The more you can detach yourself from life the more you can avoid the ups and downs of life, but you don't want to detach too much, or you will join a monastery. The monastic's Saivite Shastras says that the doors into the Third World stay open as long as one monk at Kauai Aadheenam realizes the Self every day.

Unedited Transcript:

Deeper perspectives are also given in 'Merging with Siva' as to 'who am I'. The ultimate perspective of course, is being the transcendent aspect of God or Parasiva, the Self, the Absolute. The advantage of that perspective is shown in Gurudeva's statement, as to how you look at everything that is not the Self. In 'The Self God', he says, "The mind is form, ever-creating form, preserving form, destroying form. That is the mind, the illusion, the great unreality." Right?

So, if you are actually holding that perspective because of having realized the Self, then you are not only able to accept everything that comes to you as karma, but you are detached enough from the world to realize that whatever happens in the world is a result of what has been set in motion in the past. The present is what was set in motion in the past. Likewise, the future is influenced by what is set in motion in the present. It just keeps going along that way, going and going and going, like an old car bouncing along a road with pukas in it. It is kind-of a bouncy road, going along, ups and downs and it is just what it is. You know, joys and sorrows, this and that. You cannot fix it. You just have to kind of detach yourself from it because if you are totally attached to it, it is very frustrating. Stock market goes up today, crashes next month. You get a big bonus this month, next year we lose our job. Up and down, up and down, like a car.

There is a song, I am thinking of Larry Rivera's song, called 'The puka, puka road'. You get this feeling you are driving along and bounce, bounce, bounce. The County was not fixing the roads so he wrote a song about it, trying to motivate them to fix the roads because they were so bouncy.

That can be life if you are totally attached to it, if you are clinging to it. It has that feeling of up and down, up and down, joy and sorrow. Boy, what a ride! But, the more you can detach yourself from it, the more stable you are. You don't want to detach yourself too much, you will end up in the monastery. Just enough, so you are not clinging to it. What happens in the external world is not your total source of joy and happiness, because on some days everything goes wrong and you just can't prevent it. Why? Because, events done in the past are influencing the present.

So the perspective of Parasiva, the Self, typically for the monks, is an excellent perspective to hold. We are that which transcends the whole mechanism. The mechanism being anava, karma and maya, an individual acting in form, experiencing the reaction to his or her actions. Anava, karma, maya - that is all it is. It is a wonderful statement about monastic life in, 'Living with Siva', Gurudeva's latest book and first one in full color. It is very interesting that Gurudeva chose to put it here because it comes from a writing called 'The Saivite Sastras', which normally we don't put in our public books. It is something we read and don't even print it. We just read it to visitors to the monastery, usually. But He felt this was so central, He put it in the book so everyone would read it. It explains the Monastery in terms of its connection to the Inner Worlds, in our tradition. It answers the question, "What hooks the Monastery up to the Inner Worlds?" It also answers the question, "What would cause the Monastery to loose its hook-up to the Inner Worlds?" Very important questions, answered here.

"A legacy of devas from the entire Parampara accompanies our Monastic Order, providing silent, unseen, inner guidance and protection for old and young alike, as long as at least one person within the entire group of mathavasis is going into and coming out of Parasiva once a day. The doorway to the Third World remains open to the hereditary entourage of Devonic forces that has been building up for over two thousand years. This is because the Brahmarandra, the door of Brahman at the top of the head remains open when Parasiva is daily experienced within a Mathavasi community. It could be within the oldest monk or within the youngest. This great realization occurring time and time again, within someone, day after day, keeps the door of Brahm open for the entire prana chakravala of monastics, keeping vibrantly strong, the inner actinic connection with all Gurus of our Parampara as well as with other Sadhus, Rishis and Saints who have reached these same attainments and with the Sapta Rishis themselves who guide our order from deep within the Inner Lokas."

Isn't that beautiful? It just states it so clearly and it is wonderful having it in the book, so everyone will remember it, read it and understand how it works.

I was thinking, the 'Door of Brahm' open is like a hole in the head being open to the Inner Worlds. So, it is a new definition for a 'holy man'. A holy man is one who goes through the hole at the top of the head. Holy man. God.