Category: Merging With Siva

Softening of The Heart

The yoga of pure devotion is found at the beginning, the middle and the end of the path. Merging with Śiva is more and more a deeply felt experiential reality when the soul gives of itself to Śiva inwardly and outwardly in unabashed devotion. Prapatti truly is the key that unlocks the love needed as merger increases as the years pass by and, as Satguru Yogaswami said, “Love pours forth to melt the very stones.” Bhakti yoga is not an intellectual study. It is a practice. It is also not an emotional experience. It is a devotional experience. There is a difference, which we will come to understand. Bhakti yoga is not a cure-all, nor a means to fast enlightenment. Rather, it is the foundation for enlightenment. It is not a technique. Nor is it a magic mantra. It is a way of life. The transformation that comes from living in the state of bhakti yoga is the softening of the heart.

External worship, bhakti yoga, is taught first on the spiritual path, because it produces a softened, mellow heart. It is to waste the guru’s time to give training in meditation and contemplation before the heart has been softened through bhakti yoga. The patient guru will wait until this has happened within the devotee. Otherwise, any accomplishment attained through intense rāja yoga practices will not be sustained. And the problems that arise within the devotee’s subconscious mind—should he be taught rāja yoga before the proper preparation has been mastered—will go back on the guru. The guru will then have to act as the psychiatrist to solve the problems arising from the forced awakening. Whereas a mature bhaktar takes such problems, or negative karmas, which are sometimes aroused as a result of deep meditation, to the temple Deities, placing them at their feet to be dissolved. This will not happen for the devotee who has not experienced living in the state of bhakti yoga, because the relationship has not yet been established between himself and the Gods. Therefore, the wise guru starts his devotee at the beginning of the path, not in the middle.

The path begins with charyā, getting to know the Gods and developing a relationship with them through service. Charyā is karma yoga. Then kriyā is experienced. Kriyā is bhakti yoga. Once bhakti yoga has melted the heart, then the deep yoga concepts and meditation techniques of rāja yoga may be practiced. They are to be understood within the internal mind, not just memorized. The wise guru will never teach deep meditation techniques to angry, jealous, fearful devotees. Such devotees should first learn to serve selflessly, by performing karma yoga projects in the āśrama, and then perform simple bhakti yoga until all anger has melted into love.

The inner knowing that “All is Śiva’s will” is one of the first benefits of bhakti yoga. Only through true bhakti can the yogī achieve and maintain the inner state of Satchidānanda. It is only the true bhaktar who can sustain living with God and the Gods unreservedly and begin to internalize his devotion into deeper meditations. One cannot internalize devotion until it has been truly externalized. Here is an example to explain the process of the internalization of devotion. A devotee resents something said to him by another devotee and flares up in anger. The two devotees part, but the anger remains in the form of burning resentment. The emotion of anger has been internalized, but may later be unleashed on someone else.

Grace of The Gods

When you worship the God in the temple through pūjā and ceremony, you are bringing that Divinity out of the microcosm and into this macrocosm. You supply the energy through your worship and your devotion, through your thought forms, and even your physical aura. The pujārī purifies and magnetizes the stone image for this to take place. The Gods and the devas are also magnetizing the stone image with their energy, and finally the moment is ready and they can come out of the microcosm into this macrocosm and bless the people. You observe that they stayed only for an instant, but to them it was a longer time. The time sense in the inner worlds is different.

If you want to get acquainted with the Gods, first get to know Lord Gaṇeśa. Take a picture and look at it. Put a picture of Lord Gaṇeśa in your car or in your kitchen. Get acquainted through sight. Then come to know Him through sound by chanting His names and hymns. This is how you get acquainted with your personal Deity. You will get to know Him just as you know your best friend, but in a more intimate way, for Gaṇeśa is within you and there ahead of you to guide your soul’s evolution. As you get acquainted with Him, Gaṇeśa then knows that you’re coming up on the spinal climb of the kuṇḍalinī. He will work with you and work out your karma. Your whole life will begin to smooth out. Religion is the connection between the three worlds, and temple worship is how you can get your personal connection with the inner worlds. You never really lose connection with the inner worlds, but if you are not conscious of that connection, then it appears that you have.

The Gods of Hinduism create, preserve and protect mankind. It is through their sanction that all things continue, and through their will that they cease. It is through their grace that all good things happen, and all things that happen are for the good. Now, you may wonder why one would put himself under this divine authority so willingly, thus losing his semblance of freedom. But does one not willingly put himself in total harmony with those whom he loves? Of course he does. And loving these great souls comes so naturally. Their timeless wisdom, their vast intelligence, their thoroughly benign natures, their ceaseless concern for the problems and well-being of devotees, and their power and sheer godly brilliance—all these inspire our love.

Microcosm, Macrocosm

The mind of man—and by that I mean his entire mental, emotional and spiritual structure—exists within the microcosm, which exists within the macrocosm that we can see and touch and that we call the physical universe. The Gods also live within the microcosm. The microcosm is within this macrocosm and, then again, within that microcosm is another dimension of space, another macrocosm. Similarly, you can look into a drop of water through the microscope and see a new dimension of space in which myriads of tiny creatures are experiencing a total existence. Those minute living things are in the microcosm; from where they stand they see it as a macrocosm. While you might say there is only one millionth of an inch between each of those little organisms swimming in the drop of water, to them it may seem like fifty yards. There are tens of thousands within that single drop, and yet they are not at all crowded, for it is a different dimension of space. This is how the microcosm can have an even bigger macrocosm than this one within it.

That bigger macrocosm is the Third World, the Śivaloka, where all the Gods and Mahādevas reside. It is within you, but it is ethereal, which means it is nonphysical. Your mind is in the microcosm. That is how it does all the things that it does. You can take your mind completely around the world in an instant, or across the galaxy. Right now we can take our minds to a star that is 680 million light years away from Earth. We can think about that star and see it in our mind. Time is not involved; nor is space. Thought is there instantly. The Gods are also in the microcosm, and in the macrocosm within the microcosm. From their view, all that they do for you, to help you work out a problem, even if they work on it for days of their time, happens faster than instantly. Since your mind, too, exists within the microcosm, the change takes place instantaneously. It then takes a day or two for the effects of that change to be felt in the macrocosm. Deep within your mind, in the microcosm, the problem vanished the instant you stood before the God in the temple. It takes you a few days, or at least a few hours, to catch up to the inner event and see the results in physical form.

The Potency Of Tradition

This is one of the reasons that religious tradition is very, very important. Modern existential thought tells us that we can do anything we want to; we don’t have to follow tradition. Out of such a belief comes a great sense of loneliness, a schism between the individual and all his ancestors, all the generations that preceded him on this planet. Out of such a belief comes the breaking up of culture, society, religion and families.

Tradition allows you to go through life’s experiences in a controlled way, rather than just throwing yourself into life and upon life without forethought and preparation. When you respect tradition, you call upon the collective wisdom of tens of thousands of years of experience. When you follow tradition, you share the solutions of untold problems, solved once perhaps before recorded history began in order that future generations might avoid them. Tradition is wisdom of the past inherited by the men and women in the present.

Our religion has a vast tradition, and not everyone can or does follow the entirety of it. There is the greatest freedom within Hinduism. You can choose to not follow tradition, but tradition is there to be followed when you choose to do so. Of course, we can take the path of trial and error, testing every single precept before adopting any. That is a tedious path which leads slowly to the eventual goal. By depending on our Gods, on our forefathers, on our religious ancestors, we move more swiftly along the spiritual path. In the early stages we tend toward untraditional ways. That is natural. Experience later shows us another way, and we begin to become traditionalists. This maturation comes to all souls over a series of births as they learn to perfect the intricate patterns of Hindu culture and religion.

There are certain traditions that can be broken up, that are lost and forgotten, covered over by the sands of time because they are traditions that men put in motion. Some traditions set in motion by people to solve certain problems at certain times have no relationship to our circumstances and in our times.

The Hindu tradition is initiated and administrated from the inner worlds, from the Devaloka. The Deities are the source of most tradition. They ordain the proper way to chant and the mantras to be used. They establish the language, the music, the dance, the systems of worship. Following the Hindu traditions better and better over the years attunes your mind to the great, positive mind flow of over one billion people on our planet.

Ours are the world’s most ancient traditions. They are the most profound, based on an esoteric understanding of man and his purpose in life. Tradition guides experiences in life. It is a protective mind structure. Any experience that you have to go through is gently guided by this great mind structure. The old ways are world patterns that have come down through thousands upon thousands of years, which you have, in previous lives, lived through and known.

Oneness with Divine Law

Because it is relatively free from mistaken doctrines, the Hindu approach to life—and the Hindu approach to time and the Hindu approach to worry, and the Hindu approach to the subconscious mind—is very different from the Western approach. The Hindu knows that he is evolving through a succession of lives on the planet, and he is not in a hurry. The devout Hindu accumulates little karma, because his subconscious is constantly being brought current by the worship of the Gods. Thus, karma is controlled. The Hindu looks at religion as the most joyous expression life can offer. The Hindu considers all of mankind his brothers and sisters, all created by the same Creator, all destined to the same attainment.

When he visits the temple, he is seeking to understand the minds of the Gods, seeking their blessings and their guidance. He stands before the Deity in humble awe of the grandeur of a world he can only partially conceive. He inwardly tries to sense the Deity. If he is even slightly clairvoyant, he may see the Deity overshadow the image within the sanctum. At first he may see the image appear to move, thinking it his own imagination. He may observe the expression on the Deity change from day to day and from hour to hour. He may become aware of the Deity’s influence in his life and awaken a love for the Gods whom he once only vaguely thought were plausible.

The Hindu is not an existentialist. He does not believe that God is unknowable. He does not believe in the dismal fate of mankind alone in the universe, with only himself to depend upon. The Hindu believes that he is born with his destiny, and the patterns are set. He blends his will with the will of his religious community and with the will of the Gods in the temple, because he doesn’t have the concept of a free will that is answerable to neither man nor God.

Belief is a pattern placed within the mind for a particular purpose, so that awareness will flow through that particular pattern for the rest of the person’s life. Generally, the pattern is put into the mind of a child before he is thinking for himself, or your friends or family or teachers will put beliefs in your mind. You will say, “Yes, I believe that,” without actually thinking it out for yourself. It is from our beliefs that our attitudes arise. Your individual awareness, your ability to be aware, has no way of functioning unless there are patterns within the mind for the prāṇas to flow through and around. You have to have a mind to work through.

First there are beliefs, and then attitudes. In the Hindu home and culture, beliefs and attitudes are taught very carefully and systematically, with love and attention, so that the individual becomes a productive member of the community even before leaving home. Those first mind impressions are important, and if they are correct and not fraught with misconceptions, they will properly guide the person through life with a minimum of mental and emotional problems. The person will correct himself or herself rather than having to be corrected by society.

Karma and Consciousness

The Hindu does not have to die to have a final judgment or to enter into heaven, for heaven is a state of mind and being fully existent in every human being this very moment. There are people walking on this Earth today who are living in heaven, and there are those who are living in hellish states as well. All that the Hindu has to do is go to the temple. As soon as he goes to the temple, to a pūjā, he is contacting the divine forces. During the pūjā, he is totally judged by the Deity. All of his karma is brought current and he goes away feeling good. Or he might go away feeling guilty. That is good, too, because then he performs penance, prāyaśchitta, and resolves unseemly karma quickly.

It might be said that every day that you go to the temple is judgment day. Isn’t it a wonderful thing that in our religion you can either go to heaven or hell on a daily basis, and the next day get out of hell through performing penance and ascend to heaven? The Hindu sees these as states existing in the here and now, not in some futuristic and static other-worldly existence. There are certainly inner, celestial realms, but like this physical universe, they are not the permanent abode of the soul, which is in transit, so to speak, on its way to merger with Śiva.

It is not necessary for the Hindu to wait until the end of life to become aware of the results of this particular life. Because he knows this and does not wait for death for the resolution of the results of his accumulated actions and reactions in life, his evolution is exceedingly fast. He lives perhaps several lives within the boundaries of a single lifetime, changing and then changing again. If he errs, he does not worry inordinately. He merely corrects himself and moves on in the progressive stream of human evolution. He is aware of the frailties of being human, but he is not burdened by his sins or condemning himself for actions long past. To him, all actions are the work of the Gods. His life is never static, never awaiting a judgment day; whereas the Western religionist who believes there is an ultimate reckoning after this one life is spent is piling up everything that he has done, good and bad, adding it to a medley in his mind and waiting for the Grim Reaper to come along and usher in the Day of Judgment.

Hinduism is such a joyous religion, freed of all the mental encumbrances that are prevalent in the various Western faiths. It is freed of the notion of a vengeful God. It is freed of the notion of eternal suffering. It is freed from the notion of original sin. It is freed from the notion of a single spiritual path, a One Way. It is freed from the notion of a Second Coming. Why, I think some of the devas in this temple are on their, let me see,… 8,450,000th coming now! They come every time you ring the bell. You don’t have to wait 2,000 years for the Gods to come. Every time you ring the bell, the Gods and devas come, and you can be and are blessed by their darshan. They are omniscient and omnipresent, simultaneously there in every temple on the planet as the bell is rung. That is the mystery and the power of these great Gods who exist within the microcosm.