April Chitra Puja

Jai Gurudeva!

Recently we celebrated our monthly padapuja to Gurudeva. Due to virus-related restrictions, we only had our monks present for the event. Still, it was powerful as usual as Gurudeva's love and blessing flowed forth to us all. Aum Namah Sivaya.

"Humility is intelligence; arrogance is ignorance. To accept one's karma and the responsibility for one's actions is strength. To blame another is weakness and foolishness." - Gurudeva

\"Tapas is even more austere...\"

it may come early in a lifetime

or later in life

unbidden or provoked by raja yoga practices.

It is the fire that straightens the twisted life and mind of an individual

bringing him into pure being

giving a new start in life

awakening higher consciousness and a cosmic relationship with God and the Gods, friends, relatives and casual acquaintances

Tapas in Hinduism is sought for, feared, suffered through and loved.

Its pain is greater than the pains of parturition, but in the aftermath is quickly forgotten,

as the soul, in childlike purity, shines forth in the joys of rebirth that follow in the new life.

Tapas is walking through fire, being scorched, burnt to a crisp,

crawling out the other side unburnt, without scars, with no pain.

Tapas is walking through the rain, completely drenched,

and when the storm stops, not being wet.

Tapas is living in a hurricane, tossed about on a churning ocean in a small boat,

and when the storm subsides, being landed on a peaceful beach unharmed but purified.

Tapas is a mind in turmoil, insane unto its very self. A psychic surgery is being performed by the Gods themselves.

When the operation is over, the patient has been cut loose of the dross of all past lives.

Tapas is a landslide of mud, a psychic earthquake, coming upon the head and consuming the body of its victim, smothering him in the dross of his misdeeds, beneath which he is unable to breathe, see, speak or hear.

He awakens from this hideous dream resting on a mat in a garden hut, smelling sweet jasmine, seeing pictures of Gods and devas adorning the mud walls and hearing the sound of a flute coming from a distant source.

Truly, tapas in its fullest form is sought for only by the renunciate under the guidance of a satguru, but this madness often comes unbidden to anyone on this planet whose dross of misdeeds spills over.

The only difference for the Hindu is that he knows what is happening and how it is to be handled

or at least the gurus know, the swamis know, the elders know, the astrologers know.

This knowledge is built into the Hindu mind flow as grout is built into a stone wall.

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