Lesson 82 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Are the Main Duties of Parents?

ŚLOKA 82
The fundamental duty of parents is to provide food, shelter and clothing and to keep their children safe and healthy. The secondary duty is to bestow education, including instruction in morality and religious life. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Assuring the health and well-being of their offspring is the most essential duty of parents to their children, never to be neglected. Beyond this, parents should provide a good example to their children, being certain that they are taught the Hindu religious heritage and culture along with good values, ethics, strength of character and discipline. Sons and daughters should worship regularly at pūjā with the parents, and the Hindu sacraments should all be provided. Education in all matters is the duty of the parents, including teaching them frankly about sex, its sacredness and the necessity to remain chaste until marriage. Children must learn to respect and observe civil law and to honor and obey their elders. Parents must love their children dearly, and teach them to love. The best way to teach is by example: by their own life, parents teach their children how to live. The Vedas declare, “Of one heart and mind I make you, devoid of hate. Love one another as a cow loves the calf she has borne. Let the son be courteous to his father, of one mind with his mother. Let the wife speak words that are gentle and sweet to her husband.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 82 – Living with Śiva

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

The Power Of Decision

Many are the karmic consequences of using, selling and encouraging others to use illegal drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, barbiturates and psychedelics like LSD and mushrooms. The karmic chain works like this. Suppose someone sold drugs to another and that person overdosed and killed himself. The karma would be murder. Maybe the law wouldn’t call it murder, but the karma would be murder. This means that the person who sold the drugs would be killed in his next life. One act creates another act and that act comes back on those who helped create it. Similarly, if movie actors cause others to hurt themselves or kill another person, commit robbery, anything like that, because of what they’re acting out, that karma comes back on them, as well as the director, as well as the writer. It’s pretty messy business to fool around with the law of karma.

I tell young people who are tempted to use drugs that the power of decision is a very great power. Very few people know how to use this power, but everybody has the power of decision. It takes a little bit of willpower, it takes a little bit of research, and we are going to give you some ammunition to help you make the decision to be free from drugs.

The consequences of illegal drug use are that the drug user becomes a criminal. His home or car can be confiscated under drug assets seizure laws. His parents’ home or car can be seized. He can be arrested for driving under the influence of controlled substances. People may steal drugs from him, putting him and his family in danger. Eventually, he can’t earn enough to buy the drugs he needs. He can’t even steal enough. He has to deal, to sell drugs, to support the habit. And to deal, he must recruit new users. Drugs make him meet people he would never meet otherwise, not-so-good people—sellers, dealers, junkies. It puts him into a lower realm of life. He may become violent. He has to get a gun to protect himself. More danger follows. The government has to deal with him, as he has become a criminal. It’s very expensive for society. He can’t behave normally. He does harm to his body. He does harm to his mind. He becomes paranoid, always looking over his shoulder, fearful that bad things are going to happen. As a student, he can’t study well anymore, and he probably won’t graduate—he gets no education, therefore no career and no steady job. He does things he never thought he would do: rob, steal, lie, forge, pull away from and humiliate his parents, pull away from his teachers, create abnormal relationships with friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, ruin his reputation, even go into prostitution.

I warn youths, you might think it won’t happen to you. Well, everybody who takes drugs says, “That won’t happen to me. I can handle it.” Every junkie on the street has said that at one time or another. Why do we have groups talking about how to handle drugs and drug rehabilitation centers, which are very expensive for states, counties and private organizations to run? Because you cannot handle it. No one can handle it. It all starts with that first puff of a joint, the first time you cross the line into what’s not legal. One drug leads to the next, which leads to the next and the next. It’s the Narakaloka, active every day in the lives of the people on this planet who use illegal substances. So don’t get started.

Drugs may seem like an escape from the problems of life, but it is not a solution to them. In Hindu, Jain and Buddhist thinking, all this adds up to bad karma, then a bad birth. You can’t escape from karma. It will always catch up with you—if not in this life then in the next. But we can’t just say no because somebody has told us to say no. We need to meditate, we need to think upon the consequences, of what will happen to us, of using these terribly dangerous, illegal substances.

Talk to young people in your community. Tell them, “Think about it. Only you can make the decision. No one else can make it for you.” You can’t convince a young person here on the island of Kauai to surf on a fifty foot wave. Youths also don’t drive a hundred miles an hour down the winding mountain road from Kokee. Why? Because they know the consequence. They are well educated. They know the consequence and, be they 12 years old, 16 years old, 20 years old, 24 years old, they make the proper decisions about such things.

The issue is training people to make the proper decisions so that they are law-abiding citizens because they have decided to be law-abiding citizens, so that they do not take drugs, because they do not want to alter their mind, because they do not want to lose their standing in the community, because they do not want to lose the functioning of their physical body. The power of decision is a great power to pass on to the next generation.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 82: RESPECT FOR WOMEN
All Śiva’s men devotees go out of their way to express respect, bordering on reverence, for women. They never demean them in speech, watch vulgar or erotic shows, or associate with lustful or promiscuous women. Aum.

Lesson 82 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Benefits Of Meditation

After one has finished a powerful meditation—and to meditate for even ten to fifteen minutes takes as much energy as one would use in running one mile—it fills and thrills one with an abundance of energy to be used creatively in the external world during the activities of daily life. After the meditation is over, work to refine every attribute of the external nature. Learn to give and to give freely without looking for a thank-you or a reward. Learn to work for work’s sake, joyfully, for all work is good. Find the “thank-yous” from deep within yourself. Learn to be happy by seeking happiness, not from others, but from the depths of the mind that is happiness itself.

And when in daily life, observe the play of the forces, the odic force as it plays between people and people, and people and their things. When it is flowing nicely between people, it is called harmony. But when the odic force congests itself between people and tugs and pulls and causes unhappiness, it is called contention. And then, when the odic force congests within oneself, we become aware of unhappy, fretful, disturbed states of the mind. The odic force then is called turbulence. It’s the same force. The meditator learns to work with the odic forces of the world. He avoids shying away from them. The out-there and the within are his playground.

The finest times to meditate are before dawn, at noon, sunset and midnight. All four of these times could be used, or choose one. The meditation should be from fifteen minutes to one-half hour to begin with. What to meditate on? The transmutation of the odic forces back to their source, the actinic force. Through perfect posture, āsana, we transmute the physical forces and the emotional forces. Through the control of the breath, prā­ṇā­yāma, we transmute the intellectual forces and move awareness out of the area of the mind that is always thinking—the great dream.

Then we become vibrant and confident in ourselves, feeling the power of our spine through which the actinic forces flow out through the nerve system. We learn to lean on our own spine more than on any other person, teacher, book, organization or system. Answers begin to become real and vibrant, hooked on to the end of each question. And these and many more are the dynamic rewards of the sincere aspirant who searches within through meditation.

Lesson 81 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Fulfillment of a Marriage?

ŚLOKA 81
Children are the greatest source of happiness in marriage. Householder life is made rich and complete when sons and daughters are born, at which time the marriage becomes a family and a new generation begins. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The total fulfillment of the gṛihastha dharma is children. Marriage remains incomplete until the first child is born or adopted. The birth of the first child cements the family together. At the birth itself, the community of guardian devas of the husband, wife and child are eminently present. Their collective vibration showers blessings upon the home, making of it a full place, a warm place. It is the duty of the husband and wife to become father and mother. This process begins prior to conception with prayer, meditation and a conscious desire to bring a high soul into human birth and continues with providing the best possible conditions for its upbringing. Raising several children rewards the parents and their offspring as well. Large families are more cohesive, more stable, and are encouraged within the limits of the family’s ability to care for them. Parents, along with all members of the extended family, are responsible to nurture the future generation through childhood into puberty and adulthood. The Vedas exclaim, “Blessed with sons and daughters, may they enjoy their full extent of life, decked with ornaments of gold.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 81 – Living with Śiva

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

Tapping the Superconscious

The youngsters in their late teens and early twenties who are going into LSD and other drugs are going to meet their karma in an unnatural sequence. The upset of their nervous system, if it continues, will be drastic and will even affect others’ personal lives, whether they have had LSD or not. I have traveled through India and the Orient where there are no laws against narcotics, and the people who live on narcotics there are absolutely deplorable. They have no spiritual impetus. They just sit and say, “Well, if I have food, that’s fine. If not, then I’ll probably die. So, let’s see, if I reincarnate, where would I like to go?” Whereas when the spiritual force, the actinic force, floods through your nervous system, permeating you with magnetism, and you see the light of your mind, you don’t have time for rationalizations like that.

When we are dealing with the nervous system, we are talking about three states of mind at the same time. The conscious, subconscious and superconscious all exist, alive and vibrant, within you at this moment. You could be “turned on” superconsciously without drugs at any instant. It is all there waiting for you. Your brain is basically an acid structure. When you learn to concentrate your mind, to concentrate the thinking force, you are turning on the “acid” of your brain. LSD is an acid, too, but it can do nothing for you that you cannot do for yourself. When you learn the subtle arts of meditation, you will learn how to tap into your spiritual force, your always-existing actinic power which transmits its energy through body and mind into the magnetic currents. This magnetic force can be stimulated also through food, through breathing or through the quality of thought.

Now is a marvelous time for people to tap their latent potential to unfold these higher states of consciousness. All of the activity and discussion of outer space contributes to this unfoldment, too, because every time you mentally project yourself with a rocket or a spaceship, your consciousness touches back on the Earth again, having undergone a definite change.

What is going to be the reaction over a period of time to the psychedelic movement? Meditating yogīs have found that even in the integrated process of meditation, one’s karma is intensified, and experiences come to you thick and fast to work through. Under LSD and similar drugs, the wheels are spinning faster and faster until some drug takers will be spinning in consciousness completely away from any kind of stable living. I believe that with the continued use of LSD, the forces will slip over to the other side, past the point of no return. The spiritual unfoldment of the human soul can no more profitably be forced than can the growth of a plant in a hot house. Yoga is the path of control. If you go at it through yoga, you will be so much better off, and through your new radiant energy you will be able to help so many people.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 81: MODESTY WITH WOMEN
Devout Hindu men speak to and associate mostly with men. Conversation with women, especially the wives of other men, is not prolonged. To avoid intimacy, one’s gaze is directed at the hairline, not into the eyes. Aum.

Lesson 81 – Merging with Śiva

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

Transmuting The Energies

When we begin to meditate, we have to transmute the energies of the physical body. By sitting up straight, with the spine erect, the energies of the physical body are transmuted. The spine erect, the head balanced at the top of the spine, brings one into a positive mood. In a position such as this we cannot become worried, fretful or depressed or sleepy during our meditation.

Slump the shoulders forward and short-circuit the actinic forces that flow through the spine and out through the nerve system. In a position such as this it is easy to become depressed, to have mental arguments with oneself or another, or to experience unhappiness. With the spine erect and head balanced at the top of the spine, we are positive, dynamic. Thoughts race through the mind substance, and we are aware of many, many thoughts. Therefore, the next step is to transmute the energies from the intellectual area of the mind so that we move our awareness into an area of the mind which does not think but conceives, looks at the thinking area.

The force of the intellectual area of the mind is controlled and transmuted through the power of a regulated breath. A beginning prā­ṇā­yāma is a method of breathing nine counts as we inhale, holding one; nine counts as we exhale, holding one count. Be very sure to maintain the same number of counts out as in, or that the breath is regulated to the same distance in as the same distance out. This will quickly allow you to become aware of an area of the mind that does not think but is intensely alive, peaceful, blissful, conceives the totality of a concept rather than thinking out the various parts. This perceptive area of the mind is where the actinic forces are most vibrant. Sushumṇā, the power of the spine, is felt dynamically, and we are then ready to begin meditation.

Meditate on awareness as an individual entity flowing through all areas of the mind, as the free citizen of the world travels through each country, each city, not attaching himself anywhere.

In meditation, awareness must be loosened and made free to move vibrantly and buoyantly into the inner depths where peace and bliss remain undisturbed for centuries, or out into the odic force fields of the material world where man is in conflict with his brother, or into the internal depths of the subconscious mind. Meditate, therefore, on awareness traveling freely through all areas of the mind. The dynamic willpower of the meditator in his ability to control his awareness as it flows into its inner depths eventually brings him to a state of bliss where awareness is simply aware of itself. This would be the next area to move into in a meditation. Simply sit, being totally aware that one is aware. New energies will flood the body, flowing out through the nerve system, out into the exterior world. The nature then becomes refined in meditating in this way.

Lesson 80 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Are Marital Problems Reconciled?

ŚLOKA 80
When problems arise in marriage, Hindus study the scriptures and seek advice of family, elders and spiritual leaders. A good marriage requires that the husband be masculine and the wife feminine. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Success in marriage depends on learning to discuss problems with each other freely and constructively. Criticizing one another, even mentally, must be strictly avoided, for that erodes a marriage most quickly. Under no circumstance should a husband hit or abuse his wife, nor should a wife dominate or torment her husband. It is important to not be jealous or overly protective, but to have trust in one another and live up to that trust. Problems should be resolved daily before sleep. If inharmony persists, advice of elders should be sought. A reading and reaffirmation of original marriage covenants and an astrological assessment may provide a common point of reference and a foundation for mutual sacrifice and understanding. The husband who does not take the lead is not fulfilling his duty. The wife who takes an aggressive lead in the marriage makes her husband weak. She must be shy to make him bold. Couples keep a healthy attitude toward sex, never offering it as reward or withholding it as punishment. The Vedas say, “Be courteous, planning and working in harness together. Approach, conversing pleasantly, like-minded, united.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 80 – Living with Śiva

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

Maintaining Control

I don’t want to see a nationwide or worldwide movement built around a little bit of “acid.” I don’t want to see this, because of the young souls for whom this would be devastating. Some young souls who have been opened up without preparation stumble into psychic ability. They may read thought forms, see auras or travel astrally. In yoga we would say that this path of psychism must be avoided until you have attained Self Realization. This is because in opening up the mind to higher forces and beautiful experiences, we also open ourselves up to the unpleasant experiences of the shadow world of the chakras below the mūlādhāra center at the base of the spine, areas of consciousness which we cannot control without preparation and training. In yoga, the guru knows how to protect his students in the opening-up process by closing off the lower realms as the higher ones open. He knows how to do this, but it is a steady training and does require time. I have met people who have had the psychedelic experience who but cannot walk down the street past certain houses because they have become so sensitive to the contention, the negative force field, emitted from a certain home. Some of these people are opened up to the more subtle forces of the lower mind.

The old soul, in wisdom, enters into the experience of meditation. Here he learns to control the lower forces even while he is awakening the higher forces. Therefore he can sustain himself in a higher state of consciousness. He has the strength of nerve fiber to do it.

So, I am asking the leaders of the LSD movement, the psychedelic movement, to stop it, for the sake of protecting souls on the path against the too abrupt awakening, against being opened up to obsession or possession. Most people who take drugs are followers. They’re not leaders, they’re followers. A leader takes a stand. A leader stands for what he believes and believes what he stands for. We need to train our children to be leaders and to stand up against that which they know is wrong and dangerous.

When a person is opened up, in a somewhat defenseless position, as in an LSD experience, he can be possessed or obsessed by an accumulation of thought power and impelled to do things that he would otherwise have no intention of doing, simply because his nervous system has become sensitive and open to the lower mind forces of hate, greed, mistrust, fear and malice that ooze out of some people who have no control.

If you have not been opened up in this manner, if you are just going along in an ordinary state of consciousness, you might feel, “I don’t like so-and-so and I won’t see him anymore,” and you place a mental barrier between yourself and this person. You are able to shut your mental door against people whose vibration does not blend with yours. But a prematurely opened soul cannot do this. He remains open to all influences. Therefore, I plead to the innate intelligence of the intellectuals and the old souls who can appreciate what is happening, to stop the indiscriminate use of dangerous drugs, to bring this movement to a halt.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 80: AVOIDING LOW-MINDED COMPANY
Śiva’s devotees avoid thieves and addicts, those who are promiscuous, who feign devotion, who are ungrateful, against religion, selfish, abusive, ill-tempered, vicious or who possess many impurities. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 80 – Merging with Śiva

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

Odic and Actinic Forces

Meditation can be sustained only if one lives a wholesome life, free from emotional entanglements and adharmic deeds. Intensive, consistent meditation dispels the antagonistic, selfish, instinctive forces of the mind and converts those channels of energy into uplifted creative action. The same force works to make either the saint or the sinner. The same force animates both love and hate. It is for the devotee to control and direct that one force so that it works through the highest channels of creative expression. When this soul force is awakened, the refined qualities of love, forgiveness, loyalty and generosity begin to unfold. In this ascended state of concentrated consciousness, the devotee will be able to look down on all the tense conditions and involvements within his own mind from a view far “above” them. As the activity of his thoughts subsides, he begins to feel at home in that pure state of Being, released from his identification with and bondage to lower states of mind. A profound feeling of complete freedom persists.

Meditation is similar to watching the play of light and pictures on television. Identify with the pictures, and emotion is experienced. Identify with the light, and peace is experienced. Both light and energy forms have their source in God. Begin this evening, while watching the news on TV, by keeping awareness more within the light than the pictures. By all means, begin this ancient, mystical art, but as you progress, don’t be surprised when regrets, doubts, confusions and fears you hardly knew you remembered loom up one by one to be faced and resolved. Perform the vāsanā daha tantra: simply write down all the regrets, doubts, confusions and fears in as much detail as possible, then burn the paper in a fireplace or garbage can. Claim the release from the past impression that this tantra imparts.

There are two forces that we become conscious of when we begin to meditate: the odic force and the actinic force. Actinic force is pure life energy emanating from the central source of life itself. Odic force is magnetism that emanates out from our physical body, attracts and merges with the magnetism of other people. The odic force is what cities are made of, homes are made of. The actinic force, flowing through the physical body, out through the cells and through the skin, eventually becomes odic force.

As soon as we begin to meditate, we become conscious of these two forces and must be aware of how to deal with them. The odic forces are warm, sticky. The actinic forces are inspirational, clean, pure, true. We seek in meditation the actinic force.

Lesson 79 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Hindu Family Structure?

ŚLOKA 79
The main Hindu social unit is the joint family, usually consisting of several generations living together under the guidance of the father and mother. Each joint family is part of a greater body called the extended family. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
A joint family lives under one roof. It includes a father and mother, their sons, grandsons and great-grandsons and all their spouses, as well as all daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters until they are married. The head of the family is the father, assisted by his wife, or in his absence the eldest son, encouraged by his mother, and in his absence, the next eldest brother. The family head delegates responsibilities to members according to their abilities. The mother oversees household activities, nurturance, hospitality and gift-giving. Religious observances are the eldest son’s responsibility. The joint family is founded on selfless sharing, community ownership and the fact that each member’s voice and opinion is important. The extended family includes one or more joint families, community elders, married daughters and their kindred, close friends and business associates. It is headed by the family guru, priests and paṇḍitas. The Vedas offer blessings: “Dwell in this home; never be parted! Enjoy the full duration of your days, with sons and grandsons playing to the end, rejoicing in your home to your heart’s content.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.