We come from Siva; the way back to Siva is clearly defined. Take on Siva's perspective. Siva is everyone and everything. Intuition: The ability to solve through insight. Self-created barriers, beliefs, limited concepts may block the light but it is always there. Shum teaches us how to look in the right place, to find the part of us that is always God.

[Commentary on book: "Self and Samadhi" chapter 7]

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

We've been going through Chapter 7 ["Self and Samadhi"] How to Realize God; we're almost done. Couple of paragraphs left.

"Most people have not realized that they are and were Siva before they search for Siva. They are confined to their own individual anava, their personal ego and ignorance. When we realize that we have come from Siva the way back to Siva is clearly defined. That is half the battle, to realize we came from Siva, live in Siva and are returning to Siva. Knowing only this much makes the path clear and impels us to return to Him, to our Source, to our Self. "

As you know, the first verse in "Dancing with Siva" is on this topic, right? Gurudeva definitely is consistent in putting it forward. You know, you would think, "Dancing with Siva" the first verse is going to be about Siva. But it's not; it's about the soul. You are a divine being, you come from Siva, you are returning to Siva, you are in essence Siva. Well, Gurudeva emphasizes that in many places. And it's important to have it in mind as a goal.

Sometimes we get overwhelmed with life, shall we say? All the details of our living, all the challenges we face, the ups and downs in our own personal life and the life of other members of our family, they take away our overview. So, we need to remember the overview now and then and this is a one place in which it's stated.

We come from Siva and therefore, the way back to Siva is clearly defined.

I remember once in Guyana we had a meeting with some of the heads of different Hindu groups. The pundit Saba there arranged it. About 60 people I think in the room. And somehow the subject came up. I think one of the individuals asked it that: If the goal in Hinduism is to merge with God aren't you going to lose your individuality? Something like that was the question. Very sincere question; wasn't a trick question. That had sense of: Why would we want to strive so hard to lose something? And, so the answer I gave was kind of in terms of this, see if I can quote it here.

"Most people have not realized that they are Siva."

So, it's just taking on Siva's point of view. From Siva's point of view He is everyone. He is everything; He is always everyone and everything, right? There is nothing outside of Siva from Siva's point of view. He sees Himself as everyone and everything doing everything. There's nothing separate. It's as to us, you know, we don't think of our hand as a separate person from our head. You know, we're a one being; we have different parts to us. So likewise, Siva sees all, everything, He's created all of us, the whole universe just as Himself. Therefore, all we're trying to do is take on Siva's perspective. That makes it seem more natural. Instead of just thinking of ourselves as the hand we think of ourselves as the whole body. So, it's a very natural perspective, really.

"We only see opposites when our vision is limited, when we have not experienced totally. There is a point of view which resolves all contradictions and answers all questions. Yet to be experienced is yet to be understood. Once experienced and understood, the Quiet comes.

"The only change that occurs is the awakening of the sahaswara chakra and the perspective that a mind has which has undone itself, transcended itself in formless Being and Non-Being and then returned to the experiences of form. (I won't try and explain that.) Experiences are still there but never again are they binding. Fire or life energy, which rises in the normal person high enough to merely digest the food eaten, rises to the top of the enlightened man's head, burns through a seal there, and his consciousness has gone with it. He is definitely different from an ordinary person. He died. He was reborn. He is able and capable of knowing many things without having to read books or listen to others speak their knowledge at him. His perceptions are correct, unclouded and clear. His thoughts manifest properly in all planes of consciousness--instinctive, intellectual and superconscious or spiritual. He lives now, fully present in all he does."

So, that one's easier to comment on. That's just saying that our intuition is more prominent, more apparent to us. Intuition is ability to solve things through insight. It's a bit like belief we were talking about last time. Belief was blocking the light, remember last time? So we got to talk about belief and the light. The light's always there but because we don't see it we don't tend to think it's there -- the inner light. Likewise, our intuition is there but we don't necessarily recognize it. It's like the soft background music or something. It's there but because it's so soft and in the background we're not aware of it. But once you identify it, so there's background music, then it's easier to come back to it again and identify more with it.

The other way to use intuition is less direct. It's an exercise in one of my keynotes: Last thing before you go to bed you can write down the question you're going to answer with the intent that when you wake up the answer will come to you. And it can work. It's using the intuition indirectly. You can impress the mind that you want the answer and then the answer will come to you from your intuition.

Happened to be looking at "Tirumantiram" this morning and found, came across, without trying, a verse that relates to what we were talking about. This is a, Dr. Sabharatnam's translation. He has the style of translation that, the most crucial thing is clarity. So you get lots of words in his Tamil translation. Some will want to be poetic, you know. They try and capture the beauty of the original Tamil and when you do that most people won't understand the meaning because it's hidden in the verse. So but he is so keen on the meaning he makes sure that he brings it out with lots of words.

"In the beginning I approached Him with a notion of duality as to I the knower and He the knowable. In the next stage Siva who is denoted by the term "Tat" who is beyond the dual state of the knower and knowable graciously instructed the mahavakya: 'That you are.' Contemplating this instruction now I am unable to differentiate between Himself and myself."

Big problem, right?

So you can see if, it makes more sense if you're reading it, it's a little hard to follow. But the last line is the punch line there. "I am unable to differentiate between God and me, between Himself and myself." So that's a good state of mind to end up in.

Part of it is a self-created barrier. Part of it's not self-created. We have to learn how to look in the right place. But part of it is a self-created barrier that we, we don't think, we feel ourselves unworthy or we feel ourselves that and there's some concept we have about our self that makes us feel we couldn't be, possibly be God. Look what I did; how could I be God? Look what I thought today. How could I be God? But still, part of us is always God and we just have to kind of, first of all, get rid of that -- any limited concepts we're putting on our self to feel we're not worthy of having part of us always be God. And then we need to learn how to look in the right place which is what Shum teaches us.

Have a wonderful day.