Category: Merging With Siva

From Caterpillar To Butterfly

To all these devotees, in their different stages of spiritual evolution, Lord Śiva is the Supreme God. To the first, He is the Primal Soul, the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer of existence. To the second He is the Primal Soul as well as Pure Consciousness, the substratum of existence, the divine energy coursing through and animating every atom within the microcosm and the macrocosm. To the third He is the manifest Primal Soul and Pure Consciousness and the unmanifest Absolute, Paraśiva, that transcends form itself. These three perspectives are not exclusive of one another, but encompass one another as the lotus of the mind opens to an ever widening understanding of God. Each is true according to where the devotee is on the path.

This Eternal Path is divided naturally into four separate categories. The Bhagavad Gītā—the popular book which you all know from your studies in Vedānta and which has made Hindu philosophy well known in America—defines these as four separate nonprogressive paths, called karma yoga, bhakti yoga, rāja yoga and jñāna yoga. In Āgamic scripture these are defined a little differently and are considered to be four stages of a progressive path, termed charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna. These are all Sanskrit terms. According to the Āgamic tradition, these four categories are the natural sequence of the soul’s evolutionary process, much like the development of a butterfly from egg to larva, from larva to caterpillar, from caterpillar to pupa, and then the final metamorphosis from pupa to butterfly. Every butterfly, without exception, will follow this pattern of development, and every soul will mature through charyā to kriyā, through kriyā to yoga and into jñāna. Charyā, or karma yoga, may be simply defined as service. Kriyā, or bhakti yoga, is devotion. Yoga, or rāja yoga, is meditation, and jñāna is the state of wisdom reached toward the end of the path as the result of God Realization and the subsequent enlivened kuṇḍa­linī and un­fold­ment of the cha­kras through the practices of yoga. The soul does not move quickly from one stage to another. It is a deliberate process, and within each stage there exist vast libraries of knowledge containing the sum of thousands of years of teachings unraveling that particular experiential vista.

The evolution of the soul through the stage of charyā, or service, may itself take many, many lives. We see people every day who are working to be of service, to be more efficient, to be more useful to others. They are not necessarily inclined toward devotion, yet they may be deeply concerned with humanitarian programs, with selflessly helping their fellow man. An entire life may be spent in charyā, and the next life and the next. It is a slow process, with its own timing. Not every stage of experience can be accepted at once.

The path of charyā begins with the avoidance of wrongful action, and can be likened to the early training of a child in which he is told, “Don’t do this. Do this instead. Don’t behave in that way. This is the proper behavior.” In early life, a child learns what is right by being told what not to do. In spiritual life, too, we have these avoidances, these restraints. The seeker is advised to avoid over-eating, criticism of others, anger, hatred, envy and deceit. This gives him guidelines that stabilize him in the beginning, controlling the instinctive mind. These inner reins help him to know what is right, help him to control his karma and educate his intellect by laying a foundation of quiet within the instinctive mind, a foundation upon which the intellect may build a knowledgeable structure.

Charyā is the state of overcoming basic instinctive patterns and learning to work for the sake of work rather than the fruits of our labor. It is the simple fulfillment of right action and the first step on the spiritual path in our religion. Our duty to our parents, to our community, to the wife and children, to the temple in the town or village—all this must be fulfilled for charyā to be perfected. One goes to the temple at this stage of un­fold­ment because it is expected of him. He goes there not to practice yoga, not to evolve a personal relationship with the Deity, but because he must. It is his duty. His instinctive mind at this stage of his evolution is so strong that it must be governed firmly by external laws, external forces. He either obeys or suffers the consequences of disobedience. It is his fear of the consequences that motivates him more than anything else. Certainly he may feel guilty or fearful when he approaches the temple, for he is aware of his own transgressions and omissions. But little by little he gains confidence and understanding. His conscience begins to take the place of outer sanctions and gradually becomes his guideline. Whereas before he never felt guilty even for his worst transgressions, now he begins to feel remorse for misdeeds. Tendencies toward selfishness lose their hold on the devotee as he strives to become the perfect servant to God and mankind.

The Process Of Evolution

When a beginning devotee comes to the temple to worship Śiva, he sees Śiva as a man, a person, not unlike himself, yet more than a man, for He is a God, the God of Gods, so powerful, so aware and complete within Himself that He is the center of endless universes. In coming to worship Śiva, this devotee prostrates himself before the Deity just as if he were in the presence of the grandest potentate or majesty imaginable. Śiva is that to him. We know how wonderful it can be to approach a distinguished and honored personage. It makes us feel special. It brings out the best within us. The same thing happens to this man. He feels himself in the presence of the Supreme Lord, and he brings the best of himself to the temple.

If he has a problem, if something is not going well in his family or in his business, he will come to the temple with special offerings. The priest takes that offering into the inner sanctum for the pūjā. During the pūjā it is blessed and then some of it is returned to the worshiper to take back to his home, carrying the vibration of the temple into his everyday life. During pūjā he will concentrate his efforts on opening himself to the divine influence of Lord Śiva. And as he leaves the temple, he will look for a break in the problem, for a new perspective to arise as a result of his worship in the temple. He will look for some telling signs from his environment—the way the lizard chirps, how many crows come down, and even what kind of people walk by his house. Perhaps the solution to his problem is simply a new way of seeing it, a different perspective that gives him the insight to handle the matter, or there may be a change in his external circumstances.

As this man worships, he grows more and more devoted, becomes capable of a profound understanding of the rituals and practices of his early saṁskāras. From the practice of putting holy ash on his forehead and the feeling that goes through his nervous system whenever he does that, he begins to discover sound reasons for doing it, reasons he can confidently tell his children. His worship leads him little by little into new realms of consciousness.

Another man, more refined and awakened, may have worshiped during the exact same pūjā. This devotee came to worship the same Deity, but to him it was not only an ethereal being external to himself. He perceived it also as an essence pervading the universe, a oneness of pure consciousness flowing through all form, and he worshiped that Sat­chid­ānanda in the sanctum and equally within himself. As the energies of the pūjā reached their crescendo, he could feel that pure essence of consciousness as himself. After the pūjā, he went to a secluded corner of the temple, there to meditate, to bask in the kuṇḍa­linī energy awakened in him through his temple worship until he knew himself as one with that vast sea of pure life energy and light. He went home feeling peaceful and calm and just at one with everyone and everything that came along in his life. He has no awareness of time and just lives fully in the intensity of the moment. When he applies holy ash at the temple or in his shrine room at home before he sits down to meditate, he sees it as the ash of those forces which hold him in individual consciousness—the forces of karma and ego and desire. He applies the ash so that it makes three distinct lines across his forehead. They are lines to impress him with the need to keep these three forces subdued in his life.

This man lives in tune with the worship of Lord Śiva and the dar­shan he receives, and opens up within himself from that worship. Everything in his life flows smoothly and harmoniously. He is in touch with a divine voice within himself and he follows it as his own will. His life is simple. And he feels himself complete. Neither fretting over the past nor worrying about the future, he lives totally in the present. His evolution is steady and graceful. He grows greater in his capacity to hold those moments of dar­shan he feels until he carries that dar­shan steadily through every aspect of his life. That is his only experience. He is a witness to what goes on around him—doing it perfectly but detached from the doing. He sees light within his head when he meditates. And that grows until he knows that the light is more real than anything he considers himself. That way his un­fold­ment continues. He comes to be purer and purer, more and more aware of the real.

A third man, living under strict vows and the guidance of his sat­guru, having long ago perfected the harmony and discipline that allowed him to see himself as the Pure Consciousness within all beings, is immersed within states of contemplation, whether in a mountain cave or before a temple sanctum. His goal is to find the source of that energy, and the source of that source, and the source of that, until he realizes That, Paraśiva, the Absolute, beyond all form. He experiences himself and Śiva as one.

Impetuous, Impatient

The final goal of human life is realization and liberation—realization of the Absolute, Unmanifest, Paraśiva, Nirguṇa Brahman, and liberation from birth. This realization cannot be brought about solely by an effort of the mind, by any discipline or method. Sādhana and tapas and bhakti are necessary for purifying the mind and body in preparation for God Realization, but it is by the grace of the satguru that it is attained.

The North American Hindu—and in these words we include the Indian Hindu who lives in America, whether in the first generation, the second, the third or the fourth—often wants to begin at the end of the path rather than at the beginning. There is a distinct lack of patience on this side of the planet. Our desire, our lack of knowledge which breeds undue desire, impels us beyond our abilities and before our time. We want everything right now. We are impatient and perhaps unwilling to wait for the natural fulfillment of desire, for the natural unfoldment of the soul. We seek to force it, to strive for greater attainments than we are prepared to sustain. We want illumination, and we want it now. But results cannot be obtained unless we have the patience to begin at the beginning and to follow through systematically. We must take one step and then another. There are no shortcuts to enlightenment, but there are detours. Impatience with the natural process is one of them.

If you find a green melon in an open field, will it help to expose it to more sun? To more heat? Will it ripen faster and taste sweeter? No, it will not. It ripens from the inside out. The process cannot be forced. The melon will grow ripe without intervention. Similarly, the soul will mature in its time. I am not saying that you should not strive, should not make even great inner efforts. I am saying that impatient striving, the kind of striving that puts aside all common sense and says “I am going to get realization no matter what” is itself an obstacle to that realization which is not a something to get. Hindus in the West have much to learn from Hindus in the East when it comes to contentment with their karma and dharma. We must work to perfect an inner serenity that can accept spending a lifetime or several lifetimes in search of Truth, that can accept that some of us are by our nature and unfoldment better suited to service and devotion, and others to yoga and the various sādhanas. This is a far more enlightened perspective than the Western notion which subtly maintains that there is but a single life in which all the final goals must be reached.

The eternal path, the Sanātana Dharma, has been well charted by the great illumined minds, developed minds, spiritually unfolded minds, realized minds on this planet. No one can skip, avoid, evade or abstain from any part of that path. As Euclid could find for his impatient crowned pupil no special “royal road” to geometry or philosophy, so there is no privileged “royal road” to spiritual illumination. Similarly, a marathon runner cannot begin the race twenty miles from the starting point. A mountain climber cannot refuse to climb the lower, perhaps less challenging, cliffs. The natural laws known to all men do not allow it. The natural law, known to himself, his own conscience, does not allow it. It is the same on the spiritual path.

The eternal spiritual path, the way of God, is broad. It accepts all and rejects none. No matter where a seeker is in his inner development, the eternal path embraces and encourages him. If he is a simple man, the path for him is simple, unsophisticated, answering the needs of his everyday life, yet opening him to more and more subtle ways of worship and living. If he is an advanced soul, a mature soul, he will find within Hinduism the San Mārga, the pure path to the Absolute.

Wisdom of The Ages

Religion as it is known today is an offshoot of various ethnic groups that gathered together in the twilight of human history and forged systems of law, worship, culture and belief. The unique circumstances of geography, language, communications and race isolated one group from another, and differences were born and preserved: differences of belief and custom. As these small communities varied, so did the systems which satisfied each one. From their inception they absorbed the singular thought patterns postulated by their culture and their leaders, and these distinctions were perpetuated from father to son, from guru to disciple, from one generation to the next. The leader was the shaman, the priest, the āchārya, the philosopher-king. He was well versed in religious matters among them and naturally became the authority, the tribal priest. Religion in the early days was tribal, for man’s early experience was tribal. Being tribal, religion was political. The political character has been preserved, as we find it today, in the world’s many religions, which are, for the most part, the common beliefs of the various races and/or nations on the Earth.

Five, ten thousand years ago in the Himalayas and across to the Indus Valley, ancient ṛishis and sages studied and meditated upon the eternal truths passed down to them and in conclaves jointly concurred as to the results of their personal findings on the inward path. Following an already ancient tradition, they were sent on missions—to Kashmir, China, Greece, Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia, South India, Southeast Asia and to every traversable part of the world—with the same message, digested and concise, given out with the power and force of their personal realizations of the final conclusions.

Today I am going to speak about Hinduism and the conclusions drawn by its early sages and saints as to the orderly evolution of man’s soul and the ultimate spiritual goal of that evolution, the culmination of the countless accumulated passages of the soul on its journey to Truth. The ancient ones, the ṛishis and sages who formulated these final conclusions, recorded them as scriptures which still exist today. They were not interested in preserving a sectarian view of religion. Rather, they laid down their conclusions for all mankind. They had realized God within themselves, and from that inner realization they spoke out with boundless humility and undeniable authority. These teachings were recorded in the early Vedas. They blossomed in the Upanishads. They were detailed in the Āgamas. They came to be known as the Sanātana Dharma, the Eternal Path.

According to ancient Hinduism, all is Śiva, all is God. God is both immanent and transcendent, both saguṇa and nirguṇa, with and without form. There is but one God. He manifests variously as the formless and Absolute Reality, as the rarefied form of Pure Consciousness, Satchidānanda, Pure Energy or Light flowing through all existence, and as the personal Lord and Creator, the Primal Soul. As the Immanent Lord, Śiva created the soul, and the world of form and experience, that it might evolve toward and merge with the Absolute.

The Śvetāśvatara Upanishad (2.16; 3.1-2 upp, p. 121) speaks of God as both immanent and transcendent, and I would like to quote for you from it. “He is the one God, present in the North, the East, the South and the West. He is the Creator. He enters into all wombs. He alone is now born as all beings, and he alone is to be born as all beings in the future. He is within all persons as the Inner Self, facing in all directions. The One Absolute, impersonal Existence, together with His inscrutable māyā, appears as the Divine Lord, the personal God, endowed with manifold glories. By His Divine power He holds dominion over all the worlds. At the periods of Creation and Dissolution of the universe, He alone exists. Those who realize Him become immortal. The Lord is One without a second. Within man He dwells, and within all other beings. He projects the universe, maintains it, and withdraws it into Himself.” Elsewhere the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad (3.8-9 ve, p. 734) speaks of God as the Primal Soul, “I have come to know that mighty Person, golden like the sun, beyond all darkness. By knowing Him, a man transcends death; there is no other path for reaching that goal. Higher than Him is nothing whatever; than Him nothing smaller, than Him nothing greater. He stands like a tree rooted in heaven, the One, the Person, filling this whole world.” And the Muṇḍaka Upanishad (2.1.2 mc, p. 57) speaks of God as the unmanifest, Nirguṇa Brahman: “Self-resplendent, formless, unoriginated and pure, that all-pervading Being is both within and without, anterior both to life and mind. He transcends even the transcendent, unmanifest, causal state of the universe.

Beyond Liberation

In the later stages of evolution, physical life can be so joyous that one might ask, “Why wish for liberation?” But not wanting to be reborn is not the goal. Obtaining the stability of mind and spirit so that you can function even on the physical plane better, without the necessity of having to do so, is a better goal. After mukti, liberation, one still has responsibilities to complete certain karmic patterns. Even the sapta ṛishis, seven sages, have their offices to perform in guiding the Sanātana Dharma, though they do not have to be reborn in a physical body to do their job. Mukti does not call an end to intelligence, does not call an end to duty. Mukti calls an end to the necessity for a physical birth. It’s like death—you don’t want to die, but you do anyway. When on the inner plane, you don’t want to be reborn, but you are anyway. You have to do these things. The ideal is to live out one’s Earthly life to its full extent, not to shorten it in any way, for during the elderly years, after ninety and the twenty or thirty years thereafter, the sañchita karmas in the great vault which are waiting to come up in another life begin to unfold to be lived through and resolved in this one. By no means should suicide ever be considered, for it cuts short all karmic developments of the current life and may require additional births to work through the lowest possible experiences still held in the great sañchita vault. Many incarnations may elapse after an untimely self-inflicted death before the soul returns back to the same evolutionary point at which the suicide was committed. Suicide is no escape. It only prolongs the journey.

The goal is realization of Paraśiva as the ultimate personal attainment. This is nirvikalpa samādhi. Savikalpa is the by-product of this. Even having had this experience, if the sādhana and tapas and discipline are not maintained, mukti, liberation, will not be the product of effort. The knowledge of Paraśiva, in its total impact, must impact every area of mind, every nook and cranny of the mind. Therefore, the goal is realization; and liberation from rebirth is the by-product of that essential goal. If a soul becomes realized but still has the desire to come back to finish something, he will come back partially enlightened. Hinduism will be an open book to him, and he will understand all of the basic truths and be able to explain it all naturally. He will find his enlightenment later in life and go on, having experienced what he had to.

There is a choice one makes upon becoming illumined and understanding the whole process—whether to be a bodhisattva or an arahat, an upadeśī or a nirvāṇī. This is based on a belief and an attitude in the heart and soul. A nirvāṇī says, “I’ll move on and wait for everyone to catch up with me.” An upadeśī says, “I’ll help everyone on the path.” Occasionally an upadeśī has tasks to fulfill, but they are self-assigned, for this is a personal choice. Likewise, a nirvāṇī will work and make a great attainment. Then he will spin out his own karmas and make his transition. The upadeśī will make his attainment and then work with his own karmas slowly while helping others along the path. Who is to say which is the best choice? It’s a totally individual matter. I personally am an upadeśī. No detail is too small for me to handle. A nirvāṇī would not take that attitude.

In the inner worlds, one who has transcended the need for a physical birth is there like he is here. He has a twenty-four-hour consciousness. He does not have to eat unless he wants to, and he doesn’t have to sleep, so he has a total continuity of consciousness. He has Paraśiva at will and is all-pervasive all of the time. He does have duties. He does relate to brother souls in the same stratum, and he does evolve, continuing in evolution from chakra to chakra to chakra, for there are chakras, or nāḍīs, above the sahasrāra for which he does not need a physical body. This, again, is for the upadeśī. The nirvāṇī would not turn back, but proceed onward. The first realization of Paraśiva, the impact of the aftermath, allows you the decision to choose between the dispassion of the nirvāṇī and the compassion of the upadeśī.

The Śaiva Siddhānta perspective is that Śiva’s wonderful universe of form is perfect at every point of time, complete and totally just, and every soul, in all stages of evolution, is an intrinsic part of it, even Śiva Himself. The true mukti of everyone and of the universe itself would be at mahāpralaya; but meanwhile, mukti is defined in our vocabulary as freedom from rebirth in a physical body. But many other bodies drop off, too. There are more intelligences to come into, great creations of form. Upon death, even a Self-Realized soul does not necessarily “disappear” into nothingness or Allness. The absolute goal, Paraśiva—timeless, formless and causeless—is a release, but not an end. There is, of course, an end, which we call viśvagrāsa. This is total merger, a union with That from which the soul never returns—jīva became Śiva. So, whatever inner body the jīvanmukta is functioning in, in the thereafter, he has no need for Self Realization, the seal has already been broken and never mends. So, claiming “I am That, I am”—That being the Absolute, Paraśiva—is the total stabilizing one-ment of all the māyās of creation, preservation and destruction of the individual mind, as well as the mind of reality it goes through.

Death Rites And Rituals

A lot of people who are about to die do not believe in life after death, so they remain hovering over their physical body when it is lifeless. Astral-plane helpers have to come and “wake them up” and tell them that their physical body is dead and explain that they are all right and are alive in their astral body. It is often not an easy process getting them readjusted.

Is there really a Lord Yama, a Lord of Death, devotees often wonder? The answer is yes, not only He, but there are a lot of Lord Yamas, a wide group of well-trained helpers. These tireless inner-plane attendants work, as part of the Yama group, with the doctors and nurses who are involved with terminal cases, those who assist in the transition process, those who take care of disposing of bodies. These are the Yama helpers in the physical world. Executioners, murderers and terrorists are a less noble part of the Yama group. Anyone, other than family and close friends and religious helpers, who is involved in the transitional process two weeks before and after death is part of the Yama group, including ambulance drivers, hospice staff, nurses, morticians, medics, autopsy staff, insurance agents, grave diggers, wood cutters who prepare fuel for funeral pyres, body baggers and coffin makers. Medical doctors and nurses who secretly err in their practice, after dying, join Lord Yama’s recruits in the inner world as prāyaschitta to mitigate the karma they created.

I am speaking especially about modern doctors who operate too freely, even when sometimes it may not be necessary. It is not uncommon that the patient dies on the operating table due to a known mistake on the surgeon’s part. Yet, somehow or other, physicians are regarded by the public as monarchs, Gods, above the law. But the karma relating to manslaughter nevertheless is constant and unfailingly takes effect in this life or another. A common civilian, or the same doctor, running down a pedestrian would naturally be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, fined and maybe jailed. But the secret manslaughters are never admitted, never accounted for; no one is held accountable—except that the unrelenting law of karma reigns as supreme judge and jury.

There is an entire industry that lives on the fact of death. If a doctor says, “Two weeks to live,” then the inner-plane Yamas are alerted and step in. Lord Yama is Lord Restraint, restraining life and getting it started again on the other side. Then the Yama workers, who are like nurses, say, “You are Catholic; you go to Rome. You are Jewish; you go to Jerusalem. You are Muslim; you go to Mecca. You are Hindu; you go to Varanasi,” and so forth. In the lower astral it’s all segregated. In the higher worlds it is all oneness.

In preparing the body for cremation, embalming should not be done. It is painful to the astral body to have the physical body cut or disturbed seriously within seventy-two hours after death. The soul can see and feel this, and it detains him from going on. As soon as you tamper with his physical body, he gets attached, becomes aware that he has two bodies, and this becomes a problem. Ideally, when you die, your physical body goes up in flames, and immediately you know it’s gone. You now know that the astral body is your body, and you can effortlessly release the physical body. But if you keep the old body around, then you keep the person around, and he is aware that he has two bodies. He becomes earthbound, tied into the Pretaloka, and confused.

Embalming preserves the physical vehicle. For a jīvanmukta, he might want to leave, but some people might want to keep him around for a while for their own benefit. The best way for him is to go off into the hills, to die in the forests where no one knows and none of these questions arise. More than many great sādhus have done this and do this to this day. For my satguru, Siva Yogaswami, they did the right thing by cremating him; they released him and did not try to tie him to the Earth. To come and go from the Śivaloka to the Pretaloka is his choice and his alone. To me, embalming or entombing is a divisive way to hold on to the holy man, and I feel it will draw him back into birth. True, in our scriptures it is recommended that the body of a perfectly liberated saint not be cremated but interred instead in a salt-filled crypt. This may be done so that devotees can continue to be served, but in our lineage it is not the way. In our tradition, the body of the departed is cremated within twenty-four hours. This purifies the physical elements and releases the deceased to the inner worlds. In contrast, the Egyptians wanted their Pharaoh to be born again as a king. They didn’t want a young soul to be their king. So all their preparations helped him to be born into the royal family. The Hawaiians did the same thing, royalty perpetuating royalty.