The challenge of defining Parasiva, Absolute Reality, the destiny of each soul. If something is timeless, formless and spaceless it doesn't change. Claiming the part of you, Parasiva, that is beyond all that, that is not involved in the process of evolution. The Grace of the Deity, which may be attained through major pilgrimage, is valuable as it can fry the seeds of karmas. Karmic seeds can also be destroyed by the yoga adept through meditation and tapas.

Unedited Transcript:

From our daily Master Course Lesson in "Dancing With Siva," we started over recently and we're up to Sloka 5 or 6. So this is Sloka 5 here.

"What is the Ultimate Goal of Earthly Life?

"The ultimate goal of life on Earth is to realize the Self, the rare attainment of nirvikalpa samadhi. Each soul discovers its Sivaness, Absolute Reality, Parashiva -- the timeless, formless, spaceless Self God. Aum Namah Sivaya.

"Bhashya

"The realization of the Self, Parashiva, is the destiny of each soul, attainable through renunciation, sustained meditation and frying the seeds of karmas yet to germinate. It is the gateway to moksha, liberation from rebirth. The Self lies beyond the thinking mind, beyond the feeling nature, beyond action or any movement of even the highest state of consciousness. The Self God is more solid than a neutron star, more elusive than empty space, more intimate than thought and feeling. It is ultimate reality itself, the innermost Truth all seekers seek. It is well worth striving for. It is well worth struggling to bring the mind under the dominion of the will. After the Self is realized, the mind is seen for the unreality that it truly is. Because Self Realization must be experienced in a physical body, the soul cycles back again and again into flesh to dance with Siva, live with Siva and ultimately merge with Siva in undifferentiated oneness. Yea, jiva is actually Siva. The Vedas explain, 'As water poured into water, milk poured into milk, ghee into ghee become one without differentiation, even so the individual soul and the Supreme Self become one.'"

So one of the challenges in the deeper teachings is vocabulary. And any technical field, including mysticism, we run into the need for precise vocabulary. So one of the key words here is Parasiva verses the word self. When we say realize the Self the word "self" means so many different things to different people; it's not a word that has a clear meaning. I say realize the Self to just a general group of people everyone would have a different concept about what it means. Well, I know what that means and every ones' thought would be different. But if we say realize Parasiva then, if you don't know what Parasiva is you have to create a new meaning, a precise meaning. So, Gurudeva's defining Parasiva: That aspect of Siva which is transcendent, as Absolute Reality which is timeless, formless and spaceless. So, if something is timeless, formless and spaceless obviously it doesn't change because change involves time and form and space. All three of them work together. So it's a condition that always is the same no matter what. So, realizing the Self therefore is like stepping out of time form and space and claiming the part of you -- Parasiva -- that is beyond all of that. It's never changed. It's not involved in the process of evolution.

There's a key phrase here in the middle: "Frying the seeds of karma yet to germinate." It's not something that's generally thought about but it is an important concept and it's a shortcut to spiritual progress. So anyone who has grown sprouts is familiar with this concept: seeds and sprouts and germination and all. Alfalfa sprouts are common, mung bean sprouts. So, if you want to sprout something, you sprout seeds. You need to put them in a warm place and have them moist and then they sprout.

So that's like karma. Normally our karma -- our karma comes in the forms of seeds, seed karma -- normally it sprouts or manifests in our life, just like seeds sprout. Now what happens if you take those same seeds like you take the sunflower seeds, alfalfa seeds and you put them in a frying pan; heat them up? And then you try and sprout them afterwards. Will they sprout? No! So that's the idea. "Frying the seeds of karmas yet to germinate." So if you fry a seed, be it a karmic seed or a sunflower seed, it won't germinate, it won't sprout, it won't manifest. So it sounds good but how do we fry the seeds?

Well the seeds are fried in Gurudeva's teachings in two ways. One is just the grace of the Deity can do that. Usually it requires a lot of grace so something like a major pilgrimage is what's required to generate that kind of intense grace that would actually fry the seeds of karma. So that's why in Hinduism, major pilgrimage, which means you know, a couple of weeks, a month, couple of months long to the traditional temples in India is so valuable. Cause it can actually fry the seeds of karma or eliminate from our pattern of experience in this or future lives certain experiences. So certain experiences are eliminated, what does that mean? It means the goal is closer, right? Instead of going through twenty more somethings we go through eighteen. We lost two.

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The second method is through the practice of yoga through which the negative seed karmas can actually be burned up without ever having to be lived through. What we have to do is find the seed and dissolve it in intense inner light. Let's take the analogy of growing alfalfa spouts. You place the seeds in a jar, keep them moist and they sprout. If you first heated the seeds in a frying pan and then put them into the jar, they would no longer sprout.

A meditation adept, having pinpointed the unmanifested karmic seed, can either dissolve it in intense light or inwardly live through the reaction of his past action. If his meditation is successful, he will be able to throw out the vibrating experiences or desires which are consuming the mind. In doing this, in traveling past the world of desire, he breaks the wheel of karma which binds him to the specific reaction which must follow every action. That experience will never have to happen on the physical plane, for its vibrating power has already been absorbed in his nerve system. This same type of incineration can also happen during sleep.

Gurudeva explains it in this way: "It is the held back force of sanchita karma that the yogi seeks to burn out with his kundalini flame, to disempower it within the karmic reservoir of anandamaya kosa, the soul body."

[End of transcript.]