March 18, 2024 - Lesson 341

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Sloka 31 from Dancing with Siva

How Do Hindus Understand Karma?

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.

Bhashya

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 rishis perceived personal karma's three-fold edict. The first is sanchita, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved. The second is prarabdha, that portion of sanchita to be experienced in this life. Kriyamana, 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 Namah Sivaya.


Lesson 341 from Living with Siva

What to Teach The Youth


Behind many past wars and before us today we find unconscionable conversion efforts that infringe on the rights of not only the individual, but of groups and nations. When religions set out with a consciousness of conquest and make inroads on each other, this naturally becomes a major concern to families, communities and nations. Is it not the right of each of the world religions to declare dedication to their uncontestable lawbooks of shoulds and should nots, holy texts telling us how to pray, meditate and behave? Freedom to choose one's religion as well as freedom to leave it if one wishes is a fundamental human right, and it is a human wrong to deny or even limit it. This may seem obvious, but it is not a freedom many people of the world fully enjoy.

Because they love their children, devout Saivites do not put them into Christian schools but provide Saivite schooling which fills young minds with Saivite lore, Saivite history, Saivite art, knowledge of the Vedas and the Saiva Agamas. Such children, nurtured from birth in their religion and taught the sacred scriptures and songs from an early age, grow into the great ambassadors of Saivite Hinduism and joyfully carry it out into the rest of the world. This is the plan and the thrust of the devotees of God Siva in 1981, 1982, 1990 and on beyond the year 2000. They know that there is no place where we can go but that God Siva is there ahead of us--there already. They know that nothing has existence except that God Siva created it. These Sivathondars are vowed to protect, preserve and promote the Saiva Dharma on this planet.

In Dancing with Siva, Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism all of this that I have been speaking about is neatly explained through short questions and answers which are easy to understand, to commit to memory and to teach to children and adults alike so that they can talk intelligently in foreign countries about their religion and benefit themselves as well as others.

A child's mind is like a computer disc or a recording cassette. It is a blank tape, capable of recording confusing sounds or beautiful melodies. It is up to us to make those first and lasting impressions. That tape is very difficult to edit later. What should we teach to our young boys and girls? What do we record in their mental computer? Dancing with Siva--beautifully illustrated because children also learn through their eyes--contains a foundation of religious study to be memorized by boys and girls from six to sixteen years of age, to be discussed by the family, to be expounded upon by the father and explained by the mother.

This book answers the question, "What should I teach my children about Saivism?" We must teach the children about our purpose on this Earth, our relationship with God, our ultimate destiny--all according to the Tirumantiram, Tirukural, the Vedic and Agamic scriptures of monistic Saiva Siddhanta. We must teach our children, as did mahasiddha Tirumular 2,200 years ago, that the soul is immortal, created by God Siva and destined to merge back in Him. We must teach our children about this world we live in and about the other belief structures they will encounter throughout life. We must teach our children how to make their religion strong and vibrant in a technological age. These instructions are important for all Saivite families.

Those of you here in Asia have a rich and stable religious culture. Therefore the future of your children is less uncertain. In other parts of the world, Saivite children are not benefiting from a temple in the village, from a grandmother who can explain things or a grandfather to expound. Yet, though children here have all these advantages, still the temptations are there to adopt wayward Western ways and Christian attitudes. We must work to overcome such magnetic forces by educating our children, both those who are living here in Sri Lanka and India and those who are citizens of other nations in the world. They will then grow up to teach their children and thus perpetuate the Saivite Hindu religion into the next generation, the next and the next.

Yes, united Saivites of the world, we need to pass on to the next generation the importance of dharma and of good conduct, especially ahimsa, fundamental principles of the Hindu faith. Ahimsa means noninjury physically, mentally and emotionally. We need to explain to them the secret of the mysteries of the holy Siva temple. We need to take them often to the kovils, mandirs, shrines, ashramas, aadheenams, mathas, sacred places and rivers so they become well grounded in their devotion. We need to carefully explain to them the purpose of, and the results that can be obtained through, home puja, having archanas, abhishekas and homas performed in their behalf in Siva temples. We need to teach them how to pray to God and the Gods. We need to foster in them a deep reverence for our scriptures and our saints and sages.


Sutra 341 of the Nandinatha Sutras

Simple Clothing For Simple Mathavasis

Siva's monastics wear robes of cotton or wool--hand-spun, hand-woven and unsewn. Other clothing should be made of simple, unadorned cotton, wool or synthetics, in traditional North or South Indian style. Aum.


Lesson 341 from Merging with Siva

Dharma after Self Realization


What is life like after realization? One difference is the relationship to possessions. Everything is yours, even if you don't own it. This is because you are secure in the Self as the only reality, the only permanence, and the security that depends on having possessions is gone. After Self Realization, we no longer have to go into ourself. Rather, we go out of ourself to see the world. We are always coming out rather than trying to go in. There is always a center, and we are the center, no matter where we are. No matter where we are, no matter how crude or rotten, the vibrations around us will not affect us. Curiosity is the final thing to leave the mind, which it does after Self Realization. The curiosity of things goes away--of siddhis, for example. We no longer want power, because we are power, nonpower, unusable. And we don't have the yearning for Parasiva anymore; we don't have the yearning for the Self. And Satchidananda is now to us similar to what the intellect used to be. If we want to go to a far-off place, we go into Satchidananda and see it. It is that easy. Samyama, contemplation, is effortless, to you now, like the intellect used to be, whereas before, samyama was a very big job which took a lot of energy and concentration. Therefore, before Parasiva, we should not seek the siddhis. After Parasiva, through samyama, we keep the siddhis we need for our work.

But Parasiva has to be experienced time after time for it to impregnate all parts of the body. Our big toe has to experience it, because we are still human. From a rotten state of consciousness, feeling totally neglected, that nobody loves us, we have to realize Parasiva. When ill and feeling we may die, we have to realize Parasiva. When concentrating on our knees, we have to bring Parasiva into them. The knees are the center of pride, and this helps in attaining ultimate humility. So it is with every part of our body, not only the pituitary center, the physical corollary of the door of Brahman--that is the first place--but with every part of the body. The pituitary gland has to be stimulated sufficiently to open the door of Brahman. But only the strictest sannyasin disciplines would induce this result. Ears, eyes, nose, throat, all parts of the body have to realize Parasiva, and the siddha has to do this consciously. The calves have to realize Parasiva. All the parts of the lower body have to realize Parasiva, because all of those tala chakras have to come into that realization.

Then, finally, we are standing on the muladhara chakra rather than on the talatala chakra. Then, finally, our feet are standing on the svadhishthana chakra, and so on. And this is the true meaning of the holy feet. Finally, we are standing in the lotus of the manipura chakra. And doubly finally, the kundalini coils up in the head and lives there rather than at the bottom of the spine.

For ultimate freedom, everything has to go away, all human things, possessions, love, hate, family, friends, the desire for attention and community acceptance. The sannyasin renounces the world, and then, if his giving up is uncompromisingly complete, the world renounces the sannyasin. This means the world itself won't accept him as it once did as a participant in its mundane transactions of a job, social life, home and family. Earlier friends and associates sense his different view of their existence and now feel uncomfortable with him. Slowly he joins the band of hundreds of thousands of sannyasins throughout the world, where he is joyously accepted. All must go, the past and the future, and will naturally depart as the great realization deepens, as it penetrates through all parts of the body and all states of the mind. This alone is one good reason that family people and noncommitted singles are never encouraged to strive for realizations higher than Satchidananda, and then only for brief periods now and again at auspicious times. For family people, grihasthas, to go further into themselves would be to earn the bad karmas, kukarmas, of subsequent neglect of family dharma, and to lose everything that the world values.

When the renunciate finally attains Parasiva, everything else will fall away. It all has to fall away to attain Parasiva. But it doesn't totally fall away when he attains Parasiva, because he arrives into Parasiva only with a tremendous amount of built-up effort. All the Gods have given permission. Lord Siva has given permission, and He now says, "Enter Me." That is grace, His grace.