Lesson 211 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is Dharma? What Are Its Forms?

ŚLOKA 56
Dharma is the law of being, the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature and destiny. Dharma is of four main divisions, which are God’s law at work on four levels of our existence: universal, human, social and personal. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
When God created the universe, He endowed it with or­der, with the laws to govern creation. Dharma is God’s di­vine law prevailing on every level of existence, from the sustaining cosmic order to religious and moral laws which bind us in harmony with that order. We are main­tained by dharma, held in our most perfect relationship within a complex universe. Every form of life, every group of men, has its dharma, the law of its being. When we follow dharma, we are in conformity with the Truth that in­heres and instructs the universe, and we naturally abide in closeness to God. Adharma is opposition to di­vine law. Dharma pre­vails in the laws of nature and is ex­press­ed in our culture and heritage. It is piety and ethi­­cal practice, duty and ob­ligation. It is the path which leads us to libera­tion. Univer­sal dharma is known as ṛita. Social dharma is varṇa dhar­­ma. Hu­man dharma is known as āśrama dharma. Our per­sonal dharma is sva­dharma. Hin­­duism, the purest expression of these four timeless dharmas, is called Sanātana Dharma. The Vedas proclaim, “There is nothing higher than dharma. Ver­ily, that which is dharma is Truth.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 211 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Computer Generation

You have all met the new, cool, calculating computer generation, about which I have an observation. And it is truly the human right of every soul on the planet, at this time in the Kali Yuga, to make observations and comment on them. Furthermore, it is the duty of concerned men and women to speak out on what they observe, to thus reaffirm the dharma. My observation is that learning from computers is taking youth in the opposite direction from sampradāya, the imparting of wisdom person to person, heart to heart, mind to mind, teacher to student, satguru to śishya. The teacher passes on not only information, but the mature refinements of attitude and behavior through personal guidance and healthy association.

Young people used to love and respect, honor and extol their teachers. They would work to qualify to get into prestigious schools and vie with one another for the privilege of sitting before an Einstein or a Bose. Now they can buy advanced teachings on a CD or order them up freely on the World Wide Web. Maybe soon they will be able to download their diploma, to sign, frame and hang on the wall!

In 1993, Prodigy, one of the largest producers of computer educational material, said that 300,000 of its two million online users are children. There they find encyclopedias, games, chat forums and interactive books and magazines, such as NOVA, National Geographic and more. There are several “homework helpers” that can access volumes of data at the click of a mouse. The Software Publisher’s Association, a research group based in Washington, D.C., says the market for CD-ROM educational software is skyrocketing. For example, entranced before the computer, a child can explore every inch of an eighteenth century warship, displayed in cross-sectional views, meet the crew, study navigational tools and search for the young stowaway hidden somewhere in the hull.

“What’s wrong with that?” you might ask. In itself, nothing. I am not against computers. We have dozens of them in our monasteries. My concern is that the student who learns predominantly from the computer receives too little person-to-person nourishment, and is not even obliged to express human feelings anymore. The feelings of love and appreciation, respect and adulation, of thankfulness, acceptance and responsibility can all be suppressed or, worse, never developed during the formative years of life.

Since the computer craze began, when Apple produced the Macintosh and Microsoft began marketing software, I have observed the impact on youths of learning mainly from computers rather than people. The outcome is a cool, calculating, almost robotic individual with a blank look in his eyes. He can just turn the computer off anytime and be the smartest one in the family. Does anyone really yet know what registers in the objective and subjective mind of a youth being educated by the computer, who spends nearly all of his waking hours glued to a computer screen? Does anyone care?

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 211: FACING THE PAST TO PREPARE FOR DEATH
Śiva’s devotees give spiritual counseling to the terminally ill who are blessed with the knowledge of death’s approach, showing ways to resolve the past so that Śiva consciousness is their bridge during transition. Aum.

Lesson 211 – Merging with Śiva

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

Meet Your Physical Body

Introduce yourself to your physical body by looking into a mirror today, a full-length one if possible. Say to yourself aloud, “I am not my physical body. I am much greater than my physical body.” You will immediately see this to be true if you approach the mirror and stand before it with these two thoughts in mind. Then listen to yourself saying, “I am not my physical body. I am much greater than my physical body.” The physical body is only one of the vehicles through which your highest being functions. To gain a concept of how much greater you really are, you must first begin bringing those several vehicles under your conscious control. This is done first by using the power of understanding, which is about fifty percent of the application of control when it comes to the world of the mind.

Quite often new aspirants coming to me to enter the classical yoga path will say, “I am sick of this body and its desires. I want to renounce it and live entirely spiritually.” There is nothing wrong with such a resolve, except that usually the aspirant really means, “I have no control over my body. I don’t understand it, nor any of my emotional drives. They control me, and somehow I can’t get away from the consciousness of them.”

As long as you react to your physical body, despising or cherishing it too much, you cannot progress well in sādhana or religious life. However, through the practice of concentration of the flow of thought forces, and through the deliberate use of your willpower, the power of cognition, deep understanding will unfold within you, acting as a controlling agent of the odic forces that sometimes can be so turbulent.

As an exercise in concentration, locate the different parts of your physical body through feeling while sitting still. Feel all of your muscles. Feel each bone. Locate them with your mind’s eye. Feel every organ, your heart, your liver, etc. Feel your circulatory system, the warmth, the flow. You are using the feeling faculties of the subconscious mind, the part of the subconscious that governs the involuntary processes of the body. The other part governs the involuntary processes of the mind, such as habits. In feeling the various parts of the body you are actually becoming consciously conscious of odic force, using the aggressive vibration of this force to become conscious of the physical body.

Lesson 210 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Does God Ever Punish Wrongdoers?

ŚLOKA 55
God is perfect goodness, love and truth. He is not wrathful or vengeful. He does not condemn or punish wrongdoers. Jealousy, vengefulness and vanity are qualities of man’s instinctive nature, not of God. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
There is no reason to ever fear God, whose right-hand gesture, abhaya mudrā, indicates “fear not,” and whose left hand invites approach. God is with us always, even when we are unaware of that holy presence. He is His crea­tion. It is an extension of Himself; and God is never apart from it nor limited by it. When we act wrongly, we create negative karma for ourselves and must then live through ex­pe­r­iences of suffering to ful­fill the law of karma. Such karmas may be pain­ful, but they were gen­­er­ated from our own thoughts and deeds. God never punishes us, even if we do not be­lieve in Him. It is by means of wor­ship of and meditation on God that our self-created sufferings are softened and assuaged. God is the God of all—of the be­lievers within all religions, and of the non­­believ­ers, too. God does not destroy the wicked and re­deem the righteous; but grants the precious gift of liberation to all souls. The Āgamas state, “When the soul gradually reduces and then stops altogether its par­tici­pa­tion in darkness and inauspicious powers, the Friend of the World, God, reveals to the soul the limitless character of its knowledge and activity.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 210 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Bribery in The Home

Then there is bribery of children: “I’ll give you a sweet if you do what I want you to do. I’ll take the sweet away if you don’t.” Some call this discipline, but true discipline is training and teaching, learning to uphold a known rule. Anything else is punishment, which closes the lines of communication between the elder and the child. The child has to be clearly taught what the rules are and who is in charge. The child has to know what he is going to get and not get, according to his or her misdeeds. But to bribe the child who has not been educated in this way, to awaken his desire for something and not give it to him, that is a form of corruption. The child will carry that out into the community. He will not be a good citizen, and his kukarma will reflect upon the family and several generations back and several generations in the future. The blame is upon the father and the mother, because children follow the example of the parents. Bribing and beating go hand in hand. When it becomes a way of life, children are bribed to behave, to get good grades, to go to bed on time.

There is still another, even more insidious, form of bribery that happens within the home. This is emotional bribery: “I shall be unhappy unless you please me,” “I shall be happy to include you in my will if you do what I want, but if you don’t, you’re out of my will.” That is bribery. It inhibits the freedom of the individual. “Marry this girl and you will please your family. After all we have done for you, you have to marry the way we want you to marry, and you have to give up the girl you really, really love.” Even if the boy has been having an affair with that girl, even if she is pregnant, his family will bribe him to marry someone else by threatening exclusion from the family, disrespect and the ruin of his name in the community. Oh, that is a favorite form of bribery: “I shall blacken your name in the community, make up stories about your character. I shall ruin your reputation. Your name will look like mud in the minds of an ever-increasing group of people unless you buckle down and do what we say.” That is a form of intimidation or blackmail that is used quite often in today’s world. Blackmail is a kind of reverse bribery. While a briber demands money to do something for you, a blackmailer demands money to not do something against you. The blackmailer says, “Give me what I want or I’ll expose the secrets I know about you.” This demand for hush money is an ominous form of reverse bribery, but bribery nonetheless. There is serious karma involved in all forms of bribery, which are part of the negative culture which tears down a nation, which tears down a community, which tears down a family, which the younger generation, hopefully, will not put up with.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 210: RENUNCIATION AFTER AGE 72
Śiva’s unmarried men and widowers may renounce the world after age 72, severing all ties with their community and living as unordained, self-declared sannyāsins among the holy monks of India. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 210 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Become The Watcher

We must be aware that it is only reawakening consciousness into a natural state, and that there is nothing mystical, difficult or inward that has to occur to hold an awareness of the inner and outer simultaneously from one central point in the mind. It is only because one is not accustomed to thinking in this way that it may seem difficult. But little children are in this state much of the time, and it is natural to them.

The beginning stages of watching the mind think I shall describe as similar to sitting quietly with your eyes open and, while not thinking about anything in particular, simply looking at what is around you—all of the time feeling somewhat empty on the inside, but seeing what is in front of you, to the left side of you, to the right side of you, above you, below you, and knowing what each object is, but not thinking about any object or collection of objects. Your eyes are watching; who lives behind them is the watcher. The objects that the mind perceives are similar to thoughts.

When you close your eyes and begin thinking about the objects you have been looking at, duplicating your surroundings in your mind by creating thought pictures of those objects, there is a deeper you who is the watcher of those thoughts. This you can practice all through the day almost anywhere you are. It takes no particular skill or practice. It can be done at any time. You are simply becoming conscious of the natural processes of awareness, consciousness and thought which have been going on day after day all through your life up to this point.

Each time you practice being the watcher, using the method just outlined, as soon as you begin to succeed, you will immediately receive the impact of realization of the extent of involvement in the external mind that had occurred between these periods of practice. You will find that the more you practice regularly, increasingly, more frequently, you will remember to continue “the witness” in the midst of daily life—while riding in conveyances, talking with people, shopping in crowded stores, even in the midst of a disagreement or at the pinnacle of a creative flow. “You,” the watcher, will preside, and in presiding will carry that inner presence so necessary for a full and fruitful life.

With this in mind, be encouraged, for we must remember that total involvement in the externalities of the mind seems to be the cultural trait of this century. Therefore, it may take a few years to change the pattern. To send awareness soaring within to home base is not easy when the rest of the world is plunging in the opposite direction. If at first you only succeed a few minutes a day being able to watch the mind think or watch the eyes see, that is sufficient, as long as the practice is regular and consistent, day after day.

Other kinds of practice previously outlined in the sādhana of this book will strengthen this ability and increase your capacity to maintain that equal balance between the inner and the outer, if performed with regularity. This intricate study of awareness steadied versus fluctuating thought can only be pursued by taking the slow and sometimes arduous approach, not being overly enthused by success or discouraged by failure.

Lesson 209 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Consequence of Sinful Acts?

ŚLOKA 54
When we do not think, speak and act virtuously, we create negative karmas and bring suffering upon ourselves and others. We suffer when we act instinctively and intellectually without superconscious guidance. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
We are happy, serene and stable when we follow good conduct, when we listen to our conscience, the knowing voice of the soul. The superconscious mind, the mind of our soul, knows and inspires good conduct, out of which comes a re­fined, sustainable culture. Wrong­doing and vice lead us away from God, deep into the darkness of doubt, despair and self-condemnation. This brings the asuras around us. We are out of harmony with ourselves and our family and must seek com­pan­ionship elsewhere, amongst those who are al­so crude, unmindful, greedy and lacking in self-control. In this bad company, burdensome new karma is created, as good conduct cannot be followed. This pāpa ac­cum­ulates, blinding us to the religious life we once lived. Pen­ance and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God and the Gods are the only re­lease for the unvirtuous, those who conduct them­selves poorly. Fortunately, our Gods are compassionate and love their devotees. The ancient Vedas elu­cidate, “The mind is said to be twofold: the pure and al­so the impure; impure by union with desire—pure when from desire completely free!” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 209 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Bribery and Tipping

A healthy society is based on honesty, openness, love, trust and goodwill. It is at the grass roots level, in the home, in schools, in the marketplace, office and factory, that bribery should first be stopped. Hindu Dharma is the law enforcer. Simply don’t bribe. It really is OK not to bribe. More and more, not bribing is becoming acceptable behavior. It is difficult to step back from this practice, but you can live your whole life and not pay a one rupee bribe, even in a place where everyone pays bribes.

One might wonder if tipping is a form of bribery. It is legal in nearly every country to tip a waiter, busboy, carhop, valet, cab driver, maitre d’, and no one has ever been arrested and prosecuted for giving such a gratuity. True, a tip is expected, but services can’t be withheld if it is not given, lest the individual lose his or her job. Giving tips, or gratuities, is not bribery when it is the custom for paying waiters in restaurants, bell boys in hotels and valets who will get your car from the parking lot and drive it up to the door. Tips are expected, and because they are receiving tips, their salary from the hotel or restaurant is often very low. The giving of gratuities is an accepted custom. But the employees would be bound by the hotel or restaurant to perform the same service even if tips were not forthcoming. This is not to be extended to areas where this custom does not exist, such as to paid government servants who have a salary much higher than those who live by being tipped.

Similarly, the giving of gifts on auspicious occasions to anyone who has been of service is spreading goodwill, but is not expected and is completely voluntary. The service would not diminish if the gifts were not given. Our giving gifts to the śilpis several times a year at our temple worksite in Bangalore is an example. Even if we did not honor our carvers by a gift, they would still have to do their work up to specifications. This is the pure vibration we want to work into Iraivan Temple—the vibration of dharma, not the vibration of giving something to someone for fear they will in the future withhold their services or do us some harm.

There are many other wrongs, too, such as prostitution, paying for sex—that’s sex without love, which is lust—that create kukarmas, that are also against the law. Then, we might ask, why don’t some countries in which bribery and prostitution have become part of the national culture make these practices legal, at least to protect the lawmakers, who would then pass legislation to control them?

There is small time bribery and big time bribery. In the Western world, bribery is big time. It’s at the top, involving millions of dollars. We’ve seen cases where a senator will put his family, his reputation or his life in jeopardy by accepting a $10,000 bribe—which is about seven percent of his yearly salary—and lose his office, lose his reputation. In India, bribery comes down to a few pennies to facilitate the little chores of life. We have heard of unspoken rules in different parts of India as to how bribery should be done if you want to get anything done, even buying a train ticket.

Why is it that people are willing to live in fear of being found out? Why is it that politicians who accept great bribes often finally bribe their way out of the situation with those who brought about their indictment? And why are they caught, but maybe to siphon off some of the wealth that they had garnered from bribery, which could be quite lucrative for law-enforcement people? Even after their punishment, those who have become wealthy through receiving bribes often maintain a higher standard of living than they would have before they mastered the art of bribery.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 209: SELFLESS DUTIES AFTER RETIREMENT
Śiva’s ardent souls intensify religious disciplines after retirement, give guidance to younger generations, teach, encourage, uplift, serve the community in various ways and support endowments to educate the young. Aum.

Lesson 209 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Seeking a New Perspective

In the philosophical-theological perspective of the mind which I call mūlīf, we see thoughts as traveling from one to another. This is what they seem to do, from one point of view. They not only travel from one person to another, but are seen to pass rapidly before our vision, ever demanding and commanding our awareness to travel with them. We are then faced with the tedious task of quieting the mind by endeavoring to control these thoughts. Through breath control and various forms of prior understandings, which are cumulative as we persist in the performance of our sādhana, the deep, mystical perspective which I call shūmīf soon situates individual awareness deep enough within ourselves, undisturbed by physical or emotional upheavals and intellectual tangents, that the world of thought may be viewed as stationary, and it is awareness that moves from thought to thought, scanning and registering what it sees. This, as I have mentioned before, is the perspective to be sought and attained through the performance of sādhana.

Remaining in one place in the inner depths of the mind, totally aware of being in that one place, as well as aware of that which is happening about you, is the state to be attained and maintained throughout your life. By being the watcher, ignorance is dispelled, emotion is quelled, and the foreboding stampede of excitement is subdued. By being the watcher, the overview of life is precise, and an equal balance between the inner and the outer is maintained.

During the course of this practice, you may feel totally apart from what you had come to believe were the realities of life. It must always be remembered that an initial dissatisfaction had occurred, compelling the search within to begin. It was this dissatisfaction that first consciously established the deep, inner state of being able to watch your mind think and experiences occur. But this state, once attained, is not easy to maintain. Practice is needed to give confidence and accept new habit patterns in the outer realms of daily expression. The practice is the constant pulling of awareness within, and from there, that one central point, looking out upon the mind. Only in performing this act time and time again does success come and stay.

If you have never experienced watching your mind think, observing your emotions play, watching your body move while living within it, then you may find it difficult to conceive of this state of perpetual permanence within one central point deep within.

As we have to start somewhere, let’s begin with the body. The eyes watch the hands at work, and while doing this, we can think about the hands. Also, one step deeper, it is possible to think about the eyes and inwardly observe the mechanism of sight. There is a “you” in there that is observing this mechanism of sight, the eyes, the eyes seeing the hands, the thoughts about the hands, eyes and sight. This “you” is the watcher, the witness—the state that the mystic is consciously conscious in. Becoming conscious in this state through this one simple practice is possible for short periods of time, and once you have understood the principle involved, success is assured.

Lesson 208 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Does Hell Really Exist? Is There a Satan?

ŚLOKA 53
There is no eternal hell, nor is there a Satan. However, there are hellish states of mind and woeful births for those who think and act wrongfully—temporary tormenting conditions that lift the fiery forces within. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Hell, termed Naraka, is the lower astral realm of the seven chak­ras below the mūlādhāra. It is a place of fire and heat, anguish and dismay, of confusion, despair and de­pres­sion. Here anger, jealousy, argument, mental con­flict and tormenting moods plague the mind. Ac­cess to hell is brought about by our own thoughts, words, deeds and emotions—sup­pressed, an­tag­on­istic feelings that court demons and their ag­gres­sive forces. Hell is not eternal. Nor is there a Satan who tempts man and opposes God’s power, though there are devilish beings called asuras, im­­mature souls caught in the abyss of de­cep­tion and hurt­­fulness. We do not have to die to suffer the Na­ra­ka regions, for hellish states of mind are also experienced in the physi­cal world. If we do die in a hellish state of consciousness—burdened by unresolved hatred, re­morse, resentment, fear and distorted patterns of thought—we ar­rive in Nara­ka fully equipped to join others in this tem­porary astral purgatory. The Vedas say, “Sun­less and de­­­mon­­ic, verily, are those worlds, and envel­oped in blind­ing darkness, to which all those people who are en­e­mies of their own souls go after death.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.