How To Realize God, Part one
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: Description: Guru Chronicles--Kadavul Temple vibhuti-prasadam significance. Man’s ultimate quest, the Self within man, attainable through control of the mind and purification. Realization, you never were not the Self. The only time awareness is not present, non-experience, is when one is realizing Paraśiva. Paraśiva is always there in every human being on the planet, the Self experiencing itself. One comes back and back again into flesh simply to realize Paraśiva, nothing more. Experience, experienced and experiencer are one and the same. The Self, Paraśiva, can be realized only when the devotee turns away from the world and enters the cave within as a way of life through initiation and under vows. Paraśiva beyond a stilled mind, Paraśiva that has stopped time, transcended space and dissolved all form. Kaif and im'kaif in Shum. "The Guru Chronicles", "Master Course Trilogy", "Merging with Siva" Lessons 1-2.
Transcription:
Good morning everyone. This morning we're starting with a new lesson in "Merging with Siva" Chapter One. So we're going through the lessons in the order in which they were given rather than in the order in which they're in the book. That's why we're on Chapter One. This is a lesson that was given in 1984.
And enough time has gone by that we have a quote from "The Guru Chronicles". We haven't had a quote for a long time. This is from 1983 Guru Chronicles. We have a sense for the time setting.
"During a session on Kauai on September 14, 1983, the monastic scribe asked how the devas work with the holy ash prasadam of Kadavul Temple that the monastery sends to devotees in the mail.
The rishi responded: "With prasadam we are there, and with shakti we are there. The prasadam opens a channel, a long-lasting channel, between us at Kauai and the devotee. The vibhuti especially holds the vibration. You have an open channel between you and certain temples in India. This is because the vibhuti from those temples is at the Aadheenam. Generously fill the homes with vibhuti from Kadavul, and they will draw on the shakti from Kadavul Nataraja and the open channel will remain wide and clear. Try to obtain your vibhuti from a certain place where it is made in the traditional way. The vibhuti is the voice of Kadavul. Give full amounts in your prasadam bags, not just a stingy little bit. (Scolding from the devas there.) And the gurus vibhuti pouches should be fat and overflowing."
So that's a nice mystical insight.
Lesson One.
"Paraśiva, Life’s Ultimate Goal
Text
"Never have there been so many people living on the planet wondering, 'What is the real goal, the final purpose, of life?' However, man is blinded by his ignorance and his concern with the externalities of the world. He is caught, enthralled, bound by karma. The ultimate realizations available are beyond his understanding and remain to him obscure, even intellectually. Man’s ultimate quest, the final evolutionary frontier, is within man himself. It is the Truth spoken by Vedic ṛishis as the Self within man, attainable through control of the mind and purification.
"It is karma that keeps us from knowing of and reaching life’s final goal, yet it is wrong to even call it a goal. It is what is known by the knower to have always existed. It is not a matter of becoming the Self, but of realizing that you never were not the Self. And what is that Self? It is Paraśiva. It is God. It is That which is beyond the mind, beyond thought, feeling and emotion, beyond time, form and space. That is what all men are seeking, looking for, longing for. When karma is controlled through yoga and dharma well performed, and the energies are transmuted to their ultimate state, the Vedic Truth of life discovered by the ṛishis so long ago becomes obvious.
"That goal is to realize God Śiva in His absolute, or transcendent, state, which when realized is your own ultimate state—timeless, formless, spaceless Truth. That Truth lies beyond the thinking mind, beyond the feeling nature, beyond action or any movement of the vṛittis, the waves of the mind. Being, seeing, this Truth then gives the correct perspective, brings the external realities into perspective. They then are seen as truly unrealities, yet not discarded as such.
"This intimate experience must be experienced while in the physical body. One comes back and back again into flesh simply to realize Paraśiva. Nothing more. Yet, the Self, or Paraśiva, is an experience only after it has been experienced. Yet, it is not an experience at all, but the only possible nonexperience, which registers in its aftermath upon the mind of man. Prior to that, it is a goal. After realization, one thing is lost, the desire for the Self."
So commentary, that's worth a commentary I think. Pretty deep.
So the only possible non-experience, what in the world does that mean? Not only a non-experience but it's the only possible one. Well it means, awareness is the experiencer, right? So, for something to be a non-experience the experiencer can't be present. So the only time the experiencer awareness is not present is when one is realizing Paraśiva. So the Shum explains it a little more. Shum of course is im' kaif. So this, the Shum itself makes it clear, the absence of kaif.
Pure awareness aware only of itself, dissolving; the intense state of kaif when awareness withdraws all energies from all bodies into a peak experience; kaif eliminates itself, or the locus of awareness dissolves, as the superconscious being of man, lamf, returns to its source; this experience may be brief; im' kaif does not name what is found from the experience, it only names the entrance and what happens to kaif.
We have Lesson Two
"Like a Child's Self-Discovery
"Look at a child standing before a mirror for the first time, feeling its nose and ears, eyes and mouth, looking at itself reflected in the glass. Feeling and seeing what has always been there is a discovery in experience. Paraśiva is the same. It is always there in each and every human being on the planet. But involvement in the externalities of material existence inhibits their turning inward. (So before Gurudeva was saying karma. So this is another way of saying karma.) ...involvement in the externalities of material existence inhibits their turning inward. The clouding of the mirror of the mind—that reflective pond of awareness which when calm sees clearly—or the ripples of disturbance on the mind’s surface distort seeing and confuse understanding. Without a clear mirror, the child lacks the seeing of what has always been there—its own face. Paraśiva is an experience that can be likened to the hand feeling and the eyes seeing one’s own face for the first time. But it is not experience of one thing discovering another, as in the discovery of one’s face. It is the Self experiencing itself. Experience, experienced and experiencer are one and the same. This is why it is only registered on the external mind in retrospect.
"Most people try to experience God through other people. Disciples see a guru as God. Wives see their husband as God. Devotees see the Deity in the temple as God.
But all the time, behind the eyes of their seeing, is God. The Self, Paraśiva, can be realized only when the devotee turns away from the world and enters the cave within as a way of life through initiation and under vows. We know the Self within ourself only when we fully turn into ourselves through concentration, meditation and contemplation and then sustain the resulting samādhi of Satchidānanda, pure consciousness, in hopes of finding, determined to find, That which cannot be described, That which was spoken about by the ṛishis, Paraśiva, beyond a stilled mind, Paraśiva that has stopped time, transcended space and dissolved all form."
So that just reminds us how "Merging with Siva" starts, Chapter One. Very profound material.
Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.