Lesson 223 – Dancing with Śiva

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What Is the Inner Source of Violence?

ŚLOKA 68
Violence is a reflection of lower, instinctive consciousness—fear, anger, greed, jealousy and hate—based in the mentality of separateness and unconnectedness, of good and bad, winners and losers, mine and yours. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Every belief creates certain attitudes. Attitudes govern our actions. Our actions can thus be traced to our inmost beliefs about ourself and the world around us. If those beliefs are erroneous, our actions will not be in tune with the universal dharma. For instance, the beliefs in the duality of self and other, of eternal heaven and hell, victors and vanquished, white forces and dark forces create the attitudes that we must be on our guard, and are justified in giving injury, physically, mentally and emotionally, to those whom we judge as bad, pagan, alien or unworthy. Such thinking leads to rationalizing so-called righteous wars and conflicts. As long as our beliefs are dualistic, we will continue to generate antagonism, and that will erupt here and there in violence. Those living in the lower, instinctive nature are society’s antagonists. They are self-assertive, territorial, competitive, jealous, angry, fearful and rarely penitent of their hurtfulness. Many take sport in killing for the sake of killing, thieving for the sake of theft. The Vedas indicate, “This soul, verily, is overcome by nature’s qualities. Now, because of being overcome, he goes on to confusedness.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 223 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Breaking the Addiction

I was told, and didn’t want to hear it, that pornography is here and there and everywhere on the Internet. Its advocates rationalize that it helps boys and girls establish their sexual identity even at a very young age. That, to say the least, is a very much debatable point. It robs them of their innocence, their childhood. That is for sure. Men and women, men and men, women with women, trois, quatre, cinq, how to kiss and how to do many other things—it’s all there. Question: do you know what your children are doing at home when you are both at work or out receiving an award for some social outreach beyond your family? Are they surfing porno sites on the Web? Even in the highly ethical families of my international congregation, this is sometimes happening.

In the old days, pornography was available in the big cities only. Separate areas with sex shops and prostitutes were called red light districts, areas decent people would never be seen in, and this alone kept pornography under control. During the First World War, soldiers were made to feel at home with posters of pin-up girls. These were girls in bathing suits, well covered up by today’s standards, but healthily endowed. In America before the turn of the century, the skirts did not show the ankles. Then they did. A big uproar! Moralists said showing ankles made women more sexually attractive to the men. Then up and up went the skirts, to way above the knees. Have you ever looked at knees? Some say they are the ugliest part of the human body.

I could go on and on. My job as satguru to so many souls in many countries is to break up addictions. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. The phenomenon of porno addiction was very new to me, and we needed a prāyaśchitta, penance. So, we asked Sri Sri Sri Pramukhswami’s senior sādhus the remedy to be used. His Swaminarayan Fellowship is one of the strictest orders in the world, if not the strictest. They said to look at a girl and follow her movement for five seconds as she walks would require a fast for twenty-four hours. This is a self-imposed penance among their 654 sādhus which can be applied to pornography. They well know, as our wise scriptures say, that sex manifests in eight levels, each one leading to the next: fantasy, glorification, flirtation, lustful glances, secret love talk, amorous longing, rendezvous and intercourse. So if the brothers see someone not eating breakfast, lunch and dinner for one or two days, they know he is trying to get control of the sexual forces and transmute them into tireless creativity.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 223: VENERATING WORTHY LEADERS
Devout Hindus honor a satguru, a head of state, a respected elder, a learned scholar, a renunciate or ascetic of any lineage. Upon his entrance, they stand, rush forward, bow appropriately and offer kind words. Aum.

Lesson 223 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

The Intuitive Nature

Observe the intellect as it is manifested in the world around you. You can see its limits. You can also see when it becomes a tool for the intuitive mind. When you discover great truths in the books you read, when creative ideas come to you, observe, with affectionate detachment, the people around you, the situations in life through which you pass. As you have learned, observations give birth to understanding, and understanding comes from your superconscious mind. Thus, the intellect must be developed to a certain extent and then controlled through the control of thought. Thought forms are manifestations of astral matter, or odic force, and travel through astral space, or odic force fields, from one destination to another. They can build, preserve and destroy. Thought forms can also protect, and they can create. Thought forms can also be seen, just as auras can be seen.

The intellect is the external ego, but it is only the external ego when it is in control and has cut itself off sufficiently from superconsciousness by becoming opinionated. When the intellect represents the ego, we say a person is unable to change his mind, no matter how much you try to convince or talk with him. He is stubborn, unyielding, even unfriendly if he becomes agitated or disturbed in his effort to hold the intellect together.

Should the intellectual nature become disturbed, the astral body then takes over and the instinctive mind or the instinctive qualities are prevalent at that time. This is quite apparent in undisciplined people, because the intellectual nature is undisciplined. When the astral body and the intellect work hand in hand, they create an instinctive-intellectual individual filled with opinionated knowledge, undisciplined instinctive drives, and emotions of hate and fear that have not been transmuted into the realms of reason and controlled through allowing a gridwork of positive memory patterns to build.

Within man, and functioning at a different rate of vibration than the intellect, is found the power or the motivating force of the mind, the chakras, or force centers. There are seven of these basic force centers, which are stimulated into action and unfoldment by the iḍā, piṅgalā and sushumṇā currents. The iḍā and piṅgalā are odic psychic currents (the Chinese yin and yang) interwoven around the spinal cord. Directly through the spinal cord runs the sushumṇā current, which is actinodic. The iḍā current is passive odic force; the piṅgalā current is aggressive odic force. The sushumṇā is an actinodic current. These currents govern the sixth aspect of man, the chakras. These currents are like the reins which will guide a horse as we ride in one direction or another.

The intuitive nature, man’s seventh aspect, is composed of a greater amount of actinic energy than odic. It is formed by the sushumṇā current that runs between the iḍā and piṅgalā currents up through the spinal cord. However, it is the state of mind that a yoga student must learn to identify as his own, so to speak. Until this time he usually identifies with the intuitive mind of his guru. This identification serves as a constant reminder of the existence of his own intuitive nature. Many students seem to know when the guru is in a higher state of intuitive awareness, but they may fail to realize that the knowing or recognition of that state is their own higher state of intuitive awareness, occurring simultaneously with that of the guru. This is one of the great benefits awarded a yoga student working in the guru system: his opportunity to identify with the intuitive mind of the guru.

When the yoga student learns to control his own odic force field to the point where he no longer identifies with his physical body, his astral body or his intellect, he can then identify his external ego with his intuitive nature, or subsuperconscious mind. This new and humble identity is a sporadic sense in the initial stages on the yoga path, for only when the student is really actinic does he utilize the intuitive mind consciously, perceiving it through the faculties of cognizantability. One does not entertain thoughts when in this state of full awareness. In this consciousness, one views and perceives through the anāhata chakra of direct cognition. The intuitive nature is the most refined aspect of the astral body. Although the intuitive aspect is made primarily of actinic force, there is enough odic force within it to enable man to enter into the realm of creation in the material world. This seventh aspect of man is a plateau, a leveling off of one cycle of evolution and the beginning, at the same time, of another.

Lesson 222 – Dancing with Śiva

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What Is the Inner Source of Noninjury?

ŚLOKA 67
Two beliefs form the philosophical basis of noninjury. The first is the law of karma, by which harm caused to others unfailingly returns to oneself. The second is that the Divine shines forth in all peoples and things. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The Hindu is thoroughly convinced that violence he commits will return to him by a cosmic process that is unerring. He knows that, by karma’s law, what we have done to others will be done to us, if not in this life then in another. He knows that he may one day be in the same position of anyone he is inclined to harm or persecute, perhaps incarnating in the society he most opposed in order to equalize his hates and fears into a greater understanding. The belief in the existence of God everywhere, as an all-pervasive, self-effulgent energy and consciousness, creates the attitude of sublime tolerance and acceptance toward others. Even tolerance is insufficient to describe the compassion and reverence the Hindu holds for the intrinsic sacredness within all things. Therefore, the actions of all Hindus living in the higher nature are rendered benign, or ahiṁsā. One would not hurt that which he reveres. The Vedas pronounce, “He who, dwelling in all things, yet is other than all things, whom all things do not know, whose body all things are, who controls all things from within—He is your soul, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 222 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Seductive Fantasies

During this past year, I have been delving into the lives of those among my international congregation who are addicted to blue movies, Internet sex sites and all the artificial modern means of stimulation. To say the least, interesting discoveries were made. The most hurtful of them all is a mature and sexually experienced man, accustomed to pornography, marrying an innocent virgin girl who absolutely cannot perform the way he expects and who is then humiliated, beaten or burned, divorced and traded in for another. This crisis is often blamed on dowry. Or it’s claimed she really wasn’t a virgin, so he had to send her back to her family. One would only know the truth about his actions from an unabashed and totally honest confession by the young man. There is much to be said for early marriage, before the boy is exposed to the sexual fantasy world and all its temptations, before he develops habit patterns that absolutely cannot be broken by the seven matrimonial steps around the sacred fire. Parents should question their children’s personal life before arranging a marriage.

Psychologically, pornography is closely linked to adultery. Maybe the other woman is not warm flesh and bones, but she is an unforgettable, reoccurring image within his mind, taking up the mental real estate. She appears quite alive in his dreams—more beautiful, more accomplished, more seductive, more enchanting, more alluring than his wife.

Dad never shares his pornographic books, magazines or World Wide Web addresses with his teenager, and neither does mom. But the children are allowed to become addicted on their own, with free, unchaperoned time at the keyboard. Does this make any sense to you? It certainly doesn’t make sense to me.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 222: HOSTING A VISITING SWĀMĪ
Hearing of a venerated swāmī’s arrival, Śiva’s devotees joyously rush to the outskirts of town to welcome him. On his departure, they accompany him there and, with gifts, money and good wishes, bid him farewell. Aum.

Lesson 222 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

The Intellect, Or Outer Ego

The fifth aspect of the soul is the odic causal sheath, or intellectual mind, known in Sanskrit as buddhi chitta. It functions on the odic causal plane within the Second World of existence, Antarloka, the creative realm of the intellect. Here the individual organizes information, gains new ideas or new ways of looking at old projects, and uses this knowledge to move vast magnetic force fields around on the Earth’s surface. This plane is primarily subconscious, with occasional influences from the superconscious. It is basically a mental plane where odic forces are manipulated. The intellect is the aspect of the soul you use when you sit and think, memorize or reason. The intellect can also be projected to distant places without leaving the physical body. Through this aspect, the adept can perceive what is there and accumulate knowledge or information.

The first shining forth of man’s individuality comes when he has the conscious control of the intellectual mind. After the practice of internal and external concentration has been perfected and the subconscious processes of meditation have taken hold, the thought forms of the yoga student become distinct and clear. A thought form is made of astral matter. It is odic force and has a color and is created within the consciousness of man. The intellectual mind works through the mechanism of creating, preserving and destroying thought forms. The intellect is the manifestation of a series of well-constructed thought forms. Therefore, the better a person is educated, the more distinctly and clearly does the intellect function.

There are people all over the world today who have only unfolded to the fourth and fifth aspect of man and are guided simply by the habit patterns of the instinctive-intellectual mind. But the governing of the odic force fields in the world as it is today is done through the conscious control of the intellect or the odic causal sheath.

Diplomacy, a kind of love—one not wanting to hurt one’s fellow man, suppression of the emotions of hate and anger—brings about a kind of harmony. These are products of the intellect which when developed into a strong intellectual sheath is able to control the baser emotions through controlled memory, controlled reason and controlled willpower, the three faculties of our ability to govern forces of nature.

Neither overrate nor underrate the intellect, for it fills several important functions in life, the great experience. But remember, the intellect is not the totality of man, it is only, figuratively speaking, the fifth aspect. The intellect is not the full mind, it is only one part, about one-tenth of the mind. The subconscious and the superconscious make up the other nine-tenths.

Opinionated knowledge is a faculty of memory. We study, we listen, we hear and we quote the opinions of others. Opinionated knowledge is stored up in the memory gridwork of the subconscious mind. This provides security, or a platform, for the intellect, making it strong, developing an ego. Therefore, intellect is our ego. The ego separates people from people, nations from nations and the soul from realization of the Self.

“Your real education is the innerversity.” Perhaps you have been thinking that this statement is anti-intellectual, against education. Let’s examine the real meaning, function and purpose of education. Education is not worn. It does not stick to you. It is not your collection of someone else’s opinions. Through education, you stimulate your intellect. Education is that which you bring out from within yourself as a result of your personal interest in the fulfillment of your birth karmas, or prārabdha karmas. Education means exposure to new ideas and old opinions, giving you the tools to explore your own opinions freely, make decisions, research and review them and advance your understanding of God, soul and world. This is education. It is not static. It is as fluid as a river. Or it should be. You have the choice, the ability, to remold your intellect any way you want. The great truths of life are a part of your being. They are within you. They unfold to you slowly as you evolve your comprehension of them. Yet, they are always there within you, waiting to be realized. The only real, permanent education is your unfoldment into the building of the intuitive mind through the control of the intellect.

Since the intellect is made fundamentally of thoughts which are ever creating, preserving and destroying themselves, the control of thoughts builds the seventh aspect of man, the intuitive mind, or actinodic causal sheath, known in Sanskrit as vijñānamaya kośa. Intuition, knowing, awareness and understanding—these are products not of the intellect, but of the intuitive mind. The dedicated student who has applied himself seriously leaves college not with a “know it all” feeling but with an awareness of the limits of the intellect, and profound respect for the vast amount of knowledge that he has yet to discover or unfold. Conceit is a sure sign of insecurity; humility denotes awareness.

Lesson 221 – Dancing with Śiva

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What Is the Great Virtue Called Ahiṁsā?

ŚLOKA 66
Ahiṁsā, or noninjury, is the first and foremost ethical principle of every Hindu. It is gentleness and nonviolence, whether physical, mental or emotional. It is abstaining from causing hurt or harm to all beings. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
To the Hindu the ground is sacred. The rivers are sacred. The sky is sacred. The sun is sacred. His wife is a Goddess. Her husband is a God. Their children are devas. Their home is a shrine. Life is a pilgrimage to liberation from rebirth, and no violence can be carried to the higher reaches of that ascent. While nonviolence speaks only to the most extreme forms of wrongdoing, ahiṁsā, which includes not killing, goes much deeper to prohibit the subtle abuse and the simple hurt. Rishi Patanjali described ahiṁsā as the great vow and foremost spiritual discipline which Truth-seekers must follow strictly and without fail. This extends to harm of all kinds caused by one’s thoughts, words and deeds—including injury to the natural environment. Even the intent to injure, even violence committed in a dream, is a violation of ahiṁsā. Vedic ṛishis who revealed dharma proclaimed ahiṁsā as the way to achieve harmony with our environment, peace between peoples and compassion within ourselves. The Vedic edict is: “Ahiṁsā is not causing pain to any living being at any time through the actions of one’s mind, speech or body.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 221 – Living with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Abyss of Pornography

Live and learn, live and learn. We learn something every day, and it is not always what we want to learn. Sometimes it is good for us to know, and other times not so good. It is difficult for us to speak of certain subjects. They are too sensitive, taboo, delicate and private, and so we avoid them. But it is necessary to understand and cope with these matters; and if father and grandmother are not speaking about them, then others must. Pornography is one. Not that it is bad in the sinful sense. Hinduism is too tolerant of sexuality to make such pronouncements. We can say it is neither good nor bad, but we can also say it does place big obstacles in relationships, including unexplainable misunderstandings leading to arguments. And it certainly can and does interfere with serious spiritual effort and progress. Those on the path of sādhana are admonished not to indulge in graphic, explicit sexual imagery, and if they are involved already, to give it up, just give it up. The porno path is a downhill path to be avoided. It is ever enticing but never fulfilling. I recently was told that pornography is addictive. I always understood that alcohol, tobacco and certain drugs are addictive, but to find out that pornography is addictive, that was something new for me.

Veterans on the porno path say it is more fun, more stimulating, more exciting and more satisfying than the wife waiting in the other room. This lonely life of low self-esteem centered around pornography slowly becomes habitual, an addiction that is difficult to overcome. Looking at the results in a porno addict’s life, we can see that sex on the Internet is engrossing, all consuming. They become reclusive, tight lipped, secretive, drawing away from humanity. After a cybersex session and expenditure of energies, the voyeur becomes sharp, even demanding, with his wife and the children. Guilt manifests in numerous ways. It has been my observation that addicts develop chronic lower back problems that cannot be cured by chiropractors or even be rightly diagnosed. When the lust, which is sex without love, takes over, the lower nature is unnaturally stimulated, not unlike a plague that has fallen upon us. I am told that one-third of those who use the Internet do so to view pornography, have phone sex and visit lewd chat rooms. “What is this world coming to?” elders exclaim. Well, cybersex has arrived for adults, young adults, children and, yes, some elders, too.

An even more serious problem is with sons and daughters who become addicted to this kind of vicarious stimulation. Most parents in the modern Hindu community work and get two paychecks every payday. They have little or no time at all to give to their children. The duty of watching after the children is often delegated to a baby-sitter, and the older children baby-sit when they are able. What goes on behind those closed doors, when the shades are down and the computer is on, nobody knows, and nobody is telling. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” seems to be the policy in most homes. Pornography is a secret thing, but all that is seen is carried forward in the mind as vivid images and then recreated in dreams and daytime fantasies long after the computer has been turned off.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 221: GREETING THE GURU AND HIS MONASTICS
All Śiva’s devotees prostrate before their satguru, reverently touch the feet of his āchāryas and swāmīs, and greet yogīs and sādhakas with their palms pressed together and head slightly bowed. This is tradition. Aum.

Lesson 221 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Harnessing Instinctiveness

Yes, man has outgrown jealousy and deceit, but how often does he realize this? The newspapers are filled with examples of people who let themselves be controlled by these emotions. When jealousy is felt, one feels that the person they admire has more control over the odic and actinic forces than they do, and in a frantic effort to balance the forces, they devise plans to tear down the odic forces or cease the flow of actinic forces of their prey. Jealousy is treacherous when it turns active and aggressive and makes a person deceitful.

Many people do not feel deceit to be an emotion after it has been existent in their nature long enough to become a habit. Instinctive emotions often become habits when allowed to be indulged in too much, especially these basic and baser ones—fear, anger, jealousy and deceit—all of which are resident in the lower chakras, below the mūlādhāra chakra.

Fear, anger, jealousy and deceit produce an odic aura web of green, gray, black and red, running through and through the organs of the astral body, affecting the organs of the physical body, as well as draining the vital health body of needed odic power. This cuts the actinic flow to a minimum, so that the only life in the body exists in a dull, crafty sparkle in the eyes.

These basic instinctive emotions of the subconscious mind are the substance through which we evolve. As more control of the forces is effected, the colors of the aura lighten and the nature is refined. This refining process is done quickly through discipline on the rāja yoga path to enlightenment. Every effort that you make to curb and control your base, instinctive nature brings you that much closer to your spiritual goal. There is a very true saying, “You are only as actinic as your lowest active odic force.” Those things to which you still react represent your low points and must be turned into actinic understanding before you can dissolve the odic force field that contains them.

Another dimension of the instinctive mind is the habit mind. Habits are built into us from childhood. Some remain conscious and others enter the subconscious. The most difficult to overcome are our habitual identifications with the force fields of our city or state, our country, our race, and even the world itself. The many ramifications of human behavior which pertain to a study of the habit mind could fill many books. Prejudice is one of the negative emotions contained in the habit mind. We may not think of prejudice as being a habit, but it is. Many adults retain very strong habitual prejudices. They do not care for people who do not belong to their particular race, caste or social class.

When there is any sudden shift or disturbance in the race’s instinctive mind, its forces may very suddenly and quickly become aggressive, arousing the lower instinctive emotions. When, however, the race mind is allowed either to run its natural evolutionary course, or it is kept under control and its own sense transcended, then man realizes that he cannot judge himself or another on the basis of race, color, caste, creed or nationality, but rather on the basis of spiritual individuality.

Make a list of all the negative emotions which still reside in your instinctive force field. Should you find that you are dominated by one or more of these emotions, admit it to yourself honestly. This admission, this facing yourself, loosens the hold of the odic force and allows some actinic force to penetrate and dissolve the lower force field of the instinctive emotion you are examining. First step, admission; second step, observation. When, for instance, you become angry, fearful or jealous, observe yourself in this action. Immediately become aware of actinic force. Become an empty being of colorless energy; see the dark auric colors dissolve into a radiance of blue, yellow, lavender and white. You can do this with your present understanding that the actinic force is much higher than the instinctive mind, much greater than the astral or the physical or health bodies.

Lesson 220 – Dancing with Śiva

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What Are the Ten Classical Observances?

ŚLOKA 65
Hinduism’s religious tenets are contained in ten terse precepts called niyamas. They summarize the essential practices that we observe and the soulful virtues and qualities we strive daily to perfect. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Good conduct is a combination of avoiding unethical behavior and performing virtuous, spiritualizing acts. The accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of Hindu culture has evolved ten niyamas, or religious observances. These precepts defining the ideals of kriyā are: 1) hrī, “remorse,” be modest and show shame for misdeeds; 2) santosha, “contentment,” seek joy and serenity in life; 3) dāna, “giving,” tithe and give creatively without thought of reward; 4) āstikya, “faith,” believe firmly in God, Gods, guru and the path to enlightenment; 5) Īśvarapūjana, “worship,” cultivate devotion through daily pūjā and meditation; 6) siddhānta śravaṇa, “scriptural listening,” study the teachings and listen to the wise of one’s lineage; 7) mati, “cognition,” develop a spiritual will and intellect with a guru’s guidance; 8) vrata, “sacred vows,” fulfill religious vows, rules and observances faithfully; 9) japa, “recitation,” chant holy mantras daily; 10) tapas, “austerity,” perform sādhana, penance, tapas and sacrifice. The Vedas state, “They indeed possess that Brahma world who possess austerity and chastity, and in whom the truth is established.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.