Lesson 108 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of Image Worship?

ŚLOKA 108
We worship God Śiva and the Gods who by their infinite powers spiritually hover over and indwell the image, or mūrti, which we revere as their temporary body. We commune with them through the ritual act of pūjā. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The stone or metal Deity images are not mere symbols of the Gods; they are the form through which their love, power and blessings flood forth into this world. We may liken this mystery to our ability to communicate with others through the telephone. We do not talk to the telephone; rather we use a telephone as a means of communication with another person who is perhaps thousands of miles away. Without the telephone, we could not converse across such distances; and without the sanctified mūrti in the temple or shrine we cannot easily commune with the Deity. His vibration and presence can be felt in the image, and He can use the image as a temporary physical-plane body or channel. As we progress in our worship, we begin to adore the image as the Deity’s physical body, for we know that He is actually present and conscious in it during pūjā, aware of our thoughts and feelings and even sensing the pujārī’s gentle touch on the metal or stone. The Vedas exclaim, “Come down to us, Rudra, who art in the high mountains. Come and let the light of thy face, free from fear and evil, shine upon us. Come to us with thy love.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 108 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Harnessing Willpower

In the beginning stages on the path, you will surely experience your mind wandering. This is what “the mind wandering” means, that awareness is totally identified with everything that it is aware of. This gives us the sense, the feeling, that we are the mind, or that we are the emotions or the body. And so, when you are sitting for meditation, myriad thoughts bounce through the brain, and it becomes difficult to even concentrate upon what is supposed to be meditated upon—in some cases, even to remember what it was. That is why the sādhana of the practices of yoga given in Merging with Śiva must be mastered to some extent in order to gain enough control over the willpower and subtle sense organs to cause the meditation to become introverted rather than extroverted.

The grace of the guru can cause this to happen, because he stabilizes the willpower, the awareness, within his disciple, as a harmonious father and mother stabilize the home for their offspring. If one has no guru, or has one and is only a part-time disciple whose guru is a picture on the wall, then he must struggle in his efforts as an orphan in the institution of external life. I feel some of the basic tools to struggle along with are clearly explained in this book, and every effort made toward the Divinity of oneself only serves to bring forth blessings, which may not immediately be seen, but will manifest in years to come.

It is the regular practice of sādhana that really counts, for the habit patterns of the subconscious mind must be gently guided into new channels of expression. It is only when this begins to occur that some results will be visibly seen.

Willpower is first identified through the processes of self-control when the devotee finds himself impelled by instinctive impulses into directions that he has long since passed through and experienced. Thus, self-control, of the appetite, the fantasies, the reactions, is diligently sought for through performance of his sādhana—chanting on the beads, performing regulated religious routine and ritual during the day and various other more personal disciplines given to him by his satguru. It is not without great effort that this control of the little “self” is attained.

The next challenge then is the use of the willpower to control the intellect. A precisely controlled intellect pierces deeply beyond the veil of words into the threshold of spiritual experience. The noble devotee uses his willpower to discriminate philosophically as to the nature of his quest. It is the elimination of words and thoughts, which are the intellect, that is his goal. He already has a great deal of self-discipline through having conquered, somewhat, the emotions and passionate instincts of his past. Now comes the more advanced practice of prāṇāyāma, the control of breath and inner direction of prāṇa in transmutation toward the highest goal, of realization of the Self, that he hopes one day to attain.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 108: THE BRAHMACHĀRIṆĪ PATH
Śiva’s women devotees electing not to marry may live the brahmachāriṇī’s celibate life, keeping simple vows and always wearing white. By this the world knows they are unavailable, having chosen the path of devotion. Aum.

Lesson 108 – Merging with Śiva

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

Realization Is the Key

What does it mean to “get centered” and to “be centered”? Actually, what it means is to feel the primal source within, to feel so centered that you are the center. And we always are something of what we feel, our hands or our legs or our bodies or our emotions or our desires. Most people on the path have the desire to get rid of their desires. It’s an impossible battle. Have you ever tried to get rid of your desires? If you would stop trying to get rid of your desires, then you would be centered, because you then take the energy out of desire. You take awareness away from that world of desire, and you get right in the primal source of the energy which flows through the physical body. It flows through the emotional network, right through the intellectual mind. That primal source of energy is flowing through the spine in each and every one of us this very moment. Feel it?

The entire spiritual unfoldment process, oddly enough, is designed to throw you off center so that you have to work to pull yourself on center. First life throws you off center. You have all kinds of experiences. You make mistakes and, with your indomitable will, have to control that fluctuating awareness to get it right on center and be all right, right now. Feel that powerful energy flowing through every nerve current and be that energy rather than the fluctuating nerve current. Then, one day, when you really get good at it, you find a guru. You are firmly on center, and he tries to throw you off.

My guru, Yogaswami, would always throw his disciples off center and set them spinning. They had to work hard with themselves to get on center again. That strengthens the sinews and the muscles of man’s becoming himself, becoming totally aware that he is aware and then controlling his mind by not allowing his awareness to get caught up in the vast illusion of the externalities of the mind. How’s that? That’s a good one—the vast illusion of the externalities of the mind!

What is this center? Well, it’s like the inside of an empty glass. You know something is there, and when you’re aware of it, you know that you’re aware inside that empty glass. However, when you’re aware of the glass itself, that’s something else. When you’re aware of the outside of the glass, that’s something else again. When you’re aware of the table the glass is sitting on, again that’s something else. Now imagine you are like the glass. Become aware of the space inside. That is the tangible intangible you have to grasp.

The best way to work this is a very simple way. Let’s try it now. Just open and close your hands and feel the muscles and the bones. Now feel an intangible something, an intangible energy, which is that life force, and soon you will feel a force within that. That is your force of awareness that gives the command to the life forces, to the muscles and sinews which open and close your hand. So, be that intangible force rather than the hand. Be the commander who commands the muscles to relax and tense, to open and close. It’s an intangible reality. This you realize. You don’t think about it. Your intellect cannot give it to you. Your instinct and emotions cannot give it to you. It’s something you have to realize. When you grasp it, you start to unfold and awaken spiritually. It comes from the deeper chakras, the higher chakras. And it’s very easy. You either have grasped it or you haven’t grasped it. So, work with that and grasp that. Then the unfoldment process begins. Finally you begin to see light within the head, light within the body. You begin to have beautiful, beautiful inner experiences. Everybody these days wants to have profound inner experiences without the use of drugs, or without the use of anything but their own positive willpower. That’s the goal of the unfoldment of the people of all nations today, according to my own poll. And it is the right and mature goal.

Lesson 107 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Special Rite Called Archana?

ŚLOKA 107
Archana is an abbreviated form of temple pūjā in which the name, birth star and spiritual lineage of a devotee are intoned to the God by the priest to invoke special, individual, family or group blessings and assistance. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
If we wish to receive the Deity’s blessing for something special that is happening in our life, we may request an archana. This is arranged and paid for within the temple itself. We give a basket or tray to the priest, or pujārī, upon which have been placed certain articles to be offered to the Deity: usually a flower garland, bananas and a coconut (carefully washed and not even breathed upon), holy ash, incense, camphor, rosewater and a contribution for the pujārī. The pujārī asks for our name, which we tell him aloud, and our nakshatra, or birth star. Then he asks for our gotra—the name of the ṛishi with which our family is associated. He then intones these, our credentials, before the Deity along with a Sanskrit verse. A brief pūjā, in which the 108 names of the God are chanted, is then performed specifically on our behalf and special blessings received. At the end, the pujārī will return most of the offerings as prasāda. The Vedas implore, “By your favors granted enable us, O Lord, once again to leap over the pitfalls that face us. Be a high tower, powerful and broad, for both us and our children. To our people bring well-being and peace.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 107 – Living with Śiva

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

Inner and Outer Willpower

There are basically two aspects to the force of willpower. One controls our external life in the world and with those about us. The other controls our internal life, strivings and personal spiritual disciplines, or sādhanas. The externalized individual, who throws his force totally into the outer aspect of willpower, inwardly suffers nervousness, confusion and the lack of self-mastery. The devotee who throws his force totally into the inner aspect of willpower suffers total withdrawal from being able to face and cope with the forces of the world at large.

It is the total willpower, through both these two aspects of will, the inner and the outer, that the devotee seeks to develop within himself, with an emphasis on the internalized, spiritual processes of his being, for he full well knows that only in this way is he able to serve effectively in the world without being of the world in any way.

Willpower developed in this way brings forth the complete being of man to the foreground of himself. He no longer feels he has to sit and meditate to leave one area of the mind, through detaching himself from that area because of his sense of dislike of it, in order to go into another more desirable area. His free flow of awareness from the inner to the outer is but a short distance, so to speak, when the fulfillment of his sādhana has equalized the forces of the totality of his willpower.

Only the more evolved souls, through acute perceptions, can understand these analogies without confusing them into prior conceptions they may have had about the force of will. We must always try to grasp the totality of what is being said, from the overview, rather than endeavor to hassle with one individual concept or another. It is only through sādhana performed regularly over a long period of time that any of this knowledge becomes experiential reality in one’s life. The first sādhana, therefore, is to always hold the overview and cling in your memory to the intuitive flashes that come as a result. These intuitive flashes come from deep within and are the only thing that should be remembered, for this is your jñāna, your insightfulness, your own wisdom, breaking through.

It is only when one identifies his willpower as separate and a tool unto itself that he is able to move into the next phase, of discerning the difference between the primal life force within him and what it manifests. Then he can separate awareness from these manifestations, for he has gained the intuitive knowledge that he is the all-pervading life force in the universe. Once awareness has attained individuality and the devotee becomes the onlooker rather than identifying with what he looks upon, then he becomes full of the substance of the totality of the primal force which he experiences as willpower and is able to use this willpower in his daily life, which he experiences as awareness flowing through the mind. This shows the evolution of this awakening on the inner path.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 107: LIVING VIRTUOUSLY WHEN SINGLE
Śiva’s unmarried adolescent and adult devotees are all considered brahmachārīs or brahmachāriṇīs, bound to the wise restraints of chastity that tradition prescribes, whether they have taken a celibacy vow or not. Aum.

Lesson 107 – Merging with Śiva

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

Lean on Your Own Spine

How can we stabilize the path on those days when it’s just plain rough? The first thing to do on the path is to change our perspective of looking at life. Initially, as we come onto the inner path, we look at the map of the journey—we read books. A book is a map. We then make up our mind whether or not we want to make a change in our lifestyle and our perspective. Once we decide that we do wish to go on, a good way to begin is to reprogram the clay-like subconscious mind. Reprogram the negative habit patterns by firmly believing that you’re really all right.

The second thing to accomplish is to learn to lean on your own spine. Everyone nowadays wants to lean on someone else. We lean on our families until they push us out into the world. Then we lean on our friends until they can’t help us anymore. But still we keep on leaning. Then we lean on our therapist until we run out of money. This attitude of leaning on another is not the foundation needed for the delicate states of deep meditation to be sustained.

We have to lean on our own spine. But first we have to claim our spiritual heritage and feel “I’m all right, right now.” By saying this and believing it, we pull the energies in just a little and become centered again. When we ask ourselves point blank, “Am I all right, right now?” we have to come up with a “Yes.” Lean on your own spine. Feel the power in the spine. Feel the energy in the spine. The energy in the spine is not concerned with any fear or worry or doubt—not at all. It is a pure, powerful, blissful energy. Lean on it, and you will go crashing through into inner states of meditation. Things in the world will also work out right for you. You will be in the flow of life. You will have perfect timing. Beautiful things will begin to happen to you in the exterior world. Opportunities will open up for you where there were no opportunities before. People will become nice to you who ordinarily would not. All this and more begins to happen because mentally you are leaning on yourself, and people in general like you to do this.

Don’t lean on a philosophy. Don’t lean on a guru. Don’t lean on a teacher. Lean on your own spine and that power within it. Then the guru can be some help to you, for you will obey his directions when he speaks. The philosophy begins to come alive in you, for you can complement it with your own inner knowing.

Lesson 106 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Inner Importance of Pūjā?

ŚLOKA 106
The traditional rite of worship, called pūjā, is a sanctified act of the highest importance for the Hindu. It is the invoking of God Śiva and the Gods and the heartfelt expression of our love, devotion and surrender. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Pūjā is a ceremony in which the ringing of bells, passing of flames, presenting of offerings and chanting invoke the devas and Mahādevas, who then come to bless and help us. Pūjā is our holy communion, full of wonder and tender affections. It is that part of our day which we share most closely and consciously with our beloved Deity; and thus it is for Śaivites the axis of religious life. Our worship through pūjā, outlined in the Śaiva Āgamas, may be an expression of festive celebration of important events in life, of adoration and thanksgiving, penance and confession, prayerful supplication and requests, or contemplation at the deepest levels of superconsciousness. Pūjā may be conducted on highly auspicious days in a most elaborate, orthodox and strict manner by the temple pujārīs, or it may be offered in the simplest form each morning and evening in the home shrine by any devotee. The Vedas proclaim, “Sacrifice resembles a loom with threads extended this way and that, composed of innumerable rituals. Behold now the fathers weaving the fabric; seated on the outstretched loom. ‘Lengthwise! Crosswise!’ they cry.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 106 – Living with Śiva

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

Awareness, Will And Life Force

The primal life force ever resident within the body, emotions and mind of man is, when used or allowed to function, what I term willpower. Now we can see that the ever-present persistence of life force gives an overabundance of willpower and with it the ability to direct it from deep within. This ability to direct the willpower is the jñāna, the wisdom we seek. We have but two choices: to gain jñāna through learning the tried-and-tested, set patterns for living and conducting ourself or, through assuming a relaxed approach of ignorance, be guided by the “good” and “bad” and mixed emotional forces of the wills of others. Therefore, the devotee seeks to gain the conscious control of his own willpower, to awaken knowledge of the primal force through the direct experience of it, and to claim conscious control of his own individual awareness.

Thus we can begin to see that our individual awareness, willpower and the primal life force deep within body, emotion and mind are, in fact, one and the same—that willpower, individual awareness and life force, their habits and usages, are but various aspects.

You will notice that, through our study together, these three aspects are referred to time and time again, individually as well as collectively. However, in the study of yoga it is important to keep in mind the totality of their sameness in order to fully identify your personal and continued experience of yourself as a being with unlimited will, constantly and fully aware of the primal life force flowing through body and emotions, as you, awareness, travel through the mind. This is the goal of the jñānī, the one who has attained to wisdom, to the acquisition of divine knowledge and the personal experience of what he has learned.

A child in his early years becoming acquainted with living with his family on this planet will show tendencies toward a quiet, peaceful will or a provocative willfulness. The wise parent teaches the culture and etiquette of the household and the community at large, ever endeavoring to bring forth the inner knowledge within the child as to the wise use of his willpower, guiding him carefully away from impulsive, willful behavior so that, little by little, he becomes responsible for the action he causes, as well as its reactions. The unwise parent with no particular cultural heritage, completely vulnerable to his own instinctive impulses, overlooks this area of childhood training. Therefore, impulsive willfulness bursts forth from within the children, cultivating abilities to hurt themselves as well as others, and to upset the home, with no particular remedy in view.

This of course is the opposite to what we have in mind to obtain for ourselves. It is the attainment of that ever-collected mastery over our faculties through holding our inner perspective of them that keeps a heavy reign over the aspect of awareness called willpower, maintaining an even balance between the emotional-instinctive, the intellectual and the spiritual aspects of our being. It is through the study of rāja yoga, while always holding a silent overview as to what you are learning and how it relates to your particular life patterns, that you will come to know that an inner change is taking place. Harness the powers of your will in the ways indicated. The reward is simultaneous with the effort employed. The results are immediate.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 106: CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE TO A ŚAIVITE
Śiva’s young devotees take the celibacy vow and remain virgin until marriage. For lasting happiness and mutual spiritual purpose, they seek to marry a Śaivite wisely chosen by their parents, satguru and themselves. Aum.

Lesson 106 – Merging with Śiva

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

Everything Is Perfect!

Nowadays meditation is becoming very popular. Everyone is talking about being centered. If you’re right in the center of yourself, you don’t hear any of the noise or activity. You’re just peaceful within yourself. It’s only when we come into the cross-section, the cross-fire of life, that we feel we’re not all right. Then we begin living in the great lie of the universe, the great fear that if we die we might be gone forever. We forget all of the wonderful philosophy and beautiful teachings that we’ve been studying, and we’re just not all right.

My satguru, Yogaswami, made the very bold statement once, “There is not even one thing in this world that is not perfect!” You have to take a master like that very seriously. He was satguru for over fifty years in a very orthodox area of the world. “There is not even one thing in this world that is not perfect,” he said. Some of us look around at the world, and we find plenty of things that are wrong with it. I never have. I have always thought this is a wonderful planet—wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It is a great time now to be alive, even though some of us don’t think so, even though the planet is somewhat polluted, and some people have myriad complaints.

Meditation is not an escape from the exterior world. We have to straighten ourselves out in the exterior world first before meditation and inner life can really be successful. Sometimes we worry about our job, our business, our family or even that we are not living as spiritually as we think we should.

This is my advice: gain the perspective first that it is a wonderful world, that there is nothing wrong in the world at all. Then ask yourself this question: “Am I not all right, right now, right this instant?” And answer, “I’m all right, right now.” Declare that. Then a minute later in another now ask again, “Am I all right, right now?” Just keep asking this one question for the rest of your life, and you will always feel positive, self-assured and fine. This attitude eliminates fear, worry and doubt.

I discovered this formula when I was seven years of age. It came to me from the inside one day when I was worried about missing my favorite radio program. We were on our way home in a snow storm at Lake Tahoe, and I was afraid we might get stuck and I’d miss the program. I saw my mind, awareness, go off into the future, and I brought it back by telling myself, “I’m all right, right now. It hasn’t happened yet.” As it turned out, we didn’t get stuck in the snow and I did get to listen to Captain Midnight. After that, I would say to myself, “I’m all right, right now,” every time something came up that stretched my imagination into the future, into worry, or into the past when something disturbing lingered in my memory patterns that I did yesterday that maybe I shouldn’t have done. Each time that happened I would say, “I’m all right, right now, am I not?” And I would have to always answer, “Of course, yes.” I started doing this at the age of seven, and still today I am convinced that I am all right, right now!

Lesson 105 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Occurs Within the Śiva Temple?

ŚLOKA 105
Activities within a Śiva temple vary from the daily round of pūjās to the elaborate celebrations on annual festival days. Even amid large crowds, our worship is personal and individual, not congregational. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Besides the daily round of pūjās, many other events take place within the temple: pilgrims offering vows, priests chanting the Vedas, processions, elephants giving blessings, garlands being woven, weddings or philosophical discourses in pillared halls, devotional singing, feedings for the impoverished, dance and cultural performances, ritual bath in the stone tank, meditation, religious instruction, and many festival-related events. Generally, there are seven times when pūjās are held: at five, six and nine in the morning, at noon, and at six, eight and ten in the evening. The outer worship is approaching God properly, presenting ourselves acceptably. It is to offer our love, our adoration and then to speak out our prayer, our petition. The inner worship is to enjoy God’s presence and not rush away, to stay, to sit, to meditate awhile and bask in the śakti, endeavoring to realize the Self within. The Vedas say, “ ‘Come, come!’ these radiant offerings invite the worshiper, conveying him thither on the rays of the sun, addressing him pleasantly with words of praise, ‘This world of Brahman is yours in its purity, gained by your own good works.’ ” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.