We are told that hundreds of years ago in the city of Madurai, known as the Athens of India for its cultural pre-eminence, there was constructed at the Meenakshi Somasundareśvara Śivan Koyil, within the vast temple tank, a magic boat called the Philosophers’ Barge. Ṛishis came from the Himalayas, pandits from all corners of India and humble bhakta siddhas from the South to sit together and discuss life, illumination and release from mortality. This boat’s singular magic was its extraordinary ability to expand to accommodate any number of people who conversed with an attitude of respect and harmony. But, miraculously, it grew smaller when discussion turned rancorous, and those who brought about the contention suddenly found themselves in the water, swimming to shore in embarrassment. In Śiva’s temple, it seems, only nonargumentative discussion was allowed. ¶We have no magic boats today, …or perhaps we do. During a recent pilgrimage to India, I spoke to several large groups of devotees, including hundreds of sādhus of the Swaminarayan Fellowship, about zero tolerance for inharmonious conditions. Everyone found the message pertinent, yet difficult to practice, for there is no group of people on Earth for whom living in harmony is not a challenge at one time or another. But it is true that among my monastics we have zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions of any kind. ¶Harmony is the first and foremost rule of living in all spheres, but particularly in spiritual work, where it is an absolute must. Striving for harmony begins within the home and radiates out into all dimensions of life, enhancing and making joyous and sublime each relationship for every devotee. Thus, each strives to be considerate and kindly in thought, word and deed, to unfold the beautiful, giving qualities of the soul, to utter only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary. The great Tamil saint, Tiruvalluvar, offers the following sage advice in Tirukural verse 100: “To utter harsh words when sweet ones would serve is like eating unripe fruit when ripe ones are at hand.” Yes, this is the ideal. I was asked by the swāmīs in Gujarat, time after time, “But what if conflict and contention do arise?” My answer was that in our fellowship all work stops and the problem is attended to at once. It is each one’s responsibility to follow this wisdom. Nothing could be more counterproductive and foolish than to continue work, especially religious work, while conflict prevails, for demonic forces have been unleashed that must be dispelled for any effort to be fruitful and long lasting. Any breach in the angelic force field of the home, monastery or workplace must be sealed off quickly. ¶Our approach is simple. We are all committed to the shared sādhana that all difficult feelings must be resolved before sleep, lest they give rise to mental argument, go to seed and germinate as unwanted, troublesome vāsanās, subconscious impressions, that cannot be totally erased but only softened and neutralized through the mystic processes of atonement. Disharmony is disruption of the harmonious prāṇic flow: anger, argument, back-biting, walking out of meetings, painful words and hurt feelings. The Vedas pray, “May our minds move in accord. May our thinking be in harmony—common the purpose and common the desire. May our prayers and worship be alike, and may our devotional offerings be one and the same” (Ṛig Veda 10.191.3. VE, P. 854). One of the principles of harmony is that the commitment to harmony has to be greater than any commitment to any particular issue or problem. Problems change, but the strength of harmony has to be the ultimate priority. This is a conceptual tool to use whenever differences arise. §
If a disruption is not resolved before sleep, then a kukarmaphala, fruit of wrongdoing, will be created. The hurt feelings and mental arguments continue to fester until the matter is brought up and openly faced to be resolved. If not resolved within 72 hours, the problem germinates, and elders must take action under spiritual guidance to rectify the matter. The fact that all have chosen to avoid facing the difficulty shows that more serious remedies are required. ¶Resolution in all cases is accomplished through the hṛī prāyaśchitta: apology, the showing of remorse, talking together in small groups and giving gifts as tokens of reconciliation. Humility is the keynote. Sincere apology is offered for participating in argument or confusion, even if one was not necessarily to blame; the karma was there that attracted the situation. Harmony is reinstated by honestly accepting apologies, by forgiving and forgetting with the firm resolve to never bring up the matter again. Zero tolerance is based on the shared understanding that by working together on the firm foundation of love and trust all will progress in religious service and worship. Through these efforts, a sukarmaphala, fruit of right doing, is deliberately created. When two śishyas sit to settle a disharmony, it is sometimes helpful for an uninvolved third party to be present, even silently, to balance the energies. ¶Sādhana—personal transformation through self-effort—is the magic balm that soothes the nerve system, giving strength for each śishya to have forbearance with people and patience with circumstances. When sādhana is neglected, problems close in. Families find it difficult to see eye to eye. Hard feelings arise in even the simplest and well-intended encounters when the individuals have become too externalized. ¶There is a natural harmony within our monasteries, which families seek to emulate. Rarely is much discussion required when daily activities are being carried out, for the lines of authority based on seniority are always clear. This is the first boon for maintaining harmony among a group. Ours is a traditional hierarchical system of governance, upheld within our family and monastic communities, established when the Vedas were created. It is a system whereby the elders, in a loving manner, guide those younger than they. So, there is always an atmosphere of respect, loving harmony and meeting of minds. Never is scolding heard or feelings hurt or arguments provoked or sincere questions left unanswered. Here “love is the sum of the law,” and the heartfelt feelings going out from the elders protect and support those who will one day themselves be elders. We create a secure and loving society in which intelligence overrides controversy and the only rigid rule is wisdom. Thus the prāṇic magnetism of the family or monastery is maintained and kept ever building for sustainable success and spirituality. ¶Yes, I can tell you from experience that zero tolerance for inharmonious conditions is a workable law and sādhana that can and should be adopted by all spiritual groups and individuals. My satguru, Siva Yogaswami, used to say, “It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the time.” Most people, it seems, would rather be miserable. Think about it. They go through life getting their feelings hurt, resenting this or that and hurting the feelings of others in an endless cycle of unresolved emotion, asking a torrent of unanswerable rhetorical questions. Take today’s average family: it’s a composite of troubled individuals.§
Today, more than ever, parents everywhere are concerned about keeping the family together. I have found that the key is to keep the prāṇas flowing harmoniously. A true family is a clan of individuals who love each other, which means they are bound together by positive prāṇic magnetism. When sons-in-law and daughters-in-law join the family, their prāṇic magnetism intermingles, and the family extends itself harmoniously, especially if the jyotisha compatibilities are good between the bride and her husband and the bride and her mother-in-law. This magnetism is maintained through the principle of zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions, to keep the prāṇas flowing within their homes in a positive, loving way. This means that if there is a disruption of the prāṇas, caused by interpersonal conflict—argument, angry words or worse—the matter must be settled among those involved before they retire to sleep, even if it means staying up all night. ¶What is prāṇa? Prāṇa is vital energy. There are three phases of the mind: instinctive, intellectual and superconscious. They comprise three different kinds of prāṇa in every human being: instinctive prāṇa, intellectual prāṇa and refined, superconscious prāṇa, also known as actinic energy. Instinctive prāṇas digest our food and maintain the functions of the physical body. They also give rise to the emotions of fear, anger, jealousy and other base instincts. The instinctive energies affect the mind, emotions and behavior. Without well-developed intellectual prāṇas, the mind is ruled by the lower nature and is easily influenced by others, often in a negative way. This is why children must be closely watched and guided during their formative years until their intellectual prāṇas develop in the form of good memory, discernment and willpower. The superconscious prāṇas bring through creativity, inspiration and intuition. These are the energies to be sought after and nurtured through various kinds of religious devotion and sādhana. ¶In nearly every home, all three kinds of prāṇa are at work. Little children are functioning mainly in the instinctive prāṇas. Students are in the intellectual prāṇas. Parents, hopefully, are functioning in the spiritual prāṇas, at least part of the time, drawing into the home the cosmic, actinic rays of the soul, while balancing all three forms of prāṇa within themselves. ¶It is the duty of the head of the house and his wife to take charge of all the three prāṇas within the home and keep them flowing harmoniously day after day after day after day. How do they do that? By prayer and regular, early-morning daily sādhana, bringing wisdom and other refined, actinic prāṇas through from the superconscious mind. When everyone is bound together with love, everything goes along fairly smoothly.§
The older children and young adults in the family must be taught that it is their responsibility, too, to see that the prāṇas are all flowing nicely in the home, so the little children and babies are protected. Young adults, having just come out of the instinctive mind themselves, are breaking the barriers into the intellect, experiencing these new prāṇas and beginning to think for themselves. This is the time when elders can guide them into the zero-tolerance-for-disharmonious-conditions philosophical outlook. Youths who have accepted the concept are most respectful of loving relationships. They tried it out and found for themselves that “Yes, we do have control over the instinctive mind” and “No, we won’t allow it to run wild within our home, among our friends or in our associations with the community.” They will be the ones to keep the flow of prāṇas harmonious. ¶Then the next step unfolds from within most naturally: zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions within our own self. This brings us back to my guru’s wisdom: claim the strength to stop being miserable, to stop tolerating turmoil inside yourself. How is this accomplished? We have to boldly affirm, “I will not allow the instinctive mind that I experienced as a child to control me in any way. I will not allow anger to come up. I will not allow jealousy to dominate my thinking and make me feel inferior or superior to someone else. I will not allow fear to permeate my aura.” ¶Then, each day before bedtime, settle any unresolved matters within yourself by performing the vāsanā daha tantra, “subconscious purification by fire.” Vāsanās are sub-subconscious traits, complexes or subliminal tendencies which, as driving forces, color and motivate one’s attitudes and actions. Vāsanās are conglomerates of subconscious impressions, saṁskāras, created through repeated or powerful experience. Daha means to burn, consume by fire, and a tantra is a method or technique, and the method here is to write out clearly all problems as well as emotional happenings, unhappy or happy, that are vibrating in the subconscious, instinctive-intellectual mind. When the eyes, through the intellectual mind or conscious mind, see the problem written down, the emotion attached to the memory begins to diminish. Then crumple up the paper and burn it in an ordinary fire, such as in a fireplace, urn or garbage can, to totally release some of life’s burdens from the subconscious and dispel the suppressed emotions as the fire consumes the paper. ¶This simple tantra removes the vāsanās from the memory and emotional recesses along with the emotion, resentments, hurt feelings and misunderstandings. Soon the superconscious prāṇas will begin to flow, and our natural, peaceful self emerges, and we may be left wondering, “Why was I ever bothered about that trivial incident?” ¶What happens if we don’t resolve inharmonious or congested matters within ourself before sleep? The condition will go to seed, and those vṛittis, waves of the mind, which were disturbed by the experiential creation of the situation, will form a vāsanā to germinate at a later time in life, perhaps many years in the future, or even in another lifetime. This daily mental maintenance, of course, requires discipline. It may be easier to simply drop off to sleep feeling angry, jealous, guilty, dejected or sorry for oneself. ¶Yes, zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions can be applied within oneself as well as among a family or any group of people. This practice can be established in one of two ways. Start with yourself and then carry it out to others. Or start with your relationships with others, smoothing out the prāṇas when they go a little crazy, and then finally apply it to yourself when you are convinced that this is the way life should be lived. Zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions is clearly the only way once one fully accepts the basic principles of the Sanātana Dharma: all-pervasive energy, cause and effect, and coming back in a physical birth until all scores are settled. ¶Remember the inspiring words of the Atharva Veda, “Let us have concord with our own people and concord with people who are strangers to us. Aśvins, create between us and the strangers a unity of hearts. May we unite in our midst, unite in our purposes and not fight against the divine spirit within us” (7.52.1-2. HV, P 205).§
When an inharmonious condition arises in a seeker’s life, it forms a deep, dark veil within his mind, inhibiting the progressive process of seeking inwardly. Shall he store it away and forget it, put it behind him and get on with life? That is a temporary relief, to be sure, only temporary insofar as retaliatory karma will come back in full force at another time as an even deeper, darker veil that will effectually stop the seeking. Only at this second round will the seeker, now knowing the effect of past causes, begin to perform japa, do prāṇāyāma and strenuous religious practices, such as penance and kavadi, beseeching Lord Śiva to lift the veiling doom. ¶The wise seeker obviously will endeavor to lift the dark veils once he realizes they never go away but always persist when he stores problems away. At the same time, he realizes that certain obstacles in his progressive life pattern are beginning to show. Thus, the super-wise seeker will not store a problem away when it arises, but handle it adroitly and magically heal all wounds before they fester. To be super wise on the path to enlightenment, one must have the siddhi of humility. ¶When an argument flares up in the home between mother and father, it affects all of the children. They feed on the iḍā and piṅgalā prāṇas of the mother and father. Super-wise parents heal their differences before they sleep at night, even if they have to stay up all night to do it. Failure to heal differences before sleep means that a first separation has occurred. ¶Domestic abuse is a difficult issue, but one we must confront openly. I urge you all to stand up and say it is no longer acceptable for a man to abuse his wife or for either the husband or the wife to abuse their children. This must stop. In order to heal the differences that arise within a marriage from time to time, both partners have to give in. The best place to do this is at the feet of their Gods in the temple or shrine room. There is no other solution. This is the only way. The method of giving in, yes, is to talk it over. A major emphasis is to see the other’s point of view, finding points in the disturbance both can agree with. Agreement is the key word. The relationship between the husband and wife, who are also a mother and father or potential mother and father, has more lasting influence than their opposing opinions. Some relationships are easy and some are difficult. But resolving disagreements before nightfall is the aim. Some couples need to work harder at it than others. ¶Habits are formed through the repetition of the same events over and over again. No matter what you have seen or heard from parents, relatives, neighbors, friends or society itself, heal your differences before sleep, even if it takes all night. By doing this repeatedly, a new habit will be created. Don’t go to sleep in anguish, holding on to anger, fear, confusion or ill feelings. The inconvenience of this wise remedy will cause each one to be careful of his or her words, thoughts and actions.§
Those wondering how they could ever live with zero tolerance for all discord and disharmony need only realize that people are naturally tolerant with those they love. The good mother tolerates all the little problems her beloved infant brings into each day. The loving wife tolerates the faults and actions of her husband. A true friend tolerates another friend’s foibles and even rough words. If we learn to love, we automatically learn to have perfect tolerance for those we love. The ancient Tirukural reminds us, “When friends do things that hurt you, attribute it to unawareness or to the privileges of friendship” (805). ¶Love comes in many forms. There is physical love, magnetic attraction. This is dualistic love, because if the other person responds, you feel very good, and if he does not respond, you don’t like him. That is not the kind of love that is all encompassing. It is a very narrow form of love. It broadens a little bit with emotional love, which is the second kind of love. You love someone because he makes you happy, or you express love to make other people happy. But if someone doesn’t make you happy or you are trying to make someone else happy and he just won’t be happy, then you don’t like him anymore. That is also a dualistic form of love. It is not all encompassing. Physical love and emotional love are companions. ¶Then there is intellectual love, which comes in and breaks it all up. In the intellect, if you love somebody and he doesn’t agree with you, then you don’t like him. That interrupts the physical love and the emotional love. Arguments start, sarcasm begins to well up. These are all forms of partial love. People experience this every day. ¶Spiritual love is the fourth kind. Somewhat hard to come by, it is the love from the soul body. Spiritual love transcends physical love, emotional love and mental love. It transcends all kinds of feelings. It has a feeling of its own, which is called bliss—the ever-flowing energy from Śiva out through your body, the ever-flowing energy from Śiva out through your mind, the ever-flowing energy of Śiva out through your emotions. Caught up in that ever-flowing energy, you can truly say to everyone, “I love you.” And what does you mean? You means Śiva, because you are seeing Śiva in each one. What are you looking at when you say that? You are not looking at the body. You are not appreciating or depreciating the intellect. You are not even bothered about the emotions, whether you are liked or not liked, because you are seeing Śiva emanating out through the eyes, emanating out through the aura, emanating out through the skin. Śiva is there, and you are living with Śiva. ¶This great, Supreme God of all the Gods is limited in one respect: He cannot take Himself out of you or anyone else. So mentally say, “I love you,” then ask yourself the question, “What does you mean?” Does you mean you like the body of the person? No. Does you mean you like the emotions of the person? No. Does you mean you like the intellect of the person? No. Does you mean you like somebody as long as they are always pleasing to you, always agreeing with you, never upsetting you, never pulling away from you? No. It means that you love their soul. It means that you love Śiva inside of them. The light within their eyes is Śiva’s light. The light that lights up their thoughts is Śiva’s light, and that is what you love. That love is all encompassing. That love is not partial love, half love or just a little bit of love given when it pleases you. It’s not magnetic love; it’s not intellectual love. You are not putting any demands on the other person at all. You are not expecting anything back. It is love for the sake of love. ¶There should be a unique English word for spiritual love, but there is not. In Sanskrit we do have a word for divine love: prema. Therefore, we have to adjust our thinking when we say, “I love you,” to this all-encompassing, beautiful love that radiates throughout the universe—the perfect universe where everything is in harmony and order. And even if it is seemingly out of harmony, you know it actually is in harmony because you are in the state of consciousness where harmony is, where peace is, where bliss is. Therefore, your Śaiva Siddhānta religion can work in your daily life. §
Your Śaiva Siddhānta religion can be lived every minute of the day and all through the night. All you have to do is decide whether you are going to expect anything back from anyone. All you have to decide is what part of the person you love. If you love the soul, you love the whole person, no matter who the person is, no matter what he does, what he says, whether you know him or whether you don’t know him, because he is the light of Śiva, the energy of Śiva, the love of Śiva walking around in human form. This is the kind of love that keeps you in harmony with everyone. ¶Love is expressed in so many different ways. It is a force, a vibration that you have to work at to keep it flowing. Everyone has human emotions, instinctive emotions. Love controls those emotions. Love is appreciation, which can be expressed through gratitude, kind words, and especially through kind thoughts, because unkind thoughts create unkind words which create unkind actions, and everything begins with a thought. Love is an inner happiness which you want to cultivate in someone else, and if you begin to work at cultivating an inner happiness in someone else, you will have it yourself. If you work to cultivate an inner happiness in yourself, it doesn’t work so well. That’s a selfish approach, and you are likely to bring up instinctive emotions and memories of the past, especially of the bad things that happened in the past. In expressing love, one has to be very careful to know that it is a building situation, and be very careful not to indulge in unkind words, unkind thoughts and sarcasm. Sarcasm is the first breakdown in relationships. Trying to change another person’s character is also disastrous to a relationship. You have to accept everybody as they are. People change by the example of other people. Children learn first by the example people set for them. They follow that example—they don’t learn by mere words in the beginning—and that carries out all through life. Everyone admires a hero; everyone needs a role model. So if you want to change someone else, be a role model for him. Then he will become like you eventually, but it takes time. Be forgiving, because love is also forgiving. And be compassionate, for love is also compassionate, along with showing gratitude and expressing appreciation. ¶Love says, “I’m sorry.” Love says, “Thank you.” Love is also generosity, because whomever you love you are generous toward. You have generosity; you give and you give and you give and you give. And according to the great law of karma, you can’t give anything away but that it will come back to you. If you give love, it comes back to you double, and then you don’t know what to do with that, so you give that away, and that comes back double, and again you don’t know what to do with that, so you give that and it comes back double, and your whole family begins to flourish. The community begins to flourish. ¶Out of all the philosophies, out of all the psychological maneuverings and the psychiatric analyses, the hope of the world is love. It will be a wonderful day when all of us see that the hope of the world is love. You will discover ways yourself to express love. Love is decorating the home, bringing flowers into the home, arranging flowers in the home. It is cooking a wonderful meal and serving it properly. Love is cleaning and tidying up the home, bringing fresh air into the home so that those who come into the home are uplifted simply by being in the home. Love is taking care of the shrine room, bringing fresh water, fresh flowers and lighting incense, polishing the Deities, keeping them bright and shiny and dressing them in new clothing so that those who see and receive the darśana are uplifted. There are many physical ways we can express love. Love is bringing the whole family to the temple at auspicious times. Love is meeting with the family daily, solving all the little problems, sharing and talking and understanding each other’s minds and where they are in their consciousness. Love is being patient with people who have problems until the problems go away by talking them through. Love is respecting the elders. Love is also respecting yourself, because unless you have self-respect, unless you respect yourself, which means having a good self image, you will find it difficult to respect others. And unless you love and respect others, you will definitely have a hard time living in harmony with the world around you.§