Merging with Śiva

Author’s Introduction

Granthakāra Bhūmikā

ग्रन्थकार भूमिका

N OVERWHELMING INFLUX OF EASTERN THOUGHT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO THE WESTERN COUNTRIES THIS PAST CENTURY. THERE, NEEDLESS TO SAY, HAVE BEEN INNUMERABLE APPROACHES MADE TO PSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY AND THE YOGIC SCIENCE from all states of consciousness. Some excellent, highly recommended works have been published, written by the illuminati—those rare beings inspired by the superconscious mind. Others have compiled comparative intellectual studies, and still others have written purely instinctively. Inspired, perhaps, by brief flashes from the great beyond, they write only to clarify their own minds on various points relative to the unfoldment of the mind and spirit. It is of the greatest importance to note from what state of consciousness an author has written his works. This is an easy task for the “old timer,” but exceedingly difficult for the beginner who finds himself faced with an array of books to choose from. Though eager to know himself and unfold into deeper realms of thought, the problem of knowing what to choose and how to study what has been chosen is a great one. §

Merging with Śiva is a collection of a lifetime of realization. Realization is knowing, the aftermath of experience, having proven to oneself, from the inside of oneself, the deeper knowing. It also means “what has been seen.” This no one can take away, change or alter. If you are as I am, liking to peruse a book from the back to the front, Merging with Śiva is just that book for you. The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end. §

It all started in 1949 when I had certain great realizations of Truth, Self, Paraśiva, Absolute Reality, in the Caves of Jalani in Sri Lanka, followed by meeting my satguru, receiving initiation into the order of sannyāsa and returning to America. That was a long time ago. It was in 1950 that the jñāna, wisdom, bursts of knowledge, began to happen; in speaking out from the “inner skies,” the vak or unrehearsed knowing was released. As the five states of mind began to unfold in all their intricate variations, aphorisms were spoken and then immediately written before forgotten, not unlike the sūtras or ślokas of olden Vedic times. §

These aphorisms and their commentaries, or bhāshyas, mystically written seven years later, make up Part Four of Merging with Śiva, called Cognizantability, which was published separately in 1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970, and under the title Rāja Yoga in 1973. This took place many years ago, when I was first beginning the mighty mission my satguru gave to me, to build a bridge between the East and West, to erect temples, to feed thousands and roar like a lion around the world. From deep inside, these profound aphorisms emerged to be quickly written down. Coming as they did, from the deep inner mind, they explain the structure of the mind itself. Merging with Śiva’s lessons are based on a few of these many aphorisms that eventually comprised the first book to be published when I began my first formal teaching ministry, in 1957. This is the foundation of Merging with Śiva’s 52 chapters, comprising 365 daily lessons. So, we can see that the end is the beginning. §

It may be of interest to relate how the commentaries came about. It was in Denver, the mile-high city in the Rocky Mountains, that the commentaries were written, seven years after the aphorisms were revealed. My external mind was learning to fully accept superconscious knowing, and the deeper inner mind was actively making itself the knower of the known. Oddly enough, one day the inner said to the outer mind to number each aphorism, which are now Sections One and Two of Cognizantability, and place them all face down on the floor. I obediently did this. Then, one after another, the commentaries were revealed, three words at a time with a significant pause between. The superconscious would dictate word by word to the conscious mind to be written down. Amazingly, it proceeded to dictate the commentary to number seven, then number fourteen, and so on. When all were done, the natural impulse urged me to turn over the aphorisms that were still face down on the floor with a number on the back to see if the commentary matched the aphorism. It did! They all did! Truly, I became a more dedicated believer in the jñāna mārga, the aftermath of experiencing the beyond of the beyond of the beyond, which we call Paraśiva, the fulfillment of the yoga mārga. As the years passed by, one after another, this procedure of bringing unrehearsed wisdom through from the higher mind to the external became a natural part of my daily life, “one of the tools of the trade,” I have often said. These psychic powers sometimes take years to develop. But under the right circumstances those carried over from a previous incarnation come immediately, of course, and are as much available as the ability to speak, listen and feel. §

What you are about to study will be a progressive, mind-changing experience in 365 daily lessons. Read and reread them as a book. Or, as a sādhana, take one lesson a day and contemplate it as a beautiful gem. The discourses or inspired talks which make up the lessons have been brought together in this remarkable collection from half a century of teaching and guiding devotees. In assembling Merging with Śiva, I personally reviewed each word, sentence and paragraph from the original texts. You may be assured that you now hold in your hands a lifetime of realization and transformation which should stimulate you into pursuing some of the same realizations. Many of these inspired talks were given and recorded twenty, thirty or forty years ago. I endeavored to keep with the original wording as much as possible, often taking subsequently published versions back to their earlier form, while making virtually no, or only slight, changes when I felt such changes were needed to be effective in the present era. Hence they maintain their conversational style, which I call “Talkenese,” having not been reedited in a more book-like manner. (You will enjoy the special inspired talks chronology here). I say this to avoid any possible disputes in the future that might arise: “I read aloud, edited and revalidated every word in this treasure-trove during a three-year retreat from 1996 to 1999, making a mature evaluation, at age 72, of what stands as true and trustworthy, rock solid, worthy to pass on to the future.” There is much power in these words because of the combined brahmacharya force, the divine spiritual energy of the tapas and sādhana, of our Nandinātha order of āchāryas, swāmīs, yogīs and sādhakas.§

Merging with Śiva is a book that has your potential woven into it. It is not the typical book expounding the techniques of yoga or various methods of improving the physical body. It does not offer six dozen kinds of breath control or 108 postures. Instead, it reveals the yoga of life, jñāna yoga, of self-understanding and relationship, of who you are deep inside. This is the yoga of change, of unfolding new perspectives. It is, indeed, the discovery of your own true, divine identity—the I Am, the Being within, the Watcher, the Seer. Discover various areas of your inner and outer mind through carefully observing your reactions to intuitive flashes as you read. You may find yourself thinking, “I have always known that,” or “Yes, that is truly what I have experienced.” Then mentally build on the acknowledgment of these tiny realizations, and the bigger ones will naturally come at the right time and in the right way. §

How to Study this Book
To study Merging with Śiva, it is important to read through the entire book at least once. Then go through the daily lessons day after day just before sleep. Read the lesson of the day to the family, to friends and send it to loved ones on e-mail. The 365 lessons are divided into three parts: “Dancing in the Light,” “Living in the Divine” and “Merging in the All,” organized as to the three seasons we follow at Kauai Aadheenam. Thus, Part One corresponds with the season that begins April 14. Part Two begins on August 15, and Part Three begins on December 15. Serious seekers will choose one of these mystical times to commence the sādhana of reading the daily lessons around the year. Look back over the year, and you will clearly view your spiritual unfoldment as to how you have changed in belief, attitude and have been transformed a little in various departments of your life. §

Each lesson is to be absorbed into the subconscious mind, to be experienced, sometimes immediately, such as the lessons on affirmation and the numerous lessons on awareness flowing through the mind as a traveler journeys from city to city. This anyone of any background can experience. Inner light is also described in many lessons. It has been experienced by many, many—the light within a darkened room shining within the body. You do not have to be a saint, sage, philosopher or anything but an ordinary person to experience inner light. This experience makes you an extraordinary person. §

Read and absorb each chapter as a complete concept. Don’t belabor each point. This is not a rigorous philosophical treatise, but a free-flowing upadeśa of a guru seeing things as they are and responding to questions of devotees at the time, explaining situations that had arisen in the group around him, from an inner perspective. These spontaneous spoken essays describe the strivings of tens of thousands of seekers over a period of fifty years. Their questions are, no doubt, your questions, and my answers given here would no doubt be your answers, because these eternal matters don’t change all that much through the millennia. This is not an intellectual study. §

Remember that there are two books that precede Merging with Śiva for a full and deepening transformation. They are Dancing with Śiva and Living with Śiva. Both envision a complete change in philosophy and lifestyle. Dancing with Śiva, Living with Śiva and Merging with Śiva form a trilogy, my legacy. In philosophical terms relating to the path of attainment, the charyā mārga is Dancing with Śiva, the kriyā mārga is Living with Śiva and Merging with Śiva outlines the yoga and jñāna mārgas. Here, in our trilogy, we have a complete study for a lifetime or two, or possibly more.§

Part Four of Merging with Śiva is Cognizantability, the thought-provoking rāja yoga aphorisms and their commentaries. The Resource Section begins with Swami Vivekananda’s little-known poem “Song of the Sannyāsin,” extolling the ideals of renunciation upheld by today’s three million Hindu monastics. This is followed by a “Key to the Astral Colors” and “Charts: Cosmology, Chakras and Tattvas.” All this is the fruit of a lifetime of meditation.§

The quotations on the title page of each chapter are verses from the Tirumantiram, the Nandinātha Sampradāya’s oldest Tamil scripture; written ca 200 BCE by Rishi Tirumular. It is a vast storehouse of esoteric yogic and tantric knowledge, the tenth book of the Tirumurai, which is a collection of celebrated Tamil scriptures by the South Indian saints of Śaiva Siddhānta. The Tirumantiram’s 3,047 verses contain the mystical essence of rāja yoga and siddha yoga, and the fundamental doctrines of the twenty-eight Śaiva Siddhānta Āgamas, which along with the Vedas form the basis of our tradition. §

Ṛishi Tirumular was a pre-eminent theologian of our Śaiva faith, but not merely a theologian. He was also a siddhar, an accomplished yogī. His satguru was Maharishi Nandinatha who had eight disciples. Some were sent to China and others elsewhere. It was Tirumular who was sent to South India to teach monistic Śaiva Siddhānta and resolve the Monism-Pluralism problem, which was present even then. Rishi Tirumular was the guru of the guru who initiated the guru who became the guru who trained the guru who, when the succession had passed through two thousand years, eventually ordained my satguru, who initiated me, and then I trained for three decades my three well-qualified successors, following the same pattern as set in the long, long ago. Our Hindu scriptures come from such great men, men who have attained to the deepest realizations through their sādhana and their devotion. Their awareness dwells in the superconscious states resident in all men but penetrated intentionally by only a few, and when they speak out from that state, we consider that it is not man himself who has thus spoken, but the Divine through man. Rishi Tirumular was such a knower of the Unknowable, who held Truth in the palm of his hand, and his words are valued as a divine message for mankind.§

The Hindu View of Liberation

Merging with Śiva is all about liberation, the earning of freedom from the body, mind and emotions through union with the Divine, ultimately in total inextricable merger of the soul in God. Having lived many lives, each soul seeks release from mortality, experiences the Divine directly through Self Realization and ultimately attains moksha, liberation from the round of births and deaths. §

The religions of India are unique in their knowledge of the soul’s spiritual evolution through a multitude of physical incarnations. Scripture tells us this evolution culminates in Self Realization, which, once sufficient karma is resolved, confers moksha, release from the cycle of birth and death. Moksha, from the root much or moksh, has many denotations: to loose, to free, release, let loose, let go and thus also to spare, to let live, to allow to depart, to dispatch, to dismiss and even to relax, to spend, bestow, give away and open. Thus it means “release from worldly existence or transmigration; final or eternal emancipation.” §

Moksha is not a state of extinction of the soul, nor of nonexistence, nor of nonconsciousness. It is perfect freedom, an indescribable state of nondifferentiation, a proximity to the Divine within. Moksha marks an end to the Earthly sojourn, but it may also be understood as a beginning, not unlike graduation from the university. Kaivalya is another apt term for this ineffable condition of perfect detachment, freedom and oneness. §

To reach this emancipation beyond all joy and sorrow, all difference and decay, the soul must remove, in order, the three fetters: karma, which is “the power of cause and effect, action and reaction;” māyā, which is “the power of manifestation” sometimes called illusion; and āṇava, “the power of egoity or veil of duality.” Once freed by God’s grace from these bonds—which do not cease to exist, but no longer have the power to bind—the soul experiences nirvikalpa samādhi. This is the realization of the Self, Atattva Parabrahman—timeless, formless, spaceless—a oneness beyond all change or diversity. Self Realization is man’s natural state, which each soul eventually comes to. While the ultimate goal of earthly life is the experience (or more precisely the nonexperience) of Self Realization, the by-product of that realization is moksha. These two are not synonymous. §

While some sects of Hinduism teach that liberation comes only upon death, most embrace the state of jīvanmukti, liberation in which the advanced soul unfolds its inherent perfection while alive. It is said of such a great one that “He died before he died,” indicating the totally real, not merely symbolic, demise of the ego. It is possible to realize the Self and still not reach the emancipated state. If this happens, the soul would return and in its next birth easily become a jīvanmukta by virtue of the past realization. What distinguishes the mukta from the nonliberated is his total freedom from all selfishness and attachments, his permanent abidance in the all-pervading Divine Presence, his lucid, witnessing consciousness and his jñāna, revealed in spontaneous utterances. §

To attain liberation while living, the realization of the Self has to be brought through into every aspect of life, every atom of one’s body. This occurs after many encounters with nirvikalpa samādhi. Through harnessing the power of sādhana and tapas, the adept advances his evolution, moving ahead ten lives or more. Only great tapasvins achieve jīvanmukti, for to catalyze the death of the astral body and then revive the life forces, one must be proficient in brahmacharya, yoga, prāṇāyāma and the varied sādhanas. It is a grace, made possible by guidance of a living satguru, attained by single-minded and strong-willed efforts of yoga, worship, detachment and purification. Non-yogīs may be freed at death, provided all karmas have been worked out and the Self is realized as the body is released. §

Even having attained perfect liberation, a soul may consciously choose to be reborn to help others on the path. Such a one is called an upadeśī—exemplified by the benevolent satguru—as distinguished from a nirvāṇī, the silent ascetic who abides at the pinnacle of consciousness, shunning all worldly involvement. The concept of moksha for every Hindu sect is informed and modified by its understanding of the soul and its relationship to God. Most Hindus believe that after release from birth and death the soul will exist in the higher regions of the inner worlds where the Gods and mature beings live. Some sects contend the soul continues to evolve in these realms until it attains perfect union and merger with God. Others teach that the highest end is to abide eternally and separately in God’s glorious presence. Four distinct views are explored below. §

Smārta Hinduism
Smārtism is an ancient brāhmanical tradition reformed by Adi Sankara in the ninth century. Worshiping six forms of God, this liberal Hindu path is monistic, nonsectarian, meditative and philosophical. Īśvara and man are in reality Absolute Brahman. Within māyā, the soul and Īśvara appear as two. Jñāna, spiritual wisdom, dispels the illusion. §

Most Smārtas believe that moksha is achieved through jñāna yoga alone—defined as an intellectual and meditative but non-kuṇḍalinī yoga path. Guided by a realized guru and avowed to the unreality of the world, the initiate meditates on himself as Brahman to break through the illusion of māyā. The ultimate goal of Smārtas is to realize oneself as Brahman—the Absolute and only Reality. For this, one must conquer the state of avidyā, or ignorance, which causes the world to appear as real. All illusion has vanished for the realized being, jīvanmukta, even as he lives out life in the physical body. If the sun were cold or the moon hot or fire burned downward, he would show no wonder. The jīvanmukta teaches, blesses and sets an example for the welfare of the world. At death, his inner and outer bodies are extinguished. Brahman alone exists and he is That forever, all in All. §

Liberation depends on self-culture, which leads to spiritual insight. It does not come from the recitation of hymns, sacrificial worship or a hundred fasts. Man is liberated not by effort, not by yoga, not by any self-transformation, but only by the knowledge gained from scripture and self-reflection that he himself is Brahman. Jñāna yoga’s progressive stages are scriptural study (śravaṇa), reflection (manana) and sustained meditation (dhyāna). Devotees may also choose from three other nonsuccessive paths to cultivate devotion, accrue good karma and purify the mind. These are bhakti yoga, karma yoga and rāja yoga, which, Smārtas teach, can also bring enlightenment.§

Scripture teaches, “For the great-souled, the surest way to liberation is the conviction that ‘I am Brahman’ ” (Śukla Yajur Veda, Paiṅgala Upanishad 4.19 UPR, P. 923). Sri Jayendra Saraswathi of Kanchi Peedam, Tamil Nadu, India, affirms, “That state where one transcends all feelings is liberation. Nothing affects this state of being. You may call it ‘transcendental bliss,’ purified intuition that enables one to see the Supreme as one’s own Self. One attains to Brahman, utterly liberated.” §

Vaishṇava Hinduism
The primary goal of Vaishṇavites is videhamukti, disembodied liberation—attainable only after death—when the small self realizes union with God Vishṇu’s body as a part of Him, yet maintains its pure individual personality. God’s transcendent Being is a celestial form residing in the city of Vaikuṇṭha, the home of all eternal values and perfection, where the soul joins Him when liberated. Souls do not share in God’s all-pervasiveness or power to create. §

Most Vaishṇavites believe that religion is the performance of bhakti sādhanas, and that man can communicate with and receive the grace of Lord Vishṇu who manifests through the temple Deity, or idol. The path of karma yoga and jnāna yoga leads to bhakti yoga. Through total self-surrender, called prapatti, to Lord Vishṇu, liberation from saṁsāra is attained. Vaishṇavites consider the moksha of the advaita philosophies a lesser attainment, preferring instead the bliss of eternal devotion. There are differing categories of souls which attain to different levels of permanent release, called sālokya, “sharing the world” of God; sāmīpya, “nearness” to God; sārūpya, “likeness” to God; and sāyujya, “union” with God. Jīvanmukti exists only in the case of great souls who leave their place in heaven to take a human birth and later return. §

There is one school of Vaishṇavism, founded by Vallabhacharya, which takes an entirely different view of moksha. It teaches that, upon liberation, the soul, through its insight into truth revealed by virtue of perfect devotion, recovers divine qualities suppressed previously and becomes one with God, in identical essence, though the soul remains a part, and God the whole. This is described by the analogy of sparks issuing from a fire. §

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati of the International Society of Divine Love, Texas, offers a Vaishṇava view, “Liberation from māyā and the karmas is only possible after the divine vision of God. Thus, sincere longing for His vision is the only way to receive His grace and liberation.” §

Śākta Hinduism
Śāktas believe the soul is one with God Śiva. Emphasis is given to the Feminine Manifest by which the Masculine Unmanifest is ultimately reached. The Divine Mother, Śakti, is mediatrix, bestowing this advaitic moksha on those who worship Her. Moksha is complete identification with the transcendent God Śiva, achieved when the kuṇḍalinī śakti power is raised through the sushumṇā current of the spine to the top of the head to unite with Śiva. Alternatively, moksha may be conceived of as union with Devī, or with Brahman. The spiritual practices in Śāktism are similar to those in Śaivism, though there is more emphasis in Śāktism on God’s Power as opposed to Being, on mantras and yantras, and on embracing apparent opposites: male-female, absolute-relative, pleasure-pain, cause-effect, mind-body. Shamanistic Śāktism employs magic, trance mediumship, firewalking and animal sacrifice for healing, fertility, prophecy and power. “Left hand” tantric rites transcend traditional ethical codes. §

The state of jīvanmukti in Śāktism is called kulāchāra, “the divine way of life,” attained through sādhana and grace. The liberated soul is known as kaula, to whom wood and gold, life and death are the same. The kaula can move about in the world at will, even returning to earthly duties such as kingship, but nevertheless remaining liberated from rebirth, as his actions can no longer bind him. §

The Goddess, Devī, gives both mukti and bhukti—liberation and worldly enjoyment. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan explained one view, “The jīva under the influence of māyā looks upon itself as an independent agent and enjoyer until release is gained. Knowledge of Śakti is the road to salvation, which is dissolution in the bliss effulgence of the Supreme.” Sri Sri Sri Sivaratnapuri Swami of Kailas Ashram, Bangalore, India, declares, “My message to mankind is ‘Right thought, right living and unremitting devotion to the Divine Mother.’ Faith is the most important thing that you should cultivate. By faith does one obtain knowledge.” §

Śaivite Hinduism
The path for Śaivites is divided into four progressive stages of belief and practice called charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna. The soul evolves through karma and reincarnation from the instinctive-intellectual sphere into virtuous and moral living, then into temple worship and devotion, followed by internalized worship or yoga and its meditative disciplines. Union with God Śiva comes through the grace of the satguru and culminates in the soul’s maturity in the state of jñāna, or wisdom. Śaivism values both bhakti and yoga, devotional and contemplative sādhanas. Moksha is defined differently in Śaivism’s six schools. §

Pāśupata Śaivism emphasizes Śiva as supreme cause and personal ruler of the soul and world. It teaches that the liberated soul retains its individuality in a state of complete union with Śiva. Vīra Śaivism holds that after liberation the soul experiences a true union and identity of Śiva and soul, called Liṅga and aṅga. The soul ultimately merges in a state of Śūnya, or Nothingness, which is not an empty void. Kashmīr Śaivism teaches that liberation comes through a sustained recognition, called pratyabhijñā, of one’s true Self as nothing but Śiva. After liberation, the soul has no merger in God, as God and soul are eternally nondifferent. In Gorakhnāth Śaivism, or Siddha Siddhānta, moksha leads to a complete sameness of Śiva and soul, described as “bubbles arising and returning to water.” In Śiva Advaita, liberation leads to the “ākāśa within the heart.” Upon death, the soul goes to Śiva along the path of the Gods, continuing to exist on the spiritual plane, enjoying the bliss of knowing all as Śiva, and attaining all powers except creation. §

Śaiva Siddhānta has two sub-sects. Meykandar’s pluralistic realism teaches that God, soul and world are eternally coexistent. Liberation leads to a state of oneness with Śiva, in which the soul retains its individuality, like salt added to water. Tirumular’s monistic theism, or Advaita Īśvaravāda, reflected in Merging with Śiva, holds that evolution continues after earthly births until jīva becomes Śiva, the soul merges in perfect oneness with God, like a drop of water returning to the sea. Scriptures teach, “Having realized the Self, the ṛishis, perfected souls, satisfied with their knowledge, passion-free, tranquil—those wise beings, having attained the Omnipresent on all sides—enter into the All itself” (Atharva Veda, Muṇḍaka Upanishad 3.2.5 BO UPH. P. 376).§

Monistic Śaiva Siddhānta
The primary goal of this form of monistic Śaivism is realizing one’s identity with God Śiva, in perfect union and nondifferentiation. This is termed nirvikalpa samādhi, Self Realization, and may be attained in this life, granting moksha, permanent liberation from the cycles of birth and death. A secondary goal is savikalpa samādhi, the realization of Satchidānanda, a unitive experience within superconsciousness in which perfect Truth, knowledge and bliss are known. §

Moksha does not mean death, as some misunderstand it. It means freedom from rebirth before or after death, after which souls continue evolving in the Antarloka and Śivaloka, and finally merge with Lord Śiva as does river water when returning to the ocean. Moksha comes when all earthly karmas have been fully resolved. The Vedas promise, “If here one is able to realize Him before the death of the body, he will be liberated from the bondage of the world.” All embodied souls—whatever be their faith or convictions, Hindu or not—are destined to achieve moksha, but not necessarily in this life. Śaivites know this and do not delude themselves that this life is the last. Old souls renounce worldly ambitions and take up sannyāsa in quest of Paraśiva even at a young age. Younger souls desire to seek lessons from the experiences of worldly life which is rewarded by many, many births on Earth. After moksha has been attained—and it is an attainment resulting from much sādhana, self-reflection and realization—subtle karmas are made and swiftly resolved, like writing on water. Finally, at the end of each soul’s evolution comes viśvagrāsa, total absorption in Śiva. “Even as a shadow disappears with the body, even as a bubble returns into water, even as a flame of camphor leaves no trace, so it is when jīva into Param unites” (Tirumantiram, 2587).§

“But who is Śiva?” one might well ask. Our Hindu Catechism, Dancing with Śiva, explains, “God Śiva is all and in all, one without a second, the Supreme Being and only Absolute Reality. He is Pati, our Lord, immanent and transcendent. To create, preserve, destroy, conceal and reveal are His five powers. Aum. God Śiva is a one being, yet we understand Him in three perfections: Absolute Reality, Pure Consciousness and Primal Soul. As Absolute Reality, Śiva is unmanifest, unchanging and transcendent, the Self God, timeless, formless and spaceless. As Pure Consciousness, Śiva is the manifest primal substance, pure love and light flowing through all form, existing everywhere in time and space as infinite intelligence and power. As Primal Soul, Śiva is the five-fold manifestation: Brahmā, the Creator; Vishṇu, the Preserver; Rudra, the Destroyer; Maheśvara, the Veiling Lord, and Sadāśiva, the Revealer. He is our personal Lord, source of all three worlds. Our divine Father-Mother protects, nurtures and guides us, veiling Truth as we evolve, revealing it when we are mature enough to receive God’s bountiful grace. God Śiva is all and in all, great beyond our conception, a sacred mystery that can be known in direct communion. Yea, when Śiva is known, all is known. The Vedas state: ‘That part of Him which is characterized by tamas is called Rudra. That part of Him which belongs to rajas is Brahmā. That part of Him which belongs to sattva is Vishṇu’ ” (Kṛishṇa Yajur Veda, Maitrī Upanishad 5.2 BO UPH).§

Nine Ways of Merging with Śiva§

Merger—that is what this book, the third book in the trilogy of Dancing with Śiva, Living with Śiva and Merging with Śiva, is all about. Some of the big questions about something as wonderful as becoming one with the universe or with God are: Is merger something to accomplish in this lifetime, or shall we put it off to another round? Is merger something that can be achieved even in future lives, or should we consider that it might never happen, or that it just might happen unexpectedly? Is merger with Śiva complete annihilation, an undesirable nothingness that we should delay as long as possible? Shall we cease all striving for realization and wait for mahāpralaya, the end of the universe, the Great Dissolution commanded by Lord Śiva, when every soul, young or old, merges in the All of the All—no exceptions, no one left behind, the ultimate perk of the Divine Cosmic Drama, the guarantee of final merger of every soul? Fortunately, the next Big Bang may happen after Śiva gets lonely dancing by Himself and starts His creation all over again. §

Merger on the great inner path described in this book is already happening in your life and in the life of every soul on the planet, in the natural course of evolution. In Sanskrit, we express “Merging with Śiva” as Śivasāyujya, “Intimate union with the Divine.” Nine progressive ways of merging with Śiva are possible today, in fact impossible to avoid. Shall we now explore these nine ways, the wonderful ways of merging with Śiva as we walk the San Mārga, the straight path of dharma? §

A jīva, or soul, merges with his potential mother who gives a physical body to which his astral body is attached. This is the first merger. Then, when his first guru, the parents, train him to quell the instinctive mind and become a producing member of the family and the social and global communities, the second merger occurs. Why should these two developments be related to merging with the Supreme? It is because Śiva is the life of our lives, as the venerable saints teach. Śiva is the life of the life of all sentient and insentient beings, the sea of prāṇa, ever emanating, mysteriously, from the All of the Allness of His mystery Being, by which all life exists and all happenings happen. Therefore to merge energies with all other humans without making differences is to find Śivaness in all and within all. §

Having merged with the biological and social worlds, it then is for the young jīva, embodied soul, to be introduced by the parents to the family guru for spiritual training. Obedience and devotion to the guru is again another merger into Śivaness, for the satguru is Sadāśiva, or Śiva in form, having realized Śiva in Formlessness. It is from the satguru’s constant, silent emanation that the śishya thrives, as do flowering trees, bushes and vines thrive and grow from the sun’s silent rays and the occasional showers of rain. No words need be spoken, for both śishya and guru know the same—the śishya having had his training in scripture, divine inspiration of song, meaning and dance from his first guru, the parents. §

Having walked the San Mārga through the charyā and kriyā mārgas, and having disciplined mind and emotions, the śishya is ready for the fourth merger into Śivaness. This is accomplished through art, calligraphy, drawing divine forms, writing out scripture in one’s own hand and depicting through drama, by learning and playing music, by having all bodily currents move into the rhythm of the sounds of nature, for nature is nāda in the external. It has its own choreography, and this merger is with Naṭarāja, Lord of the Dance. It is also the merger with knowledge of all kinds, of language and mathematics, of the many sciences and arts. §

The fifth merger is deeper: endeavoring to penetrate the intuitive world, communing with nature, encountering the many dreams, visions and other mystical experiences that await the seeker of Truth. It is merger with the selfless life, of seeing oneself in others, and others in oneself, of losing the barriers that divide one from another, and the internal world from the external world. It is living a harmonious life with a heart filled with love, trust and understanding for all, desiring to give rather than wanting only to receive. The light that lights each thought picture when traced to its source is the sixth merger—the yoga of detaching awareness from that which it is aware of and being the light that lights the thoughts, rather than claiming identity as being the thoughts, then tracing this light of the mind out of the mind into the beyond of the beyond. Yea, this is the sixth way we merge into the Divine. The Lord of the Dance emanates His own lighting effects, does His own choreography, creates His own music and enjoys, as the audience, His own performance.§

The seventh merger is into the nāda-nāḍī śakti, that unrelenting sound heard as an inexplainable “eee,” of a thousand vīṇās being played simultaneously by Vīṇādhāra, another form of Lord Śiva, the maker of sound, the composer of the symphony. The nāda is traced to its source, deep within the within, the city of a thousand lights and sounds, for sound is light and light is sound in this sphere of Satchidānanda, all-pervasive oneness with all form, the Self flowing through the mind, untouched by it, yet sustaining it in a mightily mysterious way.§

The eighth merger with Śiva is Paraśiva. Becoming and being timeless, formless, spaceless is the total transformation of the soul body, the mental body, the astral body, the prāṇic body and the physical body. It is the breaking of seals which subsequently makes changes never to be repaired. A new, an entirely new, process begins. It is the ultimate healing of all karmas, the ultimate knowing of dharma.§

And now, lastly, once the soul evolves out of the physical, prāṇic, emotional, mental and causal sheaths—annamaya, prāṇamaya, manomaya, vijñānamaya and ānandamaya kośas—and they are needed no more, it evolves into viśvagrāsa, the ninth and final merger with Śiva, as an infant effortlessly becomes a child, a child a youth and a youth an adult. Yes, the soul, jīva, encased in five bodies, is indeed merged into the emanator, preserver and absorber of the inner and outer universes as simply as a drop of water merges into the ocean, never to be found again. This is the timeless path the holy Vedas of the Sanātana Dharma proclaim. As a seed becomes a bud, and a bud becomes a flower, these nine steps of spiritual unfoldment are inevitable for all humankind. A parallel analysis known as dasakariyam, “ten attainments,” is found in ancient Tamil texts. §

My First Encounters with Hinduism §

Having been orphaned in 1938 at eleven years of age and raised by a family friend who had lived five or more years as a guest of the Mahārāja of Mysore, where she explored Indian art, dance and culture, it was in the path of my natural evolution to come to know Śiva Naṭarāja, the God of the Dance. During those early days, I was taught to drape a dhotī, wrap a turban, dance the tāṇḍava of Lord Śiva, and much more. Indian culture was no stranger then, nor is it now.§

In the teenage years, I was much exposed to Swami Vivekananda’s writings and lectures by other swāmīs who preached the Smārta philosophy. Everything was there for me, except for one philosophical glitch. That was Paraśiva or Parabrahman, the timeless, spaceless, causeless Śivam. Knowledge about this aspect of philosophy must have been a carry-over from a past life, for it came up ever so strong in my mind at the time. More exposure to the Smārta sect followed near the end of the 1930s when the Bhagavad Gītā was introduced to the West as the Holy Bible of the Hindus. The metaphysical and philosophical circles and intelligentsia in America could not believe that an excerpted episode of the Mahābhārata preaching violence could be anything but detrimental to future generations in the West. This has proven to be true in many, some bitter, contests, right up to the Supreme Court level. The swāmīs in those early years tried to justify God Kṛishṇa’s urging his devotee to kill his relatives and his guru, that all would be well in the end because the soul never dies, and those who were killed would reincarnate. Western people were at that time, and still are, innocent and believing—having never been taught the notion of divine deception, or a manner of writing where one thing actually means another (they were of the opinion that it was the duty of the wise to make themselves clear)—when Lord Kṛishṇa was seen to tell the warrior Arjuna to fight and slay his own clan and then have a good night’s sleep, free from conscience, that did not go over well at all. Contemporary swāmīs made fruitless efforts to philosophically justify the Gītā, but their arguments and explanations were not convincing. This was before the West experienced the Second World War, when people were still very religious, moral and thoughtful about these matters. Eventually, the Gītā was rejected for the lofty Upanishads of the Vedas, which scholars discovered and made available in English. §

Yet, in this century the Smārtas, along with many Vaishṇavas, have taken the Bhagavad Gītā as their prime scripture, a text which is not a revealed scripture at all. It is smṛiti, specifically Itihāsa, meaning history, a poem excerpted from the Mahābhārata epic. Whereas, the Vedas—the four divinely revealed and most revered scriptures, śruti, of all Hindus, the most ancient of all books in the world, the bible of the Sanātana Dharma—promoted ahiṁsā, nonviolence, the Gītā condoned war and has thus been critically called kolai nul by eminent swāmīs, “the book of carnage,” a book that gives divine sanction to violence. §

At age twenty-one I arrived in India, off the ship that had carried me across the seas, walking through the massive Gateway to India, in Mumbai, which was Bombay in those days. Later I would travel South, to Madras, now Chennai, finally coming to Colombo in Sri Lanka. It was the Śaivite elders and pandits of Jaffna, Sri Lanka—one of whom adopted me into his extended family of the Chettiar caste and initiated me into temple worship—who augmented my already mature knowledge of Vedānta. I was happy to find a complete culture that accepted the monistic advaita of Vedānta and yet cherished and practiced the many other dimensions of life, celebrated festivals, valued the great yoga called bhakti, honored those who performed sādhanas, understood the way of kuṇḍalinī yoga, knew the mysteries of penance or prāyaśchitta, including rolling around the temple in the hot noonday sun, and lost itself—or should I say found itself?—in the chambers of the hallowed temples where darshan was sought out and the Gods were seen and felt as real beings when invoked by the magical priests to enter the temple at the height of the ceremony.§

So, then, not long after I had discovered this richness, Śaiva Siddhānta—a happy, contented blend of Siddhānta (worship) and Vedānta (philosophical teachings)—became a vital part of my daily life. After this I became aware of a problem within Śaiva Siddhānta, which was loosely translated to mean “the final conclusions of the Vedas and Āgamas.” The problem was monism and pluralism, which had been a subject of popular debate for about two thousand years, I was told. It seemed strange to me that it persisted that long and still was not satisfactorily concluded. Of course, I was in my early twenties and had a lot to learn about the way of pandits and their conundrums. §

I first became involved in this ongoing debate in 1948 while staying and performing sādhana in Jaffna, living with my adopted family in a humble mud hut, prior to my initiation from the great sage, Jnanaguru Yogaswami. I learned that pluralist adherents in the village were not at all pleased with this modern mystic’s monistic statements and conclusions. At my very first meeting with this extraordinary Nātha siddha, whom I had traveled halfway around the world to seek out, Satguru Yogaswami tested me by asking, “What do you think about monism and pluralism? Explain it to me.” He obviously knew I had been exposed to both sides of the debate through village discussions with elders and pandits. I said, “Swāmī, both are true. It is totally dependent upon how one is looking at the mountain. The pluralist looks at the mountain from the foothills and feels separate from its lofty peak. The monist sits in oneness on that lofty peak.” He smiled, nodded and was pleased.§

In my life, the issue again came into prominence in the early ’80s after my recognition by the world community of Śaivites and all of the other three Hindu denominations as Guru Mahāsannidhānam of Kauai Aadheenam and 162nd Jagadāchārya of the Nandinātha Sampradāya’s Kailāsa Paramparā. By that time, our small but dynamic Hindu church had distributed thousands of copies of our Hindu Catechism, Dancing with Śiva, boldly proclaiming the monistic truths of Śaiva Siddhānta and bravely claiming the term as our own. This did not go unnoticed by pluralist scholars and pandits, who for generations had faced little opposition to their claim that Śaiva Siddhānta is pluralistic by definition. I was challenged and rose to the occasion, thinking that if the debate had not been settled for two or more thousand years, then giving it a little fire and a few challenges might, just might, make a difference, and it did. §

The debate goes on even to this day and will continue into the future of futures because, honestly, in every denomination there is this dichotomy, this discussion of how man and God and world relate. Each generation will confront the matter, and each way of looking at the Ultimate is from where the the perceiver is sitting, at the bottom of the mountain or at the top. If you are interested in the “ins and outs” of the discussion, turn to Resource One of this book and ascertain for yourself how it finally concluded. Or did it? §

Having lived a fairly long time on planet Earth—through the ’30s financial crash, orphaned at eleven, through World War II, through an international emergency ending in incarceration in Algeria with guns at our back when we innocently arrived in 1968 in a nation in turmoil, through innumerable earthquakes in California, three devastating hurricanes on my beloved island of Kauai, several riots in India, an ethnic war in Sri Lanka, the economic roller coaster of America including 1987 Black Monday, winter snowstorms in Nevada and freezing days in Russia with Gorbachev and 2,500 political and spiritual leaders and media huddled in the Kremlin chanting “Aum” three times together, through the banning of our international magazine, HINDUISM TODAY, in Malaysia, the 1993 Parliament of World’s Religions in Chicago, elected one among 23 religious presidents, the 1995 controversial incident of the Great Last Papers of Gandhi in the UK, through a million phone calls from every corner of the Earth on every issue known to mankind, through the opposition of great men and the support of greater men, having been honored and paraded six miles on chariots in Kilinochi, Sri Lanka, pulled by old men and young boys, the showering of baskets of flowers tossed from the rooftops of the town of Tuticorin in South India, received at airports with music and songs and garlands from crowds, as they had received Swami Vivekananda nearly a century before, in Madurai at the Mīnākshī Sundaram Temple paraded with five elephants, umbrellas, several camels in holy processions, the guest of the governments, meeting with Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers and religious leaders of all faiths and leaders in all walks of life, establishing temples in the USA, Fiji, Mauritius, Canada, Denmark, Germany, England, Switzerland and several other countries, often by establishing Lord Gaṇeśa icons to begin the worship, and later presiding over the completion of some of them, then to endure the issues of the ’80s and the ’90s—yes, having gone through all this and more, I was prepared for the challenges of guiding several hundred families in missions in eight countries and, not the least of it, raising and training 30 āchāryas, swāmīs, yogīs and sādhakas from six nations and being there for the flood of visitors and pilgrims to our remote island from all parts of the world, not to mention the struggle to unite all of the world’s Hindus through HINDUISM TODAY, a monthly effort that reaches to all corners of the Earth, teaching the core Vedic philosophy accepted by all four of the denominations of Sanātana Dharma. Why did all this happen to me? Well, it was from three words from my satguru: “Follow inner orders.” I thought the orders would never stop, and indeed they continue until this day. Have I been through it all? You might say that! But, it’s not over yet!§

When I decided to launch HINDUISM TODAY in 1979, my thinking was: to make Śaivism strong, we have to make all the other three main denominations strong. Because our philosophy is being devoted to Śiva in everyone, we support every Hindu sect equally. Our strength is in having oneness with all the Hindus around the world, even though our philosophical, doctrinal and cultural approaches may differ somewhat. This is for the benefit of the overall Hindu renaissance, which is gaining in power as the century turns, for as each becomes strong, that strength benefits the overall body of Hinduism, giving pride, stability and courage to proceed with confidence. This is Hindu solidarity, one of our heartfelt commitments. The other is monistic theism—Advaita Īśvaravāda—of Śaiva Siddhānta. Now that uniting all the Hindus is being accomplished through HINDUISM TODAY, at the simultaneous turn of the century and the millennium, new challenges are to be faced. The experiences and accomplishments of the past are the foundation for the accomplishments of the future. Having lived this long in this life, and having had many, many lives preceding it, especially at this time on our planet, when controversy, distrust and intrigue are marketable commodities, I can truly say without any dissembling, “I would not have wanted to miss this birth for anything. It has been a fun time, but it would not have been without home base, ‘the Self,’ as you shall discover and come to know and love and become as you read on in Merging with Śiva.”§

Self Realization§

When the knowledge of the Self first became commonly planted into English and other European languages at the turn of the twentieth century, brought by the Vedic Upanishads, it was an event of the time. Mystically inclined people were enthralled and elated. All began striving for the high goal before even preparing for the lower ones that lead up to it. No one thought much about their nonattainment at that time, but went on into other “-isms” and “-asms,” such as Druidism, which was big at that time. §

Then came Theosophy and the various sciences of the mind. It was not until the 1960s, after two world wars, that the search for the Self became popular in the mass consciousness. It was talked about, sought for and even touched into by various striving souls. Psychedelic drugs promised ‘the Self’ with a capital S. But alas, these drugs wreaked havoc and became illegal, and there was no way in promoting chemical Self Realization any more. So, the spelling changed. The S, in caps, became lower case s. This psychological seeking caught on like a wildfire. “Find your self;” “Explore your ego (with the small e of course);” “Discover your identity;” “Be your own person;” “Realize your highest potential”—these were the mottos then, and this has carried into the ’90s. §

Well, that is not all that happened in the European-based languages, which began to expand to encompass the myriad terms of Earth’s peoples for the highest of the high. The Buddhists have their interpretation of the Self, as do the native American Indian tribes. African tribal religions have theirs, as do the ever-more-popular Pagans of Europe, and even the existentialists and materialists have theirs. The Self—known in Vedic Sanskrit as ātman, Parabrahman and Paraśiva—meant one thing to the yogīs of India and soon meant many things to the uninitiated. Self Realization can, and does today, have a conscribed meaning of realizing sexuality through tantra, or independence from parents and authority figures. It is, in fact, still a money-making proposition, having a small s or a big S, widely sold on the open market as a highly viable product. §

But back to the beginning—the Self is all-pervasive energy, within and through all creation, and transcends even that as being timeless, formless and spaceless. This cannot be sold, bought or mass-produced. Vedically speaking, it is for those souls who have prepared for the journey and is attained only at the cost of egolessness. Nevertheless, it is also sold in many other s’s: symposiums, seminars, sādhanas, secret mantras, seclusive initiations and seductive sex tantras. §

In today’s world there are many institutions and teachers presenting kuṇḍalinī yoga as an elixir of life. True, it can be stimulated upward, but it then goes downward because of the lack of control of the emotions, lower instinctive nature and lack of philosophical background. As a thermometer reacts to heat and cold, so does the kuṇḍalinī when tampered with by the novice under the guidance of commercialization. It is an age where money is a product. It is an age where very little is sacred if it can be sold. The wear and tear on the vital forces of physical, astral and mental bodies is severe when kuṇḍalinī, the holy of holies, is stimulated in the unholy of unholies, those who lack remorse and do not seek penance, those who see themselves as the beginning and end of all, those who are devoid of conscience, who anger and jealously retort, who are self-centered, taking care of me, mine and I first. They are in the lower-nature chakras. In today’s world, some are even paying multi-money for the “kuṇḍalinī experience.” §

Some groups, like Transcendental Meditation, have given out techniques too freely to those who are unprepared and unsuited to sustain the consequences of the disciplines. If the lower is not closed off, no one should be introduced into deep meditation, intense prāṇāyāma and occult arts, such as Reiki. These are well-known examples of digression from established protocols for the metaphysical teachings.§

In the early 1900s, yogīs came to America and taught so much—all high-powered teachings and techniques—without traditional preparations, that they put many, impressionable women especially, into our mental institutions. During my early ministry I visited mental institutions and released back to their families a few such people who had gone over the edge because of occult practices. In those days when one went into a mental institution he often never came out. A man whose wife began practicing yoga would have her committed. This cycle is repeating itself. The problem is that certain siddhis arise which are just a by-product of the practices, not a development of sādhana, and the repercussions could be disastrous as far as society is concerned. §

Sri Chinmoy, Bengali mystic and yogī, world renowned expert on kuṇḍalinī yoga and United Nations peace emissary, has this to say about enlightenment in his book, Samādhi and Siddhi: “To realize the highest Absolute as one’s very own and to constantly feel that this realization is not something you have actually achieved, but something you eternally are—that is called realization.… Nirvikalpa samādhi and the other samādhis are all high stages. But there is a stage which is superior to nirvikalpa samādhi. That is the stage of divine transformation, absolute transformation. You can be in samādhi, but samādhi does not give you transformation. While you are in your trance, you become exalted, for you are one with God. But when you come back into the material plane, you become an ordinary man. But if you have transformed your outer and inner consciousness, then you are no more affected by the ignorance of the world.… To reach liberation is no easy matter. It is very, very difficult to become freed from ignorance. Out of the millions and billions of human beings on Earth, there may be ten or twenty or even a hundred liberated souls. But God alone knows how many realized souls exist.” §

There are many concepts as to what happens to the soul after Self Realization and many concepts as to what Self Realization is. There are many concepts as to eventual attainment, and there are many concepts as to whether it is an intellectual understanding that means the end or the goal of the path, and there is nothing beyond that, or experiencing all-pervasiveness, and that is the end of the path, and there is nothing beyond that, or experiencing the void, becoming nothing, and there is nothing beyond that. These concepts are spin-offs of the realizations of various masters who have attained and explained to their disciples the results of their attainments. But actually, realization by understanding the Vedas is basically an intellectual realization of the Self, based on reason, memory, deduction and certain internal perceptions of what this experience must be like. It is, in fact, a realization, and probably a very great one before the days of science and technology. But it is not Self Realization in the truest sense, for there is no transformation as an aftermath. The person is the same person before and after, with the same desires, outlook on life, motivations, temptations, trepidations, stress levels and day-to-day habits. §

The experience of Satchidānanda, the all-pervasive essence of prāṇa, can be had through bhakti yoga, total prapatti. In prostrating the physical body before the icons of God, Gods and guru, energy goes into the head. It goes up from the mūlādhāra. It goes up from the soles of the feet. That is total surrender, and in the aftermath one feels a oneness with the universe. Oneness is a captivation of the soul. The same experience can be had through an opposite force. The husband or wife leaves, moves out of the house or dies, or disaster strikes the family, the house burns down, all possessions are destroyed—the soul turns to God and experiences oneness; temporarily becomes as a renunciate. The soul seeks something more than attachments to people, places and things, and when released from people, places and things through inharmonious disasters becomes its own essence, its all-pervasiveness. This, truly, is a superconscious realization of a superconscious identity, often called the Self, just as an intellectual understanding of what others say the Self is is often called the realization of the Self. §

Our scriptures tell us the Self is timeless, causeless, spaceless, beyond mind, form and causation. It is what it is, to be realized to be known. It is the fullness of everything and the absence of nothing. Therefore, it is not a void. Therefore, it is not an intellectual understanding, and therefore it is not all-pervasive, for there is nothing to pervade. §

Five, six, eight thousand years ago, Indian society developed over long centuries to a maturity sufficient to bring forth from the inner of the inner, the core of knowledge itself, the Vedas, four in number, called śruti, meaning revealed by God, not composed by man. Meditate upon the following verse and revel in its deep, deep meaning: “He who knows God as the Life of life, the Eye of the eye, the Ear of the ear, the Mind of the mind, he indeed comprehends fully the Cause of all causes” (Śukla Yajur Veda, Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad 4.4.18, UPP). Yet another verse explains closeness leading to merging into oneness. Need we say more? It was already said in the so long ago and is alive and potent today as it was then. “As water poured into water, milk poured into milk, ghee into ghee become one without differentiation, even so the individual soul and the Supreme Self become one” (Śukla Yajur Veda, Paiṅgala Upanishad 4.10 upr, p. 921).§

On the rāja and jñāna yoga path, in attempts to realize Paraśiva, we go to the brink of the Absolute, hover there like a hummingbird over a flower, listening to the nāda, at the brink of where the nāda comes from, being the light at the brink of where the light that lights the images of the mind comes from, and this is all we can do—our one step. The Self realizes you—its nine steps. This is why Śaiva Siddhānta is so great—you move toward God; God moves toward you. You look at God; God looks toward you more graciously, more intently. The Divine comes quickly when the carnal is transmuted into its essence. His darshan of you. You take one step toward God, and He immediately, in the flash of a blink, takes nine toward you. In Śaiva Siddhānta, God is the devotee, and He experiences Himself within Himself in His devotee. The devotee is the devotee of Śiva, endeavoring to experience himself in his God. This process is called yoga, rāja yoga, of which jñāna yoga is a by-product of the results and accomplishments along the way. §

This is to explain that the mind cannot realize the Self. Awareness cannot realize the Self. Consciousness cannot realize the Self. There can be no name for the Self. To name it is to disqualify it into form. This is why in the incomparable Shūm language it has no name, only īmkaīf, awareness aware of itself dissolving. Like any other realization, it does have its aftermath and impact on all five states of the mind. §

About this Second Edition: Happily, in the lovely book you hold in your hands, we have been able to present the mystical artwork in full color, and in a larger, hardbound format. Some of the art was created anew for this special legacy edition—all for your enjoyment on the journey to your inner depths on the path of self-transformation through sādhana.§