We need a reminder of a spiritual nature, guidance of the Satguru, in order to avoid falling back into the basic pattern of the mind that we've established. Rise into the higher chakras, stay above patterns of instinct, intellect and confusion. Maintain daily sadhana and regular tapas. Solve problems simply by rising above them. As Yogaswami used to say:"It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the time."

Master Course, Living with Siva, Lesson 326

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

From today's Living with Siva, Lesson 326:

"Why a Guru Is Necessary

"Many of you have been studying with me for ten, twenty or thirty years. I want you to think and think through the rest of the day about the spirit of the satguru. Suppose you didn't have a satguru. You would be guided by the spirit of your intellect, or the spirit of your instinct, or the energies of confusion. The satguru only has one job, to keep his devotees on the right track. We do not follow the way of words, which is repeating from memory verses and stanzas of scripture with meager mental interpretations of their meaning. We follow the way of transformational spiritual unfoldment. We follow the marga of sadhana and tapas. Shishyas move from one stage to another in spiritual unfoldment as they progress through the different petals of the higher chakras and come into one or more inner awakenings, one after another. They are not to settle down in any one or several of the chakras and consider, 'This is a nice life. I like this part of my unfoldment, so I won't strive further.' They can't do that, because the spirit of the guru drives them onward. He is constantly thinking and saying, 'That is not good enough; you can do better.'"

Gurudeva's scolding there, huh? Little bit of fire coming through in that one.

It''s pointing out that we tend to fall back to our basic patterns in life unless something is catalyzing us to improve, to move forward. We tend to fall back into our patterns of intellectual thought, our patterns of instinctive behavior and the tendency to get confused about the whole thing. And we need a reminder of a spiritual nature in order to avoid that situation. And of course, reminder is in the form of daily practice. "We follow the marga of sadhana and tapas."

So if we give up our daily practice then we would end up back in these patterns. Not this next day but eventually. You know we would just end up there because that's the basic pattern of the mind that we've established. And therefore, to avoid falling into those basic patterns we need to maintain the pattern of daily sadhana and regular tapas. We don't want to do tapas every day but sadhana every day and tapas now and then is what we need to do to stay above shall we say. The pattern is always there and you fall back into it if you don't sustain your daily sadhana for a significant amount of time. You'll fall back into those basic patterns that are still there.

"Did Chellappaguru every say to Yogaswami, 'OK, now we've done enough. Let's just be ordinary?' No, he kept him walking, he kept walking him around and feeding him, walking him around and feeding him, walking him around and feeding him, walking him around and feeding him, until finally Satguru Yogaswami was walking around and feeding everybody, walking around and feeding everybody, and eventually everybody was doing the same thing. Passing on that spiritual quality, we don't have any problems. We don't have to solve problems with words. Problems are tackled with words when you are following the path of words. This can be a long, long, tedious process. But when spiritual awakenings are there, problems are solved by lifting consciousness. The problem goes away, just automatically goes away. It is a do-it-yourself process, a mystical tantra not to be ignored."

So that fits into our statement earlier. We want to rise above, rise and stay above these basic patterns of instinct, intellect and confusion. And that's, another way of saying that is we want to raise our consciousness into the higher chakras.

"Every Hindu needs a satguru, a preceptor. The satguru is as much a part of Hinduism as are the temples, as are the Vedas and our other great scriptures, because not everyone can see for themselves. They need someone to see ahead a little bit for them and to keep them on the right track and in the right mood. Because people are tribal, they need a guide. I've heard prominent swamis all through the years remark, 'You all need a spiritual guide. If you don't want me, find somebody else, but you need someone to guide you through life.' It could be a grandmother, it could be a grandfather, it could be your astrologer, a temple priest, a visiting yogi or a resident swami in your community, a sadhu, a pandit or a rare satguru--somebody that you will listen to and follow. The choice must be made after much consideration, after talking with parents, consulting elders and searching the heart. Once the choice is made, don't change your mind. Be loyal and give him or her all the love and devotion you have to give and more. Take advice and admonition as golden offerings and proceed in confidence. Many benefits will come from their guidance on the path of dharma for a fruitful and fulfilling life. "

So we need some guidance; that's the very good point.

But it's a very interesting idea that, you have this problem and you're working with it. And you can solve the problem a number of different ways. But one room is just rising above it. Sounds like the easiest one to me, right? Work it out, there's always lots of logic, lots of discussion but maybe if you rise above it it goes away because you have a more profound perspective on the whole thing. As Gurudeva is suggesting here that we can deepen our perspective and solve problems simply by rising above them. Because sometimes, situations, we're just frustrated by a situation that exists in our life, in the lives of those that are close to us. It's constantly frustrating us and there's really no way to solve it because that's just the way things are at this particular moment. But, you know, if we rise above it then we can be content and the situation can still exist. So, that's an interesting way of thinking about it.

I ran into a quote on TAKA. Sometimes when you open TAKA there's you know, it always has Gurudeva's quote at the top, right? And it relates to what you're thinking about that day. And if it doesn't then you can try again. Well, this one struck me sometime in the last two weeks, I wrote it down.

"My Satguru Siva Yogaswami used to say: 'It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the time.'"

Isn't that an interesting idea? "It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the time." Because there's always something going on, you know. It can be upset with the world, it can be upset with politics or it can be upset with financial markets, upset with family, upset with friends. There's always something we can be upset about. But to rise above that and be happy while that situation is unchanged is what this is talking about. We don't have to become unhappy just because situations in life are not adjusting the way we want them to. You know, we can still be happy and that's just the way it is at this time.

You know: "It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the time."

Have a great day.

Aum Namah Sivaya.