Lesson 52 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is Sin? How Can We Atone for It?

ŚLOKA 52
Sin is the intentional transgression of divine law. There is no inherent or “original” sin. Neither is there mortal sin by which the soul is forever lost. Through sādhana, worship and austerities, sins can be atoned for. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
What men term sin, the wise call ignorance. Man’s true na­ture is not sullied by sin. Sin is related only to the lower, in­­stinctive intellectual nature as a transgression of dharma. Still, sin is real and to be avoided, for our wrong­ful ac­tions return to us as sorrow through the law of karma. Sin is terminable, and its effects may be com­pensated for by penance, or prāyaśchitta, and good deeds which settle the karmic debt. The young soul, less in tune with his soul nature, is inclined toward sin; the old soul seldom transgresses divine law. Sins are the crippling distortions of intellect bound in emotion. When we sin, we take the ener­gy and distort it to our in­stinctive favor. When we are unjust and mean, hateful and holding re­sent­ments year after year and no one but ourselves knows of our in­trigue and corruption, we suffer. As the soul evolves, it even­tually feels the great burden of faults and mis­deeds and wishes to atone. Pen­ance is performed, and the soul seeks absolution from society and beseeches God’s ex­onerating grace. The Vedas say, “Loose me from my sin as from a bond that binds me. May my life swell the stream of your river of Right.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 52 – Living with Śiva

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

One Focus Per Lifetime

Life is long; there are apparently many years ahead. But time is short. One never knows when he is going to die. The purpose of sampradāya is to restrict and narrow down, to reach out to an attainable goal. We must not consider our life and expected longevity as giving us the time and permission to do investigative comparisons of one sampradāya to another. This may be done before making up one’s mind to follow a traditional verbal lineage. After that, pursuing other paths, even in passing, would be totally unacceptable.

But it is also totally unacceptable to assume the attitude of denigration of other paths, or to assume the attitude that “our way is the only way.” There are fourteen currents in the spine. Each one is a valid way to escalate consciousness into the chakra at the top of the skull and beyond. And at every point in time, there is a living guru, possessing a physical body, ordained to control one or more of these nāḍīs, currents, within the spine. All are valid paths. One should not present itself as superseding another. Let there be no mistake about this.

The yamas and niyamas are the core of Hindu disciplines and restraints for individuals, groups, communities and nations. In fact, they outline various stages of the path in the development of the soul, leading out of the marul pāda into the arul pāda, from confusion into grace, leading to the feet of the satguru, as the last five practices indicate—siddhānta śravaṇa, mati, vrata, japa and tapas.

Since the sampradāyas are all based on Hinduism, which is based on the Vedas, any teacher of Indian spirituality who rejects the Vedas is therefore not a Hindu and should not be considered as such. Anybody in his right mind will be able to accept the last section of the Vedas, the Upanishads, and see the truth therein. One at least has to accept that as the basis of siddhānta śravaṇa. If even that is rejected, we must consider the teacher a promulgator of a new Indian religion, neo-American religion, neo-European religion, neo-New-Age religion, nonreligion, neo-sannyāsī religion, or some other “neo-ism” or “neo-ology.” This is not sampradāya. This is not siddhānta śravaṇa. This is what we speak against. These are not the eternal paths. Why? Because they have not been tried and tested. They are not based on traditional lineages; nor have they survived the ravages of time, changing societies, wars, famine and the infiltration of ignorance.

For sādhakas, yogīs, swāmīs and mendicants who have freed themselves from the world, permanently or for a period of time according to their vows, these yamas and niyamas are not only restraints and practices, but mandatory controls. They are not only practices, but obligatory disciplines, and once performed with this belief and attitude, they will surely lead the mendicant to his chosen goal, which can only be the height that his prārabdha karmas in this life permit, unless those karmas are burned out under extreme tapas under the guidance of a satguru.

Some might still wonder, why limit oneself to listening to scripture of one particular lineage, especially if it has been practically memorized? The answer is that what has been learned must be experienced personally, and experience comes in many depths. This is the purpose of disregarding or rejecting all other sampradāyas, -ism’s, -ologies and sects, or denominations, and of limiting scriptural listening to just one sampradāya, so that each subtle increment of the divine truths amplified within it is realized through personal experience. This and only this—experience, realization, illumination—can be carried on to the next birth. What one has merely memorized is not transforming and is forgotten perhaps shortly after death. Let there be no mistake that siddhānta śravaṇa, scriptural listening, is the only way; and when the seeker is ready, the guru will appear and enter his life.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 52: CHARITY AND FAITH
All Śiva’s devotees practice dāna, tithing and giving generously, creatively, without thought of reward. They sustain an unshakable faith, āstikya, believing in God, Gods, guru and the Vedic path to enlightenment. Aum.

Lesson 52 – Merging with Śiva

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

Psychic Sounds

Occasionally, through his newly exercised extrasensory perception, he may hear the seven sounds he previously studied about in occult lore. The sounds of the atomic structure of his nerve system, his cells, register as voices singing, the vīṇā or sitār, tambūra, or as symphonies of music. Instruments to duplicate these sounds for the outer ears were carefully tooled by the ṛishis of classical yoga thousands of years ago, including the mṛidaṅga or tabla, and the flute. He will hear the shrill note, likened to a nightingale singing, as psychic centers in his cranium burst open, and then an inner voice indicating to his external consciousness—like a breath of air—direction, elucidation. This inner voice remains with him as a permanent yoga of the external, with the internal consciousness an ever-ready guide to the unraveling of complexities of daily life.

Occasionally, in a cross-section of the inner mind, when light merges into transcendental form, the young aspirant may view the golden actinic face of a master peering into his, kindly and all-knowing. He is looking at his own great potential. As the clear white light becomes more of a friend to his external mind than an experience or vision and can be basked in during contemplative periods of the day, the nourishment to the entirety of the nerve system, as ambrosia, bursts forth from the crown cha­kra. This is identified inadequately as “the peace that passeth understanding,” for he who reaches this state can never seem to explain it.

The highly trained classical yoga adept intensifies, through techniques imparted to him from his guru, the clear white light to the brink of God Realization, the void. His entire body is faded into a sea of blue-white light, the ākāśa, where now, past and future are recorded in the linear depths or layers, sometimes seeing himself seated or standing on a lotus flower of shimmering light in an actinodic clear, transparent, neon, plastic-like-body outline as his consciousness touches, in tune with a heart’s beat, into the Self, God Realization.

Keeping this continuity alive and not allowing the external consciousness to reign, the young aspirant lives daily in the clear white light, having occasionally more intense experiences as just described, while meeting daily chores here and now, until he attains the maturity of the nerve fiber essential to burst his consciousness beyond itself into the pure nonconscious state, nir­vi­kalpa samā­dhi, the Self. Only known and identified by him as an experience experienced, only recognized by others as he maintains his point of reference: that mind is only illusion, ever changing and perpetuating itself by mingling concepts of past and future into the present; that the only reality is the timeless, formless, causeless, spaceless Self beyond the mind. He knows that the mind, which is made from a consciousness of time, creates, maintains and defabricates form, and exists in a relative concept of space. The Self is the only reality and is an intensity far greater than that of any phase of the mind.

Lesson 51 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Why Is There Suffering in the World?

ŚLOKA 51
The nature of the world is duality. It contains each thing and its opposite: joy and sorrow, goodness and evil, love and hate. Through experience of these, we learn and evolve, finally seeking Truth beyond all opposites. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
There is a divine purpose even in the existence of suffering in the world. Suffering cannot be totally avoided. It is a natural part of human life and the impetus for much spiritual growth for the soul. Knowing this, the wise ac­cept suffering from any source, be it hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, famine, wars, di­sease or inexplicable trag­­edies. Just as the intense fire of the furnace purifies gold, so does suffering purify the soul to resplendence. So also does suffering offer us the important realization that true happiness and freedom cannot be found in the world, for earthly joy is inextricably bound to sorrow, and worldly free­dom to bondage. Having learned this, devotees seek a satguru who teaches them to understand suffering, and brings them into the intentional hardships of sādhana and tapas leading to liberation from the cycles of experience in the realm of dual­ity. The Āgamas explain, “That which ap­pears as cold or as hot, fresh or spoiled, good fortune and bad, love and hate, effort and laziness, the exalted and the depraved, the rich and the poor, the well-founded and the ill-founded, all this is God Himself; none other than Him can we know.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 51 – Living with Śiva

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

Transmitting Tradition

Siddhānta śravaṇa literally means “scriptural listening.” It is one thing to read the Vedas, Upanishads and Yoga Sūtras, but it is quite another to hear their teachings from one who knows, because it is through hearing that the transmission of subtle knowledge occurs, from knower to seeker. And that is why listening is preferred over intellectual study.

Because sound is the first creation, knowledge is transferred through sound of all kinds. It is important that one listen to the highest truths of a sampradāya from one who has realized them. The words, of course, will be familiar. They have been read by the devotee literally hundreds of times, but to hear them from the mouth of the enlightened ṛishi is to absorb his unspoken realization, as he re-realizes his realization while he reads them and speaks them out. This is Śaiva Siddhānta. This is true sampradāya—thought, meaning and knowledge conveyed through words spoken by one who has realized the Ultimate. The words will be heard, the meaning the satguru understands as meaning will be absorbed by the subconscious mind of the devotee, and the superconscious, intuitive knowledge will impress the subsuperconscious mind of the devotees who absorb it, who milk it out of the satguru himself. This and only this changes the life pattern of the devotee. There is no other way. This is why one must come to the guru open, like a child, ready and willing to absorb, and to go through many tests. And this is why one must choose one’s guru wisely and be ready for such an event in one’s life.

Sampradāya actually means an orally transmitted tradition, unwritten and unrecorded in any other way. True, satgurus of sampradāyas do write books nowadays, make tape recordings, videos and correspond. This is mini-sampradāya, the bud of a flower before opening, the shell of an egg before the bird hatches and flies off, the cocoon before the butterfly emerges. This is mini-sampradāya—just a taste, but it does lay a foundation within the śishya’s mind of who the guru is, what he thinks, what he represents, the beginning and ending of his path, the sampradāya he represents, carries forth and is bound to carry forth to the next generation, the next and the next. But really potent sampradāya is listening, actually listening, to the guru’s words, his explanations. It stimulates thought. Once-remembered words take on new meanings. Old knowledge is burnt out and replaced with new. This is sampradāya.

Are you ready for a satguru? Perhaps not. When you are ready, and he comes into your life through a dream, a vision or a personal meeting, the process begins. The devotee takes one step toward the guru—a simple meeting, a simple dream. The guru is bound to take nine steps toward the devotee, not ten, not eleven or twelve, only nine, and then wait for the devotee to take one more step. Then another nine ensue. This is the dance. This is sampradāya.

When a spiritual experience comes, a real awakening of light, a flash of realization, a knowing that has never been seen in print, or if it had been is long-since forgotten, it gives great courage to the devotee to find that it had already been experienced and written about by others within his chosen sampradāya.

If all the temples were destroyed, the gurus would come forth and rebuild them. If all the scriptures were destroyed, the ṛishis would reincarnate and rewrite them. If all the gurus, swāmīs, ṛishis, sādhus, saints and sages were systematically destroyed, they would take births here and there around the globe and continue as if nothing had ever happened. So secure is the Eternal Truth on the planet, so unshakable, that it forges ahead undaunted through the mouths of many. It forges ahead undaunted through the temples’ open doors. It forges ahead undaunted in scriptures now lodged in nearly every library in the world. It forges ahead undaunted, mystically hidden from the unworthy, revealed only to the worthy, who restrain themselves by observing some or all of the yamas and who practice a few niyamas.

Coming under a satguru of one lineage, all scripture, temple and home tradition may be taken away from the eyes of the experience of the newly accepted devotee. In another tradition, scripture may be taken away and temple worship allowed to remain, so that only the words of the guru are heard. In still another tradition, the temple, the scripture and the voice of the guru are always there—but traditionally only the scripture which has the approval of the satguru and is totally in accord with his principles, practices and the underlying philosophy of the sampradāya.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 51: REMORSE AND CONTENTMENT
All Śiva’s devotees, upholding the expression of hrī, remorse, are modest and show shame for misdeeds. They nurture santosha, seeking joy and serenity in life. Thus, theirs is a happy, sweet-tempered, fulfilling path. Aum.

Lesson 51 – Merging with Śiva

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

Capturing the Here and Now

The feeling and the realization of the here-and-now intensity of consciousness becomes intriguing to him, and he works daily on yoga techniques to strengthen psychic nerve fibers and perfect his artistry of maintaining this awareness. Many things fall away from him as he expands his consciousness through the classical practices of meditation. He loosens the odic bonds of family and former friends. Magnetic ties to possessions and places fade out until he is alone, involved with the refined realms of mind and in the actinic flow of energies. Occasionally his awareness is brought out into a habit pattern or a concept of himself as he used to be, but viewed with his new stability in his recently found inner security of being whole, this too quickly fades.

Whenever darkness comes into the material world, this centered man is light. He sees light within his head and body as clearly as he did in former states of materialistic consciousness when looking at a glowing light bulb. While involved in innersearching some hidden laws of existence or unraveling the solution to a problem of the outer mind, he sits viewing the inner light, and the light shines through the knitted law of existence, clearly showing it in all its ramifications, as well as shining out upon the snarled problem, burning it back into proportionate component parts.

Thus becoming adept in using his newly found faculties, he begins to study the findings of others and compare them to his own. This educational play-back process elucidates to his still-doubting intellect the “all-rightness” of the happenings that occur within him. He finds that for six thousand years men have, from time to time, walked the classical yoga path and attained enlightenment, and he begins to see that he has yet far to go, as his light often is dimmed by the pulling he experiences of the past, by the exuberance he shares with the future and by the yet fawn-like instability of the “here-and-now eternity” he has most recently experienced.

Now, in the dawn of a new age, when many men are being drawn within, it is eminently easier to attain and maintain clarity of perception through the actinic light within the body. Through the classical yoga techniques, perfecting the conscious use of the actinic willpower, the energies can be drawn inward from the outer mind, and the awareness can bask in the actinic light, coming into the outer mind only at will, and positively.

Occasionally young aspirants burst into inner experience indicating a balance of intense light at a still-higher rate of vibration of here-and-now awareness than their almost daily experience of a moon-glow inner light: the dynamic vision of seeing the head, and at times the body, filled with a brilliant clear white light. When this intensity can be attained at will, more than often man will identify himself as actinic force flowing through the odic externalities of the outer mind and identify it as a force of life more real and infinitely more permanent than the external mind itself.

Lesson 50 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Should One Avoid Worldly Involvement?

ŚLOKA 50
The world is the bountiful creation of a benevolent God, who means for us to live positively in it, facing karma and fulfilling dharma. We must not despise or fear the world. Life is meant to be lived joyously. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
The world is the place where our destiny is shaped, our desires fulfilled and our soul matured. In the world, we grow from ig­norance into wisdom, from darkness into light and from a consciousness of death to immortality. The whole world is an āśrama in which all are doing sā­­dhana. We must love the world, which is God’s crea­tion. Those who despise, hate and fear the world do not un­derstand the intrinsic goodness of all. The world is a glorious place, not to be feared. It is a gra­cious gift from Śiva Himself, a playground for His children in which to interrelate young souls with the old—the young experiencing their karma while the old hold firmly to their dharma. The young grow; the old know. Not fearing the world does not give us permission to become immersed in worldliness. To the con­trary, it means remaining af­fectionately detached, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf, being in the world but not of it, walking in the rain without getting wet. The Vedas warn, “Behold the universe in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves on Earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal. Set not your heart on another’s possession.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 50 – Living with Śiva

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

Scriptural Listening

Siddhānta śravaṇa, scriptural study, the sixth niyama, is the end of the search. Prior to this end, prior to finding the satguru, we are free to study all the scriptures of the world, of all religions, relate and interrelate them in our mind, manipulate their meanings and justify their final conclusions. We are free to study all of the sects and sampradāyas, all denominations, lineages and teachings, everything under the banner of Hinduism—the Śaivites, the Vaishṇavites, the Smārtas, Gaṇapatis, Ayyappans, Śāktas and Murugans and their branches.

Scriptures within Hinduism are voluminous. The methods of teaching are awesome in their multiplicity. As for teachers, there is one on every corner in India. Ask a simple question of an elder, and he is duty-bound to give a lengthy response from the window he is looking out of, opened by the sampradāya he or his family has subscribed to, maybe centuries ago, of one or another sect within this great pantheon we call Hinduism.

Before we come to the fullness of siddhānta śravaṇa, we are also free to investigate psychologies, psychiatries, pseudo-sciences, ways of behavior of the human species, existentialism, humanism, secular humanism, materialism and the many other modern “-isms,” which are so multitudinous and still multiplying. Their spokesmen are many. Libraries are full of them. All the “-isms” and “-ologies” are there, and they beckon, hands outstretched to receive, to seduce, sometimes even seize, the seeker. The seeker on the path of siddhānta śravaṇa who is at least relatively successful at the ten restraints must make a choice. He knows he has to. He knows he must. He has just entered the consciousness of the mūlādhāra chakra and is becoming steadfast on the upward climb.

Have full faith that when your guru does appear, after you have made yourself ready through the ten restraints and the first five practices, you will know in every nerve current of your being that this is your guide on the path through the next five practices: 1) siddhānta śravaṇa, scriptural study—following one verbal lineage and not pursuing any others; 2) mati, cognition—developing a spiritual will and intellect with a guru’s guidance; 3) vrata, sacred vows—fulfilling religious vows, rules, and observances faithfully; 4) japa, recitation of holy mantras—here we seek initiation from the guru to perform this practice; and 5) tapas, performing austerity, sādhana, penance and sacrifice, also under the guru’s guidance.

Siddhānta śravaṇa is a discipline, an ancient traditional practice in satguru lineages, to carry the devotee from one chakra in consciousness to another. Each sampradāya defends its own teachings and principles against other sampradāyas to maintain its pristine purity and admonishes followers from investigating any of them. Such exploration of other texts should all be done before seeking to fulfill siddhānta śravaṇa. Once under the direction of and having been accepted by a guru, any further delving into extraneous doctrines would be disapproved and disallowed.

Siddhānta śravaṇa is more than just focusing on a single doctrine. It is developing through scriptural study an entirely new mind fabric, subconsciously and consciously, which will entertain an explanation for all future prārabdha karmas and karmas created in this life to be experienced for the duration of the physical life of the disciple. Siddhānta śravaṇa is even more. It lays the foundation for initiation within the fabric of the nerve system of the disciple. Even more, it portrays any differences in his thinking, the guru’s thought, the sampradāya’s principles, philosophy and underlying practices.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 50: MODERATE APPETITE AND PURITY
All devotees of Śiva observe mitahāra, moderation in appetite, not eating too much or consuming meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. They uphold śaucha, avoiding impurity in body, mind and speech. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 50 – Merging with Śiva

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

Beyond Past And Future

Whenever man comes to the point in his evolution where he has sufficient mastery in the mind to produce “things,” he suffers for the lack of peace, for in his activity on the mental spheres in conceiving, planning, gathering the forces together and finally viewing the outcome as a physical manifestation, he has exercised an intricate control over the nerve fibers of his mind. Thus caught in this pattern, he must go on producing to insure his mental security, for should he stop for a moment, the whiplash upon his senses as the generative functions ceased to be active would cause paranoiac depressions, at times almost beyond repair.

The man looking into the “where and when” of the future, blending his energies with those who are also striving to evolve into a more ramified state of mind, can suffer well if he keeps going, producing, acquiring and believing that materiality is reality. Evolution of the species takes its toll, for as man’s mind evolves, he is no longer content projecting into the “where and when” of the material consciousness, and as he seeks some reward of peace for his efforts, he begins to look into the past for solutions, the “there and then” of it all. Thus, finding himself born into a cross-section of awareness between past and future, having experienced both of these tendencies of the mind, causes him to reflect. Philosophy holds few answers for him. Its congested mass of “shoulds” and “don’ts” he knows has proved more to the philosopher who cleared his mind on paper than to the reader who has yet to complement with inner knowing its indicated depths.

Occultism is intriguing to him, for it shows that there are possibilities of expression beyond the senses he has become well accustomed to using. But again, evolution rounding his vision causes him to discard the occult symbolism, laws and practices as another look into the past or future of the mind’s depths.

The idea of yoga, union through perceptive control of the flow of thought, and of the generative processes of a perceptive idea before thought is formed, is most satisfying. The cognition of the actinic process of life currents intrigues him, and he looks further into the practice of yoga techniques and finds that peace is gained through a conscious government first of the life currents through the body and second of the realm of ideas as they flow into thought. And while remaining the observer of it all in the eternity of the here and now, the seeker fully realizes that time, space and causation are only indicated through holding an off-balanced consciousness of past and future.

Lesson 49 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

How Can a Benevolent God Permit Evil?

ŚLOKA 49
Ultimately, there is no good or bad. God did not create evil as a force distinct from good. He granted to souls the loving edicts of dharma and experiential choices from very subtle to most crude, thus to learn and evolve. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
From the pinnacle of consciousness, one sees the harmony of life. Similarly, from a mountaintop, we see the natural role of a raging ocean and the steep cliffs be­low—they are beautiful. From the bottom of the moun­­tain, the ocean can appear ominous and the cliffs treacherous. When through meditation we view the universe from the inside out, we see that there is not one thing out of place or wrong. This releases the human concepts of right and wrong, good and bad. Our benevolent Lord created everything in perfect balance. Good or evil, kind­ness or hurtfulness re­turn to us as the result, the fruit, of our own actions of the past. The four dharmas are God’s wisdom lighting our path. That which is known as evil arises from the instinctive-intellectual nature, which the Lord created as dimensions of experience to streng­then our soul and further its spiritual evolution. Let us be compassionate, for truly there is no intrinsic evil. The Vedas admonish, “Being overcome by the fruits of his ac­­­tion, he enters a good or an evil womb, so that his course is downward or upward, and he wanders around, overcome by the pairs of opposites.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.