Lesson 203 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Source of Good and Evil?

ŚLOKA 48
Instead of seeing good and evil in the world, we understand the nature of the embodied soul in three interrelated parts: instinctive or physical-emotional; intellectual or mental; and superconscious or spiritual. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Evil has no source, unless the source of evil’s seeming be ignorance itself. Still, it is good to fear unrighteousness. The ignorant complain, justify, fear and criticize “sinful deeds,” setting themselves apart as lofty puritans. When the outer, or lower, instinctive na­ture dominates, one is prone to anger, fear, greed, jealousy, hatred and backbiting. When the intellect is prominent, ar­rogance and analytical think­­ing preside. When the superconscious soul comes forth the re­fined qualities are born—com­pas­sion, insight, modesty and the others. The animal in­stincts of the young soul are strong. The intellect, yet to be developed, is nonexistent to control these strong in­stinctive impulses. When the intellect is de­vel­oped, the instinctive nature subsides. When the soul unfolds and overshadows the well-de­veloped intellect, this mental harness is loosened and removed. When we en­coun­ter wickedness in others, let us be compassionate, for truly there is no intrinsic evil. The Vedas say, “Mind is in­deed the source of bondage and also the source of lib­er­ation. To be bound to things of this world: this is bon­dage. To be free from them: this is liberation.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 203 – Living with Śiva

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

Thoughts Have Power

Each thought and each word has a form, an etheric form. That is why when a room is happy and you walk into it, you feel joyous. When a house is sad and you walk into it, you can sense that misery, for every thought you think and every word you speak takes form and shape in the ether.

Prāṇa is mental energy. When you use mental energy, you make mental creations. When you use physical energy, you can create physically. With your hands, you can build a house, you can cook a dinner; you can do many things with your physical energy and your physical body. With your mind, through the use of prāṇa, you can also create for yourself. How many understand the meaning of the words prāṇa and mental energy? You would be surprised at the power that you have in your mind as an individual.

Every positive thought that you have manifests in a subtle world and remains there for the length of time that it took you to generate it. Everything that you make with your physical energy on the physical plane will remain on the physical plane in physical form according to the time and effort that you took to generate it. If you have done a very fine job, it may remain over a hundred years. If you didn’t put much effort into it, it will not remain long on the physical plane.

Let’s think about the mental world for a moment. Suppose you are generating a thought for something good to happen, a positive circumstance you want to come your way. You concentrate upon it, and you generate it and you make the picture just the way you want to see it. Then you are happy and joyous. You feel as if it has already happened. Now suppose you drop into a lower state of consciousness. You begin to gossip. You use foul language and backbite. You lose control of your mind. You don’t put your intuitive mind first. You put the instinctive mind first and begin to think: “Oh, that can’t possibly happen because of this…” or “I can’t possibly do this because of that.…” You are building a negative pattern of fear, worry and doubt that covers up the beautiful picture and snuffs it out. Then, when it does not manifest, you say: “My prayers were not answered. God was too busy helping somebody else. He couldn’t help me.” But you were the creator. You preserved it on the mental plane for as long as you could, and without knowing it you destroyed it before it manifested physically. That is one way you can go on through life, as so many, many Hindus do—blaming others for their own self-created failures.

Do you know what all of that is? Confusion of the mind! So, we have two alternatives: confusion or control. And we have all the spiritual laws to follow that help you control your mind. When the external mind is controlled, then the spirit or inner being, the Reality of you, can shine forth. Shall we say that a confused mind is like a cloud the sun cannot shine through? A controlled mind is like clear ether which the radiance of the sun can shine through.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 203: MONITORING DRINKING AMONG PEERS
Śiva’s devotees gently enforce temperance among peers whenever necessary. They know that those unable to observe moderation may have to abstain entirely and restrict themselves to nonalcoholic beverages. Aum.

Lesson 203 – Merging with Śiva

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

Proceed with Confidence!

There are those who simply follow the pattern of odic force fields of others and never realize their actinic destiny because they have never had the ability to break through the odic force barriers with their actinic power. Actinic destiny is found by those who stand out from the masses and actually do something, who live a creative life for the benefit of others. Actinic power creates through the subconscious, but it is a flowing-through or flowing-out power. Odic power is a holding on to, a sort of sticky type of power.

Move through odic force fields unnoticed. Those who have awakened their subsuperconscious powers often become exuberant and, more than often, a wee bit egotistical. And yet, a deeper subsuperconscious attribute is that of humility. Humility within itself is a power, a power of the fullness of the subsuperconscious mind, giving you the ability to move through the odic force fields unnoticed.

Because of the nature of odic forces—which constitute people in their conscious and subconscious mind, cities, nations and events—the flow of actinic force can or could be disturbing to certain force fields. The consequences have, through history, been disastrous from time to time. Therefore, keep your subsuperconscious knowledge and powers where they are, as an inner mechanism of you, available to your conscious use. Do not advertise your subsuperconscious power, because odic force fields of jealousy or fear could be stimulated against you. Therefore, learn to move inconspicuously in the odic-force world, while contributing to the beauty of the world through your conscious use of your subsuperconscious mind.

All that is beautiful has come from the subsuperconscious powers awakened within man. So, let your life shine by your actions rather than by your advertising subsuperconscious powers. There is no pride so great or hard to be rid of than spiritual pride. Having the availability of actinic force working through the subconscious mind can very easily become distorted into building up even a greater odic subconscious mind.

And now, on the lighter side of thinking, here is another way to use your subsuperconscious powers consciously. When you know the next thing to do, or the right thing to say, this is your subsuperconscious mind. Practice feeling confident, secure in the consciousness of the eternal now. Absorb the feedback from groups of people, or people you are talking with, and when your subconscious mind has collected the feedback, feel dynamically the eternity of the moment, and you will know just the right thing to say, or the next thing to do. This is using your subsuperconscious powers consciously.

The greatest thing that a devotee must learn is that all knowing is within oneself. Therefore, go to your innerversity, your great subsuperconscious school, and bring forth knowledge. In order to do this, be confident within yourself. In order to be confident within yourself, have no fear. In order to have no fear, say to yourself, “I am all right, right now.” This will quickly bring you into the consciousness of the eternity of the moment. You will feel actinic force permeating, or more life permeating, your body, which is subconscious, and your subsuperconscious state of mind will be active. That is, go ahead in full confidence that you are the knower of all that is known.

Lesson 202 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Why Do Some Souls Act in Evil Ways?

ŚLOKA 47
People act in evil ways who have lost touch with their soul nature and live totally in the outer, instinctive mind. What the ignorant see as evil, the enlightened see as the actions of low-minded and immature individuals. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Evil is often looked upon as a force against God. But the Hindu knows that all forces are God’s forces, even the waywardness of adharma. This is sometimes difficult to understand when we see the pains and prob­lems caused by men against men. Looking deeper, we see that what is called evil has its own mysterious purpose in life. Yes, bad things do happen. Still, the wise never blame God, for they know these to be the return of man’s self-created kar­mas, difficult but necessary experiences for his spiritual evolution. Whenever we are injured or hurt, we un­derstand that our suffering is but the fulfillment of a kar­ma we once initiated, for which our injurer is but the instrument who, when his karma cycles around, will be the injured. Those who perform seemingly evil deeds are not yet in touch with the ever-present God consciousness of their immortal soul. The Vedas rightly admonish, “Borne along and defiled by the stream of qualities, unsteady, wavering, bewildered, full of desire, distracted, one goes on into the state of self-conceit. In thinking ‘This is I’ and ‘That is mine’ one binds himself with himself, as does a bird with a snare.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 202 – Living with Śiva

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

Backbiting And Gossip

There are two very great religious laws, and you have heard me talk about them before, and if you follow them and obey them, you will have the spiritual protection of your own intuitive mind. Your intuitive mind will be available to you all of the time.

One of these great laws is the law of daśamāṁśa, tithing, and the other great law is śaucha kriyā, doing good. Now, what is doing good? Doing good is controlling your mind, really, because when the mind is out of control or when you allow it to be out of control, you are really under the control of the instinctive mind of other people. You are more or less like a puppet in their hands. Therefore, we teach, “Think before you speak, and speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary.” This is very, very difficult for most people to do. If you carry each thought on the tip of your tongue, quite often it won’t be your thought at all. It may be what is seething in the instinctive mind of people around you. That’s what makes for backbiting and gossip. Like those who swear, those who gossip do not think. They pick up the low, seething vibrations of the instinctive mind of everyone around and, like stovepipes, emanate the smoke of the fire that is burning or smoldering or fuming or raging underneath. Many undeveloped people believe and repeat the last thing they hear spoken by someone they consider higher than themselves. They gossip freely, hurt freely and are often the pawns of strong-minded, unscrupulous individuals who use their ignorance and weakness to further their own selfish ends.

Do you know what gossiping is like? It’s like scratching an itch. Something is antagonizing your mind, so you gossip, and you go on and on and on until somebody changes the subject for you, or until somebody does something else that you can gossip about. Shall we say that backbiting and hurtful gossip are the dissipation of the creative, spiritual force? That’s all they are, dissipation of your great, God-given inner power. Anyone will tell you that to dissipate your energy is bad for you, but you do that when you gossip. By doing that, you are only the chimney, the dirty smokestack, of the seething instinctive mind, the ugly state of mind, of other people. You are not in control of your own mind. Have I painted a picture that is bad enough, hideous enough, gruesome enough, for you all to stop gossiping and control your mind a little bit? Gossip invokes the asuric beings on the lower astral plane and makes new karmas for the gossiper, who will be gossiped about in the future when the karmas return.

Let’s paint another picture. When you defile others, mentally and verbally, through backbiting gossip about the happenings in their lives, you are hurting them. You are actually making it difficult for them to succeed, to even persist where they are. They sense, they feel, the ugliness that you are projecting toward them. Many women gossip about their husbands over the telephone to other women while their husbands are at work. How can the husband be successful with the wife’s mind, in which he presumably trusts, working and plotting against him in such a chaotic condition? Gossip and backbiting, like verbal abuse, hurt another. You know what happens according to spiritual law when you hurt another. You are only hurting yourself in the future. Of course, you don’t meet the hurt right away, but in a few months you will find that it will come to you. You are hurting yourself in the future if you hurt another in the present.

It takes great sincerity in life to control the mind. And the power to be sincere is based on honesty. Honesty, ārjava, gives a great boon to you. It gives you stability. It makes you strong. It makes every atom in your being vibrate with an inner power. It gives you perspective; it gives you the eye to justice. But you must first be honest with yourself. Then the next time you see something happening in the life of another person that you would just love to sit down and gossip about, stop the menacing wheel of your mind and think about the experience and feelings the other person is going through.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 202: NOT DRINKING ALONE OR WHEN UPSET
Even in moderation, Śiva’s devotees do not drink alcohol in solitude, when depressed, angry or under extreme stress. When one is emotionally unstable, alcohol inhibits the ability to confront and solve problems. Aum.

Lesson 202 – Merging with Śiva

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

Bursts of Light And Intuition

Intense desire for spiritual unfoldment eventually manifests itself in a breakthrough of actinic will, which permeates the subconscious mind of the devotee until he completely identifies himself as an actinic being. This happens from within the deeper realms of man’s mind and eventually manifests itself into consciousness, then into thought patterns and then finally into speech and action. Actinic will also appears from the transference of desire from material objects and activity into finding some real solution within oneself for the eventual quest of all men: peace of mind. This actinic force becomes so strong, finally there is a breakthrough or burst of light. This happens quite naturally within many people who have not even availed themselves of classical yoga teachings. This first breakthrough throws into orbit, so to speak, the subsubconscious state of mind, for an infinitesimal flow of actinic force thereafter begins to permeate the subconscious mind, easing darkness or confusion or pressures of the conglomerated, accumulated force fields. After this first breakthrough, the devotee becomes more creative, kinder, a little happier and more metaphysically inclined, for the subsuperconscious mind becomes another building force field.

Occasionally devotees have flashes of intuition, bursts of prophetic knowing. Some devotees also occasionally enter trance states, when messages may come through their voice from the superconscious mind without their conscious-mind knowledge. When the trance subsides, there is usually no memory of what they said or did. Such subsuperconscious states are often brought forth by intense religious emotion, which occasionally becomes so overwhelming that it pierces the worldly subconscious and conscious mind.

Your belief in your subsuperconscious power will also unfold your destiny in this life. “I will be what I will to be. I will do what I will to do.” You can repeat these two affirmations over and over, time and time again, and rearrange, restructure, the forces of your subconscious mind and create a great inner peace within yourself. Turn on to actinic force and bring the forces of superconsciousness through your subconscious. This creates feeling, a feeling that you are what you say you are—positive, direct, full of life and energy and creative power. Your subsuperconscious mind proves this through your conscious mind, not only through feeling, but you will find yourself acting out the part in all kindness and security, exercising the positive will of “I will be what I will to be” and “I will do what I will to do.”

Lesson 201 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Are Souls and World Essentially Good?

ŚLOKA 46
The intrinsic and real nature of all beings is their soul, which is goodness. The world, too, is God’s flawless creation. All is in perfect balance. There are changes, and they may appear evil, but there is no intrinsic evil. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The soul radiates love, is a child of God going through its ev­olutionary process of growing up into the image and likeness of the Lord. Goodness and mercy, com­passion and caring are the intrinsic, inherent or in­dwelling na­ture of the soul. Wis­dom and pure knowledge, happiness and joy are the in­trin­s­ic nature of the soul. Can we be­lieve the soul is anything but goodness itself, purity and all the refined qualities found within superconsciousness? When God is everywhere, how can there be a place for evil? The soul is constantly one with God in its ever-present Satchidānanda state at every point in its evolution. How, then, arises the concept of evil and suffering? Āṇa­va, karma and māyā, the play toys of the soul, are the source of this seeming suffering. Like a child, we play with the toys of āṇava in the playground of māyā, fall and are bruised by karma, then run to our loving Lord for solace and release into spiritual maturity. The Vedas pointedly state, “As the sun, the eye of the whole world, is not sullied by the external faults of the eyes, so the one inner soul of all things is not sullied by the sor­row in the world, being external to it.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 201 – Living with Śiva

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

Advice for Abused Youth

We want to talk to the next generation that’s coming up. Fourteen-year-olds, eighteen-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, stand on your own two feet! Make your decisions according to dharma. What is the book of dharma? Weaver’s Wisdom, the famous Tirukural. It gives you all the tools you need to live a very good life. If your parents are verbally abusing you, don’t let their words affect you. Try to have compassion by appreciating what led them to the point where they could say these cruel things to you; but realize that they can offer you nothing but more abuse, because they are in the process of cursing themselves. The message is to “stand on your own two feet, take your life in your own hands, claim your independence,” once you realize that life at home is not going to get any better.

In certain shops in Asian cities, parents can buy bamboo switches, belts and other instruments of torture made just for punishing kids. Few realize that their mean words can cause just as much hurt, if not more. Parents have developed long lists of words used to demean and belittle. It has become an unspoken rulebook of how to bring their child down to feeling like he’s a big nothing, willing to do anything you say, because he inwardly begs: “Don’t hurt me anymore. Don’t hit me with your words. Don’t hurt me with your long silences and by turning your head away from me. Don’t hurt me that way anymore. I’ll do anything. I’ll get a dumb job and work at it fourteen hours a day to give you some money, to pay you for not hurting me anymore.” That’s what we have in the Hindu community around the world. And that’s what we don’t want to have in the Hindu community around the world.

What can a child of eight, ten or twelve do who is being verbally and physically beaten at home and in school? Nothing. It’s a sad situation. I’ve received lists of abuses from children of that age, just exactly what their mothers have said and what their fathers have said. It’s a tremendous pain in their mind. We’ve given young people the prāyaśchitta, the remedy, of putting a flower in front of their parents’ picture for thirty-one days. Most can’t do it. They just can’t do it. We ask them to say each day, “I forgive you for playing my karma back to me,” but they just can’t do it. The hate, the mistrust, the disappointment, the hurt, is so great, they’ve been put down so low, that they just cannot do it.

My counsel to Hindu families is: Stop the physical abuse. Stop the verbal abuse. Stop the war in the home. Use positive discipline. Praise your children. Discover the good things that they do and tell them how well they have done. Celebrate their Divinity. Enjoy them and enjoy good times with them. This is the family tradition and the ideal of Sanātana Dharma, the Hindu Dharma of the past, before the Church of England reigned over India for 150 years and changed education to their way of thinking, making beating a must in schools and homes in accordance with the many biblical verses that highly recommend “not to spare the rod,” and the theological rationale to “beat the devil out of them.” Hindus of today’s world have begun working together to stop the abuse, passing and enforcing laws to bring us back to the true meaning of discipline, which is to teach, train and patiently guide. We must remember that ahiṁsā, nonhurting, physically, mentally or emotionally, is the bedrock of Sanātana Dharma.

My advice to verbally abusive parents: stop tearing them down by telling them they’re stupid, that they’re too small, too fat, too lazy, too ugly or too naughty. If you constantly tell a child he is naughty, he will become naughtier. If you constantly tell a child he’s nice, he will be nicer. It just works like that. All the psychiatrists agree with this approach, to be sure, as do mothers and fathers who really love their children and take an interest in their children.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 201: MODERATION WITH ALCOHOL
All strong and intoxicating distilled alcohols are forbidden to Śiva’s devotees. They may moderately partake of the family of wines and beers, including honey mead, for these are wholesome when properly enjoyed. Aum.

Lesson 201 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Flow of Creativity

A devotee who can command his mind to be instantly creative, and be consistently successful, has acquired a conscious control of the use of the subsuperconscious state of mind. This is because the subconscious mind—made of odic force, a sticky-like substance that absorbs impressions, holds impressions and files them (not always, however, in an organized way)—has been understood, dissolved and brought in line with the cosmic forces through living a religious life. In this pure condition, the devotee’s attempts to direct his own mental forces are quite naturally successful. Unobstructed, the superconscious forces flow into the life of the devotee, and creativity is in abundance. Once the first breakthrough has been made, we find that these brilliant rays from the cosmic mind—which we also call Satchidānanda, the mind of God Śiva, the Gods and your immortal soul—penetrate the sticky-like substance of the subconscious, reorganizing and purifying it.

The next time you feel physically, mentally or emotionally fatigued, use your willpower to command access to the cosmic energies that exist deep inside of you. Do not allow the body or mind to fall into lethargic, depressed states. Feel the life forces stirring, flowing out to invigorate every cell of your being.

When you can see a white light aglow in your head in a darkened room, or even see a flash of it, or hear the inner, high-pitched sound, “eee,” humming in your inner ear, then you know that you are consciously functioning in the subsuperconscious state of mind. Devotees who have had their first flash of white light in their head or heard the constant high-pitched “eee” in their inner ear have awakened the process of the subsuperconscious state of mind, and it works quite automatically after that. All they have to do is to learn how to consciously use their subsuperconscious transcendental powers. All this will naturally occur through their continued sādhana.

The first breakthrough of the clear white light is subsuperconsciousness. The odic force fields of darkness which are seen within oneself are created by beliefs that conflict with the Sanātana Dharma, resentment and past conflicting karma. These are built up through the centuries of man’s intermingling within his own species. This inner darkness or odic force has created man’s subconscious mind, and conscious mind, the way he knows it today. Every devotee is inwardly desirous of breaking through the barriers of this inner darkness, realizing the discontent caused by the influx and outflow of connecting odic forces, not only between himself and family, friends and relations, but also in his association with the world at large.

Lesson 200 – Dancing with Śiva

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

Does the Universe Ever End? Is It Real?

ŚLOKA 45
The universe ends at mahāpralaya, when time, form and space dissolve in God Śiva, only to be created again in the next cosmic cycle. We call it relatively real to distinguish it from the unchanging Reality. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
This universe, and indeed all of existence, is māyā, Śiva’s mir­ific energy. While God is absolutely real, His em­anated world is relatively real. Being relatively real does not mean the universe is illusory or nonexistent, but that it is im­permanent and subject to change. It is an error to say that the universe is mere illusion, for it is entirely real when ex­pe­r­ienced in or­din­ary con­sciousness, and its existence is required to lead us to God. The universe is born, evolves and dissolves in cycles much as the seasons come and go through the year. These cycles are in­­conceivably im­mense, ending in mahāpralaya when the un­i­­­verse un­dergoes dissolution. All three worlds, including time and space, dissolve in God Śiva. This is His ultimate grace—the evolution of all souls is per­fect and complete as they lose in­dividuality and re­turn to Him. Then God Śiva exists alone in His three per­fec­tions until He again issues forth creation. The Ved­as state, “Truly, God is One; there can be no second. He alone governs these worlds with His powers. He stands facing beings. He, the herdsman, after bringing forth all worlds, re­absorbs them at the end of time.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.