Lesson 263 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of Image Worship?

ŚLOKA 108
We worship God Śiva and the Gods who by their infinite powers spiritually hover over and indwell the image, or mūrti, which we revere as their temporary body. We commune with them through the ritual act of pūjā. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The stone or metal Deity images are not mere symbols of the Gods; they are the form through which their love, power and blessings flood forth into this world. We may liken this mystery to our ability to communicate with others through the telephone. We do not talk to the telephone; rather we use a telephone as a means of communication with another person who is perhaps thousands of miles away. Without the telephone, we could not converse across such distances; and without the sanctified mūrti in the temple or shrine we cannot easily commune with the Deity. His vibration and presence can be felt in the image, and He can use the image as a temporary physical-plane body or channel. As we progress in our worship, we begin to adore the image as the Deity’s physical body, for we know that He is actually present and conscious in it during pūjā, aware of our thoughts and feelings and even sensing the pujārī’s gentle touch on the metal or stone. The Vedas exclaim, “Come down to us, Rudra, who art in the high mountains. Come and let the light of thy face, free from fear and evil, shine upon us. Come to us with thy love.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 263 – Living with Śiva

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

Take Full Responsibility

If you take responsibility for all that happens to you, then you will have the power to deal with your karma through the grace of Lord Śiva. He will give you the intelligence to deal with it as you worship Him in the Śiva temple, contact Him within as the Life of your life and find Him in meditation. Let’s take an example. Say I am holding a plate of rice and curry and I pass it to you. All of a sudden the plate drops on the floor between us. I blame you, and you blame me. I don’t want to be responsible for dropping the rice and curry, and you don’t want to be responsible either. So, we blame each other. The rice and curry is scattered there on the floor. No one is going to clean it up until one of us takes responsibility and says, “I’m sorry I dropped the plate of rice and curry,” and gets down on hands and knees and cleans it up. In the same way, only by taking responsibility, by recognizing what we have done as our own doing, can we begin cleaning up the results of our actions. Those who do take responsibility for their own karma have all the help in the world.

Pride, arrogance and an ungiving nature are characteristics of those who don’t believe in the law of karma. These are qualities of those who do not take responsibility for their actions. They blame everything on someone or something other than themselves. This includes their mistakes and every unpleasant thing that has ever happened to them, is happening to them or may happen to them in the future. They live in the fears and the resentments born of their own ignorance.

Only through being born in a physical body can you experience certain kinds of karmas which cannot be fulfilled or experienced in your etheric/astral body. Therefore, between births those physical-body karmas live in seed form. Only in a physical body do you have all of the chakras functioning that will allow those karmas to manifest and be dealt with. Each birth is thus a precious window of opportunity. For heaven’s sake don’t blame your karma on somebody else and seek to escape from what you were born to deal with. That is the height of foolishness. Stop blaming and criticizing others, and take a good look at yourself. Stop excusing yourself and trying to make yourself look good in the eyes of others. Then a sense of strength will come up within you, a sense of independence and peace. Mental arguments will stop. Arrogance will vanish. Pride won’t be there anymore. You will be a full person. All of your chakras will function properly. Your nerve system will quiet down, and intuitively you will be able to bear up under your karmas and deal with them positively. If it is your karma to be poor in this life, you will be rich by living within the income that you have. You will be content by having desires that you can afford. We make ourselves discontented, we make ourselves unhappy, we make ourselves useless creatures on this planet by allowing ourselves to live in an ignorant state.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 263: EXPRESSING DEVOTION WITH SONG
At gatherings among themselves, my devotees sing from our Śaiva Church hymnal, primarily Sage Yogaswami’s Natchintanai. When with devotees of other sects, they enthusiastically join in their devotional songs. Aum.

Lesson 263 – Merging with Śiva

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

An Exercise in Energy Balance

Control of the prāṇa is also guided through nutrition. Food and air contain a great deal of prāṇa. Prāṇa is transferred from one person to another, from a person to a plant, from a plant to a person. It is the life of the world of form. We should eat types of food that contain a great deal of prāṇa so that we are making prāṇa ourselves. Consider the physical body as a temple, with plumbing and electricity. To maintain this temple, watch what you eat and be conscious of the areas where you flow awareness in the world of thought. The vibration of certain thoughts upsets the nerve system of this physical-body temple. Also, be careful of the people that you mix with, so that their awareness and vibrations do not pull your awareness into unwholesome areas and the vibrations of their aura do not affect your temple. This is extremely important to observe, especially during the first few years of unfoldment.

When we are in ideal surroundings, in the shrine room of our own home, we can balance the passive and active currents of the body—the iḍā and piṅgalā forces. First, do this simple prāṇāyāma. Breathe easily, in and out, in an even rhythm, say, four heartbeats to the inhalation and four heartbeats to the exhalation. This steady rhythm will soon begin to balance the iḍā and piṅgalā.

As the piṅgalā force becomes quieted and regulated, you will hear a ringing about an inch above the right ear. This is the sound of the nerve current of the piṅgalā nāḍī. And as the iḍā force becomes quieted and regulated, you will hear a ringing about an inch above the left ear. This is the nerve sound of the iḍā nāḍī, slightly different from the tone of the piṅgalā nāḍī. The direction of energy flow in the piṅgalā nāḍī is up, whereas the iḍā nāḍī flows downward. When the energy in the two nāḍīs is balanced, a circle is formed, creating a force field in which the sushumṇā nāḍī is regulated.

Now, to bring the sushumṇā force into power, listen to both tones simultaneously. It may take you about five minutes to hear both tones at the same time. Next, follow both tonal vibrations from the ears into the center of the cranium, where they will meet and blend into a slightly different sound, as two notes, say, a “C” and an “E,” blend into a chord. The energy of the nāḍīs is then flowing in a circle, and you will enter the golden yellow light of the sushumṇā current. Play with this light and bask in its radiance, for in it is your bloom. The unfoldment progresses from a golden yellow to a clear white light. Should you see a blue light, know that you are in the piṅgalā current. If you see a pink light, that is the color of the iḍā. Just disregard them and seek for the white light in the tone of the combined currents until finally you do not hear the tone anymore and you burst into the clear white light. Thus you enter savikalpa samādhi—samādhi with seed, or consciousness, which is the culmination of this particular practice of contemplation.

After doing this for a period of time, you will find that you lose interest in the exterior world. It will seem transparent and unreal to you. When this happens, you have to learn to bring your consciousness back through meditation, deliberately into the processes of inner knowing and thought, and back into the exterior world through concentration. It requires a deliberate concentration then to make the exterior world seem real again to you.

Now is the time for devotees who have worked diligently in concentration and meditation and in clearing up personal problems to enjoy their yoga and be happy in their attainments, to enjoy the bliss that is their heritage on Earth.

Lesson 262 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Special Rite Called Archana?

ŚLOKA 107
Archana is an abbreviated form of temple pūjā in which the name, birth star and spiritual lineage of a devotee are intoned to the God by the priest to invoke special, individual, family or group blessings and assistance. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
If we wish to receive the Deity’s blessing for something special that is happening in our life, we may request an archana. This is arranged and paid for within the temple itself. We give a basket or tray to the priest, or pujārī, upon which have been placed certain articles to be offered to the Deity: usually a flower garland, bananas and a coconut (carefully washed and not even breathed upon), holy ash, incense, camphor, rosewater and a contribution for the pujārī. The pujārī asks for our name, which we tell him aloud, and our nakshatra, or birth star. Then he asks for our gotra—the name of the ṛishi with which our family is associated. He then intones these, our credentials, before the Deity along with a Sanskrit verse. A brief pūjā, in which the 108 names of the God are chanted, is then performed specifically on our behalf and special blessings received. At the end, the pujārī will return most of the offerings as prasāda. The Vedas implore, “By your favors granted enable us, O Lord, once again to leap over the pitfalls that face us. Be a high tower, powerful and broad, for both us and our children. To our people bring well-being and peace.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 262 – Living with Śiva

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

How to Face Your Karma

If difficult things are happening to you and your mind is disturbed because of them and you have mental arguments within you because you can’t accept your own karma, go to the feet of Lord Śiva in your mind, go to the feet of Lord Śiva in the temple with your physical body, and beg for the intelligence to place yourself firmly on the path of Sanātana Dharma.

Though it is true that we must work through all aspects and phases of past actions, there are ways of becoming excused from the punishments that drastic actions of the past impose upon the future. These ways are grace, sādhana, tapas and atonement through penance and the performance of good deeds, thus acquiring merit which registers as a new and positive karma, alleviating the heaviness of some of our past karma. Through seeking grace and through receiving it by performing sādhana and tapas and the doing of penance, the karmas are in themselves speeded up. The going through and meeting and reaping of rewards as well as displeasures embodied in past karma in the present is accelerated through these self-imposed actions. Therefore, the sages say, “Bear your karma cheerfully.” And as the seeking of Self commences, the karma unfolds in all of its hideousness and glory, to be seen before the single eye and not reacted to by even a tremor within this physical and astral nerve system. The yoga must be that strong. Each time you blame another person for what has happened to you, or cast blame in any way, tell yourself, “This is my karma which I was born to face. I did not come into a physical body just to blame others for what happens to me. I was not born to live in a state of ignorance created by an inability to face my karma. I came here to spiritually unfold, to accept the karmas of this and all my past lives and to deal with them and handle them in a proper and a wonderful way.”

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. Let’s begin by not advertising our ignorance. If you must blame what happens to you on your friend, your neighbor, your country, your community or the world, don’t advertise it by speaking about it. Keep that ignorance to yourself. Limit it to the realm of thought. Harness your speech and at the same time work to remold your thinking and retrain your subconscious to actually accept this basic premise of Śaiva Siddhānta.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 262: CONNECTING WITH THE INNER WORLDS
My devotees rush to family gatherings for bhajana, havana satsaṅga and fellowship, to worship devoutly and sing loudly in praise of God, Gods and guru. They attend Śaivite temples weekly and during festivals. Aum.

Lesson 262 – Merging with Śiva

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

Withdrawing Into Sushumṇā

When we chant the mantra Aum, and do it correctly, we pronounce the AA so that it vibrates the physical body. The OO has to vibrate through the throat area, and the MM, the head. In doing this, we are deliberately moving awareness out of the mūlādhāra and svādhishṭhāna chakras, deliberately harmonizing all the forces of the instinct and physical body, and of the iḍā and the piṅgalā currents. Chanting the AA and the OO and the MM brings the sushumṇā into power. We are transmuting and changing the flows of all the energies through the physical and astral body and blending them as much as possible into the body of the soul.

The mantra Aum can be chanted at any time. It can be chanted silently and cause the same vibration through the body. When you chant Aum, the iḍā and the piṅgalā blend back into the sushumṇā.

You will actually see this happening. You will see the pink iḍā current begin to blend back into the golden center of the spine. At other times it is seen winding through the body. The same happens with the piṅgalā force. It, too, moves back into the spine, until you are all spine when you are centered in the sushumṇā. This is how it feels, like being all spine. This beautiful, pure energy flows out through the sushumṇā and the iḍā and the piṅgalā and then on out through the body. This energy becomes changed as it flows through the first three or four chakras. It makes what is called prāṇa. This energy runs in and through the body. It is a great mind energy which is in the world of thought. All the stratums of thought are prāṇa. The human aura is prāṇa.

Prāṇa, or odic force, is transferred from one person to another through touch, as in a handshake, or through a look. It is the basic force of the universe, and the most predominant force found within the body. You have to really study prāṇa to get a good understanding of what it is. It runs in and through the skin, through the bone structure, through the physical body and around the body.

Breath controls prāṇa. This practice is called prāṇāyāma. It is the control of prāṇa, the regulation of prāṇa, or the withdrawal of prāṇa from the external world back to its primal source. That is why prāṇāyāma is so important to practice systematically, regularly, day after day, so we get all the prāṇa into a rhythm. In this way we get a rhythm of the pure life force flowing through iḍā, piṅgalā and sushumṇā and out through the aura. We gain a rhythm of awareness soaring inward, into refined states of the ājñā chakra and sahasrāra chakra, the perspective areas from which we are looking out at life as if we were the center of the universe. This is how we feel when we are in these chakras.

Diaphragmatic breathing is breathing according to nature. When man becomes confused, nervous, tense, fearful, he breathes out of tune with nature—out of tune with himself. Then his breathing is spasmodic, labored, shallow, and he has to expand his chest to get enough breath to keep going on. That’s right: breathing by expanding the chest is incorrect, unnatural, and conducive to nothing but ill health unless you are practicing an advanced breathing exercise, and then the chest is only expanded after the area beneath the chest is filled. And unless you are doing physically strenuous work, you will be able to bring more than sufficient air into your lungs by the simple, natural contraction and relaxation of the diaphragmatic muscle. The diaphragm you can feel right below your solar plexus, in the area where the floating ribs separate. Place your finger tips on top of the diaphragm and cough. If your fingers are directly on top of the diaphragm, you will feel them jump out away from you as you cough.

The quickest way to teach yourself natural breathing (the way you breathed until about the age of seven) is to lie on the floor with your spine absolutely straight. Place a book or some light object on top of your diaphragm. When you breathe in, the diaphragm will extend itself downward in the body and you will feel it push out and up away from the floor; watch the book rise. Breathing out is as important as breathing in, for without expelling all the waste matter and carbon dioxide from the lungs, they are not free to take in more fresh oxygen. As you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes slowly, smoothly and completely. The book, which previously was lifted away from the floor by the pressure of your expanding diaphragm, now returns back to its starting position. You will find that squeezing or contracting the abdominal muscles slightly will aid you in making a complete exhalation, allowing most of the air to leave the lungs. At the end of your exhaled breath, your stomach should be flat, and the diaphragm relaxed, ready for the next inhalation. You are now on your way to perfect breath and mind control.

Lesson 261 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Inner Importance of Pūjā?

ŚLOKA 106
The traditional rite of worship, called pūjā, is a sanctified act of the highest importance for the Hindu. It is the invoking of God Śiva and the Gods and the heartfelt expression of our love, devotion and surrender. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Pūjā is a ceremony in which the ringing of bells, passing of flames, presenting of offerings and chanting invoke the devas and Mahādevas, who then come to bless and help us. Pūjā is our holy communion, full of wonder and tender affections. It is that part of our day which we share most closely and consciously with our beloved Deity; and thus it is for Śaivites the axis of religious life. Our worship through pūjā, outlined in the Śaiva Āgamas, may be an expression of festive celebration of important events in life, of adoration and thanksgiving, penance and confession, prayerful supplication and requests, or contemplation at the deepest levels of superconsciousness. Pūjā may be conducted on highly auspicious days in a most elaborate, orthodox and strict manner by the temple pujārīs, or it may be offered in the simplest form each morning and evening in the home shrine by any devotee. The Vedas proclaim, “Sacrifice resembles a loom with threads extended this way and that, composed of innumerable rituals. Behold now the fathers weaving the fabric; seated on the outstretched loom. ‘Lengthwise! Crosswise!’ they cry.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 261 – Living with Śiva

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

The Cause of Joy and Sorrow

Somewhere the idea was born that man should live in states of happiness and joy all of the time. But, in the first place, happiness and joy depend upon unhappiness and sorrow, even to be recognized or appreciated. If man would only know that whatever emotion transpires within him foreshadows its opposite. Secondly, suffering is a greater intensity, a higher vibration, than happiness. You do not learn much from your happinesses; you learn from the states of suffering, which awaken the higher consciousness of your soul. But suffering has no value for its own sake. When the mind recognizes it is suffering over something or other, it is time to practice meditation, to see into the causes, to expand your consciousness a little bit more so that you will grasp the workings of life and its karmic laws. Then you will attain to a greater intensity than either joy or suffering has to offer. You will view the wheel of life, of cause and effect, objectively. And you will not so quickly identify yourself with the lower emotions or the objects of your own mind’s creation.

Then there are the people who, like a fish caught by a fisherman, grasp onto the hook, who step on the spiritual path, but spend their time flip-flopping in the water, tugging at the line, swimming first one way then the other, never really approaching the surface. Why? They live in their ego, that’s all. Their consciousness is limited. The ego is just a trifle dumb. Have you observed an egotistical person? He is just a little dumb, isn’t he—not aware of the layers and layers of wisdom within him.

It is the wise man who recognizes the importance of controlling the forces of his mind. His life is a struggle to make his philosophy real, to gain control of the cycles of experience which have tied him to the wheel of karma. You don’t escape the chain of cause and effect by just sitting with your eyes closed, trying to keep awake, trying to meditate. The genuine practice of yoga involves meeting new challenges each day, having new realizations each day, becoming the boss of your mind, not allowing it to flop around at the end of the line. This type of diligent concentration will definitely change you from the inside out. You will begin to realize, more and more, that you are the creator of your life and every aspect of it.

But your incarnation on this planet is not complete until you have exhausted the wheel of karma, and it will not exhaust itself unless you gain control of it. The wheel of karma, of cause and effect, the world of form, is apparent only when you look at it. You only attain the natural state of your radiant inner being when you step off the wheel of karma. It is not natural for man to live bound to the lower states of mind, ignorant of the fact that God dwells within. But the hearing and understanding of this truth is only the first glimmer of the dawn, a preliminary awakening. The rest, the final realization, is up to you. It is up to you and you alone to penetrate the veil of illusion and realize the Self, the Absolute, beyond desire, beyond the experiences of the mind. It is up to you to realize God.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 261: THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY MISSIONS
My congregation is organized into local missions to nurture religious life through shared worship, extended family gatherings, sacraments and community service, in accordance with the Śaiva Dharma Śāstras. Aum.

Lesson 261 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Spine’s Central Energy

Once in either current for a long time, it is difficult to flow awareness out of it. There are some people who are predominantly piṅgalā, aggressive in nature and strong in their human elements in that area. There are some people who are predominantly iḍā: human, physical and earthy, and full of feeling. And there are some who switch from one to the other. These are the more rounded and well-adjusted type of people, who can move awareness through the piṅgalā current and through the iḍā current and adjust the energies almost at will.

We have still another basic strong current that you should know about. It is called sushumṇā. It is one of fourteen currents within the spine which govern the instinctive, intellectual, conscious, subconscious, sub of the subconscious, subsuperconscious and superconscious areas of the mind. The iḍā and the piṅgalā are two of these fourteen, so this leaves eleven more within the spine.

When we begin a religious pilgrimage or retreat into sādhana and we want awareness to dive deep within, we have to withdraw the energy of the vibrating iḍā and the vibrating piṅgalā current into sushumṇā. This is quite a chore, because these currents have had energy flowing in them for a number of years. So, to rechannel that energy is to rechannel the entire circumference of awareness into the sushumṇā current. This takes a lot of practice.

Breathing, of course, is a major function of control here. Haṭha yoga is a major function, too. Sitting in the lotus position conquers a great deal of the iḍā current. The practices of concentration and observation conquer a great deal of the piṅgalā current. Some good, solid study that disciplines awareness, such as the study of math, music or a skill, moves awareness into the piṅgalā and helps balance these two currents.

Then the next step is to bring awareness into sushumṇā. This is the path. However, if awareness is flowing through the piṅgalā current already and is extremely aggressive, that means the entire nature of the individual is extremely aggressive, intellectual, and it is extremely difficult for him to withdraw those energies into the sushumṇā current. Why? Because he will argue within himself mentally and reason himself out of it. He will simply go to another book, or have a different intellectual look at it, or go to another teacher, or watch television instead, or go to another lecture. He will never quite get around to bringing in this aggressive piṅgalā energy from the intellect back to its source, sushumṇā, so that he can go within and experience superconscious realms of the inner mind consciously.

These two forces, the iḍā and the piṅgalā, are the big challenges. They are what makes a person “human” in the popular sense of the word. It is the degree of energy that flows through the areas of the iḍā and piṅgalā that forms one’s nature, his actions, reactions and responses. The areas of his external personality are governed by these two currents.

How do you bring about a balance? It is done by regular practice of the five steps. Choose a time to withdraw deliberately the energies from both the iḍā and piṅgalā currents and to move awareness into sushumṇā in a very positive way. In the morning when you awaken and at night before you sleep are the best times. Breathe regularly, the same number of counts in and out. Sit in the lotus posture. When you sit in the lotus posture, you are actually short-circuiting the iḍā current to a certain extent. When you are breathing regularly, through the control of the breath, you are short-circuiting the piṅgalā current to a certain extent. Then, when awareness flows into the core of energy within the spine, you soon become consciously conscious of the sushumṇā current. At that point, awareness is within and begins immediately to draw upon all the externalized energies of the body, and these two psychic currents are drawn within to their source.

Lesson 260 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Occurs Within the Śiva Temple?

ŚLOKA 105
Activities within a Śiva temple vary from the daily round of pūjās to the elaborate celebrations on annual festival days. Even amid large crowds, our worship is personal and individual, not congregational. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Besides the daily round of pūjās, many other events take place within the temple: pilgrims offering vows, priests chanting the Vedas, processions, elephants giving blessings, garlands being woven, weddings or philosophical discourses in pillared halls, devotional singing, feedings for the impoverished, dance and cultural performances, ritual bath in the stone tank, meditation, religious instruction, and many festival-related events. Generally, there are seven times when pūjās are held: at five, six and nine in the morning, at noon, and at six, eight and ten in the evening. The outer worship is approaching God properly, presenting ourselves acceptably. It is to offer our love, our adoration and then to speak out our prayer, our petition. The inner worship is to enjoy God’s presence and not rush away, to stay, to sit, to meditate awhile and bask in the śakti, endeavoring to realize the Self within. The Vedas say, “ ‘Come, come!’ these radiant offerings invite the worshiper, conveying him thither on the rays of the sun, addressing him pleasantly with words of praise, ‘This world of Brahman is yours in its purity, gained by your own good works.’ ” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.