Mysticism, direct experience of God, is commonly accepted in Hindu tradition. Principles and practices of Hinduism are designed to help us move up to higher levels of consciousness over many lives. Take joy in that progression. Resolve things, keep karmas harnessed and flowing smoothly. The planets are choreographing our karma, making it very diverse. Check Jyotisha when making major decisions. Master Course, Living with Siva, Lesson 250. Master Course, Merging with Siva, Lesson 251.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

This is from Lesson 250, Living with Siva, The Joy of Mysticism.

"Then there is the joy of the mysticism of Hinduism. It is the world's most magical religion, offering worlds within worlds of esoteric discovery and perception. The inner worlds are what Hindu mystics tell of in the greatest richness and freedom of expression that exists on the planet. Mysticism in Hinduism is more out-front than in all the other religions of the world. As a result, it is enjoyed by more of the people in our religion. Mysticism is discussed more broadly and not limited to a few great souls or a handful of pandits. The mysticism of Hinduism is for all the people; yet, too, in its esoteric aspect it is protected at its core and kept sacred by being kept secret. How grand is the Hindu mystical tradition, with its sadhanas and yogas, with its wealth of understanding of the etheric bodies, of the nadis and the chakras, of the aura and the pranas, of the various states of consciousness and levels of existence, and so much more. No other religion on the Earth can ever begin to equal Hinduism's mystical teachings; all that wealth is the rightful inheritance of each Hindu."

Sometimes we run into intellectual discussions about mysticism in various religions. It happens to me in talking with Hindus now and then at satsangs. It came up in the sense that all religions are one to mystics. I think the person made that point and I had to agree. He said: Going up to a mystic, truth is truth. But the point is: How many mystics are there in the other religions? You know, at least the western religions. Buddhism of course is mystical. How many mystics are there? Are there any? You know, it's a good question cause there certainly aren't a lot. And as Gurudeva says here, it's not mainstream. Meaning it's not commonly practiced, commonly accepted.

If you ask Hindus about the possibility of experiencing God, you know most Hindus I imagine would say: Oh yes, that's part of our tradition. In that if you ask people in a western tradition about experiencing God, you know, you won't get a positive answer. That it's possible or that we should even be trying to do it. So on the practical side there's only a few religions that really have a living mystical tradition. Otherwise it's just theoretical.

One of the challenges in talking about mysticism, which is the same challenge that you have in talking about moksha, is that it sounds too advanced. So someone says: Oh that's not for me; I'm not pure enough. I'm not this enough; I'm not that enough. That's for somebody else. That's for the monks or that's for when I'm older. We tend to think we don't qualify because we don't have realistic idea of what is involved.

So I've been writing a Publishers Desk on this. It's still in the, it's still unedited. But part of it reads like this:

"The principles and practices of Hinduism are designed to help us move up to ever higher levels of consciousness moving out of negative states to positive ones. From positive states to creative ones and from creative states to the divine ones and in the level of the divine to the highest state which is the unitive consciousness of soul and God. This is done in small steps and a gradational approach over a period of many lives."

I think part of the reason this isn't super-well understood is the western tendency to be in a hurry. We've got to do everything in this life. I believe in other lives but just in case I better get it done in this life. You know, kind of have that sense that there's a rush; we have to do everything in one life. Whereas, the proper Hindu point of view is it's relaxed. You know, we want to move up in levels of consciousness. If we're still experiencing negative levels of consciousness such as fear and anger we need to close them off and be serious about doing that. If we're, have a lot self doubt, don't have a strong self concept, we need to change that. Make it a positive self concept. We have to, you know, recognize where we are and move up to the next higher level of consciousness.

I have a nice graphic, it's a keynote. A nice graphic for the last statement. It's this very long line of people, long queue. Probably, you know, waiting for a great movie or something. Hundreds of people standing patiently in this queue and it says: You know, what we want to do is not get frustrated by the process, not get impatient by the process. Be willing to take the amount of time it takes to progress spiritually and take joy in that progression. You know, I moved up from here to here; this is great. Rather than being frustrated that you didn't move up from here to here. You know that western idea. We want to take joy in what we're able to accomplish in moving forward.

Lesson 251 from Merging with Siva. About karma.

"Responsibly resolving karma is among the most important reasons that a satguru is necessary in a sincere seeker's life. The guru helps the devotee to hold his mind in focus, to become pointedly conscious of thought, word and deed, and to cognize the lessons of each experience. Without the guidance and grace of the guru, the devotee's mind will be divided between instinctive and intellectual forces, making it very difficult to resolve karma. And only when karma is wisely harnessed can the mind become still enough to experience its own superconscious depths."

So that last sentence struck me when I read it earlier this morning. Usually when we think about quieting the mind we just say: Focus and pranayamas from this, from that, will quiet the mind. But what Gurudeva's pointing out is if we have some rather disruptive karmas going on in our life, good luck, you know. We're not going to be able to quiet the mind till we resolve the karmas. They just, whether we, keep disturbing us. Sit for a couple of minutes and then we start thinking about it again. So we need to have the karmas flowing smoothly and as Gurudeva's suggesting we need to resolve things.

Resolve means we don't recreate by reacting and responding in an inappropriate manner. So we all know that sounds good but sometimes in the midst of life, you know, we can forget that. And instead of letting a karma, which is usually comes in the form of getting mistreated in some way, getting some difficult situation in some way, instead of letting it go and understanding it we somehow we retaliate or we don't accept it. Say: This shouldn't have happened to me. And therefore we end up perpetuating it in one way or another.

So, Gurudeva's point is we need to harness karma in a wise manner and then the mind will quiet down a great deal just from that.

"Planetary changes activate new karmas and close off some of the karmas previously activated. These karmas then wait in abeyance, accumulating new energy from current actions, to be reactivated at some later time. These karmic packets become more refined, life after life, through sadhana. All of this is summed up by one word, evolution.

"The planets do not cause the events or the vibrations that individuals react to either positively or negatively. The magnetic pulls of light or the absence of light release that which is already there within the individual. If not much is there, not much can be released. The magnetic pulls and the lack of magnetism are what jyotisha is telling us is happening at every point in time. Two things--magnetism and its opposite. On and off. Light and dark. With and without. Action and no action. Therefore, these keys release within the individual what was created when other keys were releasing other karmas. It is our reaction to karmas through lack of understanding that creates most karmas we shall experience at a future time. The sum total of all karmas, including the journey through consciousness required to resolve them is called samsara."

Astrology is important tool and popularly, you get the idea that: The planets are causing things to happen in my life. But, that's missing the important factor that the planets are simply activating or deactivating certain karmas. And those are the reactions to actions you've done in the past. So, we never want to fall into that popular way of looking at it that Saturn is doing this to me or this is doing that to me. And, we're doing it to ourselves of course. And it's just, turns on and off. Phrase I use is: "The planets are choreographing our karma." Make, they make it very, very diverse. Very, doesn't stay the same for twenty years, you know. Little bit of this, little bit of that. You know, the planets, cause they're, they go through these different cycles; cause our karma to go through different periods. It's like Gurudeva's point. He liked things to vary.

So, you know we have a different, three ritaus. Different focus for each ritau. So for souls obviously God Siva likes things to vary too because He created this system whereby good karmas come for a while and then the negative karmas come and good karmas come. It varies.

The time we really need to check jyotisha is when we're making a major decisions. And there aren't that many major decisions we make in life. But when we're making a major decision, putting our life savings into a new business, for example. We want to make sure it's a good period. We don't have two life savings. You know we can't try again, say: Whoops, this wasn't a good period after all. So, lost my life savings. You know, we want to check. Changing, changing occupations, changing jobs even in the same occupation. These are major decisions that we don't have very many of in our life. And therefore, we want to make sure the, it's a good period for us, particularly if we have some things at risk. And we would have trouble recovering if it didn't go well.

Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.

Aum Namasivaya.