Lesson 344 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

How Should We View Death and Dying?

ŚLOKA 34
Our soul never dies; only the physical body dies. We neither fear death nor look forward to it, but revere it as a most exalted experience. Life, death and the afterlife are all part of our path to perfect oneness with God. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
For Hindus, death is nobly referred to as mahā­pra­s­thāna, “the great journey.” When the lessons of this life have been learned and karmas reach a point of in­tensity, the soul leaves the physical body, which then re­turns its elements to the earth. The awareness, will, memory and intelligence which we think of as ourselves continue to exist in the soul body. Death is a most natural ex­pe­r­ience, not to be feared. It is a quick transition from the physical world to the astral plane, like walking through a door, leaving one room and en­tering another. Knowing this, we approach death as a sādhana, as a spir­itual op­­portunity, bringing a level of detachment which is difficult to achieve in the tumult of life and an ur­­gency to strive more than ever in our search for the Di­vine Self. To be near a realized soul at the time he or she gives up the body yields blessings surpassing those of a thousand and eight visits to holy persons at other times. The Vedas explain, “As a caterpillar coming to the end of a blade of grass draws itself together in taking the next step, so does the soul in the process of transition strike down this body and dispel its ignorance.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 344 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Śaivism Has Everything

Good evening, everyone! Vanakkam. Anbe Sivamayam Satyame Parasivam. God Śiva is Immanent Love and Transcendent Reality. The American devotees of our great God Śiva are very happy to be here today at this beautiful temple in Sri Lanka. It is so inspiring to see this temple being well maintained, improved, managed in a responsible way and filled with Śaivite souls. Your open and lovely faces remind me of beings in the Devaloka. We feel blessed here.

Śaivism is the greatest religion in the world, and we are all very fortunate and proud to be Śaivites. Why is it great among all the world’s great religions? It has the most ancient culture on the planet. It has scriptures that are utterly profound. It has sacred hymns that stir the soul. It has unparalleled disciplines of yoga and meditation. It has magnificent temples that are truly holy. It has devoted sages and holy men and women to guide our life and lead us to Lord Gaṇeśa, who leads us to Lord Murugan and finally to the Supreme God, Śiva. Śaivism has God and the Gods. It has charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna. It has so many enlightened beliefs, including karma and reincarnation. That is why I call our religion the greatest in all the world.

I believe that this oldest religion of the farthest past is also the religion of the future, the religion best suited to the technological age. I think we should present Hinduism as it is today, as a vibrant religion of the present. Then it will survive into glorious futures. We need inspired people to serve Śaivism with a strong will and a positive mind. In this effort, all differences must be set aside so we can work together on powerful programs that will bring progress; and that progress will inspire others, make them enthusiastic, show them that Śaivism can be brought into the technological age for the good of the next generation, the next and the next.

What happens when a religion is lost in yesterday and not brought forward to guide its followers today and on into the future? All kinds of problems arise. The youth begin to think religion is obsolete, abandon it and become immersed in worldliness, often in activities that are adharmic. They leave the Śaivite path, the Śaiva Neri. Families break up, friends argue, and people fight within themselves and with one another. Poor citizens are raised in the absence of ethics. Unrest and discontentment reign, and the entire nation suffers. So many problems arise when religion is lost, when people don’t know the right things to do. They become unhappy, restless, unstable. They have nothing to lean on, no place to turn in difficult times. This leads to abuse, to divorce, to suicide, to disease, to murder and dozens of sad experiences and hellish states of mind.

People who do have a religion live a very different life. Recently a large sum of money was spent to conduct a vast survey on the effects of religion in people’s lives in America. Thousands of people from every walk of life were interviewed throughout the United States as to their religion, their jobs and their family life. It was found that those with a religion and who really followed that religion were happier, wealthier and healthier than those who had no spiritual life. The researchers concluded that nonreligious people were less happy in their home life, less successful in their businesses and personal relationships, and more prone to anxiety, stresses and strains. We have to take that information seriously and determine to live our spiritual life fully, in all its dimensions. We have to realize that there are serious problems awaiting us if we are half-hearted and live a double standard. Therefore, it is important, both for the individual and the country, that we preserve the Śaiva Dharma and bring it forward into the technological age.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 344: KEEPING LITTLE, OWNING NOTHING
Śiva’s monastics have no more personal belongings than they can easily carry in two bags, one in each hand. By tradition, they have little, and even these few things they do not own. Yea, they are true mendicants. Aum.

Lesson 344 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Transition Called Death

Death—what is it? The dropping off of the physical body is the time when all of the karma-making actions go back to seed in the mūlādhāra chakra, into the memory patterns. All of our actions, reactions and the things we have set in motion in the prāṇic patterns in this life form the tendencies of our nature in our next incarnation. The tendencies of our nature in the present incarnation are the ways in which awareness flows through the iḍā, piṅgalā and sushumṇā currents.

These tendencies of man’s nature also are recorded in the astrological signs under which he is born. Man comes through an astrological conglomeration of signs, or an astrological chart, according to his actions and reactions and what he set in motion in the seed-karma patterns of his past life. So, we are always the sum total, a collection, of all the karmic experiences, a totality of all the seed patterns, that have happened to us, or that we have caused to happen, through the many, many lives. We are now a sum total, and we are always a continuing sum total.

A past life is not really so many years ago. That is not the way to look at it. It is now. Each life is within or inside the other. They exist as karmic seeds that appear in the prāṇic force fields in our life now and, like seeds, when watered they grow into plants. These seeds are nourished by prāṇa. When we die, when we discard the physical body, that is the end of a chapter of experience. Then we pick up a new physical body. This begins a new chapter that is always referring back to the last chapter for direction. These are tendencies.

This is the entire story of what happens after we die. We simply step out of the physical body and are in our astral body, going on in the mind as usual. The awareness does not stop simply because the physical body falls away. The iḍā force becomes more refined, the piṅgalā force becomes more refined, the sushumṇā force is there like it always was, but all are in another body that was inside the physical body during life on Earth.

One great peculiarity about man is that he individually feels that he is never going to die and goes on through life planning and building as though he were going to live forever and ever. The fear of death is a natural instinctive reflex. We encounter it sometimes daily, once a month, or at least once a year when we come face to face with the possibility of obliteration of our personality and of leaving the conscious mind. The fear of change or fear of the unknown is an ominous element in the destiny of a human being. The study and comprehension of the laws of reincarnation can alleviate this fear and bring an enlightened vision of the cosmic rhythms of life and death. It is a simple process, no more fantastic, shall we say, than other growth problems we experience daily. A flower grows, blossoms and withers. The seed falls to the ground, is buried in the earth, sprouts and grows into a plant and a flower.

Lesson 343 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

What Is the Process of Reincarnation?

ŚLOKA 33
Reincarnation, punarjanma, is the natural process of birth, death and rebirth. At death we drop off the physical body and continue evolving in the inner worlds in our subtle bodies, until we again enter into birth. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Through the ages, reincarnation has been the great consoling element within Hinduism, elim­inating the fear of death, explaining why one person is born a genius and another an idiot. We are not the body in which we live but the immortal soul which inhabits many bodies in its evolutionary journey through saṁsāra. After death, we con­tinue to exist in unseen worlds, enjoying or suffering the harvest of earthly deeds until it comes time for yet ano­ther physical birth. Because certain karmas can be re­solved only in the physical world, we must enter ano­ther physical body to continue our evolution. After soaring in­­­to the causal plane, we enter a new womb. Subsequently the old manomaya kośa is slowly sloughed off and a new one created. The ac­tions set in motion in pre­vious lives form the tendencies and conditions of the next. Re­in­carnation ceases when kar­ma is resolved, God is realized and moksha attained. The Vedas say, “After death, the soul goes to the next world bearing in mind the subtle impressions of its deeds, and after reaping their harvest returns again to this world of action. Thus, he who has desires continues subject to rebirth.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 343 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Affirming Basic Human Values

I spoke on global education in January of 1990 at the Global Forum for Human Survival, Development and Environment in Moscow. My message to the 700 religious and political leaders there was that we need, in the century ahead, to teach all children tolerance, openness to different ways of life, different beliefs, different customs of dress and language. We need to stop teaching them to fear those who are different from themselves, stop teaching them hatred for peoples of other colors and other religions, stop teaching them to see the world as a field of conflict and instead instill in them an informed appreciation and a joyous reverence for the grand diversity we find around us. Modern education can do that, provided the approach is changed.

Basic human Vedic values should be taught to every child and every student. These eternal values have nothing to do with race, creed, caste, politics or ethnic culture. Learning how to read and write is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal of education is also knowing what to read and what to write, as well as how to live in tune with nature, in harmony with the universe and at peace with oneself and one’s fellow man. A great Hindu saint once wrote, “Those who cannot live in harmony with the world, though they have learned many things, are still ignorant” (Tirukural 140).

The big question today that spiritual and political leaders are facing is how the peoples of the world are to live on this planet in harmony, and how to correct the errors of the past and the resentments that still linger, to ensure survival of humankind in the future. Education, they know, will play a key role, but only if educators focus first on human values which make us all better people, and secondly on technical know-how.

The human values we are speaking of here are known by all the tribal peoples, as they are inwardly a part of the knowledge within each of us. These principles must be cultivated, however, to manifest in any society, community, village or family. Global education must reach all the peoples, including the tribals, in our worldwide global village. It cannot be one-sided on the part of those who have the resources teaching others what they think they need to know. Rather, all voices must be heard, of the tribal and the industrialist. But will they be heard? Perhaps yes! The intelligentsia of industrialized societies are realizing that they don’t really have all the answers and that traditional tribal communities have something to teach after all. We have simple problems on this planet—food for survival, water, air, shelter and health care. The tribals are well aware of each of these and had them under control before they were conquered. In the same spirit that the modern pharmacologist journeys into the Amazon forests to discover medicines used for centuries that he can apply to world health care, so we in our various spheres of knowledge need to more and more rediscover the old ways and bring them forward.

In Russia, some bright young students asked me, “What can Hinduism offer in contributing to world peace and global education?” I explained that Hinduism offers a unified vision of man and nature in which there is reverence, not dominion or carelessness. Mother Earth, sustainer of life, is a key Vedic idea. Respect for Earth, for life in its many forms, is found in the American Indian nations, in the Hawaiian religion, the African tribes and the many other indigenous peoples. It was lost by many in recent centuries, but now its depth is being discovered again.

While the family is suffering a lot in many parts of the world, I explained, it is still very strong in Hindu society. We have to keep it that way, and teach the world by our example that it is the family that nurtures the individual and stabilizes the religion and hence the nation. Only by keeping a strong sense of family can humankind hope for a secure future.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 343: DISCIPLINES FOR SLEEP
My monastics sleep six to eight hours a day for rejuvenation and astral duties. They refuse a soft bed and sleep on a firm floor mattress, ideally on a neem plank. This custom may be relaxed when ill or traveling. Aum

Lesson 343 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Insisting On Sādhana

Many gurus and swāmīs don’t insist on continued disciplines and sādhanas after a few inner accomplishments have been made. The beginning is the end of the course to them. These gurus and swāmīs are modern, and often take an easy approach of not putting excessive demands upon themselves or their devotees. Traditional Sanātana Dharma, however, insists on daily sādhana for the enlightened one who desires a greater on-going transformation and for the unenlightened who has little or no anticipation of becoming enlightened.

Pūjā bells are heard ringing before sunrise throughout the homes of India in every city. In these early morning hours, men and women are priests and priestesses in their own home. Children learn ślokas; haṭha yoga is a daily exercise; prāṇāyāma is done for maintaining a healthy mind and body. Discipline is the criterion of being a good citizen. In Hinduism it happens to be a religious discipline. The effects of abandoning the earlier yogas upon reaching a certain stage of spiritual unfoldment for gurus and swāmīs is reflected in the lives of their students. When they began to teach, they would not be inclined to take their devotees through the beginning stages; they would not impart the practices of the first two mārgas—charyā and kriyā. They would be more inclined to start the beginners out at the upper stages, where they themselves are now, and abandon the beginning stages. This would be, and is, a mistake, one which many gurus and swāmīs have lived to regret when their own disciples began to compete with them or turned sour when unable to attain the expected results. Traditionally, the character has to be built within the devotee as a first and foremost platform before even the hint of an initiation into inner teaching is given. This purifying preparation involves repentance, confession and reconcilation through traditional prāyaśchitta, penance, to mitigate kukarmas. This crucial work often takes years to accomplish.

Once some level of enlightenment has been attained, this is the time to intensify the sādhana, not to let up. When we let up on ourselves, the instinctive mind takes over. We are still living in a physical body. Therefore, one foot must always be kept firmly on the head of the snake of the instinctive-intellectual nature. The higher we go, the lower we can fall if precaution is not taken. Therefore, we must prepare devotees for a sudden or slow fall as well. They should land on the soft pillows of consistent daily sādhana, worship of God, Gods and guru, and the basic religious practices of karma yoga and bhakti yoga. Without these as a platform, they may slide down in consciousness, below the mūlādhāra, into the chakras of fear, anger, doubt and depression.

The scriptures are filled with stories of certain ṛishis who reached high levels, but had given up all their bhakti and japa. When difficult personal karma came, each fell deep into the lower nature, way below the mūlādhāra, to become demon-like to society rather than a holy seer and a guiding force.

The whole idea that bhakti is for beginners is a modern expedient. It was created by modern people who do not want to do the daily sādhanas, who do not believe the Gods really exist and who are so bound in their individual personality that they do not accept the reality that God is in and within everything. This nonbelief, lack of faith, changes their values very slowly at first, but changes them nonetheless into those that cry, “Personal freedom is what is sought, making the little ego big, and then bigger.” Traditional disciplines and the spiritual teachers who know them so well nowadays come under the purview of these “free thinkers,” later to regret it. This is similar to children being the head of the house, telling their parents what they will do, and what they will not do.

Only the strongest and bravest souls can succeed in enlightenment and maintain and develop it until true wisdom comes as a boon. Therefore, we reaffirm, having attained a small degree of enlightenment, or a fuller enlightenment, stay enlightened, because mukti, the transference from the physical body through the top of the head at the point of death, has not yet occurred. And only after that happens are we enlightened forever. This is the beginning of the ultimate merging with Śiva in a physical body! Thereafter follows viśvagrāsa, the final, final, final merger whence there is no return, where jīva has in reality become Śiva, as a bowl of water poured into the ocean becomes the ocean. There is no difference and no return.

Lesson 342 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Is There Good Karma and Bad Karma?

ŚLOKA 32
In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving ac­tions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness pro­­duces sweet fruits, called puṇ­ya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called pāpa. As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adhar­mic actions impede our progress. The di­vine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual un­fold­ment. Performing daily sādhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others’ needs—these evoke the higher en­ergies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the cre­ation of trou­ble­some new karmas. The Vedas explain, “According as one acts, so does he be­come. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 342 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Preparation For Adult Life

Very importantly, we must inculcate in youth a respect for family life, for marriage as a sacred union undertaken for the mutual spiritual advancement of husband and wife. They have to be counseled and counseled well in how married life is to be faced, what attitudes they should hold toward sex, how to keep a marriage strong and joyful, how to combat the pressures they will face in this modern world, especially if they come to live beyond the borders of our holy land. We must also inculcate in them a knowledge of monastic life, so they may understand and revere the satgurus and swāmīs of Śaivism. Śaivite monasticism was a powerful spiritual force in the world when the mahārājās supported the monastics, and it will continue to be so through the support of the families, their children and their children’s children. All this is accomplished through religious education. We call upon the youth of India, the youth of Sri Lanka, the youth of Malaysia and all other countries where Śaivites are living to consider the two paths. We call upon those rare few to accept the dharma of the Śaivite monastic and serve their God and religion through a selfless life, preaching and teaching throughout the world. There is a great need here. Too many Asian families relinquish their children to become Catholic priests and Protestant ministers and not enough encourage them to become Hindu sādhakas, yogīs and swāmīs.

The youth must be taught that Śaivism is not only the oldest religion in the world, but a vibrant and dynamic religion in this technological age. They must come to know its wisdom is for the farmer as well as for the computer programmer, for our ancestors and for our descendants. Śaivism is the Eternal Path, the Sanātana Dharma. The youth working in science, working in space exploration, working in electronics, working in business, working closely with members of different religions, will encounter many challenges. They must be carefully taught how to remain within the bounds of their religion and their beliefs without being dissuaded, without accepting ridicule from those who have yet to comprehend Śaivism. We must teach the Śaivite youth who are now growing up around the world about the Hindu festivals and holy days, making these auspicious days vibrant and alive in their memories. We must explain to them the meanings behind every observance so they are not just following blindly.

Symbols are an important part of bringing Śaivism into the hearts of the youth. Symbols carry great significance, and young people love and understand symbols. We should have Śaivite symbols abundantly around us, in the shrine room and throughout the home. The Prāṇava Aum, swastika, Śivaliṅga, tripuṇḍra and pottu, aṅkuśa, tiruvadi, nāga, vel, kalaśa, vaṭa, rudrāksha, seval, triśūla, kamaṇḍalu, trikoṇa, bilva, shaṭkoṇa, konrai, homa, kuttuvilaku and mankolam.

We should have a kuttuvilaku, or oil lamp, in our shrine room. We should have pictures of the Deities and their vahanas, Nandi, peacock and mouse, in our home, sacred flowers and trees in our garden. We should, of course, wear the holy ash and pottu, our sacred jewelry and prayer beads, and see that our young people do also. All Śaivites should become initiated into the Pañchākshara Mantra and chant it daily upon a mālā of rudrāksha beads. Sights, scents, sounds, tastes and religious symbols—it is through these ways our religion is understood by the next generation.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 342: LUNAR RETREATS FROM GUESTS AND THE PUBLIC
Śiva’s monastics observe the full, new and half moons and the day after each as retreats for sādhana, study, rest, personal care and āśrama upkeep, plus a fortnight’s retreat at the end of each of the year’s three seasons. Aum

Lesson 342 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

To Stay Enlightened

A sannyāsin of attainment has had many, many lifetimes of accumulating this power of kuṇḍalinī to break that seal at the door of Brahman. Here is a key factor. Once it is broken, the seal never mends. Once it is gone, it’s gone. Then the kuṇḍalinī will come back—and this gives you a choice between upadeśī and nirvāṇī—and coil in the svādhishṭhāna, maṇipūra, anāhata, wherever it finds a receptive chakra, where consciousness has been developed, wherever it is warm. A great intellect or a siddha who finds the Self might return to the center of cognition; another might return to the maṇipūra chakra. The ultimate is to have the kuṇḍalinī coiled in the sahasrāra.

I personally didn’t manage that until 1968 or ’69 when I had a series of powerful experiences of kuṇḍalinī in the sahasrāra. It took twenty years of constant daily practice of tough sādhanas and tapas. I was told early on that much of the beginning training was had in a previous life and that is why, with the realization in this life, I would be able to sustain all that has manifested around me and within me as the years passed by. Results of sādhanas came to me with a lot of concentrated effort, to be sure, but it was not difficult, and that is what makes me think that previous results were being rekindled.

The renunciate’s path is to seek enlightenment through sādhana, discipline, deep meditation and yogic practices. That is the goal, but only the first goal for the sannyāsin. To stay enlightened is even a greater challenge for him. This requires a restrictive discipline, not unlike a military, at-base, on-call life, twenty-four hours a day, even in his dreams.

Many people have flashes of light in their head and think they are totally enlightened beings, then let down in their sādhana and daily worship to later suffer the consequences. Enlightenment brings certain traditionally unwanted rewards: attention, adulation; one becomes the center of attraction, knows more than others and can exist on words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, for a long time, even after the light fades and human emotions well up and new mixed karmas build. He then may become known as having attained the erratic human behavior of the “enlightened” person. This is totally unacceptable on the spiritual path. Once enlightened, or “in-light,” even to a small degree because of daily sādhana, stay enlightened because of daily sādhana. Once having intellectually realized Vedic truths and become able to explain them because of study and daily sādhana, then realize these truths by intensifying the daily sādhanas, lest the remaining prārabdha karmas germinate and create new unwanted karmas to be lived through at a later time.

The advice is, having once attained a breakthrough of light within the head, wisdom tells us, remain wise and do not allow these experiences to strengthen the external ego. Become more humble. Become more self-effacing. Become more loving and understanding. Don’t play the fool by giving yourself reprieve from prāṇāyāma, padmāsana, deep meditation, self-inquiry and exquisite personal behavior. Having once attained even a small semblance of samādhi, do not let that attainment fade into memories of the past. The admonition is: once enlightened, stay enlightened.

Enlightenment has its responsibilities. One such responsibility is to have respect for and pay homage to the satguru and the satgurus of his lineage. These are the ones who, in seen and unseen ways, have helped you on your path. Another is to keep up the momentum. The wise know full well that the higher chakras, once stimulated, stimulate their lower counterparts as well, unless the sealing of the passage just below the mūlādhāra has been accomplished. Diligence is needed, lest higher consciousness fall unknowingly on the slippery slide of ignorance into the realms of lower consciousness, of fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, loneliness, malice and distrust. The faint memories of the beginning enlightenment experiences still hover, and while now in lower consciousness but still emulating the higher qualities in personal behavior, the now unenlightened claims full benefit for the previous enlightenment. Shame! This is because he did not maintain his disciplines after enlightenment. He let down and became an egocentric person.

Lesson 341 – Dancing with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

How Do Hindus Understand Karma?

ŚLOKA 31
Karma literally means “deed” or “act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we res­pond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in in­telli­gent ac­tion and dispassionate reaction. Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some ac­cum­u­­­late and return unexpectedly in this or other births. The several kinds of karma are: personal, family, commun­ity, national, global and universal. An­cient ṛi­shis perceived personal karma’s three-fold edict. The first is sañ­chita, the sum total of past karmas yet to be re­solved. The second is prār­abdha, that portion of sañ­chita to be ex­per­ienced in this life. Kriyamāna, the third type, is kar­ma we are currently creating. The Vedas propound, “Here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will. As is his will, so is his deed. What­ever deed he does, that he will reap.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.