Category: Merging With Siva

The Power Of Devotion

For eleven years I led a bhakti pilgrimage, a devotional pilgrimage, to the top of Mount Tamalpais in California, the first Sunday of every month. I never missed one. The devotees, in looking over three cities with me, could intuit that within each city there were problems. Each home in each city contained an area of the mind that was problem ridden.

Those who had the devotion went to the top of the mountain. Hence, the opportunity to expand their awareness for an hour or so and look over the external states of the mind. There they set their pattern for meditation for the ensuing month. It takes great dedication, devotion and bhakti to disentangle awareness from that which it is aware of, to flow into and become aware of expanded areas of mind. The rewards are great. We are able to look over and through our expanded vision the totality of the exterior area of our mind and intuitively know the answer to the experiences that we are going through.

This may seem difficult to comprehend, but it is really very simple. When awareness is burdened in the exterior area of the mind, we simply release awareness from that area of the mind that it is aware of. Release the burden—but not by taking on more burdens or trying to find out the whys and wherefores of it all. In other words, we alleviate the pressures that awareness and our nerve system feel because of being involved in the exterior area of the mind and thus become devoted to our own superconsciousness. The power of devotion, love, bhakti, melts the odic-magnetic force fields, releasing awareness to soar into superconsciousness, the mind of light. And then we can focus, superconsciously, from our intuitive state of mind and look at the exterior world from a new perspective, from right within the very core of life itself. It does not take long. It does take one quality though—devotion, found in the yoga called bhakti.

What is devotion? Devotion involves going deep enough to understand the great principle of the fulfillment of one’s duty. Who must be devoted to whom? Members of a family to their temple, a wife to her husband, a husband to his religion, children to their parents, the student to the teacher, the disciple to the guru. No matter what you are studying—mathematics, chemistry, philosophy, cybernetics, sociology, religion, a lifestyle—the professor should represent what you are going to be. That is why you are studying with him. Only through devotion will you be totally aware, open, free, inspired. Only through devotion will you become what you aspire to unfold within yourself.

Find Your Security Within

What is it all about when we are burdened? This is only the external odic force fields of magnetic energy in the area of the mind called the world and the subconscious. When we are totally aware in this limited state of consciousness, we have the feeling of being burdened. When we are aware in this state of mind, it is impossible to seek out an explanation or to accept an explanation from another. How many times during your life have you explained to your friends who were totally aware in the external area of the mind the reasons for their being there and the way to release themselves from these areas and soar within? You knew they knew what you were talking about, but they would not accept what you had to say, possibly because they had not thought of it first. The magnetic areas of the odic force field of the external mind are that strong. They were burdened by the conscious and subconscious limited areas of the mind. Awareness had become submerged.

The only real security comes from within. Gain security, and if your security comes from within you, you become unburdened. However, if one gains his security from the external mind, then of course he will not accept help if help is given. What is help anyway, but man sharing with man? Who is the helper and who is the one who is helped? You have often heard teachers say, “Every time I give instruction, I learn more than my students.” Is the teacher giving the opportunity to the students to learn, or are the students giving the opportunity to the teacher? Obviously, it is quite mutual. The external ego does not give us help. It only ramifies awareness into even more externalized areas of the mind. The mind of light, your superconsciousness, is the only area of the mind where permanent bliss, security and steadfastness occur when awareness flows through it, even in the outer areas of your nature. The mind of light is the only thing that can uplift awareness, shuffling off the burdens of the external mind. It is the great teacher.

Love Conquers Selfishness

Love may also be thought of as the full expression of the intuitive mind, a continuing flow from the source of Being. Most people would not be able to withstand the reaction to this force were it to be fully released within them. To suddenly relieve a person of all tension would be like making a poor man rich overnight. The instinctive mind feels lost and insecure under the impact of any sudden change in evolution. As the soul, the superconscious mind, or the light of God, begins to shine through the rest of the mind, the mind will either become reactionary or cooperative. Some people have a terrible fight within themselves as the soul begins to shine forth, and yet their only lasting satisfaction in life is in the outpouring of their individual soul qualities.

Sometimes students of Inner Being are able to control their actions or their speech when they become disturbed, but the thought force projected by their suppressed sulking is just as negatively effective. Seeking to understand the condition that has upset you will give control of the negative force and eventually lift you into the state of love which conquers all things.

Of course, the practice of understanding must begin at home. You must train yourself to know where you are in consciousness at all times. When you can become fully aware of the states of consciousness through which you pass, there will be no one whom you cannot understand, no one with whom you could not communicate through the medium of love. Until you learn the operation of this law as the sum of all laws, you will continue to harbor contention, to prefer argument and to walk the path of difference. Through bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, the combative mind becomes erased, absorbed into the consciousness of the One Self, the Being permeating all beings.

With the help of devotion, you can soar within. You cannot only pull away detachedly from unwholesome areas of the mind, but it is possible to keep yourself in an inward state of expanded consciousness.

What Is Pure Love?

Love is the sum of all the spiritual laws. We may say that love is the heart of the mind. Anything that comes before you in life can be conquered through universal love, a force which is a demonstration of the soul. Universal love has nothing to do with emotional infatuation, attachment or lust. It flows freely through the person whose mind is unclouded by resentment, malice, greed and anger. But in persons whose minds are partially out of control and under the control of another, the force of the soul ends up as infatuation or attachment.

Pure love is a state of Being. Whereas everyone is running around trying to get love, it is found in giving. When a person begins to lose the idea of his own personality through concern for others, he will attract a like response to himself. The outgoing force of the soul in action brings freedom to the lower states of mind. The instinctive person is ordinarily so preoccupied with his own self, so wrapped up in his own shell, that he cannot give a thought to the welfare of another. He cannot give anything of himself. Such a person usually feels sorry for himself and finds other people unloving and unresponsive. He is still far from any realization of the Self within.

The unfortunate person who is burdened by resentment, for instance, feels that the world owes him more kindness than he is receiving. When he loses his resentment for the world simply by becoming interested in people, the world will once again reflect back the expression of this soul force, known as universal love. You may visualize this pure state of love as a force of light flooding out from the center of your Being. If you place sheets of paper too close to a light source, you temporarily block the light and scorch the paper. People are always scorching themselves by holding up against their own “inner-light paper” qualities such as resentment, malice and greed. Spontaneous acts of benevolence and selflessness, prompted by a will to perfection, lift the striving soul in feeling and begin slowly to remove the coverings from the light which is the soul. You can’t expect immediate action, of course, because you may still carry the seeds of destructive qualities within you, and it is these seeds which continue to hold man in lower states of consciousness.

The action and reaction of the self-centered state of mind creates tension and discord in mind and body. Often, when the diaphragm is tight, the muscles are tense, breathing is difficult and your whole disposition is on edge. A person attains relaxation and peace through a benevolent act in which he loses himself in another’s happiness. The cycles of tension and release, tension and release—which are constantly given birth to in the instinctive and intellectual state of mind—are only broken as the unfolding soul expresses itself in devotion, breaking up the crust of personal concern and hurt feelings.

Finding the Eternal Now

Before beginning a new project, meditate. Collect up the ramified forces flowing through and around your body and bring them all to one point by regulating the energies through the control of breath, prāṇāyāma. Thus arriving at the now, if only for an instant, begins the auspiciousness of the moment, after which the project should be begun. By thus meditating and through this practice, inner results infiltrate worldly undertakings, and the opposing forces succumb to the clarity of your perceptions derived through initially being aware in the now, if only for a few seconds.

When you are experiencing the totality of the moment, you are not aware of the past, nor are you aware of the future or anything within the externalities of the mind. You are aware of the ākāśa, the primal substance of the superconsciousness of the mind. You are able to have a continuity of intuitive findings within it and gain much knowledge from within yourself. For the beginner on the path, the concept of the eternity of the moment is refreshing, and he does touch into it occasionally when he tries to meditate. This is encouraging to him, and he gains a new impetus to pursue his inner life more courageously than before.

It is impossible to intellectually try to experience the here-and-now state of consciousness, as it is impossible to describe the feeling one would have standing on the top of a tall mountain. Only through experience can these transcendental states be known. Therefore, become perfect in yoga. Your rewards will be great and your future sublime.

As the first attempt in finding the infinite reality of the eternity of the moment, sit quietly, draw all of your faculties into the center of your head and try to see the glowing white light there. When this light is seen, a high-pitched sound might also be heard, and you are then in the eternity of the moment. Bringing oneself to the repetition of this practice successfully and systematically, day after day, month after month, year after year is the yoga to be practiced to merge awareness deeper and deeper into superconsciousness.

Now, you can think and you can feel, and feeling is more convincing. When your mind is disturbed, your feeling is personality-centered. When your mind is quiet, your subtle feeling is superconscious, spiritually aware. Feel that you are the complete master of your body, of your mind and of your emotions. Can you really feel that? Feel the life within you. Feel your will dominating your mind. Your will is your soul in action. You may think about your will as being your soul in action, but you must feel the real you, the real “I am.” Tell your subconscious mind twenty-four hours a day that this is true: that you are the master of body, mind, and emotions. For in one instant of realizing this, knowing this, feeling this to be true, you will find that you are all right, right now, in this instant, and you will find yourself entirely free from fear, worry and doubt. Live completely, regardless of your circumstances, then the circumstances in which you divide yourself will adjust themselves to become as beautiful as the beauty of your soul.

Be a Friend To Yourself

In the process of spiritual unfoldment, which brings you closer and closer to merging into the eternal now, you have to become accustomed to a new you. Become acquainted with yourself, become an old friend to yourself, and you will find living in the moment, in the inspiration of now, becoming second nature to the new you. Remember, it takes time to become an old friend to yourself, the same amount of time it would take to acquire a mature friendship with someone else.

In our beginning meditations on the Śaivite path of enlightenment, we must establish firmly in our intellect the basic truth of “the now.” Now and its seeming counterparts, “then and when,” are only ambiguous to us when the instinctive energies are scattered and unrelated and when there is absolutely no self-discipline of the vital forces which, when accomplished, harnesses man’s individual awareness in such a way that he becomes, over long periods of time, actually aware that he is aware, as well as being aware that his awareness is entangled in the externalities of mind due to an eventful scattering of instinctive forces. Furthermore, his awareness persists in the intuitive know-how and ability to disentangle itself from that external state as it becomes yanked back, deep within its natural state, the eternity of the moment. This ability is acquired through regular and regulated practice of yoga, diaphragmatic breathing and simple, yet profound, inner, mental, intuitive practices performed daily at the same time.

Having preceded the practice of yoga by firmly establishing in the subconscious realm of the mind the inevitability of the permanency of the moment, called now, through all areas of thought, there is one dispelling power, and that is man’s personal ability to withdraw his awareness from past and future and, from that static state, view out upon all areas of thought rather than wallow in them. We transgress our heritage on this planet through spending inordinate amounts of time in past and future and the mixture of the two. The penance is misery, confusion and sorrow, as we stumble over the furniture in a darkened room. Turn on the light, claim your heritage and live in the moment. Center awareness deep within the head. Sit in the center of the room. Enjoy the artifacts, rest in the center of the mind and view the panorama. Only by experiencing and acquiring the ability to reexperience, through the practice of yoga, the eternity of the moment can the aspirant allow deeper and deeper access to the fullness of his being.