Category: Living With Siva

Forgiving Is Health Giving

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.

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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.

Congested Energies

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.

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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 Art of Forgiveness

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.

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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.

Ahiṁsā in Business

I was once asked for my insights on applying ahiṁsā in the business world. Ahiṁsā in business is taught in a reverse way on American television: Titans, The West Wing, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Dallas, LA Law—popular shows of our time. Their scriptwriters promoted hiṁsā, injuriousness, in business—“Save the Falcon Crest farm at any cost, save South Fork, save the corporation.” Now the national news media reports attempts to save Microsoft, save the tobacco industry, save the hand gun manufacturers. The fight is on, and real-life court battles have taken the place of TV sitcoms which have long since been off the air. In both the TV and the real-life conflicts, whatever you do to your competitor is OK because it’s only business. The plots weave in and out, with one scene of mental and emotional cruelty after another.

The Hindu business ethic is very clear. As the weaver Tiruvalluvar said, “Those businessmen will prosper whose business protects as their own the interests of others” (Tirukural 120). We should compete by having a better product and better methodologies of promoting and selling it, not by destroying our competitor’s product and reputation. Character assassination is not part of ahiṁsā. It reaps bad benefits to the accusers. That is practiced by many today, even by Hindus who are off track in their perceptions of ahiṁsā. Hindus worldwide must know that American television is not the way business should be practiced. As some people teach you what you should do and other people teach you what you should not do, the popular television programs mentioned above clearly teach us what we should not do. The principles of ahiṁsā and other ethical teachings of Hinduism show us a better way.

Many corporations today are large, in fact larger than many small countries. Their management is like the deceptive, deceitful, arrogant, domineering king, or like the benevolent religious monarch, depending on whether there are people of lower consciousness or higher consciousness in charge. Cities, districts, provinces, counties, states and central governments all have many laws for ethical business practices, and none of those laws permit unfair trade, product assassination or inter-business competitive fights to the death. Each business is dharmically bound to serve the community, not take from the community like a vulture. When the stewardships of large corporations follow the law of the land and the principles of ahiṁsā, they put their energies into developing better products and better community service. When the leadership has a mind for corporate espionage, its energies are diverted, the products suffer and so does customer relations. The immediate profits in the short term might be gratifying, but in the long run, profits gained from wrong-doings are generally spent on wrong-doings.

Ahiṁsā always has the same consequences. And we know these benefits well. Hiṁsā always has the same consequences, too. It develops enemies, creates unseemly karmas which will surely return and affect the destiny of the future of the business enterprise. The perfect timing needed for success is defeated by inner reactions to the wrong-doings. A business enterprise which bases its strategies on hurtfulness cannot in good judgment hire employees who are in higher consciousness, lest they object to these tactics. Therefore, they attract employees who are of the same caliber as themselves, and they all practice hiṁsā among one another. Trickery, deceitfulness and deception are of the lower nature, products of the methodology of performing hiṁsā, hurtfulness, mentally and emotionally. The profits derived from hiṁsā policies are short-term and ill-spent. The profits derived from ahiṁsā policies are long-term and well spent.

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NANDINATHA SŪTRA 280: WITHDRAWING FROM ERRANT MONASTICS
My devotees know that any monastic who abandons his sacred vows and leaves the monastery or is dismissed should be shunned and treated as an outsider until he rights himself with his preceptor. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Curbing the Lower Natured

The problems of conflict reside within this low-minded group of people who only know retaliation as a way of life. To antagonize others is their sport. They must be curtained off and seen for what they are. Improvement has to come through their own self-effort. But they are always overly stimulated by doing so many mischievous acts and misdeeds that self-effort toward any kind of improvement is never even thought of. Yet, they must learn from their soul’s evolution, and their own mistakes will be the teacher, for they are in the period of their evolution where they only learn from their own mistakes.

People of the lower nature cannot be made peaceful. They are not open to persuasion. They are sovereign in their own domain. There are many doors into lower consciousness, and if the Devaloka people get too involved with people of a lower nature, they may have violence awakened within them. Lower-consciousness people are always looking for recruits to bring into their world. This sounds like a sad story, but it is true nonetheless. You see it happening around you every day.

It would, of course, be wonderful to think that all people in this world are on the same level—and certainly they are in the deepest sense. But our sages and ṛishis, and wisdom itself, tell us that we cannot expect the same of everyone in this birth. By recognizing the differences in each soul’s maturity, we also recognize the process of reincarnation, which gives us young souls and old souls.

People ask me from time to time, from the Hindu point of view, how to curtain off the lower-nature people. My answer is that people are curtained off from each other through their beliefs and the attitudes that they hold. Believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that a person is of the lower nature and is incorrigible in this life would create the attitude of avoiding his company, not antagonizing him, and this is the best protection. Societies all over the world are trying to control these people who have come to Earth from the world of darkness. This is one of the great concerns of all governments.

However, the problem is not only with people of the lower nature, it is also with people of the higher nature. They tend to be lazy. The more conscious a person is, the more responsible he or she should be. Therefore, the people of the higher nature should carry most of society’s responsibility and not leave it to others. If the high-minded people really want peace, they have to all get to know each other and then join hands in love and trust and work together. In every religious organization on the Earth an emphasis to help people is put forward as a duty and a fulfillment. Many of the groups reach out for membership and bring people from the Narakaloka into their midst. It is not long before the lower-natured people turn their once-sincere and happy religious community into a devil’s playground. They always begin by pitting people within the group against each other. If that is successful, then they pit their religious organization against another one. So, you can see that the Devaloka people have to join together, break down the barriers between themselves, work together, love and trust one another and protect their groups from this kind of intrusion. This is the first big doing. Once this is done, the rest will take care of itself quite naturally.

National and international peace movements are beneficial in that they keep the decision-making governments of the world aware of what the people want. They help the higher-consciousness people to become acquainted and to forge new principles for a global dharma.

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NANDINATHA SŪTRA 279: WELCOMING BACK THOSE WHO RECONCILE
My devotees extend every effort to welcome and bring back into the lineage those seeking to reenter its fold, having formerly left, provided they show grief, remorse and repentance, and reconcile with the satguru. Aum.

Two Kinds Of People

I have often been asked how it is that some people work for peace and others seem always to work for contention. There are two kinds of children or souls that are born on this planet and are spoken of in our Vedas and other scriptures. Some come to Earth from up down and others from down up. This means that the children who come to Earth from up down come from a place in the inner world of higher consciousness, and the children who come to Earth from down up come to Earth from a place in the inner world of lower consciousness. We call the place of higher consciousness the Devaloka and the place of lower consciousness the Narakaloka. The Devaloka is a heaven world and the Narakaloka is not.

The Narakaloka exists wherever violence and hurtfulness take place, whether in the inner or outer world. We see such things in action on television. On the astral plane the terrible deeds perpetrated by Narakaloka people are much worse than in the physical world. Children who are born into Earth consciousness from the Narakaloka will not respond to meditation, yoga or any kind of quieting controls. They are strangers to self-discipline and enemies to their own parents. The parents of these offspring do have a challenge, to be sure, and are bound by the karmic implication of neglect to face up to it and make every effort to reform, lift up and thus enhance the learning of the young souls whose forces of deception, anger and resentment are stronger than their responsibilities to parents and society. Many such parents wisely direct their difficult offspring into agriculture, farming and nurturing nature, thus allowing them to blend with the forces of nature and rise into higher consciousness as they learn from the slow processes of nature. Some well-meaning but mistaken families demand of them a high education and suffer the results of their upbringing for a lifetime.

In contrast, children who are born into Earth consciousness from the Devaloka do respond to meditation, yoga and all kinds of methods of self-control. These are the gentle people. Self-control and personal advancement are the reasons they have taken a birth. There are ways to tell the difference between these two types of people. The mere fact that someone becomes penitent would show us that he is really a Devaloka person. This is because Narakaloka people don’t become penitent. There is another way to tell the difference, and that is by looking into the eyes of the person. Narakaloka people generally have dull or sullen eyes, whereas Devaloka people have bright, clear, wide-open eyes. The former come from the world of darkness, the latter from the world of light. It is difficult to tell the difference at times, because the Narakaloka people are very cunning, and they will try to appear in the way they feel they should to measure up to your standards. They must be tested.

Peace will only come when the Narakaloka people are lifted up and made to obey the new standards in the world, standards which must be set by the Devaloka people. It is when the Devaloka people are in charge that peace will truly come; it can come in no other way. So, if the Devaloka people really desire to have peace on Earth, they should not be shy but take charge.

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NANDINATHA SŪTRA 278: WHEN TO STOP SHUNNING
My devotees who refuse to shun those who should be shunned should themselves be shunned. But none shall shun those who have reconciled with the preceptor and been publicly welcomed back into association. Aum.