentment over to the relatives, the community and national value system. Become an agent of goodwill. Have kind words to say about dad to mom and kind words to say about mom to dad. Resist the impulse to criticize one to the other and cause an even greater separation within the family. They are not to blame. Society is.

If you take sides, you are creating bad karma, kukarma, for yourself, to be faced later. So treat each one the same. Don’t make deals, don’t deceive them or keep secrets from them, lest you psychically alienate yourself from the home. Maybe, just maybe, you can help them to understand and reconcile their differences if you follow this advice. Maybe, just maybe, time and the forces of nature will all come to your aid, and your parents will remarry and you will all become a family again. Don’t perpetuate the problem. Be part of the solution. Work with it. You, their child, may be their very best hope.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 172: ENTERING POLITICS
Śiva’s devotees who qualify may, with vigor and indomitable will, enter into politics, overcome opposition and rise to the top to shower good fortune, peace, justice, interracial harmony and care on all people. Aum.

Lesson 172 – Merging with Śiva

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

Like Writing On Water

Spiritual unfoldment leads us along the path into the illumined knowing of where we are in consciousness at any point in time. There are many methods through which this may be accomplished. Carefully choose one path and then stay with it with extreme loyalty. For this a preceptor is needed, a spiritual guide to answer questions, to raise questions for you to find answers to within your meditations. It is an arduous journey. The rewards come only near its end.

To live positively in the conscious mind each day, exercise at least a half hour. Keep the vital energies of the body high and healthy. Eat simply and follow a vegetarian diet, feeding the stomach rather than the mouth. Be considerate of others always and live inconspicuously, almost transparently, by not ruffling your surroundings, by keeping the home neat and clean, by passing through a room or place and leaving it in a nicer condition than before you arrived. Seek fresh air and learn to breathe deeply. Get out in the sun. Move the physical body, walk briskly, dance, keep the energies vibrant and buoyant. Be close to nature. Grow food. Develop an art or craft so the hands are active, creative. Of course, being neat and attractive in personal appearance keeps the thoughts of others toward you positive. This is the way to live in the conscious mind. Try to live life as though you are walking in the rain without getting wet, or carefully writing on water. No ripples, no disturbance, no reactionary residue that has to be faced at some future date.

When we live unconsciously in the conscious mind, we most often look at the physical body as who we are. We say, “I am hungry,” “I am happy,” “I am not feeling well,” “I want to go to America” or “I have just come to Bangalore.” Instead of “I am not feeling well,” we mean our physical body is not feeling well. Instead of “I want to go to America,” we mean we want to take our physical body to America. Our language is a conscious-mind language. The perspective of our language is constructed to make the conscious mind the real thing, the entire reality of the world. From little children we have been taught that the conscious mind is real and that anything other than this real, solid, conscious mind is to be doubted.

The mystic walks in the opposite direction. He goes against the crowd. He learns to swim upstream. It is a little more difficult for him, but oh so worth it. The seeker has to learn that the conscious mind is only a vast dream created by many, many people who are dreaming openly. They are dreaming, and every mystic knows it. They are forming the dream by what they say, by their emotions, by what they think and by that in which they involve themselves. The mystic knows there is no enduring reality to the vast dream made up by people themselves, by their desires, their relationships, their cravings and their insecurities.

Lesson 171 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Our God Śiva?

ŚLOKA 16
God Śiva is all and in all, one without a second, the Supreme Being and only Absolute Reality. He is Pati, our Lord, immanent and transcendent. To create, preserve, destroy, conceal and reveal are His five powers. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
God Śiva is a one being, yet we understand Him in three per­­fections: Absolute Reality, Pure Consciousness and Primal Soul. As Absolute Reality, Śiva is un­manifest, un­changing and tran­scendent, the Self God, timeless, form­less and spaceless. As Pure Consciousness, Śiva is the mani­fest primal substance, pure love and light flowing through all form, existing everywhere in time and space as infinite intelligence and power. As Primal Soul, Śiva is the five-fold manifestation: Brahmā, the cre­ator; Vish­ṇu, the preserver; Rudra, the de­s­troy­er; Maheś­va­ra, the veiling Lord, and Sadāśiva, the revealer. He is our personal Lord, source of all three worlds. Our divine Father-Moth­er protects, nur­tures and guides us, veiling Truth as we evolve, revealing it when we are mature enough to re­ceive God’s boun­tiful grace. God Śiva is all and in all, great be­yond our conception, a sa­cred mys­­tery that can be known in direct communion. Yea, when Śiva is known, all is known. The Vedas state: “That part of Him which is characterized by tamas is called Rudra. That part of Him which belongs to rajas is Brahmā. That part of Him which belongs to sattva is Vishṇu.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 171 – Living with Śiva

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

Unofficial Divorce

In Hinduism marriage is still highly respected, and so divorce is a sign of failure, because life is a spiritual journey and failing to fulfill that journey is a weakness. In a sense, it is a crime against one’s own karma and dharma in this life. It is like saying, “I can’t do what I came here to do.” Divorce brings loss of social position and respect in the community. By getting divorced, one betrays a sacred covenant, a betrayal that weakens the whole of society.

There is divorce, and there is divorce. I have observed through the years that a modern form of Hindu divorce has become a part of Indian culture. It is a clever way to not hurt the feelings of elders, parents and relatives, or to avoid incurring the community stigma of divorce. A modern form of Hindu divorce, it seems, has cleverly been conceived in the following way. The husband is under great stress, a stress that is not natural for a human being, a stress based on living up to materialistic expectations. He comes home psychically wounded, tired, worried. If things do not go well at home, he may verbally or even physically abuse his wife and family, blaming her for everything bad that happens to him. Sensing his failure to cope with all of this, he secretly wishes he did not have to face his weakness.

He learns from compatriots that the Big Solution to the marriage problem is to get away from the wife and the kids. He is advised to accept a job in another part of the world, knowing that his association with his family will become distant and tenuous, and he will no longer have to confront his wife, who has become his conscience. He knows he will hardly have to speak with her, rarely visit her and will be able to avoid, most of the time, the challenges the marriage has brought to him which he is unwittingly unable or unwilling to resolve. He knows, too, that he won’t have to face the community’s disdain that a formal divorce would bring, and that he can avoid the financial pains of alimony.

After reorganizing his professional life, the husband takes a job in a far-off land. He returns home for brief periods and only occasionally, thus effecting a separation without the expensive inconvenience and social stigma of formal divorce proceedings. He assures everyone, mostly himself, that this is the right thing to do, since he is making more money. Of course, money will never make up for his absence, never buy the children their childhood back. Lacking in fatherly guidance, the children are running wild, turning promiscuous, later to repeat the example of neglect that dad is teaching them. No one wins.

Husband and wife should always be together. If there is an unavoidable separation, he should call her daily, ask how her day was, inquire about the children. After all, it is the harmonizing of their prāṇas that will create through their children a brave new world, a new world order and a new age.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 171: SERVING COMMUNITY AND COUNTRY
Śiva’s devotees are patriotic to their nation and concerned about ecology. They strive to give to, advance, support and defend their community and country, never living as outsiders or as predators upon them. Aum

Lesson 171 – Merging with Śiva

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

Reason Reigns Supreme

It really hardens a person to live in the conscious mind all the time, because he has to build an ego shell around himself for protection, and that makes him insensitive and rough. One of the biggest protective influences of the conscious mind is anger. Anger makes a person cunning in his thinking, and of course the predominant underlying quality of anger is fear. He is always afraid of something. It is generally something that may happen or is going to happen. He is always in conflict with someone. These are the motivating forces of the conscious mind: anger and fear. Most people live in the conscious mind unconsciously.

The conscious mind is the area of the mind where memory and time are Gods, and reason is the Supreme Ruler. “If it is not reasonable, it is not acceptable,” declares the conscious mind, and “If we can’t measure it, it does not exist.” That is the conscious mind. It is active. It is alive. The conscious mind perpetuates itself, and we all help it to do that. It is carried on in ramification by its own novelty. We can always find in the conscious mind some distraction to please us, to intrigue us, to dominate our awareness of other states of consciousness. And we don’t have to look very hard to find it.

The mystic’s goal is to control awareness while he is in the conscious mind—to know where he is in consciousness. When he finds he is aware in the conscious mind, and the five senses have become his ruler, he then controls his awareness within the conscious mind itself. He does this in a number of ways. One way is through the control of breath. Breath is life, and life is breath. Breath is the controlling factor of awareness. Awareness rides on breath. Breath is also a controlling factor of our willpower. A seeker must develop a dynamic will to walk the path of enlightenment, so that he does not stumble or falter, but continues onward no matter how difficult the path seems to be for him.

The mystic loves the conscious mind, for he sees it like an adult sees the toys of children. An adult does not take children’s toys too seriously, but the child does. Meditate on that comparison. Meditate also upon the conscious mind while you are aware in it. Write down on a piece of paper the various areas of daily experience over a period of three days to which you are most attached. Then meditate on those time periods until you are able to see the chemistry that makes the conscious mind appear to be what it is. When you live two-thirds within yourself, even physical things begin to look transparent to you.

Lesson 170 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Symbolism of Śiva’s Dance?

ŚLOKA 15
The symbolism of Śiva Naṭarāja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Naṭarāja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation is­sues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmārapurusha, a soul temporarily Earthbound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The up­lifted left leg is revealing grace, which re­leases the ma­ture soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Śiva’s grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire rep­re­sents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-de­vouring form looming above is Ma­hā­kāla, “Great Time.” The cobra around Naṭarāja’s waist is kuṇḍalinī śakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Naṭarā­ja’s dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very mo­ment. The Āgamas proclaim, “The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul’s obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.