Lesson 55 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
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 55 – Living with Śiva

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

Purifying The Intellect

There are many things which have their claim on people’s minds. For many it is the physical body. The hypochondriac thinks about it all the time. Then there is the employer who has bought the intellect of the employee. The emotions consume the intellect with hurt feelings and the rhetorical questions that ensue, elated feelings and the continued praise that is expected. And then there is television, the modern viśvaguru that guides the intellect into confusion. As a dream leads only to waking up, television leads only to turning it off. Yes, there are many things that claim the intellect, many more than we have spoken about already.

The intellect is guided by the physical; the intellect is guided by the emotions, by other people, and by mechanical devices. And the intellect is guided by the intellect itself, like a computer processing and reprocessing knowledge without really understanding any of it. It is at the stage when anger has subsided, jealousy is unacceptable behavior and fear is a distant feeling, when memory is intact, the processes of reason are working well, the willpower is strong and the integrity is stable, when one is looking out from the anāhata chakra window of consciousness, when instinctive-intellectual thought meets the superconscious of the purusha, the soul, that the inner person lays claim on the outer person.

There is a struggle, to be sure, as the “I Am” struggles to take over the “was then.” It’s simple. The last mala, the āṇava “mālā,” has to start losing its beads. The personal ego must go for universal cosmic identity, Satchidānanda, to be maintained. This, then, is the platform of the throat chakra, the viśuddha chakra, of a true, all-pervasive, never-relenting spiritual identity. Here guru and śishya live in oneness in divine communication. Even if never a word is spoken, the understanding in the devotee begins to grow and grow and grow.

Some people think of the intellect as informing the superconscious or soul nature, instructing or educating it. Some people even think that they can command the Gods to do their bidding. These are the people that also think that their wife is a slave, that children are their servants, and who cleverly deceive their employers and governments through learned arts of deception.

These are the prototypes of the well-developed ignorant person, even though he might feign humility and proclaim religiousness. It is the religion that he professes, if he keeps doing so, that will pull him out of this darkness. When the first beam of light comes through the mūlādhāra chakra, he will start instructing his own soul as to what it should do for him, yet he still habitually dominates his wife, inhibiting her own feelings as a woman, and his children, inhibiting their feelings in experiencing themselves being young.

But the soul responds in a curious way, unlike the wife and children, or the employer and government who have been deceived through his wrong dealings. The soul responds by creating a pin which pricks his conscience, and this gnawing, antagonistic force within him he seeks to get rid of. He hides himself in jealousy, in the sutala chakra, until this becomes unacceptable. The confusion of the talātala chakra is no longer his pleasure. He can’t hide there. So, he hides himself in anger and resentment—a cozy place within the vitala chakra—until this becomes unbearable. Then he hides himself in fear, in the atala chakra, fear of his own purusha, his own soul, his own psyche, his own seeing, until this becomes intolerable. Then he hides himself in memory and reason, and the being puts down its roots. The change in this individual can only be seen by the mellowness within his eyes and a newborn wisdom that is slowly developing in his conversations among those who knew him before.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 55: INCANTATION AND SACRIFICE
All Śiva’s devotees do japa daily, counting recitations on rudrāksha beads. Embracing tapas through simple austerities, they sacrifice often, carry out penances as needed and perform sādhana regularly. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 55 – Merging with Śiva

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

Turning to the Inner Light

Thousands of young aspirants who have had bursts of inner light have evolved quickly. Assuredly, this has been their natural evolutionary flow. This over-sensitization of their entire mind structure, so suddenly intensified into transcendental realms, caused the materialistic states to decentralize attachments to their present life-pattern, school interests and plans for the future. A springboard is needed. A new balance must be attained in relating to the materialistic world, for the physical body still must be cared for to unfold further into the human destiny of nir­vi­kalpa samā­dhi, the realization of the Self beyond the states of mind. Enlightened seers are turning inward to unravel solutions in building new models to bring forth new knowledge from inner realms to creatively meet man’s basic needs, and to bring through to the external spheres beauty and culture found only on inner planes, thus heralding the Golden Age of tomorrow and the illuminated beings of the future who, through the use of their disciplined third eye and other faculties, can remain “within” the clear white light while working accurately and enthusiastically in the obvious dream world.

Should he come out too far into materialism in consciousness, the inner voice may be falsely identified as an unseen master or a God talking into his right inner ear, but when in the clarity of white light, he knows that it is his very self. Realizing he is the force that propels him onward, the aspirant will welcome discipline as an intricate part of his internal government, so necessary to being clear white light.

It is a great new world of the mind that is entered into when first the clear white light dawns, birthing a new actinic race, immediately causing him to become the parent to his parents and forefathers. When living in an expanded inner state of mind, he must not expect those living in materialistic consciousness to understand him. On this new path of “the lonely one,” wisdom must be invoked to cause him to be able to look through the eyes of those who believe the world is real, and see and relate to that limited world in playing the game as if it were real, thus maintaining the harmony so necessary for future un­fold­ments. To try to convince those imbedded in materialism of the inner realities only causes a breach in relationship, as it represents a positive threat to the security they have worked so hard to attain.

First we had the instinctive age, of valuing physical strength and manly prowess, followed by the intellectual age, facts for the sake of facts, resulting in the progress of science. Now we are in an age of new values, new governing laws, an actinic age, with new understanding of the world, the mind, but most of all, the Self. Understanding is preparation for travel, for it is an age of the mind, and in the mind, much more intense than the speed of light, exist spheres which seers are only willing to speak of to those who have the inner ear with which to listen.

The mind of man tends either toward light or toward darkness, expanded awareness or materialistic values. Depending upon the self-created condition of the mind, man lives either within the clear white light of the higher consciousness, or in the external mind structure which reflects darkness to his inner vision.

Lesson 54 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
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 54 – Living with Śiva

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

Untying The Bonds

The three malas that bind us are: māyā, the ever-perpetuating dance of creation, preservation and dissolution; karma (our prārabdha karma, brought with us to face in this life, along with the karma we are creating now and will create in the future); and āṇava, the ego, ignorance or sense of separateness. Māyā can be understood, seen through and adjusted to through the heart-chakra powers of cognition, contentment and compassion. Karmas can be harnessed through regular forms of disciplinary practices of body, mind and emotions, and the understanding of the law of karma itself as a force that is sent out through thought, feeling and action and most often returns to us through other peoples’ thought, feeling and action. But it is the āṇava mala, the mala of personal ego, that is the binding chain which cannot be so easily dealt with. It is the last to go. It is only at the point of death, before the greatest mahāsamādhi of the greatest ṛishi, that the āṇava mala chain is finally broken.

If we compare this āṇava mala, personal ego, to an actual mālā, a string of rudrāksha beads, the purpose on the path at this stage, of mati, is to begin eliminating the beads, making the chain shorter and shorter. The mālā should be getting shorter and shorter rather than our adding beads to it so that it gets longer and longer. A warning: if the āṇava mala—symbolically a garland of rudrāksha beads—has thirty-six beads and it steadily grows to 1,008 because of practices and the adulation connected with them within the psychic realms of the pseudoscience of parapsychology—such as bending spoons, telepathy, channeling and ectoplasmic manifestations—this 1,008 strand of rudrāksha beads could become so heavy, so dangerous to the wearer, that eventually he would trip and fall on his nose. The wise say, “Pride goes before a fall.” And the still wiser know that “spiritual pride is the most difficult pride to deal with, to eliminate, to rise above in a lifetime.” The spiritually proud never open themselves to a satguru. The mystically humble do.

Mati has also been interpreted as “good intellect, acute intelligence, a mind directed toward right knowledge, or Vedic knowledge.” Good intellect, in the context of a Hindu seer, would be right knowledge based on siddhānta śravaṇa, scriptural study. Acute intelligence, of course, means “see-through” or panoramic intelligence which cognizes the entire picture rather than only being aware of one of its parts. “A mind directed toward right knowledge or Vedic knowledge” refers to the intellect developed through siddhānta śravaṇa. The study of the Vedas and other scriptures purifies the intellect, as belief creates attitude, and attitude creates action. An intellect based on truths of the Sanātana Dharma is intelligent to the divine laws of the universe and harnessed into fulfilling them as a part of it. To this end, all the prārabdha karmas of this life and the action-reaction conglomerates formed in this life are directed. The intellect, like the emotions, is a force, disciplined or undisciplined, propelled by right knowledge or wrong knowledge. It, of itself, processes, logically or illogically, both kinds of knowledge or their mix. What harnesses the intellect is siddhānta śravaṇa, study of the teachings and listening to the wise of an established, traditional lineage that has stood the test of time, ravage and all attempts at conversion.

The intellect is a neutral tool which can be used for bad or for good purposes. But unlike the emotions, which are warm, and also neutral, the intellect is cold. It is the fire of the kuṇḍalinī force—impregnating the intellect, purifying it, burning out the ignorance of wrong concepts, thought forms, beliefs, connected attitudes, causing an aversion to certain actions—that forges the purified intellect and spiritual will of cognition, known as mati. Mati, in summary, is the harnessing of the intellect by the soul to live a spiritual life.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 54: COGNITION AND VOWS
All Śiva’s devotees acquire mati, divine cognition and an indomitable will and intellect, under their satguru’s guidance. They observe vratas, religious vows, rules and observances, and never waver in fulfilling them. Aum.

Lesson 54 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Leaders Of Tomorrow

Those among the youth of today who have had some measure of attainment, of which there are many, will be the leaders, businessmen, politicians and educators of tomorrow. As the New Age comes more into fulfillment, they will be able to work effectively in all states of the mind, consciously identified with the overshadowing power of the clearness of perceptive vision of visible white light within the body and through the mind. Still others—disciplined beings of a vaster vision and more profound purpose—will become the mendicant sannyāsin, the sage, the catalyst teacher, the pandit philosopher, all working as individuals together to keep the teaching of the classical yoga path to enlightenment alive and vibrant on planet Earth yet another six thousand years.

Remember, when the seal is broken and clear white light has flooded the mind, there is no more a gap between the inner and the outer. Even uncomplimentary states of consciousness can be dissolved through meditation and seeking again the light. The aspirant can be aware that in having a newfound freedom internally and externally there will be a strong tendency for the mind to reconstruct for itself a new congested subconscious by reacting strongly to happenings during daily experiences. Even though one plays the game, having once seen it as a game, there is a tendency of the instinctive phases of nature to fall prey to the accumulative reactions caused by entering into the game.

Therefore, an experience of inner light is not a solution; one or two bursts of clear white light are only a door-opener to transcendental possibilities. The young aspirant must become the experiencer, not the one who has experienced and basks in the memory patterns it caused. This is where the not-too-sought-after word discipline enters into the life and vocabulary of this blooming flower, accounting for the reason why ashrams house students apart for a time. Under discipline, they become experiencers, fragmenting their entanglements before their vision daily while doing some mundane chore and mastering each test and task their guru sets before them. The chela is taught to dissolve his reactionary habit patterns in the clear white light each evening in contemplative states. Reactionary conditions that inevitably occur during the day he clears with actinic love and understanding so that they do not congest or condense in his subconscious mind, building a new set of confused, congested forces that would propel him into outer states of consciousness, leaving his vision of the clear white light as an experience in memory patterns retreating into the past.

The young aspirant can use this elementary classical yoga technique of going back over the day at the end of the day in an internal concentration period, holding the thought flow on just the current daily experience, not allowing unrelated thoughts from other days to enter. When a reactionary condition appears that was not resolved during the day with love and understanding, in turning to the inner light it will melt away, usually under the power of a perceptive flash of understanding.

Lesson 53 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
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.

Lesson 53 – Living with Śiva

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

Mati: Cognition

Cognition, mati, is the seventh niyama. Cognition means understanding; but deeper than understanding, it is seeing through to the other side of the results that a thought, a word or an action would have in the future, before the thought, word or action has culminated. Mati is the development of a spiritual will and intellect through the grace of a satguru, an enlightened master. Mati can only come this way. It is a transference of divine energies from the satguru to the śishya, building a purified intellect honed down by the guru for the śishya, and a spiritual will developed by the śishya by following the religious sādhanas the guru has laid down until the desired results are attained to the guru’s satisfaction. Sādhana is always done under a guru’s direction. This is the worthy sādhana that bears fruit.

Mati, cognition, on a higher level is the awakening of the third eye, looking out through the heart chakra, seeing through the māyā, the interacting creation, preservation and dissolution of the molecules of matter. Mati is all this and more, for within each one who is guided by the guru’s presence lies the ability to see not only with the two eyes but with all three simultaneously. The spiritual intellect described herein is none other than wisdom, or a “wise dome,” if you will. Wisdom is the timely application of knowledge, not merely the opinions of others, but knowledge gained through deep observation.

The guru’s guidance is supreme in the life of the dedicated devotee who is open for training. The verbal lineages of the many sampradāyas have withstood the tests of time, turmoil, decay and ravage of external hostility. The sampradāyas that have sustained man and lifted him above the substratum of ignorance are actually great nerve currents within the spine of the awakened satguru himself. To go further on the path of yoga, one will encounter within his own spine—within one of the fourteen nāḍīs within it—a satguru, a guru who preaches Truth. He will meet this guru in a dream or in his physical body, and through the guru’s grace and guidance will be allowed to continue the upward climb. These fourteen currents, at every point in time on the surface of the Earth, have a satguru attached to them, ready and waiting to open the portals of the beyond into the higher chakras, the throat, the third eye and the cranium.

To say, “I have awakened my throat chakra,” “I now live in my third eye” or “I am developing my sahasrāra chakra,” without being able to admit to being under a guru, a satguru who knows and is personally directing the devotee, is foolishness, a matter of imagination. It is in the heart chakra, the chakra of cognition, that seekers see through the veils of ignorance, illusion, māyā’s interacting preservation, creation and destruction, and gain a unity with and love for the universe—all those within it, creatures, peoples and all the various forms—feeling themselves a part of it.

Here, on this threshold of the anāhata chakra, there are two choices. One is following the sampradāya of a satguru for the next upward climb into the viśuddha, ājñā and sahasrāra. The other is remaining guru-less, becoming one’s own guru, and possibly delving into various forms of psychism, astrology, some forms of modern science, psychic crime-detection, tarot cards, pendulums, crystal gazing, psychic healing, past-life reading or fortunetelling. These psychic abilities, when developed, can be an impediment, a deterrent, a barrier, a Berlin Wall to future spiritual development. They develop the āṇava, the ego, and are the first renunciations the satguru would ask a devotee to make prior to being accepted.

Coming under a satguru, one performs according to the guru’s direction with full faith and confidence. This is why scriptures say a guru must be carefully chosen, and when one is found, to follow him with all your heart, to obey and fulfill his every instruction better than he would have expected you to, and most importantly, even better than you would have expected of yourself.

Psychic abilities are not in themselves deterrents on the path. They are permitted to develop later, after Paraśiva, nirvikalpa samādhi, has been attained and fully established within the individual. But this, too, would be under the guru’s grace and guidance, for these abilities are looked at as tools to fulfill certain works assigned by the guru to the devotee to fulfill until the end of the life of the physical body.

It is the personal ego, the āṇava, that is developed through the practice of palmistry, astrology, tarot cards, fortunetelling, past-life reading, crystal gazing, crystal healing, prāṇa transference, etc., etc., etc. This personal ego enhancement is a gift from those who are healed, who are helped, who are encouraged and who are in awe of the psychic power awakened in the heart chakra of this most perfect person of the higher consciousness who doesn’t anger, display fear or exhibit any lower qualities.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 53: WORSHIP AND SCRIPTURAL STUDY
All Śiva’s devotees cultivate bhakti and family harmony in daily ritual and reflection, Iśvarapūjana. Upholding siddhānta śravaṇa, they hear the scriptures, study the teachings and listen to the wise of their lineage. Aum.

Lesson 53 – Merging with Śiva

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

Cardinal Signposts

The young aspirant just becoming acquainted with the path to enlightenment may wonder where he is, how much he has achieved so far. There are a few cardinal signposts he may identify with to know he has touched into the inner realms of his mind. Should he ever have experienced a “here-and-now” consciousness, causing him to fight the “where and when” of the future and the “there and then” of the past afterwards, he can fully impart to himself an award of having achieved some attainment by striving even more diligently than before. The ability to see the external world as transparent, a game, a dream, encourages the aspirant to seek deeper. The moon-like light within the center of his head appears during his tries at meditation, sometimes giving him the perceptive ability to cognize the intricate workings of another’s external and subconscious states of mind, as well as his own, intimately. The ability of the ardent soul to recognize his guru and identify himself in the actinic flow from whence the master infuses knowledge by causing inner doors to open is another signpost that the aspirant has become an experiencer and is touching in on the fringe or perimeter of transcendental states of mind.

Many on the path to enlightenment will be able to identify, through their personal experience, some of these signposts and recall many happenings that occurred during their awakenings. But remember, the recall and the experience are quite different. The experience is “here and now”; the recall is “there and then.” However, by identifying the experience and relating it to a solid intellectual knowledge, the ability will be awakened to utilize and live consciously in inner states of super­con­sciousness. After acquiring this ability to consciously live super­con­sciously comes the ability to work accurately and enthusiastically in the material world while holding the intensity of the inner light, giving perceptive awareness of its mechanical structure. There also comes the ability to work out quickly in meditation experiences of the external mind or worldly happenings through finding their “innerversity” aspects rather than being drawn out into the swirl of them. In doing so, the cause-and-effect karmic experiential patterns of the aspirant’s life that tend to lower his consciousness into congested areas of the mind will clear up as, more and more, the actinic flow of super­con­sciousness is maintained as the bursts of clear white light become frequent.

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.