Lesson 17 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is God Śiva’s Unmanifest Reality?

ŚLOKA 17
Paraśiva is God Śiva’s Unmanifest Reality or Absolute Being, distinguished from His other two perfections, which are manifest and of the nature of form. Paraśiva is the fullness of everything, the absence of nothing. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Paraśiva, the Self God, must be realized to be known, does not exist, yet seems to exist; yet existence itself and all states of mind, being and experiential patterns could not exist but for this ul­timate reality of God. Such is the great mystery that yogīs, ṛishis, saints and sages have re­a­l­ized through the ages. To discover Paraśiva, the yogī pen­etrates deep into contemplation. As thoughts arise in his mind, mental concepts of the world or of the God he seeks, he silently repeats, “Neti, neti—it is not this; it is not that.” His quieted consciousness ex­pands into Sat­chidānanda. He is ev­ery­where, permeating all form in this blissful state. He re­members his goal, which lies be­yond bliss, and holds firmly to “Neti, neti—this is not that for which I seek.” Through prāṇāyāma, through man­­tra, through tan­tra, wielding an indom­itable will, the last forces of form, time and space subside, as the yogī, deep in nirvikalpa samādhi, merges into Paraśiva. The Vedas explain, “Self-resplendent, form­less, un­­ori­gin­­­ated and pure, that all-pervading being is both with­in and without. He transcends even the transcendent, un­­man­ifest, causal state of the universe.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 17 – Living with Śiva

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

Brahmacharya: Sexual Purity

Brahmacharya, sexual purity, is a very important restraint among the ancient Śaivite ethical principles known as yamas and niyamas, because it sets the pattern for one’s entire life. Following this principle, the vital energies are used before marriage in study rather than in sexual fantasy, e-pornography, masturbation, necking, petting or sexual intercourse. After marriage, the vital energies are concentrated on business, livelihood, fulfilling one’s duties, serving the community, improving oneself and one’s family, and performing sādhana. For those who do not believe in God, Gods, guru or the path to enlightenment, this is a difficult restraint to fulfill, and such people tend to be promiscuous when single and therefore unfaithful in marriage.

The rewards for maintaining this restraint are many. Those who practice brahmacharya before marriage and apply its principles throughout married life are free from encumbrances—mentally, emotionally and physically. They get a good start on life, have long-lasting, mature family relationships, and their children are emotionally sound, mentally firm and physically strong.

Those who are promiscuous and unreligious are susceptible to impulses of anger, have undefined fears, experience jealousy and the other instinctive emotions. The doors of the higher world are open to them, but the doors of the lower world are also open. Even the virgin brahmachārī who believes firmly in God, Gods, guru and the path to enlightenment and has a strict family must be watched and carefully guided to maintain his brahmacharya. Without this careful attention, the virginity may easily be lost.

Brahmacharya for the monastic means complete sexual abstinence and is, of course, an understood requirement to maintain this position in life. This applies as well to any single individual who has taken the celibacy vow, known as brahmacharya vrata. If brahmacharya is compromised by the brahmachārī, he must face the consequences and reaffirm his original intent. Having lost faith in himself because of breaking his vrata, his self-confidence must be rebuilt.

It should be perfectly clear that it is totally unacceptable for men or women who have taken up the celibate monastic life to live a double standard and surround themselves with those of the opposite sex—be they fellow āśramites, personal aides, secretaries or close devotees—or with their former family. Nowadays there are pseudo-sannyāsins who are married and call themselves swāmīs, but, if pressed, they might admit that they are simply yoga teachers dressed in orange robes, bearing the title “swāmī” to attract the attention of the uninformed public for commercial reasons.

There is great power in the practice of brahmacharya, literally “Godly conduct.” Containing the sacred fluids within the body builds up a bank account through the years that makes the realization of God on the path to enlightenment a reality within the life of the individual who is single. When brahmacharya is broken through sexual intercourse, this power goes away. It just goes away.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 17: BEINGS OF JOY AND COMPASSION
Those who live with Śiva are honorable, cheerful, modest and full of courtesy. Having removed the darkness of anger, fear, jealousy and contempt for others, their faces radiate the kindly compassion of their soul. Aum.

Lesson 17 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Path of Unfoldment

Meditate on man being like a lotus flower. He comes through the mud, his instinctive mind, and he’s aware of the things of the instinctive mind: hate and greed and love and passion, and jealousy and sorrow, and happiness and joy and excitement. He comes into the intellectual mind. He becomes aware of ancient history and predictions about the future, politics, all sorts of systems, all sorts of organizations, institutions and opinions of other people. And this consumes and overshadows the soul, life after life after life, just as the desires and cravings of the instinctive mind overshadow the soul life after life after life after life. But all this time, the body of the soul is growing up. It’s getting stronger. It’s absorbing the reactions of each lifetime, drawing more energies from the central source of energy to build up and absorb these reactions; and this is food for the soul. Then finally awareness comes into its bud state. It says, “Here I am, a bud, and I’m out of the mud, and I’m out of the water.” We’ll look at the mud as being the instinct, we’ll look at the water as being the intellect and we’ll look at the air as super­con­sciousness. “Now I want to unfold and be of service to mankind and everyone else who is unfolding, I see them all down in the mud, caught in the mud like I was at one time. I want to help them out of the mud. Then I see hundreds of people caught in the intellect. They’re all in the water. They think they’re a stem, but I know I’m a bud.” Then begins the process on the path of enlightenment for this bud unfolding and awareness expanding. First it becomes aware of the inner processes of the body and how breath controls thought. Then it becomes aware of the inner processes of the mind, how light moves through the body, how the mind of light begins to work, and it goes on unfolding and unfolding and unfolding through the ages.

If we look at the past as a catalog and the future as a planning book, and now as the only reality of time, we have dodged the past and we have dodged the future, because we have brought them both into the eternity of the moment. The mystic on the path of un­fold­ment doesn’t allow his awareness to go into the past and flow through all the yesterdays and relive in his mind what formerly happened to him physically. The mystic doesn’t go into the future and live emotionally experiences that may or may not happen to him. The mystic remains in the present, right now, using the catalog of the experiences of the past and a planning book for his future. This makes him wise, for intellect when it is correctly used at the right time is wisdom.

Holding the eternity-of-the-moment feeling and the feeling of the being within that has never changed, finally you don’t even say it’s a being within. That in itself is duality. You just identify it as you, an immortal being who’s lived for thousands of years, which never changes except it unfolds more, and it lives now. The past and the future are only intellectual concepts that we live with and have been developed by man himself in that particular area of the mind.

Lesson 16 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

What Is the Nature of Our God Śiva?

ŚLOKA 16
God Śiva is all and in all, one without a second, the Supreme Being and only Absolute Reality. He is Pati, our Lord, immanent and transcendent. To create, preserve, destroy, conceal and reveal are His five powers. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
God Śiva is a one being, yet we understand Him in three per­­fections: Absolute Reality, Pure Consciousness and Primal Soul. As Absolute Reality, Śiva is un­manifest, un­changing and tran­scendent, the Self God, timeless, form­less and spaceless. As Pure Consciousness, Śiva is the mani­fest primal substance, pure love and light flowing through all form, existing everywhere in time and space as infinite intelligence and power. As Primal Soul, Śiva is the five-fold manifestation: Brahmā, the cre­ator; Vish­ṇu, the preserver; Rudra, the de­s­troy­er; Maheś­va­ra, the veiling Lord, and Sadāśiva, the revealer. He is our personal Lord, source of all three worlds. Our divine Father-Moth­er protects, nur­tures and guides us, veiling Truth as we evolve, revealing it when we are mature enough to re­ceive God’s boun­tiful grace. God Śiva is all and in all, great be­yond our conception, a sa­cred mys­­tery that can be known in direct communion. Yea, when Śiva is known, all is known. The Vedas state: “That part of Him which is characterized by tamas is called Rudra. That part of Him which belongs to rajas is Brahmā. That part of Him which belongs to sattva is Vishṇu.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 16 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Debt, Gambling and Grief

I was asked, “Is borrowing money to finance one’s business in accord with the yama of nonstealing? When can you use other peoples’ money and when should you not?” When the creditors start calling you for their money back, sending demand notices indicating that they only extended you thirty days’, sixty days’ or ninety days’ credit, then if you fail to pay, or pay only a quarter or half of it just to keep them at arm’s length because you still need their money to keep doing what you are doing, this is a violation of this yama.

There are several kinds of debt that are disallowed by this yama. One is spending beyond your means and accumulating bills you can’t pay. We are reminded of Tirukural verse 478 which says that the way to avoid poverty is to spend within your means: “A small income is no cause for failure, provided expenditures do not exceed it.” We can see that false wealth, or the mere appearance of wealth, is using other peoples’ money, either against their will or by paying a premium price for it. Many people today are addicted to abusing credit. It’s like being addicted to the drug opium. People addicted to O.P.M.—other people’s money—compulsively spend beyond their means. They don’t even think twice about handing over their last credit card to pay for that $500 sārī after all the other credit cards have been “maxed out.” When the bill arrives, it gets added to the stack of other bills that can’t possibly be paid.

Another kind of debt is contracting resources beyond your ability to pay back the loan. This is depending on a frail, uncertain future. Opportunities may occur to pay the debt, but then again they may not. The desire was so great for the commodity which caused the debt that a chance was taken. Essentially, this is gambling with someone else’s money; and it is no way to run one’s life.

Gambling and speculation are also forms of entering into debt. Speculation could be a proper form of acquiring wealth if one has the wealth to maintain the same standard of living he is accustomed to even if the speculation failed. Much of business is speculation; and high-risk speculations do come along occasionally; but one should never risk more than one can afford to lose.

Gambling is different, because the games are fun, a means of entertainment and releasing stress; though even in the casinos one should not gamble more than he could afford to lose. However, unlike speculation, when one is in the excitement of gambling and begins to lose, the greed and desire to win it all back arises, and the flustered gambler may risk his and his family’s wealth and well-being. Stress builds. The disastrous consequences of gambling were admonished in the oldest scripture, the Ṛig Veda, in the famous fourteen-verse “Gambler’s Lament” (10.34. VE, P. 501). Verse ten summarizes: “Abandoned, the wife of the gambler grieves. Grieved, too, is his mother, as he wanders vaguely. Afraid and in debt, ever greedy for money, he steals in the night to the home of another.” This is not fun; nor is it entertainment.

These are the grave concerns behind our sūtra that prohibits gambling for my śishyas: “Śiva’s devotees are forbidden to indulge in gambling or games of chance with payment or risk, even through others or for employment. Gambling erodes society, assuring the loss of many for the gain of a few” (sūtra 76). Everyone really knows that the secret to winning at gambling is to own a casino.

Compulsive gambling and reckless, unfounded speculation are like stealing from your own family, risking the family wealth. More than that, it is stealing from yourself, because the remorse felt when an inevitable loss comes could cause a loss of faith in your abilities and your judgment. And if the loss affects the other members of the family, their estimation and respect and confidence in your good judgment goes way down.

Many people justify stealing by saying that life is unfair and therefore it’s OK to take from the rich. They feel it’s ok to steal from a rich corporation, for example: “They will never miss it, and we need it more.” Financial speculation can easily slide into unfair maneuvering, where a person is actually stealing from a small or large company, thereby making it fail. The credibility of the person will go down, and businesses will beware of this speculative investor who would bring a company to ruin to fatten his own pockets. Entering into debt is a modern convenience and a modern temptation. But this convenience must be honored within the time allotted. If you are paying a higher interest rate because of late or partial payments, you have abused your credit and your creditors.

At the Global Forum for Human Survival in 1990 in Moscow, the participants began worrying about the kids, the next generation. “What are they going to think of us?” they asked. Is it fair to fulfill a need now, spoil the environment and hand the bill over to the next generation? No, it is not. This is another form of stealing. We can’t say, “We have to have chlorofluorocarbons now, and the next generation has to face the consequences.” The yamas and niyamas are thus not just a personal matter but also a national, communal and global matter. Yes, this takes asteya and all the restraints and observances to another dimension.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 16: GIVING AND GRATITUDE
Those who live with Śiva render to those in need help that is loving, selfless and free from all expectation of repayment. They are constantly grateful for all they have, never complaining about what they don’t possess. Aum.

Lesson 16 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Awareness as a Lotus Flower

Be That which never changes. Then what happens? When we become this spiritual body and grasp that infinite intelligence of it, we’re just in a state of pure consciousness and we come into the clear white light. We have a wonderful foundation, the only foundation necessary for Self Realization—at that point piercing the last veils of the mind, for even light is mind, and consciousness is, of course, the mind itself. And then we merge with the Self itself.

So, that is the path: experience, harnessing the reactions to experience, becoming the body of the soul, merging that body with the physical body after the instinctive and intellectual elements have been harmonized, coming into the clear white light, and then the realization of the Self. It’s a beautiful path. It’s a challenging path, and it’s the path that you’re on; otherwise you wouldn’t be here listening to the story about the path.

See awareness as a lotus flower. The lotus flower goes through many, many experiences. A few weeks ago in Bangkok, on Innersearch, we drove out into the Thai countryside and we saw many, many lotus flowers growing wild. They’re just beautiful. See awareness as a lotus flower. First awareness is a seed, and it’s breaking out of the instinctive elements, the hard shell of the seed. But it’s living right within the seed. It is dynamic life at that very time, tuned in with the central source of energy. Then it breaks out and it becomes roots, and then awareness becomes a stem, becomes conscious of water all around it. Finally, the stem emerges above the water, and awareness has leaves and a bud. It’s still limited awareness, because it’s not in its fullness. But as that awareness expands, it opens up into a beautiful lotus flower, then creates more seeds for more flowers. This is the path of awareness. Become acquainted with the awareness, that one beautiful, pure element of the soul, your super­con­scious body, which is easily found and easily discovered by simply closing your eyes and opening them and saying “I’m aware,” not necessarily of what you are aware of. Close your eyes. Say, “I am aware.” Awareness is closely identified to the realms of sight—hearing, of course, too, but more predominantly sight. As awareness expands and as awareness contracts, we find that we have power over awareness. It merely becomes a tool. The underlying power of awareness is the blissful state of the spiritual body of man, pure consciousness, the central source of all energies, in its blissful, calm state. Meditate on awareness being like a lotus flower.

Lesson 15 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Symbolism of Śiva’s Dance?

ŚLOKA 15
The symbolism of Śiva Naṭarāja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

BHĀSHYA
Naṭarāja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation is­sues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmārapurusha, a soul temporarily Earthbound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The up­lifted left leg is revealing grace, which re­leases the ma­ture soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Śiva’s grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire rep­re­sents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-de­vouring form looming above is Ma­hā­kāla, “Great Time.” The cobra around Naṭarāja’s waist is kuṇḍalinī śakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Naṭarā­ja’s dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very mo­ment. The Āgamas proclaim, “The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul’s obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 15 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Asteya: Nonstealing

The third yama is asteya, neither stealing, nor coveting nor entering into debt. We all know what stealing is. But now let’s define covetousness. It could well be defined as owning something mentally and emotionally but not actually owning it physically. This is not good. It puts a hidden psychological strain on all parties concerned and brings up the lower emotions from the tala chakras. It must be avoided at all cost. Coveting is desiring things that are not your own. Coveting leads to jealousy, and it leads to stealing. The first impulse toward stealing is coveting, wanting. If you can control the impulse to covet, then you will not steal. Coveting is mental stealing.

Of course, stealing must never ever happen. Even a penny, a peso, a rupee, a lira or a yen should not be misappropriated or stolen. Defaulting on debts is also a form of stealing. But avoiding debt in principle does not mean that one cannot buy things on credit or through other contractual arrangements. It does mean that payments must be made at the expected time, that credit be given in trust and be eliminated when the time has expired, that contracts be honored to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. Running one’s affairs on other peoples’ money must be restrained. To control this is the sādhana of asteya. Brahmachārīs and sannyāsins, of course, must scrupulously obey these restraints relating to debt, stealing and covetousness. These are certainly not in their code of living.

To perfect asteya, we must practice dāna, charity, the third niyama; we must take the dāśama bhāga vrata, promising to tithe, pay dāśamāṁśa, to our favorite religious organization and, on top of that, give creatively, without thought of reward. Stealing is selfishness. Giving is unselfishness. Any lapse of asteya is corrected by dāna.

It is important to realize that one cannot simply obey the yamas without actively practicing the niyamas. To restrain one’s current tendencies successfully, each must be replaced by a positive observance. For each of the yamas, there is a positive replacement of doing something else. The niyamas must totally overshadow the qualities controlled by the yamas for the perfect person to emerge. It is also important to remember that doing what should not be done—and not doing what should be done—does have its consequences. These can be many, depending upon the evolution of the soul of each individual; but all such acts bring about the lowering of consciousness into the instinctive nature, and inevitable suffering is the result. Each Hindu guru has his own ways of mitigating the negative karmas that result as a consequence of not living up to the high ideals of these precepts. But the world is also a guru, in a sense, and its devotees learn by their own mistakes, often repeating the same lessons many, many times.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 15: ZERO TOLERANCE FOR DISCORD
Those who live with Śiva have zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions. In the home and beyond, they settle differences when others can only disagree. Jai, they are all instruments of peace. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 15 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Find the Core Of Your Being

The super­con­scious mind and the body of the soul have been around a long time. This immortal body of yours has been around a long time, and it’s seen many lives come and go, many experiences pass by the windows of its eyes. Some need no explanation, because they are the playing out of vibrations. Others do need an explanation, the explanation that would come and impress you intellectually from your super­con­scious, would give you power maybe to face an experience that was yet to come. So, don’t analyze every nuance of a reaction or try to anticipate the next series of experiential patterns, for life is a series of experiences. They are all great experiences.

Hold your center. Find the place within you that has never ever changed, that’s been the same for many lives, that feeling that has been the same within you since you were a little child up to this very time. Find that! Catch that vibration, and you’ve caught the vibration of the soul and identified it to your intellectual mind and your instinctive area of the mind. Then build on that. Work with that. Say to yourself, “There’s something within me that never changes, no matter what happens.”

Work on the analogy that if your foot hurts, your head doesn’t hurt. If you have a pain in your stomach, it doesn’t mean that you have a pain in your hand. In the very same way, if your emotions are upset and you’re suffering, there’s an area within you that’s calm, peaceful, dynamic, vibrant, watching. That’s the body of the soul. Work with that. Find that within you that has never changed, never will change, cannot change. All it can do is become more than what it is. This will give you understanding. This will allow you to innersearch, because you have an inner anchor which you’re always trying to get into. You have identified the core of yourself very, very thoroughly. And each time you have unwound the emotional patterns and the intellectual patterns of an experience, you’ve graduated out of that classroom and you’re on to greater and fuller experiences in this lifetime. If you would like to live a lifetime where you have no experiences at all, because you don’t like experiences—you’ve had a lot of experiences that have been distasteful to you—you cannot do it on this planet. Lifetimes don’t come about that way on this planet. But the core of you is the observer of all experience of the emotional, the instinctive, the intellectual areas of the mind.

Lesson 14 – Dancing with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

What Is the Nature of Life for Śaivites?

ŚLOKA 14
To the Śaivite Hindu, all of life is sacred. All of life is religion. Thus, Śaivite art is sacred art, Śaivite music is devotional music, and the Śaivite’s business is not only his livelihood, it is his service to man and God. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Each Śaivite is unique in his or her quest, yet all seek the same things in life: to be happy and secure, loved and ap­­preciated, creative and useful. Śaivism has an established culture which fulfills these es­sential human wants and helps us understand the world and our place in it. To all devotees it gives guidance in the qualities of character so necessary in spiritual life: patience, compassion, broadmindedness, hum­­ility, industriousness and de­vo­tion. Śai­vism centers around the home and the temple. Mon­astic life is its core and its power. Family life is strong and precious. Śaivism possesses a wealth of art and ar­chi­tecture, traditions of music, art, drama and dance, and a treasury of philosophy and scholarship. Śaivite tem­ples provide wor­ship services daily. Scriptures give ethical guidelines. Satgurus offer ad­vanced spir­itual initiation. These three—temples, scriptures and sat­­gurus—are our pillars of faith. The Vedas implore, “O learned people, may we with our ears listen to what is beneficial, may we see with our eyes what is beneficial. May we, engaged in your praises, enjoy with firm limbs and sound bodies, a full term of life dedicated to God.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.