Title: Temple Prasadam / The Inner Body of the Soul Category: Hinduism and Tradition Duration: 2 min., 22 seconds Date Given: 04/28/2001 Date Posted: May_2_2001

Cybertalk: A cyberspace devotee wants to know more about temple and prasadam and if one can eat it. Gurudeva says the prasadam is blessed by the Gods and contains the vibration of the entire ceremony. By applying the prasadam on the forehead you participate in the ceremony just as if you were here physically. A cyberspace devotee wonders about the soul. Gurudeva says it is very simple. He says that he is a soul - a soul body with many tools. One tool is an astral body to move in the astral plane, another tool is the mental body to move in the mental plane and yet another tool is the physical body to move in the physical plane.

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Date: April_26_2001
Title: Merging with Siva
Category: The Spiritual Path
Duration: 2 min., 24 seconds
Date Given: April 13, 2001

A cyberspace devotee in Singapore, Skanda, has been reading 'Merging with Siva', a beautiful book on contemporary metaphysics of the Sanatana Dharma. He wonders, "How much should you merge with Siva, if you are a householder? You seem to warn against that."

Well Skanda, there are various ways that you can merge with Siva. In the book itself, some of them are listed. But, there are still more.

If you, being a married person, give your wife everything she needs and everything she wants, then you release her Siva energy. Her shakti will flow through you. That is one of the very basic fulfillments of your grihasta dharma, your family dharma in merging with Siva.

Skanda, if you have children and you take care of your children, educate them properly in Sanatana Dharma and see that they understand karma, reincarnation, dharma and all the basic principles of our religion and apply them to their lives, then you are, a little bit more, merging with Siva.

If you only speak that which is true, kind, helpful, necessary, never become angry, live in higher consciousness, treat everybody with love and kindness, then you are merging with Siva, a little bit more .

But here is the caution. If you start practicing extreme yoga - fire breathing, long periods of meditation - then you separate yourself from your family and from the world. You cannot, therefore, fulfill your householder duties. You are making a bad karma, which is destructive to the path of merging with Siva, as a family person.

The Upanishads, which are the "knowledge" portion of the Vedas have many beautiful and profound things to say about the true nature of man. For a profound and highly intellectual reading experience don't miss our the online edition of Vedic Experience.

Here is a classic passage from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, entitled "the other world" --

Asau lokah

"In truth there are two states of this person: the state of being in this world and the state of being in the other world. There is a third twilight state of being: that of sleep. In the twilight state of being he sees the other two: that of this world and that of the other world."

"When entering into this third state of being, since it constitutes an approach to the state of being of the other world, he sees both, that is to say, the evils and the joys. When he falls asleep, taking with him all the elements composing this state of being, he takes them apart and reconstructs them as he likes, dreaming by means of his own radiance, his own light. Then this person becomes his own light."

BU IV, 3, 9

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