Lesson 12 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Do Śaivites Regard Other Faiths?

ŚLOKA 12
Religious beliefs are manifold and different. Śaivites, understanding the strength of this diversity, wholeheartedly respect and encourage all who believe in God. They honor the fact that Truth is one, paths are many. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Since the inner intent of all religions is to bind man back to God, Śaivite Hindus seek not to interfere with anyone’s faith or practice. We believe that there is no exclusive path, no one way for all. Śaivites profoundly know that God Śiva is the same Supreme Being in whom peoples of all faiths find solace, peace and liberation. None­theless, we realize that all religions are not the same. Each has its unique beliefs, practices, goals and paths of attainment, and the doctrines of one often conflict with those of ano­ther. Even this should never be cause for re­ligious tension or intolerance. Śaivites res­pect all religious traditions and the people within them. They know that good citizens and stable societies are created from groups of religious people. Śaivite leaders sup­port and participate in ecumenical gatherings with all religions. Still, Śai­vites de­fend their faith, proceed contentedly with their practices and avoid the enchantment of other ways, be they ancient or modern. The Vedas ex­plain, “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.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 12 – Living with Śiva

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

Noninjury for Renunciates

Ahiṁsā is the first and foremost virtue, presiding over truthfulness, nonstealing, sexual purity, patience, steadfastness, compassion, honesty and moderate appetite. The brahmachārī and sannyāsin must take ahiṁsā, noninjury, one step further. He has mutated himself, escalated himself, by stopping the abilities of being able to harm another by thought, word or deed, physically, mentally or emotionally. The one step further is that he must not harm his own self with his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own actions toward his own body, toward his own emotions, toward his own mind. This is very important to remember. And here, at this juncture, ahiṁsā has a tie with satya, truthfulness. The sannyāsin must be totally truthful to himself, to his guru, to the Gods and to Lord Śiva, who resides within him every minute of every hour of every day. But for him to truly know this and express it through his life and be a living religious example of the Sanātana Dharma, all tendencies toward hiṁsā, injuriousness, must always be definitely harnessed in chains of steel. The mystical reason is this. Because of the brahmachārī’s or sannyāsin’s spiritual power, he really has more ability to hurt someone than he or that person may know, and therefore his observance of noninjury is even more vital. Yes, this is true. A brahmachārī or sannyāsin who does not live the highest level of ahiṁsā is not a brahmachārī.

Words are expressions of thoughts, thoughts created from prāṇa. Words coupled with thoughts backed up by the transmuted prāṇas, or the accumulated bank account of energies held back within the brahmachārī and the sannyāsin, become powerful thoughts, and when expressed through words go deep into the mind, creating impressions, saṁskāras, that last a long time, maybe forever. It is truly unfortunate if a brahmachārī or sannyāsin loses control of himself and betrays ahiṁsā by becoming hiṁsā, an injurious person—unfortunate for those involved, but more unfortunate for himself. When we hurt another, we scar the inside of ourself; we clone the image. The scar would never leave the sannyāsin until it left the person that he hurt. This is because the prāṇas, the transmuted energies, give so much force to the thought. Thus the words penetrate to the very core of the being. Therefore, angry people should get married and should not practice brahmacharya.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 12: EXCELLENCE AND NONCOMPETITIVENESS
Those who live with Śiva endeavor to be their best in whatever they do, to excel and make a difference. Even so, they remain apart from the demeaning and contentious “winners and losers” spirit of competition. Aum.

Lesson 12 – Merging with Śiva

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

Inner States, Outer States

When you look out through the eyes of your soul, it’s like a great executive in a large building’s penthouse office. His desk is right in the middle of that office, and he looks out and he sees the people working around him. Then he looks farther out and he sees the vast panes of windows. Then he looks farther out, and he sees the city below, and he sees the sky, he sees the traffic. Then he looks back into himself. He sees his subconscious mind, with thoughts about his home life and other things that do not involve his immediate surroundings in this grand office. He looks deeper into himself, and he has an intuitive flash. Something has come to him, how he can help his enterprise be moved and motivated in a more dynamic way. He looks deeper within himself for the source where that intuitive flash comes from, begins to see light within his head, light within his body. Again he becomes conscious of people working around him. Again he becomes conscious of the panes of the windows. He has to leave this office. He goes down in an elevator. He walks out onto the street. He is the same being. His perspective is an inner perspective. He doesn’t go up and down in consciousness.

The mystic does not go up and down in consciousness. It only seems like that. But that is not actually what happens. It makes it very difficult when we hold the up-and-down and good-and-bad concepts, because they work in time sequences. If we are bad, it takes a certain amount of time before we can become good. And if we are good, there is a great possibility that we might be bad during a certain period of our life. If we are in a high state of consciousness, percentages have it that we may be in a low state of consciousness. It’s going to take a lot of time to climb up high, and we might fall down, so what’s the use? We have all of these semantic connotations with the words good and bad and up and down, and therefore we throw them out of our mystical vocabulary and the connotations that go along with them. We say we go within, deep within. We say we come out into outer consciousness. We say there is no good, there is no bad, there is just experience, and within each experience there is a lesson. Some experiences might make our nervous system react so strongly that it may take hours to pull ourselves together.

But once we pull ourselves together, that exercise evolves the body of the soul that much more. We have transmuted tremendous instinctive and intellectual energies into this body of the soul. We have fed it. We have given it a good meal. And we never face that same experience again, nor react the same way.

Lesson 11 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Nature of Śaivite Theology?

ŚLOKA 11
Śaivism proclaims: God Śiva is Love, both immanent and transcendent, both the creator and the creation. This world is the arena of our evolution, which leads by stages to moksha, liberation from birth and death. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Śaivism is a unique religion in which God is both man­ifest and unmanifest, dual and nondual, within us and outside of us. It is not strictly pantheistic, polytheistic or monotheistic. Its predominant theology is known as mon­istic theism, panentheism, or Advaita Īśvaravāda. Mon­ism, the op­po­site of dualism, is the doctrine that reality is a one whole or existence with­out in­dependent parts. Theism is belief in God and the Gods, both im­ma­nent and transcendent. Śaivism is mon­­­istic in its be­lief in a one reality and in the ad­vaitic, or nondual, identity of man with that reality. Śai­vism is theistic in its belief in the Gods, and in God Śiva as a loving, personal Lord, immanent in the world. Śaivism expresses the one­ness of Pati-paśu-pāśa, God-soul-world, en­com­passing the non­dual and the dual, faith­fully carrying forth both Vedānta and Siddhānta, the pristine Sanātana Dharma of the Vedas and Śaiva Āgamas. The Tirumantiram states, “Śud­­dha Śaivas meditate on these as their religious path: One­self, Absolute Reality and the Primal Soul; the categories three: God, soul and bonds; immaculate liberation and all that fetters the soul.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 11 – Living with Śiva

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

Ahiṁsā: Noninjury

The first yama is ahiṁsā, noninjury. To practice ahiṁsā, one has to practice santosha, contentment. The sādhana is to seek joy and serenity in life, remaining content with what one has, knows, is doing and those with whom he associates. Bear your karma cheerfully. Live within your situation contentedly. Hiṁsā, or injury, and the desire to harm, comes from discontent.

The ṛishis who revealed the principles of dharma or divine law in Hindu scripture knew full well the potential for human suffering and the path which could avert it. To them a one spiritual power flowed in and through all things in this universe, animate and inanimate, conferring existence by its presence. To them life was a coherent process leading all souls without exception to enlightenment, and no violence could be carried to the higher reaches of that ascent. These ṛishis were mystics whose revelation disclosed a cosmos in which all beings exist in interlaced dependence. The whole is contained in the part, and the part in the whole. Based on this cognition, they taught a philosophy of nondifference of self and other, asserting that in the final analysis we are not separate from the world and its manifest forms, nor from the Divine which shines forth in all things, all beings, all peoples. From this understanding of oneness arose the philosophical basis for the practice of noninjury and Hinduism’s ancient commitment to it.

We all know that Hindus, who are one-sixth of the human race today, believe in the existence of God everywhere, as an all-pervasive, self-effulgent energy and consciousness. This basic belief 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 are rendered benign, or ahiṁsā. One would not want to hurt something which one revered.

On the other hand, when the fundamentalists of any religion teach an unrelenting duality based on good and evil, man and nature or God and Devil, this creates friends and enemies. This belief is a sacrilege to Hindus, because they know that the attitudes which are the by-product are totally dualistic, and for good to triumph over that which is alien or evil, it must kill out that which is considered to be evil.

The Hindu looks at nothing as intrinsically evil. To him the ground is 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 mukti, or liberation from rebirth, which once attained is the end to reincarnation in a physical body. When on a holy pilgrimage, one would not want to hurt anyone along the way, knowing full well the experiences on this path are of one’s own creation, though maybe acted out through others.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 11: THE LION-HEARTED ONES
Those who live with Śiva fulfill life’s purposes by placing heavy demands on themselves from within themselves, never shirking their duty to religion, family, community or planet. Jai, they are the lion-hearted. Aum.

Lesson 11 – Merging with Śiva

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

No Good, No Bad

Each experience that we have is a good experience, because it molds us. It shapes us, just like an artist would mold a piece of clay. From an ugly hunk of clay can emerge a divine being, molded by the artist. In that same way, the experiences of life, even those that boomerang back on us and those we think are terrible, mold us. But they only mold us quickly and benefit us tremendously if we hold our perspective as the inner man, the timeless man, the immortal being. Only in this way can this happen. That’s the attitude, the thoughts we must have, as we go along on the path of enlightenment.

The mere fact that you want Self Realization in this life means that you have been through hundreds of thousands of experiences. You have been nearly everything that there is to be on this planet. And now, in your last lifetime, you are finishing up the experiential patterns that you didn’t handle in a life prior.

Life is a series of experiences, one after another. Each experience can be looked at as a classroom in the big university of life if we only approach it that way. Who is going to these classrooms? Who is the member of this university of life? It’s not your instinctive mind. It’s not your intellectual mind. It’s the body of your soul, your super­con­scious self, that wonderful body of light. It’s maturing under the stress and strain, as the intellect gives back its power to the soul, as the instinct gives back its power to the soul, as the physical elements give back their power to the soul, and all merge into a beautiful oneness. In this way, the beings of the New Age are going to walk on Earth. Each one will have light flowing through his whole body and he will inwardly see his body glowing in light, even in the darkest night.

The good-and-bad concept should be thrown out with a lot of other things, including the up-and-down concept. There is no good; there is no bad. You don’t raise your consciousness, nor do you lower it. These are just concepts that have come in by various philosophers who tried to explain these deeper teachings the very best that they could. What is bad is good, and what is good is good. And a higher state of consciousness and a lower state of consciousness, they don’t exist at all. We simply hold a certain perspective of awareness, and we look out, and we go in.

Lesson 10 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Universalistic Smārta Sect?

ŚLOKA 10
Smārtism is an ancient brāhminical tradition reformed by Sankara in the ninth century. Worshiping six forms of God, this liberal Hindu path is monistic, nonsectarian, meditative and philosophical. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Smārta means a follower of classical smṛiti, particularly the Dharma Śāstras, Purāṇas and Itihāsas. Smārtas re­vere the Ve­das and honor the Āgamas. Today this faith is synonymous with the teachings of Adi Sankara, the monk-phil­os­opher known as shaṇmata sthāpanāchārya, “found­­er of the six-sect system.” He campaigned India-wide to con­solidate the Hindu faiths of his time under the banner of Advaita Vedānta. To unify the worship, he popularized the an­cient Smārta five-Deity altar—Ga­ṇa­pati, Sūrya, Vishṇu, Śiva and Śakti—and added Kumāra. From these, devotees may choose their “preferred Deity,” or Ishṭa Devatā. Each God is but a reflection of the one Sa­guṇa Brahman. Sankara organized hundreds of mon­asteries into a ten-order, da­śa­­nā­mī system, which now has five pontifical cen­ters. He wrote profuse commentaries on the Upani­shads, Brah­­­ma Sūtras and Bhagavad Gītā. Sankara proclaimed, “It is the one Reality which ap­pears to our ignorance as a manifold universe of names and forms and changes. Like the gold of which many or­­naments are made, it remains in itself un­chang­ed. Such is Brahman, and That art Thou.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 10 – Living with Śiva

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

Your Divine Chariot

The yamas and niyamas and their function in our life can be likened to a chariot pulled by ten horses. The passenger inside the chariot is your soul. The chariot itself represents your physical, astral and mental bodies. The driver of the chariot is your external ego, your personal will. The wheels are your divine energies. The niyamas, or spiritual practices, represent the spirited horses, named Hrī, Santosha, Dāna, Āstikya, Īśvarapūjana, Siddhānta Śravaṇa, Mati, Vrata, Japa, and Tapas. The yamas, or restraints, are the reins, called Ahiṁsā, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, Kshamā, Dhṛiti, Dayā, Ārjava, Mitāhāra and Śaucha. By holding tight to the reins, the charioteer, your will, guides the strong horses so they can run forward swiftly and gallantly as a dynamic unit. So, as we restrain the lower, instinctive qualities through upholding the yamas, the soul moves forward to its destination in the state of santosha. Santosha, peace, is the eternal satisfaction of the soul. At the deepest level, the soul is always in the state of santosha. But outwardly, the propensity of the soul is to be clouded by lack of restraint of the instinctive nature, lack of restraint of the intellectual nature, lack of restraint of the emotional nature, lack of restraint of the physical body itself. Therefore, hold tight the reins.

It is important to realize that the yamas, restraints, are not out of the reach of the lowliest among us. No matter where we are in the scale of life, we all started from the beginning, at the bottom, didn’t we? This is our philosophy. This is our religion. This is the evolution of the soul. We improve, life after life, and these guidelines, yamas and niyamas, restraints and practices, are gifts from our ṛishis, from God Śiva Himself through them, to allow us to judge ourself against these pillars of virtue as to how far we have progressed or strayed. In the early births, we are like children. We do not stray from anything. We run here and there and everywhere, disobey every rule, which when told of we cannot remember. We ignore any admonishment. As adolescents, we force our will on society, want to change it, because we don’t like the hold it has on us. Wanting to express themselves in most creative ways, rebellious youths separate themselves from other people, children and the adults. They do make changes, but not always for the best. As an adult, we see both—the past and the impending future of old age—and, heads down, we are concerned with accumulating enough to see life through to its uncertain end. When the accumulations have become adequate, we will look back at the undisciplined children, the headstrong, unruly adolescents and the self-possessed, concentrated adults and try to motivate all three groups. In our great religion, the Sanātana Dharma, known today as Hinduism, twenty precepts, the yamas and niyamas, restraints and observances, are the guidelines we use to motivate these three groups. These are the guidelines they use to motivate themselves, for each group is mystically independent of the others; so it seems.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 10: MOVING THE FORCES OF THE WORLD
Śiva’s devotees, by remaining steadfast on the path, upholding the yamas and niyamas and relying on their indomitable will, move the forces of the world, and are not moved or affected by them. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 10 – Merging with Śiva

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

Handling Each Experience

And while this is going on, what does the body of the soul, the real body of you, what does it do? It’s about its business, working, learning, studying on inner planes of consciousness and waiting for the instinctive and intellectual and physical elements to grow up a little bit and merge, for life is just a tremendously great experience. Each lifetime has been a great experience for the soul.

The more experiences we can have during a lifetime and approach those experiences in a positive way, the more we begin to crush out the instinctive elements, the more we begin to mold the intellect so it is like the super­con­scious mind rather than being like the instinctive area of the mind, the more we can begin to mold the physical atoms so that they become closer attuned to the spiritual forces emanating from the soul body. The more experiences we can have and face those experiences positively, the faster we evolve. The fewer experiences we have, the slower we evolve. The knowing of how to handle each experience that comes to us in our lifetime comes from the soul. It’s our super­con­scious self.

The instinctive mind will want to run after certain experiences and be repelled by other experiences. It is the area of duality, of likes and dislikes. The instinctive mind will react and resent experiences of a certain nature. The intellectual mind will rationalize other types of experiences that happen to us during a lifetime, argue them out and try to find out reasons why. The super­con­scious mind of the soul will know the reason why. It will come in an intuitive flash. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter anyway.

The spiritual body of you, which is permanent, has always remained constant. It has always been constant because it’s directly in tune with the constant central source of all energy of the universe. This one source of energy feeds through your spiritual body and out through the intellectual sheath, the astral or emotional sheath, and the physical body. So, identify yourself as the inner being. Never see yourself as an outer being. Then experience won’t be reacted to. It will be understood from a mountaintop consciousness. Then experience won’t be sought for the enjoyment of the experience. The Self will be sought for, and the experience will be part of the path to you.

Lesson 9 – Dancing with Śiva

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

What Is the Devotional Vaishṇava Sect?

ŚLOKA 9
Vaishṇavism is an ancient Hindu sect centering on the worship of Lord Vishṇu and His incarnations, especially Kṛishṇa and Rāma. Largely dualistic, profoundly devotional, it is rich in saints, temples and scriptures. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The worship of Vishṇu, meaning “pervader,” dates back to Vedic times. The Pañcharātra and Bhāgavata sects were popular prior to 300 BCE. Today’s five Vaishṇava schools emerged in the middle ages, founded by Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka, Vallabha and Chaitanya. Vaish­ṇa­­vism stresses prapatti, single-pointed sur­­render to Vishṇu, or His ten or more incarnations, called av­a­­tāras. Japa is a key devotional sādhana, as is ecstatic chanting and dancing, called kīrtana. Temple worship and festivals are elaborately observed. Philosophically, Vaishṇa­vism ranges from Madhva’s pure du­alism to Ramanuja’s qualified nondualism to Vallabha’s nearly monistic vis­ion. God and soul are everlastingly distinct. The soul’s destiny, through God’s grace, is to eternally worship and en­joy Him. While general­ly nonascetic, advocating bhakti as the highest path, Vaish­ṇa­­vism has a strong mon­astic community. Central scriptures are the Vedas, Vaish­ṇava Āga­mas, Itihāsas and Purāṇas. The Bhagavad Gītā states, “On those who meditate on Me and worship with un­divided heart, I confer attainment of what they have not, and preserve what they have.” Aum Namo Nārāyaṇāya.