 Satguru Siva Yogaswami Jaffna, Sri Lanka  Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami Hawaii, USA |
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 Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami Kauai's Hindu Monastery, USA 
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March 01, 2003
March 1: Dhanishtha Until 6:14PM HST March 2: Satabhisha Until 8:39PM HST Hindu Year 5104: Chitrabhanu, the "Year of Varied Splendors" |
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 A little girl asks a question or shares a secret with Gurudeva. Young people used to also email him with the issues that came up in their personal lives. So, though he lived on the island of Kauai, Gurudeva knew what was going on in the heart of families in many countries. These real-world experiences, through over fifty years of ministry to a global congregation, were part of the foundation for his landmark work "Living with Siva."
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PHASE END NOTICE:
Our Beloved and Revered Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
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Cybertalk: Bodhinatha reviews last year's State of the Church message and discusses how each Church focus has been fulfilled. The three focuses were bringing in new members, printing The Master Course trilogy and developing the Master Course trilogy study program for new students.
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Ceremonies began with bhajan in the temple at 7 PM, followed by Homa and Sri Rudram.
Our members had made magnificent garlands for Gurudeva's shrine.
After the homa, everyone takes a break in our courtyard.
The night included special Siva Abhishekam and puja at midnight.
Listen to the sounds of the midnight puja.
We watched a video of Gurudeva's Maha Sivaratri talk in 1994 which was something from another planet! Lord Siva Himself seemed to be talking.
There is always a special carefree joyous spirit in the air during the night of Sivaratri as the channels between this and inner worlds are wide open and love is flowing like a river.
Aran Veylan, Tara Veylan and Kamala Veylan from Canada. Shanmuganathaswami gets an update from them on life in Edmonton.
The following morning the Sivapatham Markandu family from Toronto had darshan with Bodhinatha.
Vignesh comes forward for blessings.
They family has a very open, upbeat missionary spirit. They want to help with Bodhinatha's visit and getting Gurudeva's books into Toronto.
Kumaran, the younger lad, is a very religious little boy. Of his own accord he won't eat before going to the temple each week. He likes to follow closely the priests actions and try them at home.
Bodhinatha blessing Vasanthy.
Then Sivapatham
Vignesh
Kumaran
The whole family.
Later in the morning more pilgrims have meditation class with Paramacharya Ceyonswami and later darshan with Bodhinatha.
The Talaivar of the Siddhidata Kulam, Yoginathaswami took charge of the kitchen today with the help of his team and also Chinnu to prepare a full traditional tali meal for all the monks, served in the traditional way.
Banana leave were placed before all the monks and the Siddhidata Kulam served each one in turn.
Four chutneys, three vegetable curries, yogurt raita, rice, sambar...
Vadai, pappadams, chopped cucumber with pineapple, rasam to drink and paiyasam to finish off the meal.
A wonderful traditional meal following the Sivaratri fast.
They also followed the South Indian tradition of continuing to serve everyone, non-stop, providing more of just what each one enjoyed the most until you finally cover your plate with your hands and say "Enough! No More!"
The meal was an outer manifestation of the inner vibration of Divine Fullness, Purnam, full of joy, full of blessings full of gratitude and full of the Grace of Lord Siva after the Great Night.
Never forget, you are reading this because of Gurudeva, Yogaswami, and the line of Gurus who preceeded them. All these things are the grace of the living Satgurus!
Aum Namasivaya!
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Date: February_19_2003
Title: Gurudeva's Mahavakyas on Self Realization
Category: The Ultimate Goals of Life
Duration: 10 min., 6 seconds
Date Given: December 21, 2002
Given by: Bodhinatha
We cannot introduce Moksha ritau without going deeper and talking about Self Realization.
As you will recall at the beginning of the Mahasamadhi Observance, my talk was on some of Gurudeva's Mahavakya. So I pulled two of them out here that relate to realizing the Self.
"The purpose of life is to realize the Self. The ultimate reason we are here on earth is to realize the timeless, formless, spaceless Self God within."
The unique aspect of this Mahavakyam is, it gives us a description of the Self, a very precise description. When you read in the Upanishads about realizing the Self, it does not say exactly what it looks like. What is the Self? Is it red, is it white? Is it light, is it dark? What is the Self? It tells you that you should realize it. It tells it is identical with God but it does not say what does it look like.
Here we have a description of it. We can call it that because it is not describing anything but it is enough of a description of a non-thing to give us a good sense of what it is - timeless, formless and spaceless.
Gurudeva says in the Self God, "It is the nothingness that is the fullness of everything." A wonderful paradox to ponder. How can nothing be a fullness, the nothingness that is the fullness of everything.
When it comes to realizing the Self, as we know, there is no consciousness during the moment of realization. It is only afterwards that we have the ability to know that we realized the Self. Just like in a deep dream, you don't know you are dreaming until you wake up. You wake up and say, "Oh, that was a dream." In a shallow dream you kind-of know you are dreaming. "I am dreaming. Shall I get up or not? Do I like this dream or not?" You know that is a shallow dream. But in a deep dream you are really involved in the dream. It is totally real to you and it is only when you wake up and you say, "Oh, that was just a dream."
In the aftermath of the experience, the immediate aftermath you are able to recognize that it is a dream. If you wait awhile, you will forget that you even had a dream. But right when you wake up from a deep dream you have the ability to say, "Oh, that was just a dream."
Similarly, the experience of the Self can be recognized in the immediate aftermath. Well, what are you recognizing? You are recognizing that you stepped outside of time, form and space. You stepped out of time, form and space. In other words, it is something that exists outside of time, form and space. Time, form and space is like a movie that is going on. It is like a 24-hour a day theatre. There is a movie going on constantly. Stepping outside of it is like going out the door for a few minutes and coming back in. Stepping outside of the progression, normal progression of events in time, form and space.
So that sense that you have stepped outside of time, that there is a reality that exists outside of time is a consciousness you have in the aftermath of realizing the Self.
But the main point of this Mahavakyam is, it describes the Self. It gives us a sense of what we are looking for. In other words we realize, "Gee, I am just not trying to go into the inner light and get this light brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter. No, that is not the Self. I am not trying to go into pure consciousness and permeate everything and see everything as one, see everything as a oneness. No, I am not trying to do that. It does not have to do with anything I can perceive. It has to do with stepping beyond what we can perceive. Not going more deeply into what we can perceive but stepping beyond it."
The second Mahavakyam, "We are in truth, the truth we seek. You are already that which you seek, there is none other."
This is a very interesting concept. You are already that which you seek. You are already the Self, you don't have to become it. You don't have to do something.
Our normal way of looking at attainment is that we have to do something. We go to school for x number of years and we graduate. To graduate we have to do something, we are not already graduated. To learn to read we have to do a lot, then we learn to read. So our normal consciousness of achieving something is that it takes time. That we start out with a lesser ability and eventually we have a greater ability.
Well, that applies to our soul body. Our soul body is maturing and becoming more and more like the Primal soul. That is the normal consciousness of becoming. Like a baby growing up, there is a becoming involved. The baby starts life without the ability to even move. It gains greater abilities as the person gets older and older. Just like the soul body becoming more and more like the Primal Soul.
But that does not apply to the Self. You are already that which you seek. You are just not aware of it.
It is like having money in a bank account that nobody told you that you ever had. You are not aware of it but it is already there. Your parents set up a bank account for you and forgot to tell you or they were not going to tell you till you were twenty-one. It is already there, you don't have to do anything. You just don't know about it. You just have to find out and then it is always been there. It is always the case.
What this means is we could realize the Self right now. We don't have to do anything necessarily before it happens. Any time we sit down to meditate we could realize the Self. Just because we had a poor meditation yesterday doesn't mean we could not realize the Self today. Because, it is already the case, we are the Self. We just have to go deeply enough at some point in time. Our karma has to be such, our consciousness has to such that we go deep enough to claim that which we already are.
That is an important point in approaching Self Realization, not to put it off. Not to think today is not the day, this moment is not the moment. You don't even have to be sitting in meditation. We could be walking down the street to realize the Self. Or, sitting under a tree enjoying nature.
We want to claim that which we already are at the earliest moment. Not put it off based upon some concept that we are not ready, we are not worthy, we are not this, requires more of this, requires more of that. None of those principles apply when it comes to realizing the Self. (And) Realizing the Self is important as Gurudeva explains so beautifully in 'Merging with Siva' because each time you realize the Self it causes certain inner processes to take place on the inside.
We will take a look at those in one of our talks in the near future, during Moksha ritau.
So, those are a few thoughts on the deeper side of Moksha ritau, Self Realization.
| MORE UPLIFTING THINGS |
2004 Indian Odyssey Join Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami on an 18 day Innersearch to South India, from Jan 19 to Feb 5, as we pilgrimage to ancient monasteries, magnificent 1,000 plus year old sacred temples and meet with India's holy men in a life-transforming adventure. Click on the above link for more details. |
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