The theological blending of the two perspectives, theism and monism. Dimfi: Worship of the deity in the temple, wakening a deeper perspective and enlivening the kundalini, interrelates with but is not the same as meditation. Shumif: Meditation, looking inside yourself, at the inner self, enjoying and seeing what is there. The two are separate but interrelated. Commentary on The Master Course, Lesson 334.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning. It's like a festival day.

From Today's Trilogy Lesson "Dancing with Siva," Sloka 24.

"What is the nature of Lord Karttikeya?

"Lord Karttikeya, Murugan, first guru and Pleiadean master of kundalini yoga, was born of God Siva's mind. His dynamic power awakens spiritual cognition to propel souls onward in their evolution to Siva's feet."

And from the Bhashya.

"Lord Karttikeya flies through the mind's vast substance from planet to planet. He could well be called the Emancipator, ever available to the call of those in distress. Lord Karttikeya, God of will, direct cognition and the purest, child-like divine love, propels us onward on the righteous way through religion, His Father's law. Majestically seated on the manipura chakra, this scarlet-hued God blesses mankind and strengthens our will when we lift to the inner sky through sadhana and yoga. The yoga pada begins with the worship of Him. The yogi, locked in meditation, venerates Karttikeya, Skanda, as his mind becomes as calm as Saravana, the lake of Divine Essence. The kundalini force within everyone is held and controlled by this powerful God, first among renunciates, dear to all sannyasins."

It's a very interesting theological point there because we're blending the two perspectives, monism and theism, or in the Shum we call it the dimfi and shumif. That the worship of a deity is helping us in meditation. So it's it's good to be sure we have the perspectives straight and also see how they interrelate because usually we don't interrelate them.

Gurudeva made it easy for the monks; he created two rooms so we have Kadavul room for theism and then the Guru Temple for monism. So very simple. When you're in Kadavul you're worshiping God, or worshiping Lord Muruga, He's there; you're here. And when you're in the Guru Peedam you have monism; you're going inside yourself. There's no second person. You're just going inside your inner self.

So in this case, Gurudeva's saying the theism, the worship of Lord Muruga is helpful for the monism to work better. The idea of blessings. There's a statement in Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras," I don't remember the exact word but it's, I'm sure it's not that popular in the West. But samadhi, the goal of meditation, there's three factors that Patanjali relates to it which relates to this sutra, one of them says: Samadhi comes as a result of practice.

Also relates to dedication. Meaning, the amount you're interested in your practice, the more interest you have, the more inspires you. Then, the more you get out of your practice which is true of any subject. And through the grace of Ishvara. So blessings of God or in this case blessings of Murugan, can cause an awakening, also a change of perspective. The two can go together which helps our meditation work better. But still, the basic practices are separate. Once we have the awakening, then we go sit in the Guru Peedam and go inside our self. We're not sitting there worshiping Lord Muruga.

So, sometimes when I talk to families about meditation, the ideas about what to meditate on, how diverse they are surprise me. Everyone has a totally different idea about what they should be meditating on. Really, some think they should be meditating on the deity just as if they were in the temple and meditating on God. Others think they should be repeating a mantra, that meditation and japa are the same thing. I should be meditating on, I should be repeating a mantra while I sit there and meditate. Well, you can meditate on the meaning of the syllables of a mantra but you're not supposed to sit there and be doing japa. That's japa, that's not meditation.

Meditation is -- in Gurudeva's system -- going inside yourself and seeing what's there. Like this morning I got up, cold morning. So first thing you think about on a cold morning is the beautiful stars in the sky. Because the two things work together in our weather here. Cold means there's no clouds in the sky. And warm means there's clouds in the sky. Very simple. The warmer it is the more clouds you have. So it seems to my simple way understanding of weather: definitely the colder it is the fewer clouds there are all the stars are there, looking so beautiful. So, we're looking up at the sky and seeing what's there. We're not projecting something on it; we're just seeing what's there and enjoying it.

So likewise, Gurudeva's approach to meditation is the same. We're just looking inside our self and enjoying what's there. We're not putting a layer on top of it or words or japa or trying to see a deity. We're just looking at our inner self.

So, that's the basic idea that this is bringing out is the inter-relationship. That the blessings of Lord Murugan, through wakening a deeper perspective and enlivening the kundalini. But when we're sitting and meditating in the Guru Peedam, we're not thinking about Lord Murugan. That's one, that happens over here. So the two are separate but interrelated. One helps the other.

Have a wonderful day.