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Jai Gurudeva!

Several days ago, during the Chitra nakshatra, we observed our monthly pada puja to Gurudeva. Monks and devotees gathered before sunrise in Kadavul Temple and enjoyed a padapuja performed by Sadhaka Shankaranatha and Yogi Haranandinatha.

“The guru helps the devotee to hold his mind in focus, to become pointedly conscious of thought, word and deed, and to cognize the lessons of each experience.” – Gurudeva

Aum Namah Sivaya

With the monastery’s observance of Sadhu Paksha having come to a close, we enter our next season today. We began the day with a homa and a parade out to change the flag. Here are reminders from Gurudeva, from his Saiva Dharma Shastras, detailing the significance and sadhanas of this inner season.

112 Introduction
Beginning with Hindu New Year in mid-April, three seasons of the year divide our activities into three great needs of humankind–the learning of scripture in the first season, Nartana Ritau; the living of culture in the second season, Jivana Ritau; and the meditating on Siva in the third season, Moksha Ritau. Thus we are constantly reminded that our life is Siva’s life and our path to Him is through study, sadhana and realization. In ritau one, we teach the philosophy; in ritau two, we teach the culture; and in ritau three, we teach meditation.

120 The Third Season: Moksha Ritau
The third period of the year, Moksha Ritau, the cool season, is from mid-December to mid-April. It is the season of dissolution. The key word is resolution. Merging with Siva: Hinduism’s Contemporary Metaphysics is the focus of study and intense investigation. The colors of this season are coral-pink, silver and all shades of blue and purple–coral for the Self within, silver and blue for illumination, and purple for enlightened wisdom. High above flies the coral flag, signaling Parasiva, Absolute Reality, beyond time, form and space. Moksha Ritau is a time of appreciation, of gratitude for all that life has given, and a time of honoring elders, those in the sannyasa stage of life. Moksha Ritau is excellent for philosophical discussions, voicing one’s understanding of the path through an enlightened intellect. In finance, it is the time for yearly accounting and reconciliation. On a mundane level it is a time of clearing attics, basements, garages, sheds, warehouses, workshops and desks, getting rid of unneeded things, of pruning trees, of streamlining life on the physical plane–of reengineering.

Today marks the end of our current lunar phase. The next two days will be retreat days for the monks. it also marks the end of our Sadhu Paksha observances. Several days from now we will enter our new season, the Moksha Ritau.

“It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating.” – Gurudeva

Aum Namah Shivaya

Jai Ganesha!

Today we would like to share you a lesson from Loving Ganesha written by Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.

Gaṇeśa, the Great Gatekeeper

Yes, it is the Great Gaṇeśa who is the gateway for seekers into the world’s most ancient faith. He is the inner authority, the guardian, the one who grants access to the spiritual mysteries of the Sanātana Dharma. All Hindus worship Him, regardless of their sectarian or philosophical positions. He truly binds them together in His love. This great God is both the beginning of the Hindu religion and the meeting ground for all its devotees. And that is only proper, inasmuch as Gaṇeśa is the personification of the material universe. The universe in all of its varied and various magnificent manifestations is nothing but the body of this cheerfully portly God.

Gaṇeśa sits on the psychic lotus of the mūlādhāra chakra, the ganglia of nerves at the base of the spine within everyone. This chakra governs time, matter and memory. As the spiritual aspirant is lifted up from fear and confusion into conscious awareness of right thought, right speech and right action, the mūlādhāra chakra becomes activated. It is then that the seeker, with heart filled with love, encounters the holy feet of Lord Gaṇeśa. As the spiritual seeker worships the loving elephant-faced God, clearness of mind comes more and more as he automatically and very slowly enters the Hindu path to enlightenment. Once the connection is firmly established between the devotee and Gaṇeśa, all of the currents of the devotee’s mind and body become harmonized. After that strong connection is made, should he falter on the spiritual path, he has gained divine protection.

But the seeker loses one thing. He loses his free, instinctive willfulness. It is lost forever. Yet it is not a great loss. Man’s own personal willfulness, his animalistic free will, is a feeble and insignificant force when compared to Lord Gaṇeśa’s divine will. When beholden to God Gaṇeśa and inwardly awakened enough to be attuned to His will, it is then quite natural that the instinctive will bows down. Personal likes and dislikes vanish. Limited faculties of reason and analysis are overpowered and subdued by a greater will, a cosmic will, the will of dharma. When sufficient humility has been awakened, it is easy to surrender personal, instinctive willfulness to the greater subsuperconscious will of dharma. It happens most naturally, but very slowly, because Lord Gaṇeśa, of all the many Gods, proceeds with methodic deliberation. He is the careful, loving guide on the inner path of all seekers.

Among all the wonderful Hindu Deities, Lord Gaṇeśa is the closest to the material plane of consciousness, most easily contacted and most able to assist us in our day-to-day life and concerns. In His hands Gaṇeśa wields a noose and a goad. With the noose He can hold you close or hold obstacles close. Gaṇeśa can capture and confine both blessings and obstacles. With the goad, Gaṇeśa can strike and repel obstacles. This Lord is called the Remover of Obstacles; but He also places obstacles in our way, for sometimes His devotees are proceeding in the wrong direction, and His obstacles block their progress and guide them slowly back onto the straight path of dharma. When instinctive willfulness causes the seeker to decide to step out of the boundaries of dharma, the Lord of Obstacles is there to block the way. His emblem is the swastika, symbolizing His circuitous course in guiding the seeker through life’s perplexing experiences.

It is through the worship of Lord Gaṇeśa that we come to know the venerable Lord Murugan, and lastly Supreme God Śiva, their Creator, our Father-Mother God, Lord of all creation, preservation and dissolution.