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Sloka 23 from Dancing with Siva
What Is Lord Ganesha's Special Duty?
As Lord of Obstacles, Ganesha wields the noose and the goad, icons of His benevolent power of preventing or permitting events to happen in our life. Thus, we invoke His grace and wisdom before any worship or task. Aum.
Bhashya
Lord Ganesha, the God of time and memory, strategically seated on the muladhara chakra, poised between the higher and lower chakras, stabilizes all sentient beings. He holds the architect's plans of the divine masterpiece of universal past and future. Only good comes from Lord Ganesha, who by taking the form of an elephant distinguishes Himself from other Gods. The charya pada begins with His worship. He staves off misfortune for those who perform penance in His name. He guides our karma from within us through the timing of events. Before any important undertaking, we supplicate Him to clear obstacles from the path, if it be His will. This Lord of Obstacles prevents us from hurting ourselves through living under an incomplete concept or making a request unneeded or beginning an endeavor not well thought out. Before we petition Him, He expects us to use all of our faculties to arrive at the decision He would have made. The Agamas declare, "These Lords who, it is said, on the pure path, attend to the various duties deriving from a higher realm of maya are at the prow of the effects of the higher realm of maya." Aum Namah Sivaya.
Lesson 333 from Living with Siva
Disciplined Leadership
Monastics are the religious leaders of Hinduism. Continuing this noble renunciate monastic tradition is essential for the perpetuation of the faith. Therefore, when a young boy expresses the desire to become a monk, parents should never discourage that inclination, but strongly encourage it in all ways. It is a great blessing for the family to have a son become a sannyasin. Each father should guide his sons who express an inclination toward monastic life into learning more of sannyasa by teaching them of the lives of great yogis and swamis, encouraging them in the arts of meditation, hatha yoga and personal purity, having them read and study the Vedas, and bringing them to receive the darshana and advice of the satguru and swamis whenever possible. They regard any son destined for the monastery not as their own child, but as the satguru's spiritual progeny in their trusted care. They work closely with the satguru in guiding his training so as to cultivate skills and character traits that will enhance his future as a monastic. Many devout families seek to birth a son for the monastery. Prior to conception, they mix with the swamis and pray to the Gods to bring through a soul destined to perpetuate the holy lineage. Once a brahmachari has entered the monastery under vows, he is a very special person living a very special life. He should be treated by everyone, including his own family, as a holy person. He now stands apart from family and former friends. Parents when visiting respect his chosen path and keep family problems from his knowledge. They exclude him from news of marriages, divorces, illness, deaths and other householder events. They should show great interest in what he is learning and speak of high philosophical matters. A life of discipline is not an easy life, but it is a joyous one, with many soul-satisfying rewards. Monastics follow their rigorous twenty-four-hour protocol even in their dreams. Those who are born to perform this service are to be respected and not distracted by family pulls or the desires of former friends. They should be tested, yes, in their beginning years, to be assured that their commitment is firm, their energies secure and their loyalties well understood. Traditionally, at this time family and friends play an important role by bringing temptations to them and valid reasons why they should renounce renunciation. But when their robes turn to yellow or when in white the rudraksha beads are worn, their path is clear and a new protocol on both sides must be firmly kept. All relationships have now changed. The power of brahmacharya makes the monks very magnetic, and the temples they serve in powerful. Monastics are therefore careful to keep their distance and not become involved with devotees who attend the temples. In turn, the cultured devotees keep a respectful distance from the monks--physically, emotionally and psychically, not even thinking of them, let alone psychically pulling on them, even in their dreams. Nothing should happen to distract a monk from his chosen path. This code of nonintervention is even more strict for the monk's parents, who share in his renunciation of worldly life for the life of selfless service to the Sanatana Dharma.
Sutra 333 of the Nandinatha Sutras
Supporting Hindu Priests And Pandits
Siva's monastics honor and support the good causes of Hindu lay ministers, priests and pandits of all lineages to create a dynamic solidarity in diversity to carry Sanatana Dharma to each succeeding generation. Aum.
Lesson 333 from Merging with Siva
Maturation Of the Soul
There is nothing separate from Lord Siva, who pervades all. The seeming separateness is the forgetting, lack of awareness or inability to be aware at all. Thus, all souls--Gods and men--are inseparable, tied into, a direct extension of Siva, immanently close. The fearful distance is the state of the soul in the kevala or sakala avasthais, not in the shuddha avasthai, in which the enjoyment of the bliss of the oneness is felt. But the oneness is no less there in the kevala state. Souls, young and old, are directly connected to Lord Siva--closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet. He is the eye within the eyes of the beholder of His form, in souls young and old. Therefore, sight is the first experience of darshan. You become everything when you merge in Siva, but you are no longer you. Before that, you evolve to a perfect likeness of the Primal Soul. The final destiny of the soul is to fully mature its soul body, at which time it would be identical to Siva. Therefore, this process leads the soul through three states or avasthais: kevala, sakala and shuddha. Once having been spawned, the soul exists in a quiescent condition, not being aware of itself. This is the kevala state--soul not being aware of itself. Eventually it hits matter, magnetizes matter around it--its first etheric body. This etheric body slowly develops into a mental, then emotional and astral body, and finally a physical body. This begins the sakala state--soul being aware of the mental plane, astral plane and finally the physical world. It is in the latter stages of the sakala state that religion begins, when the soul has completed enough of this process to realize its individual identity, apart from the mental matter, the emotional or astral matter and the physical matter. All through this process, the all-pervading Siva nurtures the soul into its maturity on the onward march of its evolution. Lord Siva does not create a soul, then, unattached from it, wait for it to return on its own volition. Rather, He creates the soul and energizes it through its entire evolution until, at the end of the shuddha avasthai, the final merger occurs, vishvagrasa, absorption, by His grace. All souls, Mahadevas, devas, people devas--and in all states, shuddha, sakala, kevala--have exactly the same relationship with Siva. None is more favored, more dear or cared for than another. In the shuddha avasthai, the mental body is purified in the soul maturity and thus reflects its nature, Siva's nature, more than in the kevala or sakala state. Therefore, those older souls are doing the same work as the Lord naturally does. This is the loving caring for other souls. This is the innate nature of the soul and the absolute nature of Siva. As the light cannot detach itself from its rays, Lord Siva cannot withdraw Himself from His creations.
