Lesson 32 – Merging with Śiva

Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Living Two-Thirds Within

Living two-thirds within oneself and one-third in the external world—how do we do it? As soon as we live within ourselves, we become conscious of all of our various secret thoughts, all of our various emotions, that we would just as soon be without. Therefore, we distract ourselves and endeavor to live two-thirds in the external world and only one-third within ourselves. As aspirants on the path, you have to live your life two-thirds within yourself. When you are conscious of the thoughts that you don’t want to think, the emotions that you don’t want to feel, go deep within where they don’t exist. Take awareness to the central source of energy, right within the spine itself. Feel that energy flowing through the body, moving the muscles, enlivening the cells. Then you are two-thirds within yourself, and the world looks bright and cheery all the time; the sun is always shining. Immediately, when we begin to identify totally with our thoughts as being reality, then we begin to make mistakes. We are living two-thirds in the external world.

How to strike the balance? Regulate the breath throughout the day. Keep the spine always straight. Always sit up straight. As soon as the spine is bent, awareness is externalized. We are living two-thirds in the external area of the mind and only one-third within. As soon as the spine is straight, our awareness is internalized. We are living two-thirds within and only one-third out.

What’s the biggest barrier? Fear. Afraid of our secret thoughts, afraid of our secret feelings. What’s the biggest escape from fear? Go to the center, where energy exists, the energy that moves the life through the body. The simplest way is move your spine back and forth. Feel the power that moves that spine. Feel the power that moves that spine back and forth. Feel that energy going out through the physical body. Open your eyes and look at the world again, and you will see it bright and shiny. You’re two-thirds in and one-third out in awareness. You’re balanced. “Be renewed by a change of your mind.” Be renewed by releasing awareness from one area of the vast universe of the mind, drawing it back into its source and releasing it again, sending it to another of the vast areas of the mind. 

Lesson 31 – Merging with Śiva

Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Mechanics Of Attachment

Have you ever had people come to you and tell you all of their problems? What did they do? As a pure state of awareness, they came to you as a pure state of awareness. You were not identified in the area of the mind that they are living in. So, they came to you, because they want to get out of the area of the mind that they’re living in. They’ve been living in it so long, they think they are that area of the mind, like somebody that has lived in a house so long and is so attached to it that they would rather die than move from the house. So then, they come to you and start telling all the problems. First they start with the little ones, and then they start with the big ones, and all their complaints, heartaches and everything that that area of the mind involves. Now, you can do one of two things. You can gently talk with them and bring them out of that area of the mind into your area of the mind, or they can move your awareness right into that area of the mind, too. And when they go away, you are feeling terrible. You’re feeling just awful.

You’ve gone to a movie. The movie screen is just a screen. The film is just film. And the light is just light. And yet the combination of the three can move your awareness into areas of the mind that can upset your nerve system, make you cry, make you laugh, make you have bad dreams for a week, change your whole, entire perspective of life—the combination of these three physical elements can do this, if it can attract your attention.

Now, if we are sitting in a movie, and we are realizing that we are going through moods and emotions but we are not the moods and emotions that we are going through—all we are doing is being entertained by our senses—then that’s the mystic. He is enjoying life and what life has to offer. He is even remembering in past lives when he had similar experiences that the players are portraying on the screen, and he has empathy with them. He is living a full and a vibrant life, and yet when he walks out of the movie house, or walks away from the TV, he has forgotten the whole thing. He doesn’t carry it with him. His awareness is immediately right where he is currently. That’s the power of the great eternity of the moment.

Lesson 30 – Merging with Śiva

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami intended to narrate all of his printed books, but only completed small portions of two books. This audio is a digital clone of his voice created from the recordings he made in the late 1990s.

Claim the Being Of Yourself

We say, “I am sick,” and in the English language that means my body is sick, or I am aware of this body not being in a perfect state of health. The mystic knows he is not this body. He can even remember dropping off the body many, many different times, getting new bodies through the process of reincarnation. We are not what we are aware of. We are separate from that which we are aware of. We are only flowing through these areas of the mind. If we live in San Francisco, we are not San Francisco. If we live in unhappiness, we are not unhappiness. That’s only one of the cities of the mind. This is a great meditation. You can grasp this awakening in thirty seconds. You can grasp this awakening in thirty hours, or thirty minutes. You can grasp this awakening and have it come to you vibrantly in thirty weeks, thirty months, or thirty years or thirty lifetimes. It just depends upon your willpower.

As soon as we can understand awareness detached from that which it is aware of, we have a vibrant energy, a tremendous drive. A tremendous willpower is released from within us, and we live with the feeling that we can do anything that we want to do, almost as quickly as we want to do it. We want things to happen now, for we vividly see the area where they already exist within the force fields of the mind itself.

How do we live our life from this point? We begin to apply this philosophy in every department of our life. There are some habit patterns in our subconscious mind that have not caught up with this new perspective as yet, and you’ll be running up against them. As soon as you find awareness totally identified with a subconscious area that has become conscious, immediately turn inward, detach awareness from that which it is aware of and just be pure energy.

You can expect a beautiful life, a beautiful relationship with the being of yourself. Claim the being of yourself as you. You have enough knowledge now. You don’t have to discover the being of yourself and keep looking for it. Just be the being of yourself and travel through the mind as the traveler travels around the globe. The wonderful story of awareness, I could go on and on talking about it, because it is so very basic and so very, very important. This then makes an infinite intelligence and everyone the same. Only, they are living in different areas of the mind, or different houses.

Lesson 29 – Merging with Śiva

Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Awareness, a Ball of Light

The average person who is not a mystic lives two-thirds in the external area of the mind and one-third within himself. The within of himself can be, and sometimes is, very foreboding. He doesn’t understand it. He is a little afraid of it and prefers to involve himself with external things. Possibly he’s had some inner experiences, some emotional unhappinesses, and he shuns anything that is inner. The mystic lives, and is taught to live, two-thirds within himself and only one-third in the external. In learning how to do this, the mystic is taught to become consciously conscious, or aware that he is aware. He learns to separate awareness from that which he is aware of. The person who is not a mystic, living two-thirds in the external mind, says, “I am happy,” meaning, “I am aware of a state of mind called happiness, and I am in that state, so that is me.” Or, “I am unhappy. Unhappiness is me.” The mystic living two-thirds within says to himself, “I am flowing through the area of the mind that’s always unhappy.” He doesn’t change; he is a pure state of awareness.

Visualize a little ball of light. We’ll call that man’s individual awareness, and that light is shining right out from his eyes, and this little ball of light is going through the mind. It’s going through the area of the mind that’s always unhappy. It’s going through the area of the mind that’s always dreaming, the area of the mind that’s delightfully happy, the area of the mind that’s in absolute bliss, the area of the mind that’s absolutely in jealousy all the time, the area that’s in fear all the time—many people live in this area of the mind; it’s quite crowded with lots of balls of light there. This ball of light flows through the area of the mind that’s in resentment. It’s like a churning ocean. It’s a delightful place to be in, especially if you’re a little ball. You get bounced all around. Then there’s the area of the mind that is completely peaceful and has always been peaceful. No mood or emotion has ever been in it to ruffle it, because that’s the peaceful area of the mind. The one who meditates seeks out this area to become aware in. Man’s individual awareness is just like this little ball of light, and it’s like a camera. It photographs. It registers. It understands. It is pure intelligence. Man knows where he is in the mind, but the first step in awakening on the path of enlightenment is to separate awareness from that which it is aware of.

Lesson 28 – Merging with Śiva

Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Śiva’s Perfect Universe

Slowly, slowly, by performing Gaṅgā Sā­dha­na you will blend your external consciousness with our most perfect universal consciousness. While sitting by the river, close enough to touch the water, on a rock or tree limb, you are truly uninvolved with everything but yourself. You are now in tune with nature itself. Earth is there. Water is there. Fire is there. Air is there. Ākāśa is there. All the five elements are there. They are outside of you to see and feel, as well as inside of you to see and feel. The goal is to release that part of your subconscious mind that doesn’t blend the within of you with that which is outside of you. You perform this blending by listening to the river murmur, “Aum Namaḥ Śivaya, Śivāya Namaḥ Aum,” the sounds of Śiva’s perfect universe.

Now the challenge. This will not be an easy task. The quiet of the noise of nature will release thought after thought from your subconscious mind. So, when each new thought arises—a mental argument or something which has not been settled in your past, an appointment missed or an image of a loved one—gather up the prāṇic energy of the thought and put its vibrations into a leaf. To do this, hold the leaf in your right hand and project your prāṇa into it along with the thought form that distracted you. Then release the leaf and with it the thought patterns into the river. Let the river take them away, while you listen to “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya, Śivāya Namaḥ Aum” of the river as it does. Each time this happens, thank the river by humbly offering a flower with the right hand into the river in appreciation of its having absorbed the worldly thought. To show appreciation is a quality of the soul, something not to be ignored, and, therefore, a vital part of this sā­dha­na.

Sā­dha­na is performing the same discipline over and over and over again. Just as we methodically exercise the physical body to build up its muscles, we perform spiritual disciplines over and over again to strengthen our spiritual, inner bodies. Perform Gaṅgā Sā­dha­na time and time again. You will rapidly advance. Remember, the outer river is symbolically representing the inner river of your own nerve system, life force and consciousness that flows through you night and day. So, even as you sit on this rock and look upon the water, in a mystical way, see it as your own super­con­scious energies, taking away these problems, worries, doubts, ill-conceived and unresolved experiences of the past. Flow with the river of life and merge in Śiva’s ocean of oneness.

Lesson 27 – Merging with Śiva

Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

Performing Gaṅgā Sādhana

Close your eyes and visualize a river flowing into the sea, and see yourself holding on to the bank of the river, and the river flowing on past you. Now let go of the bank of the river and flow down with the river and merge into the sea of life. Feel yourself, right at this instant, living in the here and now. Holding on to the river bank, we hold the consciousness of time and space. Holding on to the banks of the river of life is to recreate within you fear, worry, doubt, anxiety and nervousness. Detach yourself from the banks of the river and again be free. Love the banks as you pass, with a love born of understanding, and if you have no understanding of the bank, study your attachments until you do.

Learn to concentrate the mind so that you can study not from books, but from observation, which is the first awakening of the soul. Learn to study by practice. Learn to study by application. Become a student of life and live life fully, and as you merge into the sea of actinic life, you will realize that you are not your mind, your body or your emotions. You will realize that you are the complete master of your mind, your body and your emotions.

There is a sacred practice you should perform to keep flowing beautifully with the river of life. It will be a challenge to discipline yourself to set aside the time, but it will benefit you. You must sit by a rolling river and listen to the river saying “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya, Śivāya Namaḥ Aum,” as its water runs over the rocks. Listen closely to the water connecting to the rocks, and you will hear the sacred mantra of life, “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.” Relax into the sounds the river is chanting and try to be in tune with the perfect universe. The cosmos is perfect, you know. Its laws are divine, its timing flawless, its design unique.

While you are sitting alone by the side of the river being one with the perfect universe—the earth, the air, the fire, the water and the ākāśa, the mind—when a thought arises from your subconscious, something about your daily life, a problem or difficulty, pluck a leaf from a tree or bush, mentally put the problem into the leaf and place it into the river. The river will carry the leaf away along with the thought you placed into it. Then pluck a flower and humbly offer it into the river with both hands in loving appreciation for doing this great service for you. Perform this Gaṅgā Sā­dha­na each month, and you will advance on the spiritual path.