ŚLOKA 128 The Vedas, the ultimate scriptural authority, permeate Hinduism’s thought, ritual and meditation. They open a rare window into ancient Bharata society, proclaiming life’s sacredness and the way to oneness with God. Aum.
BHĀSHYA Like the Taoist Tao te Ching, the Buddhist Dhammapada, the Sikh Ādi Granth, the Jewish Torah, the Christian Bible and the Muslim Koran—the Veda is the Hindu holy book. For untold centuries unto today, it has remained the sustaining force and authoritative doctrine, guiding followers in ways of worship, duty and enlightenment—upāsanā, dharma and jñāna. The Vedas are the meditative and philosophical focus for millions of monks and a billion seekers. Their stanzas are chanted from memory by priests and laymen daily as liturgy in temple worship and domestic ritual. All Hindus wholeheartedly accept the Vedas, yet each draws selectively, interprets freely and amplifies abundantly. Over time, this tolerant allegiance has woven the varied tapestry of Bharata Dharma. Today the Vedas are published in Sanskrit, English, French, German and other languages. But it is the metaphysical and popular Upanishads which have been most amply and ably translated. The Vedas say, “Just as the spokes are affixed to the hub of a wheel, so are all things established in life, the Ṛig and Yajur and Sāma Veda, sacrifice, the nobility and also the priesthood.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.
We recently learned that the oldest person in the world is a 118-year-old lady in Canada, who happens to be vegetarian. She is quite up in the news and in the Guinness Book of Records. In a study of her life and that of several others over age 110 it was asked, “How have they lived so long? Why are they still living? What is their secret?” The answer is that these elderly folk are optimistic. They see a future, and that keeps them living. They are easy-going, good-humored, contented and have a philosophy of forgiveness toward what anybody has done to them along the way. They are successful at flowing with the events of life and do not hold on to a lot of resentment or congested prāṇas. It is when hate and resentment become a way of life that we begin to worry and wonder what life is all about. Forgiving others is good for your health.
The wise have given a remedy, an effective penance, prāyaśchitta, that can be performed to get rid of the bundle of past resentment and experience forgiveness and the abundance of divine energy that comes as an aftermath. Write down in detail all the resentments, misunderstandings, conflicts and confusions that you are still holding onto. As you complete each page, crumple it up and burn it in a garbage can or fireplace. When the mind sees the fire consuming the paper, it intuits that the burden is gone. It is the emotion connected to the embedded experience that actually goes away.
Resentment is a terrible thing. It affects the astral body and then the physical. When there is a health problem, there may well be a forgiveness problem. Resentment is crippling to the astral body and the emotions, because when we resent others, we can’t get them out of our mind—we are definitely attached to them. Resentment is equally distributed worldwide. Workers resent their bosses. Bosses resent the owners. Owners of companies resent the government. This is modern society today. This is all-pervasive ignorance, and ignorance added to ignorance makes ignorance stronger. One resentment adds to another in the subconscious mind.
We must begin the healing by first forgiving ourselves, by claiming our spiritual heritage, gaining a new image of ourselves as a beautiful, shining soul of radiant light. Then we can look at the world through the eyes of Hindu Dharma. The Yajur Veda expounds, “He who dwells in the light, yet is other than the light, whom the light does not know, whose body is the light, who controls the light from within—He is the soul within you” (Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad 3.7.14,VE 708).
When this vāsanā daha tantra, subconscious purification by fire, is complete, you will never feel the same again. After this spiritual experience, religion, Hindu Dharma, will be foremost in your life. All other activities—business, social and family life—will circle around your newly found ideals. Many of the wealthiest people on our planet have kept their religion first, their family and business second and other activities third. Their timing was always right. They were magnetic and happy. Others were happy to be near them.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 283: SATGURU GUIDES THE LIFE OF DEDICATED SONS My devotees regard any son destined for the monastery not as their own child, but as the satguru’s progeny in their trusted care. All details of his upbringing, training and education are to be guided by the preceptor. Aum.
It is in the svādhishṭhāna chakra that the majority of people live, think, worry and travel on the astral plane. If they are functioning solely in the reasoning capacity of the mind, devoting their life’s energies to its perpetuation in the libraries of the world, then they would take the intellect very seriously, for they naturally see the material world as extremely real, extremely permanent. With their security and self-esteem founded in reason, they study, read, discuss, accumulate vast storehouses of fact and rearrange the opinions and conclusions of others. When guided by the higher chakras and not totally entangled in ramifications of intellect, the powers of svādhishṭhāna are a potent tool in bringing intuitive knowledge into practical manifestation. Reason does not conflict with intuition. It simply comes more slowly, more cumbersomely, to the same conclusions. Nevertheless, the intellect, in its refined evolution, can harness and direct the base instincts in man.
Within the third center, called the maṇipūra chakra, are the forces of willpower. Maṇi means “gem,” and pūra means “city,” so maṇipūra signifies the “jewelled city.” Its color is yellow. It is represented in the central nervous system by the solar plexus, where all nerves in the body merge to form what has been termed man’s “second brain.” This is significant, for depending on how the energy is flowing, the forces of will from this chakra add power either to worldly consciousness through the first two centers or to spiritual consciousness through the fourth and fifth centers. In Hindu mysticism, this dual function of willpower is conveyed in its ten “petals” or aspects, five which control and stabilize the odic or material forces of memory and reason, and five which control the actinic or spiritual forces of understanding and love. Therefore, the maṇipūra energies are actinodic in composition, while mūlādhāra and svādhishṭhāna are purely odic force structures. When awareness functions within the realms of memory, reason and aggressive willpower, men and women are basically instinctive in nature. They are quick to react and retaliate, quick to have their feelings hurt and quick to pursue the conquest of others, while fearing their own defeat. Success and failure are the motivating desires behind their need to express power and possess influence. Consequently, their life is seeded with suffering, with ups and downs. They look for a way out of suffering and yet enjoy suffering when it comes. They are physically very hard working and generally not interested in developing the intellect unless it can help them achieve some material gain. In these states of consciousness, the ego rises to its greatest prominence, and emotional experiences are extremely intense. If, on the other hand, the willpower has been directed toward higher awakening, awareness is propelled into deeper dimensions. Gains and losses of material possessions and power no longer magnetize their awareness, and they are freed to explore higher centers of their being. Inwardly directed, the willpower gives resolute strength to these aspirants, strength to discipline the outer nature and to practice sādhana.
ŚLOKA 127 The holy Vedas, man’s oldest scripture, dating back 6,000 to 8,000 years, are a collection of four books: the Ṛig, Sāma, Yajur and Atharva. Each has four sections: hymns, rites, interpretation and philosophical instruction. Aum.
BHĀSHYA The oldest and core portions of the Vedas are the four Saṁhitās, “hymn collections.” They consist of invocations to the One Divine and the Divinities of nature, such as the Sun, the Rain, the Wind, the Fire and the Dawn—as well as prayers for matrimony, progeny, prosperity, concord, domestic rites, formulas for magic, and more. They are composed in beautiful metrical verses, generally of three or four lines. The heart of the entire Veda is the 10,552-verse Ṛig Saṁhitā. The Sāma and Yajur Saṁhitās, each with about 2,000 verses, are mainly liturgical selections from the Ṛig; whereas most of the Atharva Saṁhitā’s nearly 6,000 verses of prayers, charms and rites are unique. The Sāma is arranged for melodious chanting, the Yajur for cadenced intonation. Besides its Saṁhitā, each Veda includes one or two Brāhmaṇas, ceremonial handbooks, and Āraṇyakas, ritual interpretations, plus many inestimable Upanishads, metaphysical dialogs. In all there are over 100,000 Vedic verses, and some prose, in dozens of texts. The Tirumantiram confirms, “There is no dharma other than what the Vedas say. Dharma’s central core the Vedas proclaim.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.
What is resentment? Resentment is prāṇic force, subtle energy, that is congested. What is love? Love is prāṇic force that is flowing and uncongested. When someone performs an injustice toward us, he is giving us a conglomerate of congested prāṇa. If we were able to look at it in the astral world, we would see it as a confused mass of disharmonious colors and shapes. If we are unable to remain detached, we become upset and resentful. Instinctively this prāṇa is held by us and only released when we find it in our heart to forgive the person. At the moment of true forgiveness, the congested prāṇa is transferred back to the person who harmed or insulted us.
Now we can see that when we resent or hold something against someone, we are actually astrally connected to him and, in fact, holding back the karma that will automatically come to him as a result of his harmful act. If we forgive the offender, we release the congested energy. Then the unfailing karmic law begins to work. In other words, his actions will cause a reaction back on him, and we won’t be involved in the process at all. That is why the Tirukural, a wonderful book written 2,200 years ago, tells us, “Though unjustly aggrieved, it is best to suffer the suffering and refrain from unrighteous retaliation. Let a man conquer by forbearance those who in their arrogance have wronged him” (157-8).
However, it would not be wise to accept the transgressor back in your life until true remorse is shown and resentment on his part is dissolved through apology and reconciliation. Otherwise, wisdom indicates he might just commit the same hurtful acts again. I was asked recently what we mean in sūtra 270 which says monastics forgive hurts quickly and inwardly, but not outwardly until the offender reconciles. The devotee who asked the question said he has taken a lot of physical and emotional abuse, as well as verbal abuse, from his family. He had forgiven them inwardly but wanted to know what their relationship should be, now that he had reached middle age. We forgive inwardly because we know the experience is the result of our karma that we have put into motion in the past. But we hold a friendly, firm wall between ourselves and the offenders, which means a friendly distance, because we know that it is their kukarma, too, which must be reconciled with apologies and with the assurance that the offense won’t happen again.
To be affectionately detached—that is a power. That is a wisdom. But detachment does not mean running away from life or being insensitive or passively accepting harm to yourself or loved ones. When we have the ability to let go, through forgiveness, we are warmer, more friendly, more wholesome, more human and closer to our family and friends.
Just the opposite happens if we remain attached by resenting what happened in the past. Take the example of a teenager who sees a promising future ahead of him, then experiences begin to happen in his life, some of which are unpleasant. If these are not resolved, negative prāṇa begins piling up within his subconscious mind, vāsanās are made, and the future begins to diminish from view. Year after year, as he grows older, the past gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and the future gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Finally, there is so much resentment that the once joyful adolescent grows into a depressed and bitter adult. Eventually he develops cancer and dies lonely and miserable.
To have a happy future with your family and friends, don’t ignore difficulties that come up between you. Sit down with them and talk things over. Stand on your own two feet, head up and spine straight and bring it all out in the open. Let them know how you feel about what they said or what they did. Especially in Asia, so many things are swept under the carpet, not talked about and left to smolder and mold there. But now, in today’s world, we must clean up the mess in order to go along into a happy future. The basic foundation of Sanātana Dharma is ahiṁsā, nonhurtfulness, physically, mentally and emotionally. We must always remember this.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 282: NURTURING MONASTIC INCLINATIONS My devotees with sons inclined toward monastic life wholeheartedly encourage these noble aspirations. Fathers and young sons live as monastery guests periodically to nurture monastic patterns and tendencies. Aum.
The chakras do not awaken. They are already awakened in everyone. It only seems as if they awaken as we become aware of flowing our energy through them, because energy, willpower and awareness are one and the same thing. To become conscious of the core of energy itself, all we have to do is detach awareness from the realms of reason, memory and aggressive, intellectual will. Then, turning inward, we move from one chakra to another. The physical body changes as these more refined energies flow through it and the inner nerve system, called nāḍīs, inwardly becomes stronger and stronger. The mūlādhāra chakra is the memory center, located at the base of the spine, and is physically associated with the sacral or pelvic nerve plexus. Mūla means “root” and adhāra means “support,” so this is called the root chakra. Its color is red. It governs the realms of time and memory, creating a consciousness of time through the powers of memory. Whenever we go back in our memory patterns, we are using the forces of the mūlādhāra.
This chakra is associated also with human qualities of individuality, egoism, materialism and dominance. Man lives mostly in this chakra during the first seven years of life. This center has four “petals” or aspects, one of which governs memories of past lives. The other three contain the compiled memory patterns and interrelated karmas of this life. When this chakra is developed, people are able to travel on the astral plane. It is complete within itself, but when the first two chakras are charged with gross, instinctive impulses and developed through Western education, with its values and foibles which contradict Hindu dharma, they can create together a very strong odic force which, when propelled by the worldly will of the third chakra toward outer success and power, can dominate the mind and make it nearly impossible for awareness to function in the higher force centers, so great is the material magnetism. Men living fully in these lower three chakras therefore say that God is above them, not knowing that “above” is their own head and they are living “below,” near the base of the spine.
You have seen many people living totally in the past—it’s their only reality. They are always reminiscing: “When I was a boy, we used to… Why, I remember when… It wasn’t like this a few years ago…” On and on they go, living a recollected personal history and usually unaware that they have a present to be enjoyed and a future to be created. On and on they go, giving their life force energies to the task of perpetuating the past. The mūlādhāra forces are not negative forces. Used and governed positively by the higher centers, the powers of time, memory and sex are transmuted into the very fuel that propels awareness along the spinal climb and into the head. Similarly, the mature lotus blossom cannot in wisdom criticize the muddy roots far below which, after all, sustain its very life.
The center of man’s reasoning faculties lies in the second, or hypogastric, plexus, below the navel. It is termed svādhishṭhāna, which in Sanskrit means “one’s own place.” Its color is reddish orange. Once the ability to remember has been established, the natural consequence is reason, and from reason evolves the intellect. Reason and intellect work through this chakra. We open naturally into this chakra between the ages of seven and thirteen, when we want to know why the sky is blue and the “whys” of everything. If very little memory exists, very little intellect is present. In other words, reason is the manipulation of memorized information. We categorize it, edit it, rearrange it and store the results. That is the essence of the limited capacity of reason. Therefore, this center controls the mūlādhāra, and in fact, each progressively “higher” center controls all preceding centers. That is the law. In thinking, solving problems, analyzing people or situations, we are functioning in the domain of svādhishṭhāna.
This center has six “petals” or aspects and can therefore express itself in six distinct ways: diplomacy, sensitivity, cleverness, doubt, anxiety and procrastination. These aspects or personae would seem very real to people living predominantly in this chakra. They would research, explore and wonder, “Why? Why? Why?” They would propose theories and then formulate reasonable explanations. They would form a rigid intellectual mind based on opinionated knowledge and accumulated memory, reinforced by habit patterns of the instinctive mind.
ŚLOKA 126 The Vedas and Āgamas, revealed by God, are Hinduism’s sovereign scriptures, called śruti, “that which is heard.” Their timeless truths are expressed in the most extraordinarily profound mystical poetry known to man. Aum.
BHĀSHYA Veda, from vid, “to know,” means “supreme wisdom or science.” Similarly, Āgama, which names the sacred sectarian revelations, means “descent of knowledge.” The Vedas and Āgamas are eternal truths transmitted by God through great clairaudient and clairvoyant ṛishis. They are Hinduism’s primary and most authoritative scriptures, expounding life’s sacredness and man’s purpose on the planet. These psalms of wisdom were disclosed over many centuries, memorized and orally conveyed from generation to generation within priestly families, then finally written down in Sanskrit in the last few millennia. The subtly symbolic language of śruti, the cherished word of God, is lyrical and lofty. In imparting religious practice, rules and doctrine, the Vedas are general and the Āgamas specific. The Vedas extol and invoke a multiplicity of Gods through elaborate fire rituals called yajña. The Āgamas center around a single Deity and His worship with water, flowers and lights in sanctified temples and shrines. The Tirumantiram lauds, “Two are the scriptures that Lord Śiva revealed—the primal Vedas and the perfect Āgamas.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya
The Vedas are full of verses which speak of the Divine within man, and therefore Hindu Dharma today implores us to let go of grudges, resentment and especially self-contempt. Most people today are working harder to correct the faults of others than they are their own. It is a thankless job. It truly is. Most are trying to recreate the relatively real world into being absolutely real. Another thankless job. The wise implore us to accept things as they are, to be happy and content at every point in time. They tell us: do not be discouraged in seeing the failings of others. Rather, let it help awaken your understanding of them as to where they are in consciousness and the suffering they must be going through. If others harm you in thought, word or deed, do not resent it. Rather, let it awaken compassion, kindness and forgiveness. Use it as a mirror to view your own frailties; then work diligently to bring your own thoughts, words and deeds into line with Hindu Dharma.
The secret is that we have to correct all matters within ourselves. We have to bear our karmas—the reactions to our actions—cheerfully. And what are the apparent injustices of life but the self-created reactions of our own past actions in this or a former life? The person of perfect understanding accepts all happenings in life as purposeful and good. We must be grateful to others for playing back to us our previous actions so that we can see our mistakes and experience the same feelings we must have caused in others. It is in this way that we are purified and trained not to commit the same adharmic acts again.
All the great ones have preached the art of forgiveness. First we must learn to forgive ourselves, to accept ourselves as we are and proceed with confidence. Many people live their whole lives immersed in guilt. It’s a way of life passed on from generation to generation. It’s like a passive fear, different from a threatening fear. Certain religions push people into fear and guilt. Therefore, if they don’t feel guilty, they don’t feel that they are being religious. Mary Baker Eddy once said God is love and was viciously attacked for it by the Christian community of her day, who believed with a vengeance that God is wrathful, fear invoking. Families who live in guilt pass it on to their children. People who live in a state of guilt don’t give a lot, they don’t produce a lot, and they don’t move forward spiritually very far.
New energy is released for a healthy future when we forgive ourselves. Yes, forgiveness is a powerful force. We must start with ourselves, for as long as we hold self-contempt, we are unable to forgive others, because everyone else is a reflection of ourself. We react to what we see in them that we are not ready to face up to in ourselves.
It is a great power to be able to look beyond ourselves and see others as they really are, how they really think and how they really feel. When we are wrapped up in our own individual ego, this is hard to do. We surmise that those we know are exactly like us, and we find fault with them when they are not. But eventually we break the shell of the ego—an act symbolized by smashing the rough, dark brown coconut in the temple, revealing the beauty of the pure, white fruit inside which represents our pristine spiritual nature. It takes a hard blow to subdue our ego, and this is never without pain. But we can remove the ego’s hard shell painlessly through absolute surrender to Hindu Dharma, absolute surrender to our own soul, to God within us. External worship and internal worship, external surrender and internal surrender, bring about the softening of the ego and the unveiling of spirit.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 281: CONCEIVING SONS FOR THE MONASTERY Each Saiva Siddhanta Church family prays to birth a son for the monastery. Prior to conception, parents mix with the swāmīs and beseech the Gods to bring through a divine soul destined to perpetuate our lineage. Aum.
Hindu scriptures speak of three worlds, fourteen worlds and countless worlds. These are different ways to describe Śiva’s infinite creation. Of the fourteen worlds, seven are counted as rising above the Earth and seven as descending below it. Correspondingly, there are fourteen great nerve centers in the physical body, in the astral body and in the body of the soul. These centers are called chakras in Sanskrit, which means “wheels.” These spinning vortices of energy are actually regions of mind power, each one governing certain aspects of the inner man, and together they are the subtle components of people. When inwardly perceived, they are vividly colorful and can be heard. In fact, they are quite noisy, since color, sound and energy are all the same thing in the inner realms.
When awareness flows through any one or more of these regions, the various functions of consciousness operate, such as the functions of memory, reason and willpower. There are six chakras above the mūlādhāra chakra, which is located at the base of the spine. When awareness is flowing through these chakras, consciousness is in the higher nature. There are seven chakras below the mūlādhāra chakra, and when awareness is flowing through them, consciousness is in the lower nature. In this Kali Yuga most people live in the consciousness of the seven force centers below the mūlādhāra chakra. Their beliefs and attitudes strongly reflect the animal nature, the instinctive mind. We want to lift our own consciousness and that of others into the chakras above the mūlādhāra. This brings the mind out of the lower nature into the higher nature. We do this through personal sādhana, prayer, meditation, right thought, speech and action and love for Lord Śiva, who is All in all.
The mūlādhāra chakra, the divine seat of Lord Gaṇeśa, is the dividing point between the lower nature and the higher nature. It is the beginning of religion for everyone, entered when consciousness arrives out of the realms below Lord Gaṇeśa’s holy feet.
The physical body has a connection to each of the seven higher chakras through plexes of nerves along the spinal cord and in the cranium. As the kuṇḍalinī force of awareness travels along the spine, it enters each of these chakras, energizing them and awakening, in turn, each function. In any one lifetime, man may be predominantly aware in two or three centers, thus setting the pattern for the way he thinks and lives. He develops a comprehension of these seven regions in a natural sequence, the perfection of one leading logically to the next. Thus, though he may not be psychically seeing spinning forces within himself, man nevertheless matures through memory, reason, willpower, cognition, universal love, divine sight and spiritual illumination.
It may help, as we examine each of these centers individually, to visualize man as a seven-storied building, with each story being one of the chakras. Awareness travels up and down in the elevator, and as it goes higher and higher, it gains a progressively broader, more comprehensive and beautiful vista. Reaching the top floor, it views the panorama below with total understanding, not only of the landscape below, but also of the relation of the building to other buildings and of each floor to the next.
In Sanātana Dharma another analogy is used to portray the chakras—that of a lotus flower. This flower grows in lakes and pools, taking root in the slimy mud below the surface, where no light penetrates. Its stem grows upward toward the light until it breaks the surface into fresh air and sunshine. The energy of the sun then feeds the bud and leaves until the delicate lotus blossom opens. The first chakra is called the root chakra, mūlādhāra. Awareness takes root in the baser instincts of human experience and then travels through the waters of the intellect, becoming more and more refined as it evolves until finally it bursts into the light of the superconscious mind, where it spiritually flowers into the 1,008-petaled lotus chakra at the top of the head. By examining the functions of these seven great force centers, we can clearly cognize our own position on the spiritual path and better understand our fellow man.
ŚLOKA 125 To transcend the mind and reach the ultimate goal, seekers need the guidance of a satguru, an enlightened master who has followed the path to its natural end and can lead them to the Divine within themselves. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.
BHĀSHYA The satguru is the devotee’s spiritual guide and preceptor, friend and companion on the path. Having become religion’s consummation, the satguru can see where others are and know what their next step should be. Nothing is more precious than the first soul-quickening, life-changing śaktipāta from a guru. Nothing is more central to spiritual awakening than the progressive dīkshās, or initiations, he bestows. A satguru is needed because the mind is so cunning and the ego is a self-perpetuating mechanism. It is he who inspires, assists, guides and impels the śishya toward the Self of himself. The satguru, perfected in his relationship with Śiva, administrates the sādhana and tapas that slowly incinerate the seeds of sañchita karmas. It is his task to preside over the annihilation of the śishya’s ego and subconscious dross, all the while guiding the awakened kuṇḍalinī force so that safe, steady progress can be made from stage to stage. The Āgamas affirm, “Individuals who become, by the grace of Śiva, eager to extricate themselves from worldly fetters, obtain initiation from a competent preceptor into the path that leads to Śivasāyujya.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.