Author: Himalayan Academy

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.

Lesson 260 – Living with Śiva

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

We Mold Our Own Future

Every action that we perform in life, every thought that we think, has its reaction. We may or may not be conscious of the reactions that will result from what we are doing or thinking. Many people spend a great deal of time acting only with the purpose of covering up the reactions to prior unsatisfactory actions of their own making. Hurt or puzzled, they often ask, “Why is this happening to me? What did I do to attract that? What did I do to cause that? Do I really deserve this? It doesn’t seem fair!”

Were they to become enlightened and find the ability to live in their own intuitive, superconscious mind, they would see in that expanded state of consciousness all of the ingredients that came together out of the forgotten past to create the conditions through which they are passing in the now. They would observe that every action is like planting a seed. The fruit of that seed, harvested perhaps years later, is reaction. Like the seed, actions remain vibrating in the mind until fulfilled. It is not possible to trace past causes to current effects through analyzing or through the ordinary processes of reason, which result in uncertain conjecture. Only superconscious insight can accurately portray the chain of cause-and-effect relationships as a picture of what is.

Thus the wheel of karma continues, on and on and on, creating and recreating. The wheel of karma is simply the mechanism of the mind’s action—your mind, everyone’s mind. Through the study of the wheel of karma, which is a meditative study, you realize that you have created everything that is happening or has already happened to you. Everything that is coming your way in the future you will have created. Everything you will acquire your own wants will have brought into being. You are right now a sum total of millions of thoughts, feelings, desires and actions—all of them yours. Circumstance is not responsible for your condition, for you have made your circumstances consciously and unconsciously. There are no outside forces imposing themselves upon you. Whatever you attract to yourself of the world, though it seems to be external, is but a manifestation of your own inner nature. You are the author of all of your creations; and yet in the inner recesses of your being you are already the finished product at the same time. To understand this fully, you need yoga.

The study of yoga is reserved for the few who have the courage to seek the depths of their being, for the few who can overcome their experiences and their desires in deep meditation. Now, you may meet in your own subconscious, as soon as you sit down to practice meditation, all of the worldly desires latent within you, including several of which you perhaps have no conscious idea. If your meditation is successful, you will be able to throw out the unnecessary experiences or desires that are consuming your mind. When you do this and you travel past the world of desire, you will begin to break free of the wheel of karma which binds you to the specific reaction which must follow every action. To break free of this wheel of karma, you must have a strong, one-pointed mind. Your only key to help you attain this one-pointedness, this steadfastness, is your devotion to God, your devotion to the realization of the Truth. Few people remain steadfast enough under all circumstances and tests that life offers to realize the many causes and effects that are linked together in their lives. It is easy to study the law of karma and to appreciate it philosophically, but to realize it, to apply it to everything that happens to you, to understand the workings of it as the day goes by, requires an ability to which you must awaken.

Attachment, desire, craving, fear of loss—these are the self-created ropes that hold man in bondage to his lower states of mind. It is because man chooses to live in the ignorance of unfulfilled craving and unsatisfied desire that he suffers. How many of you have suffered over something that was anticipated and may never have taken place? You will remember then waking up out of the dream of your suffering and finding that things were all right after all, and that through your experience something within you remained the same.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 260: APPROPRIATE PLACES OF WORSHIP
My devotees worship at their home shrines, dharmaśālas, Kauai Aadheenam and all Śaivite temples. They do not attend temples of other denominations except on pilgrimage or as required socially. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 260 – Merging with Śiva

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

The Iḍā and Piṅgalā Currents

In the esoterics of unfoldment on the path of enlightenment, there are some mechanics about what happens inside of the human body, its nerve system, that you should know about. There are two basic forces working within the body, as I have explained, the instinctive area of the mind and the intellectual area of the mind. Within these are two forces working that flow out from the central source of energy through their respective currents. They are called the iḍā and the piṅgalā forces.

The iḍā current is pink in color. It is the vibration of the physical body. It is the Earth current. When the energy is flowing through that current, or nāḍī, we are more conscious of the physical body, or more in physical consciousness. We are not in the world of thought but in the world of feeling. We feel very strongly and experience very strong emotions when the energy is flowing through the iḍā current.

In some people the energy flows through the iḍā current constantly. They have very strong emotions and deep sentiments. They live in their emotion most of the time, emoting over one thing or another. They emotionally and deeply feel through this iḍā current how other people feel. They take other people’s feeling onto themselves and have a preoccupation with their physical bodies. This is the current that can produce another human being in a woman, or develop athletic abilities in a man.

When the vibratory force of energy flows through the iḍā current, the entire physical body responds. It is physically active. We like to work. We like to move. We like to exercise. We like to do things. We enjoy equally the base emotions and the movements of the physical body.

When the energy flows through iḍā in some people, they actually enjoy suffering. There are people deep in this current who if they did not have something to suffer over would not feel whole. They would feel they were not living fully enough on this planet. They would not feel human, for the iḍā current is the current of being human. It is very base. It is very earthy. Still, those living in this current are intuitive. They do have intuition, but their intuition conflicts with their heavy emotion, so intuition comes through periodically, in intuitive flashes. They may even become superstitious because of this. The iḍā current flows most strongly through the left side of the physical body.

The piṅgalā current is quite different. Blue in color, it is the current of the intellect, flowing mostly through the right side of the body. When the pure life energy is flowing through the piṅgalā current, we are not as conscious that we have a physical body. We are aware in the mind. We are inquisitive. We like to talk a lot. We like to argue. We like to reason. We enjoy discussion. It is the intellectual current. We like to read. We like to memorize the opinions of other people. We like to memorize our own opinions and tell them to other people. We like to do business. When the energy is flowing through the piṅgalā, we do not emote much. We think over our emotions. We analyze our feelings and thoughts. This is the aggressive human current.

People living in this current do not pay much attention to the physical body. They let it take care of itself. They also are inclined to let other people do the emoting. They become powerfully strong in that aggressive type of intellectual force. When we are in the piṅgalā current, we are headstrong, somewhat pushy, pushing ideas across to other people, and inclined to be argumentative. We have a strong facility of reasoning. It is a very positive and powerful current.

Lesson 259 – Dancing with Śiva

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

How Does One Attend a Śiva Temple?

ŚLOKA 104
Approaching with deep reverence, we begin our worship with Gaṇeśa, circumambulate the temple and proceed to the main sanctum for pūjā. After receiving the sacraments, we sit quietly before taking our leave. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
With offerings in hand, leaving our shoes outside, we enter through the gopura, or temple tower, wash hands, feet and mouth, and seek blessings at Lord Gaṇeśa’s shrine. Next we follow the outer prakara, or hallway, clockwise around the mahāmaṇḍapa, central chambers. Inside we leave our worldly thoughts at the balipīṭha, or offering place, then prostrate before the dhvajastambha, temple flagpole, and worship Nandi, the sacred bull. Next we circumambulate the central sanctum, garbhagṛiha, usually three times, returning to its entrance for worship. During pūjā, we stand with hands folded or in añjali mudrā, though according to temple custom, it may be proper to sit quietly or sing devotional hymns. After the āratī, or waving of the camphor light before the Deity, we prostrate (ashṭāṅga praṇāma for men, and pañchāṅga praṇāma for women) and rise to receive the prasāda, accepting them in the right hand. We walk around the garbhagṛiha one final time before taking our leave. The Vedas affirm, “If a man first takes firm hold on faith and then offers his sacrifice, then in that man’s sacrifice both Gods and men place confidence.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 259 – Living with Śiva

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

Dharma’s Rewards

What happens if we follow dharma? The Gods, like our Supreme God Śiva, Lord Murugan, Lord Gaṇeśa and all the great Gods, reward us by giving us a good birth in the next life. A good birth is to be born into a family that follows dharma, that is loving and secure. We are also rewarded by being able to stay in the blissful Devaloka for a long time between births. We remain in that heaven world, in our etheric body, to enjoy, learn and gain knowledge and gain advancement for our soul as we prepare for the next birth on Earth.

So, there are great rewards for following the path of dharma, and there is equally great suffering for us if we follow the adharmic path, the path of adharma which creates kukarma. When we abandon dharma, we open ourselves to confusion, to self-condemnation. We are open to low-minded feelings, to jealousies and antagonisms and uncontrollable emotions. Dharma helps us to control our emotions, and our mind also. Do you want to live in these lower emotions, out of insecurity, to arouse hatred, jealousy, greed and all the negative states of mind? Of course not. By following the ancient path of dharma, we avoid all this suffering and mental pain and bring ourselves into positive, creative and productive states of consciousness, bringing us ever closer and closer to the holy feet of God Śiva.

We are in a technological age now. This technological age is fast moving. There are many temptations. There is television. There is the Internet, and soon things beyond Internet. There are things to see that children should not perhaps see at a young age. We must get hold of their minds early, at five years old, at six years old, at seven years old and cause them to memorize, even if they do not understand, the couplets of the Tirukural and the ślokas and Vedic verses of Dancing with Śiva. Later on, they will be grateful to you as parents and as elders. Still later on, these children will bless you, and the blessings of the children will be very comforting in your old age.

We must teach our children that the soul is immortal, created by Lord Śiva and destined to merge into Him in its absolute fulfillment. We must teach them about this world we live in and how to make their religion strong and vibrant in a technological age every day and tomorrow in their life. This is especially important for those Śaivite families who live beyond the borders of India and Sri Lanka. Those of you assembled here this morning are heirs to a rich and stable religious culture. If you stay with your religion, the future of your children is less uncertain. They will go to universities in other parts of the world. They will be exposed to the influence of other religions. They must be so sure of their religion, so knowledgeable in its tenets, that they can explain it intelligently to anyone and allow them to accept or reject the tenets of the Śaivite Hindu religion. Send them as missionaries out into the world, fully informed about Śaivism, our great God Śiva, Lord Murugan and Lord Gaṇeśa, and you will be doing a great benefit for the entire world.

All Śaivites throughout the world, the united Śaivites of the world, are linked together in a bond of love—Śivasambandham. God Śiva is immanent love and transcendent reality. Our religion tells us that the mature soul must lift up and take care of the young soul. Our religion tells us that we must go through the natural experiences of life and be responsible for our actions. Our religion tells us that there is no mortal sin, only experience. Our religion tells us that if we have bad experiences, they are the result of previous actions we have caused. Our religion tells us that if we cause an action toward another that hurts another, we can atone by doing penance and cure the agonizing mind. Our religion tells us that we come back into physical bodies again and again until we are the master of our mind, body and emotions and realize that we are a brilliant soul filled with light. Our religion tells us that because we love God Śiva, we love one another, for God Śiva loves all of us. Our religion tells us that God Śiva is like a father and a mother, not a vengeful God, but a God of love who helps us. Always come closer to Him. Right now among the young Hindus in Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka there is a big spiritual revival of the great love of God Śiva. They know that they need their religion to help them on through life.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 259: THE VEDIC SCIENCE OF TEMPLE BUILDING
My devotees perpetuate in our temples the architecture set forth in the Śaiva Āgamas and Vāstu Śāstras, and exemplified in the sanctuaries of South India, to create holy places where even the stones have sanctity. Aum

Lesson 259 – Merging with Śiva

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

Going Into Meditation

The refined, inner energy that you experience in your deepest meditations is always there, was always there and shall always be there. It’s just there. You don’t have to call upon it. It’s just there. Just be aware that you are it, and not that you are any other of the many other types of things that you can be. Just be that intangible, tangible energy and don’t be the emotions that you feel. Don’t be thoughts that you think. Don’t be the stomach that’s hungry. Don’t be the body that’s moving. Don’t be the place that you’re going to. Just be that energy. Then you can do anything in the external world and really enjoy life.

Here are some basic signposts for successful meditation. Remember them and do them slowly on your own. First, sit up nice and straight with the spine erect and the head balanced at the top of the spine. Proper posture is necessary because the very simple act of equalizing the weight and having it held up by the spine causes you to lose body consciousness. Just the equalizing of your weight can do that. Breathe deeply and rhythmically. Feel the energies of the body begin to flow harmoniously through the body. Now try to feel the warmth of the body. Simply feel the warmth of the body. Once you can sense physical warmth, try to feel the totality of the nerve system at one time—all of the five or six thousand miles of nerve currents. It’s simple. Feel it all at one time and grasp that intuitively. Now, this nerve current is being energized from one central source, and we’re going to find that source. It’s in the central core of the spine. Feel that energy flow through the spine and out through this nerve system, which finally causes warmth in the physical body, which you’ve already felt. But now don’t feel the warmth of the body. Don’t feel the nerve system. Feel only the power of the spine. Once you have done this, you are ready to meditate. You’re alive in your body. You look alive. You look vital. Your face is beginning to glow. Next simply sit in a state of pure consciousness. Be aware of being aware. Don’t be aware of a second thing. Simply be aware that you are aware—a totality of dynamic, scintillating awareness, vibrant right in the central source of energy. It’s closer to what you really are than your name, than your intellectual education, than your emotional behavior or the physical body itself, which you only inhabit. From this point in your own personal meditation you can take off and travel in many different directions. If your guru has given you a mantra, for instance, contemplate on the inner vibrations of the mantra. Chant it to yourself, or follow whatever inner instructions he has given you.

Coming out of meditation, we perform this process in reverse. Again feel the power of the spine and let that power flow right out through the nerve system, energizing the miles and miles of nerve currents. Feel your nerve system coming to life. Feel the warmth of the body as we come back into physical consciousness. Finally, open your eyes and view the external world around you and compare it to the internal world that you very rapidly just touched into in your meditation. It’s easy to remember this entrance and exit to meditation. Do it often. Get to know the energy flows of the body. Live in the pure energy of the spine. Lean on no one. If you must lean on something, make it your own spine.

Lesson 258 – Dancing with Śiva

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

When Should One Attend the Temple?

ŚLOKA 103
We attend the temple to commune with God Śiva, Kārttikeya or Gaṇeśa at least once each week and additionally on auspicious days of the month, yearly festival days and on the holiest day of the year, Mahāśivarātri. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Śaivites consider it most important to live near a Śiva temple, and we build one wherever we find ourselves in the world. This is a most meritorious act, earning blessings in this life and the next. Religious life centers around the temple. It is here, in God’s home, that we nurture our relationship with the Divine. Not wanting to stay away too long, we visit the temple weekly, though women never go during their monthly period. We strive to attend each major festival, when the śakti of the Deity is most powerful, and pilgrimage to a far-off temple annually. Devout Śiva bhaktas attend daily pūjā in the temple. All Śaivites visit the temple on Śiva’s most sacred day of the year, Mahāśivarātri. Śaivite temples are the most ancient of all. Being the homes of the Gods and God, they are approached with great reverence and humility. Draw near the temple as you would approach a king, a governor, a president of a great realm, anticipating with a little trepidation your audience with him. The Vedas say, “May the Lord find pleasure in our song of praise! Priest among men, may he offer due homage to the heavenly beings! Great, O Lord, is your renown.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 258 – Living with Śiva

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

The Caste System

I am often asked about varṇa dharma—the social structure of four classes and hundreds of subgroups—commonly known as the caste system, established in India in ancient times. Is the caste system still valid today? Caste—or at least discrimination on the basis of caste—has been thrown out of the culture of India, but people still hang on to it as an ego structure. The high caste people love to hurt the low caste people, so to speak, by ignoring them, treating them roughly. That’s not the way it should be. In many areas of the world the caste system is distorted, and also very strong. If you find the high caste people in your society ignoring and not wanting to speak with and associate with the lower castes, those are nasty people, and those are people you should avoid. Spiritual people, even ordinary kindly people, would never think of behaving that way.

The original caste system was based on behavior, as it is now in countries where there is no overt caste system in effect. Those who beat their children, those who become angry and jealous, those who live in fear and those who feign humility are all of the lowest caste. Those who value memory and reason and use their willpower to benefit others—who control themselves and run an orderly home, support the temples and are respected by the lowest castes—are of the business caste. Those who protect the dharma and preserve the scriptures—who protect the temples and all the people, those who are respected by the other castes—are of the princely caste. Those who commune with the Gods and are priests in the temples—who are the disseminators of the highest knowledge and respected by all the other castes—are the priestly caste. These four groups make up a complete society anywhere in the world and at anytime in history.

The original caste system had these four divisions. The divisions were all based on the ability of the individual to manage his body, his mind and his emotions properly. If he stopped fulfilling the dharma of his caste, society would recognize that he had moved from one caste and was now in another. The original caste system was based on self-discipline through education and through personal sādhana. The original caste system was based on the unfoldment of the consciousness within each individual through the fourteen chakras.

People everywhere naturally divide themselves up into castes. We have the workers. You go to work, you work under somebody else—that happens all over the world—that’s the śudra caste. We have the merchants, who are self-motivated. That’s the vaiśya caste. We have the politicians and the lawmakers and the law-enforcement people. That’s the kshatriya caste. And then you have the priests, the ministers, the missionaries. That’s the brahmin caste. Every society has these four castes working within it in one way or another. In today’s world, if one is not fulfilling the dharma of his born caste, then he changes castes. For instance, if a brahmin husband and wife are working eight to fifteen hours a day in a hospital under others, they are no longer of the brahmin caste, because they are not performing the duties of the dharma of that caste. They are workers, in the śudra caste.

We can see around us the deterioration of the system which has been abused beyond the point of recognition. Members of the brahmin caste are now beating their children, abusing their wives. Members of the kshatriya caste disrespect the laws of the land. Members of the business caste are deceptive and dishonest. All are confused, living in anger and in jealousy. No wonder their families break apart and their businesses fail. In the eyes of the Gods, most of those who adhere to the caste system that exists today are low caste. This is because they live in lower consciousness. They look at the world through the windows of the chakras below the mūlādhāra. These undeveloped humans are struggling through the lower chakras, trying to get out of the dark worlds of the mind. Let us not be deluded about what the sapta ṛishis had in mind when they casted humans according to the soul’s unfoldment in one or more of the fourteen chakras. We should totally ignore the Hindu caste system as lived in India today and, through example, show a better and more wholesome path for modern society.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 258: OUR SACRED PRIESTS
My Church honors our maṭhavāsis as its official priesthood. For samskāras and special festivals we may engage closely devoted Tamil priests, as well as hereditary Śivāchāryas, who preside at all temple consecrations. Aum