Lesson 220 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Costs Of Adultery

Now imagine a married woman working with men in a hospital or an engineering firm and a husband working as a computer programmer among women. Each is attracted to someone of the opposite sex, maybe because of karmas from a past life. Their emotional prāṇas move out of their bodies and connect with their workmates. Compatibility is established. Talking and laughing together become easy. When the “big happening” happens, as affairs so often do, the physical-mental-emotional-prāṇic exchange of energies forms an astral tube (nāḍī) which connects the two for a period of at least twelve years.

Through this nāḍī, the information conveyed is as subtle as: she sneezes and he coughs; he gets angry and she becomes pensive and sulks for no reason. Certainly no high-minded telepathic communication is happening as it maybe once did when the prāṇas were just forming a connection. Now, because they are psychically attached and pulling on each other in their secret affair, they become antagonistic toward each other. That’s why they say sexual intercourse outside wedlock ruins a relationship. They still have to work in the same office together and attend the same meetings, which were quite different when the flirting first began. Then when one, or both, turns a roving eye toward someone else, a feeling of jealousy comes up, and rejection. A good TV script, perhaps, but a disaster in real life.

Now let’s think of the adulterer’s wife, at home doing her daily chores, taking care of the children. How does she begin to feel? She becomes listless, uninspired, as he draws on her energies to feed the adulteress. The home becomes an empty place. She and the children are alone in a barracks, between walls that do not hold in love and compassion and kindness.

Indeed, adultery is one of the great wreckers of human relationships. Don’t dismiss it as irrelevant on the spiritual path, the path to liberation, or at least to getting a better birth in the next life. What is the healing when adultery has happened? It is necessary to perform some kind of penance that will sever the psychic tubes: maybe walking on fire or sleeping on a bed of nails for three days and nights, or performing kavadi with fifteen spears pierced through the flesh—three well-known public penances. One of Hinduism’s ancient lawbooks, the Manu Dharma Śāstra, prescribes intense fasting, which in modern times would be fifteen to thirty-one days, under professional care. In the absence of true reconciliation, the best resolution is to live with the spouse like brother and sister under vows of celibacy. Those who don’t do something to mitigate the kukarmas and break the astral ties of adultery will suffer through the lives of their children, who will follow the patterns that they secretly set.

Adultery can be stopped on the mental plane. In fact, if it is not stopped there, watch out. It can be stopped on the emotional plane. Husbands, beware of secretaries more beautiful than your wife. Wives, beware of employers who may be more exciting than your husband. Pornography adulterers, you can turn off that computer and stop the pornography on the mental plane.

Finally, beware of the siren, the professional seducer, who is there, always there, when the wife is incapacitated or when the husband is on a business trip. They appear in many forms. There is always a price to pay. They may break up the marriage. Children may lose their mother or father. Guilt supersedes and far outlasts all temporary pleasure. Fidelity and infidelity are part of the human experience. The choice is yours which part of the human experience you want to experience.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 220: JOYFULLY RELEASING THE DEPARTED
Knowing that the soul is deathless, Śiva’s devotees never suffer undue or prolonged sorrow for the departed, lest they bind these souls to Earth. They rejoice in the continuing journey of loved ones. Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 220 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s real voice

The Aura and Instinctive Mind

As we begin the study of the fourth aspect of man, let us hold in mind the first three: the physical body as the first aspect, the vital health body as the second aspect and the astral body as the third aspect. The fourth aspect is the instinctive mind and the human aura, the colorful spectrum that registers whatever state of mind the person passes through. The human aura is the reflection of specific evolution. But it registers most clearly the basic reactionary patterns of the instinctive mind.

Within the instinctive mind there are both aggressive and passive odic forces. Some of these are fear, anger, jealousy, deceit, pride, greed—and then there is that form of attachment sometimes called odic or magnetic love, as well as happiness and affection. These emotions are either aggressive or passive, depending upon the motivating factors involved. The motivating factors are desire, a lack of control of odic force, or a type of actinic, superconscious flow which motivates from within to the externals of human consciousness. When this actinic flow is in action, the more refined emotions of compassion, benevolence and joy are experienced. Basically, all of these qualities may be defined as being either odic or actinic. The actinic forces flow from the core of the soul out through the odic force field, and when the actinic forces become diminished, odic forces congeal and rush in to fill the gap.

Fear is passive odic force. Anger is aggressive odic force. The two basic colors of the odic aura are gray and red. Gray is the color of fear, which when it leads to depression or intense fear becomes black. Red is the aura’s registration of anger. In a suppressed state of the instinctive mind, when desire has not been met, the aura registers a reddish black to portray the emotion of lust.

Fear dominates the lives of many people, even when they have no reason for being afraid. It is a protective mechanism of the lower, instinctive nature inherent in every human being; animals, too. The fear of the darkness, for instance, was born in primitive man’s lack of a shelter. Long before he discovered the use of fire or even learned to live in caves, he trembled in the darkness when the sun went down each day, for he knew he was at the mercy of wild animals and other dangers of the night. Even today, the ability of men to fear endows them with a natural caution in the face of the unknown. The gray cast permeates the aura during protective investigation until it is proven that a condition of safety exists.

Today man still retains fear of the darkness. But now he surrounds himself with electric light, symbolizing the new golden age in which his actinic force has begun to penetrate through the instinctive mind, refining this mind just as the glow of electricity refines the vibration of the Earth at night. Among other forms of fear are fear of death, fear of poverty, fear of water and fear of high places.

Anger is also, like fear, an instinctive control, and at one time served its purpose. The onrush of anger served to protect man’s private interests in critical situations by injecting adrenaline into his blood and thus preparing him for defense. But as man evolves closer to his real, actinic being, he discovers that actinic love, understanding, compassion and wisdom are higher qualities than anger. Two more instinctive emotions that motivate the passive and aggressive odic forces into action are jealousy and deceit.

The actinic age is bursting forth upon this planet. Its signposts heralding the spiritual mind of man are portrayed in symbolic happenings upon the Earth, such as the electric light, atomic energy, probes into space, probes into the subconscious, probes into prior lives and dangerously expanding states of awareness stimulated by chemicals. All this and more show us that man has outgrown the lower, instinctive emotions such as jealousy, portrayed in the odic aura around and through the body in the color of dark green, and deceit, portrayed as green-gray.

Lesson 219 – Dancing with Śiva

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What Are the Ten Classical Restraints?

ŚLOKA 64
Hinduism’s ethical restraints are contained in ten simple precepts called yamas. They define the codes of conduct by which we harness our instinctive forces and cultivate the innate, pristine qualities of our soul. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
The yamas and niyamas are scriptural injunctions for all aspects of thought and behavior. They are advice and simple guidelines, not commandments. The ten yamas, defining the ideals of charyā, are: 1) ahiṁsā, “noninjury,” do not harm others by thought, word or deed; 2) satya, “truthfulness,” refrain from lying and betraying promises; 3) asteya, “nonstealing,” neither steal nor covet nor enter into debt; 4) brahmacharya, “divine conduct,” control lust by remaining celibate when single, leading to faithfulness in marriage; 5) kshamā, “patience,” restrain intolerance with people and impatience with circumstances; 6) dhṛiti, “steadfastness,” overcome nonperseverance, fear, indecision and changeableness; 7) dayā, “compassion,” conquer callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings; 8) ārjava, “honesty,” renounce deception and wrongdoing; 9) mitāhāra, “moderate appetite,” neither eat too much, nor consume meat, fish, fowl or eggs; 10) śaucha, “purity,” avoid impurity in body, mind and speech. The Vedas proclaim, “To them belongs yon stainless Brahma world in whom there is no crookedness and falsehood, nor trickery.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 219 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

The Psychic Ties of Intimacy

Adultery is in the news today, not only in national but also international scandals. Television plots give permission for “sneaking around.” It is not uncommon, and many don’t give it a thought, for husbands to visit “ladies of pleasure” and pay for their services during their wife’s monthly retreat or many months of pregnancy—and, of course, on business trips. Yes, those business trips!

The South Indian ethical masterpiece, Tirukural, advises, “Among those who stand outside virtue, there is no greater fool than he who stands with a lustful heart outside another’s gate. Hatred, sin, fear and disgrace—these four will never abandon one who commits adultery” (142, 146).

The adulteress has a karma to bear that affects many generations of her relatives and friends, for she is psychically connected to every man with whom she has had intercourse. A mystic could see a fog-like psychic tube connecting their astral bodies that will not disintegrate for many years. The adulteress may have many of these tubes, especially if she is a woman for hire. A man is connected in the same way to all women he has been with. It is through these psychic tubes, which are like the umbilical cord connecting a baby to its mother, that the energies flow, and the karmas as well—good, bad and mixed.

A husband and wife who were both virgins at marriage have only a singular psychic tube through which energies pass between them. If their relationship is pure and they are intellectually and emotionally compatible, they automatically control their karmas of dharma, artha, kāma and moksha. Their children are lovingly raised, because they are never entangled in family feuding. There is no fight involved, because no intruder has established a new psychic umbilical cord with either spouse, which would cause disruption between them and impending havoc to the children.

Once an astral-psychic tube is established between a man and a woman through sexual encounters, it becomes a telepathic channel, conveying thoughts, feelings and emotions. This is an important connection for married couples, tying them intimately together. Those who are married and stay faithful to their life companions know that it is possible to feel the spouse’s moods and emotions and even read his or her thoughts, all of which are conveyed through this psychic laser beam or subtle astral prāṇic channel. For those who have had sexual encounters with several of the opposite sex, the psychic connections become confusing. Small wonder they experience stress of which the cause eludes even the best psychiatrists. It would be like watching four, five or more TV programs at the same time, all day long and especially during the night.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 219: MEMORIAL RITES FOR THE DEPARTED
Family and friends of a deceased Śiva devotee hold amemorial on the thirty-first day after the transition and again one year later, cleaning the home and making food offerings to ancestors and to the departed. Aum.

Lesson 219 – Merging with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Life on the Astral Plane

Each night when you read your lesson in this book, realize that therein is your key to entry into the astral school of Himalayan Academy. Going to sleep thinking about the lesson you have been reading, try to wake up slowly in the morning and, with effort, recall what you have been doing during the night on the astral plane.

The astral world is a plane in space, just as the physical world, as we know it in the conscious mind, is a space plane. It is the particular rate of vibration which each of these worlds generates that determines the space plane it occupies. Looking out through the conscious mind, we perceive outer space. Looking into the subconscious mind, we perceive inner space. As the habit patterns of the subconscious mind control many of our conscious-mind happenings on the physical plane, so does the superconscious mind control many of the occurrences of the astral plane through the subconscious astral body. This has to do with the awakening of the subsuperconscious mind. The subsuperconscious mind becomes stronger and stronger, providing we exercise our intuition on the conscious-mind level.

Just as you choose your friends on the physical, conscious plane, so do you attract kindred beings to you in the astral world. By keeping our homes clean and peaceful, by keeping our bodies and clothing fresh and clean, the odic force becomes quite pure and enables us to be more actinically alive. This condition also keeps lower astral people away from us, so long as we do not ourselves enter into an instinctive, astrally odic vibration. The spiritual, actinic vibration keeps all lower astral influences away, just as doors, locks, windows and walls discourage unwanted entrance into buildings.

It is not advisable to admit lower astral entities if you are sensitive to this possibility, for doing so creates a double influx of odic force, whereas the striving of a yoga student is to become actinically superconscious and not to intensify the odic subconscious. Astral entities live in their own world on the astral plane. Possibly you enter this plane at night, too, but during the day we must attend to our conscious-mind activities and take care of our immediate programs, keeping the two worlds apart as distinctly as our sleeping state is separated from the state of being awake.

When the physical body dies, this automatically severs the actinodic silver cord that connects the astral and physical bodies. Then the process of reincarnation and rebirth eventually begins. The physical body remains on the physical plane as a conglomeration of magnetic forces and begins to dissolve into the forces of surrounding nature. The actinic life of the physical body and the vital health body travels up the silver cord as it dissolves and lends a tremendous charge to the astral body. This movement registers on the subconscious astral body all conscious-mind memory patterns of the life just lived, and the person becomes fully conscious on the astral plane.

This tremendous charge of odic and actinic force registering upon the astral body at the time of transition, or death, is what stimulates and gives the initial impulse to the process of reincarnation. This process is largely controlled by the activity of subconscious habit forces. Before the reincarnation cycle fully takes hold, however, the person just departed often quickly recreates the same states of consciousness, the same interests he was accustomed to on the physical plane, and he may go on as usual, meeting his family who visit him during their sleeping hours in their astral bodies. Although the astral body is still bound by the habit patterns of its physical life, it continues to wear away from the moment of transition, and odic force is continuously fed back to the physical plane in an effort to make contact again with family, friends or loved ones through the medium of memory and desire. Another physical body is created, and a reentry into the conscious world is made. The old astral body is dropped off, and the newly generated actinic forces give life to a new physical body and a new health body, along with a new astral body. The new astral body is the sum total of all preceding subconscious experience, and it may be quite mature during the time the physical body is only a child. The odic astral form that was left behind is called an astral shell and eventually corresponds to the corpse of the dead physical body.

Lesson 218 – Dancing with Śiva

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From Whom Is Good Conduct Learned?

ŚLOKA 63
The first teacher in matters of good conduct is our conscience. To know what is right and what is wrong we can also turn to God, to our satguru and swāmīs,, to scripture and to our elders, family and trusted friends. Aum.

BHĀSHYA
Divine laws cannot be avoided. They do not rule us from above but are wrought into our very nature. Even death cannot efface the karma created by evil deeds. Good con­duct alone can resolve woeful karmas. Therefore, it is essential that we learn and adhere to good conduct. Good people are the best teachers of good conduct, and should be sought out and heeded when we need help or advice. Talk with them, the wise ones, and in good judgment be guided accordingly. Ethical scriptures should be read and studied regularly and their wisdom followed. The loud voice of our soul, ever heard within our conscience, is a worthy guide. When we grasp the subtle mechanism of karma, we wisely fol­low the good path. Good conduct, or sadāchāra, for the Hin­du is summarized in five ob­li­gatory duties, called pañcha nitya karmas: virtuous living, dhar­ma; worship, upāsanā; holy days, utsava; pilgrimage, tīr­tha­­yātrā; and sacraments, saṁ­skāras. The Vedas offer this guidance, “If you have doubt concerning conduct, follow the example of high souls who are competent to judge, devout, not led by oth­­ers, not harsh, but lovers of virtue.” Aum Namaḥ Śivāya.

Lesson 218 – Living with Śiva

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Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Controlling The Forces

There are three kinds of adultery: physical (the worst); emotional (very distressing); and mental (the secret kind). Physical adultery breaks up marriages, destroys homes and creates distraught children. Even if it is forgiven and the couple reunites, it is not forgotten. There is always wondering, “Will it happen again? Did it happen last night?” Emotional adultery is quite common. In the workaday world, husbands often become more attached to their female employees and associates than to their wives. Working wives become more emotionally attached to their boss and fellow workers than to their husbands. It is understandable. After all, she spends more waking hours with men at work than with her husband.

I was asked, “How should a Hindu man relate to women in the workplace and maintain his religious life?” Very carefully, very carefully. It’s important that you remember that you have a path to follow and you are in the workplace to do your job, be friendly to everyone equally, not having favorites nor any likes or dislikes. Behavior should be professional. Professional behavior is detached behavior yet friendly behavior. The Tirukural reminds us, “The chivalry that does not look upon another’s wife is not mere virtue—it is saintly conduct” (148).

Mental adultery—that’s the secret culprit. Who knows what anyone is thinking? But the feeling is one of drifting away into a fantasy world, of deciding to become or not become emotionally or physically involved with someone other than one’s spouse.

But most devastating, most insidiously devastating, is mental adultery through pornography. The visualizations, the fantasies, the changes in sexual habits it produces and the secrecy all bundled into one creates a distance between spouses, unless of course they are enjoying the same pornographic episodes. A verse in the Atharva Veda implores, “Sin of the mind, depart far away! Why do you utter improper suggestions? Depart from this place! I do not want you! Go to the trees and the forests! My mind will remain here along with our homes and our cattle” (6.45.1. ve, p. 489). It is hard to believe such verses were composed thousands of years ago. Human problems haven’t changed that much, have they?

The Sanātana Dharma is the oldest religion in the world. Therefore, its followers are the oldest people in the world, having fully explored sex (the Kāma Sūtra is the oldest known erotic text) and learned how to control it; established a system of sanctified marriages and found out how to keep interpersonal relations going unhindered. India’s culture spread all through Asia, and because of it one rarely sees any affection shown in public—kissing, hugging, hand-holding, touching or feeling. One might wonder how such a large population can be accounted for!

Hindus know that the sexual force is an energy, either under control or out of control. When controlled, it creates peace, well-being and health and provides a mental, emotional, physical balance. When out of control, just the opposite is the case: confusion, secrecy, stress, fear of discovery, lingering guilt, which creates misunderstandings and unresolvable situations.

NANDINATHA SŪTRA 218: FUNERAL RITES AND REMEMBRANCES
At the death of a Śiva devotee, family and friends gather for funeral rites in the home. They prepare the body and arrange for cremation. On the seventh day, the deceased’s picture is honored, and food is offered. Aum.

Lesson 218 – Merging with Śiva

Posted on by Himalayan Academy
Recording: Gurudeva’s cloned voice

Your Astral Counterpart

You will recall from last week the first aspect of man, the physical body, and the second aspect, the vital health body. The third aspect is the astral body. The astral body is almost an exact duplicate of the physical body. However, changes that appear upon the physical body, such as aging, first occur within the structure of the astral body. The astral body is of the subconscious mind, at the level of the memory and reason chakras. It can be easily disturbed and is sometimes called the emotional body. It is made of odic prāṇa and kept intact by the general life flow of actinic prāṇa bursting constantly forth from its atomic structure. Being the exact counterpart of the physical body, the astral body appears like the physical body in size, shape, in every sense except weight. It differs in weight because it is composed of astral odic matter. This matter vibrates at a higher rate of vibration than what we might call physical matter.

Try to picture for yourself the fact that the physical body and astral body are of different vibrations and fit one inside the other, connected by the energy factor, which is the odic prāṇic energy of the vital health body. The astral world vibrates just inside the physical world that we see through our physical eyes and feel with our physical hands. Therefore, it is an exact duplication of everything that exists materially to our physical senses. This is logical to us, knowing and having identified the states of mind, for each state of mind is a form of vibration working together with all the others. The “one mind” is in different forms of vibration, all working together, one aspect within the other.

As we can walk and talk using our conscious mind and our physical body as a vehicle during our waking hours, so can we walk and talk using the duplicate of the physical body, our astral body of the subconscious mind, during the hours we are asleep. When we are in the astral body in the subconscious world, other people are also in that world, and forms of communication take place, as in the physical world.

There is a cord of odic and actinic force which connects the two bodies. It is called the silver cord. Should someone travel too far from his physical body astrally, or have an intense astral experience, an extra supply of energy would be drawn from the vital health body and the physical body, and he would be tired on awakening.

The inner study of you can be complicated, for you are a most complex being of many dimensions. As we embark on this week’s study of the inner you, it may be helpful to have a list which you can refer to now and then to put together the pieces in the right order. The age-old teachings which are captured in this book boldly claim “man” to be more than is usually understood, that being a mortal body with an intellect, small or large. Man, as the mystics understand him, is the immortal soul surrounded by seven aspects. Here follows a summary of the “seven aspects of man” established around the actinic causal body of the soul, ānandamaya kośa, “sheath of bliss:” 1) the physical body, annamaya kośa, “food-made sheath;” 2) the vital health body, prānic sheath, prāṇamaya kośa; 3) the astral body, instinctive aspect of manomaya kośa; 4) the human aura and instinctive mind, prabhāmaṇḍala and manas chitta; 5) the intellect, odic causal sheath, buddhi chitta; 6) the subtle nerve system, nāḍīs and chakras; 7) the intuitive mind, actinodic causal sheath, vijñānamaya kośa, “sheath of cognition.”

Just as we have school, entertainment, discussions and meetings with friends in the conscious mind on the physical plane, so do we go to school, enjoy entertainment, discuss problems and meet and talk with friends on the astral plane. And as the subconscious mind receives impressions from the conscious mind during our waking hours, so does the conscious mind receive impressions from the subconscious mind as we go through experience during our sleeping hours.

In the same way, people have seen with the eyes of their astral body, while simultaneously conscious through their physical eyes, people on the astral plane. Similarly, those who are traveling on the astral plane can see people on the physical plane, as they look out through the odic astral force field into the gross conscious-mind world. Travel is much faster on the astral plane, as it is done through desire, and the astral body is a much more refined rate of vibration than is the physical body, which functions close to the time sequence as we know it.