{"id":130,"date":"2026-04-15T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/?p=130"},"modified":"2025-04-21T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T03:00:09","slug":"lesson-4-living-with-siva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/lesson-4-living-with-siva\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesson 4 \u2013 Living with \u015aiva"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/LwS-Lesson-4.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Recording: Gurudeva&#8217;s cloned voice<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Knowing Self by Self<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the earlier stages, before s\u0101dhana is undertaken, the mind is agitated by current karmas and perhaps discouraged by its inability to know or to ful\ufb01ll dharma. In this agitated state the world looks bleak and terrible, and it would be inconceivable to him for God to be any place but in the temple. \u201cCertainly God could not reside within myself,\u201d the unenlightened concludes. <br><br>In the second stage, when the mind rests peacefully in the ful\ufb01llment of a life\u2019s pattern, dharma, when it has suf\ufb01cient maturity to control and to dispatch past and current karmas through meditation, prayer and penance, then indeed God is seen as a helping hand within, but most potently felt within His temple. <br><br>In the third stage, the helping hand within becomes more than an aid to the troubled mind; it becomes pure consciousness itself. Rather than seeking God outside, God is enjoyed as a vital, integral dimension of the person, the Life of life, the power and radiant energy of the universe. The calm within is greater than the outside disturbance. In this stage of bliss-consciousness, it is clearly seen and exuberantly experienced that God is indeed within us. The experiencer\u2019s perceptions become acute, and in his daily life he becomes a witness, observing that others do not see God within themselves. He has a secret that he has discovered. God within becomes soul-realized as Truth-Knowledge-Bliss, Satchid\u0101nanda, the pervasive energy that glues all things together. Mind becomes serene, peace is seen to be everywhere, and the bliss so strong. A deeper inner eye opens at this stage, and it is truly perceived that this same presence of \u015aiva is in each and every living being, permeates every atom of the universe as the great, sustaining substratum of all that exists. Only when this is experienced can one truly say that God is within man and man is within God. <br><br>To know philosophy without experience is like going on a vacation to a distant and wonderful place by simply reading a book about the destination, hearing what others claim is to be enjoyed there. It is not true experience at all. The only spiritual experience is personal experience. My satguru, Siva Yogaswami, made it clear that \u201cYou will not attain j\u00f1\u0101na, wisdom, even if you read a thousand scriptures. You must know your Self by yourself.\u201d <br><br>How can we with our \ufb01nite mind come to understand In\ufb01nity, come to understand God? How can we intellectually encompass something as great as God? Our scriptures tell us that God Himself is \u015aa\u1e45kara, the author of all knowledge, creator of the intellect. He is the great architect of the universe. Then if God created the intellect, how can the intellect understand Him? Well, it is possible. It has been done. The intellect has to expand, and awareness has to transcend the rational mind and see directly from superconscious knowing. That is why we worship \u015aiva in His highest form, symbolized by the \u015aivali\u1e45ga, the simple elliptical stone. <br><br>It is good that you are trying to see \u015aiva everywhere. Keep trying. It will come. Who else can give your Self to you? The unfoldment of the Self within you is but \u015aiva. He can give you wealth. He can give you health. He can bestow everything that you would ever need or even desire. But to worship Him as formless, as we are doing tonight, carries the mind into in\ufb01nity. Mind can only encompass what it identi\ufb01es with. Mind cannot identify Truth in this subtle form which represents \u015aiva as beyond the mind\u2014formless, timeless and spaceless. Yet, within you this very instant, only shrouded by your ignorance, only shrouded by the ego, which is the sense of personal identity and separation, is \u015aiva. He is there right now, not at some \ufb01ctitious future time. Just get rid of the m\u0101y\u0101, the \u0101\u1e47ava and resolve the karma, and there He will be. The ego is the last thing to go. It is the last bond to break. <br><br>Once the bondage of personal ego is broken, it is seen that this mysterious God is all-pervading. He is what He has created. Think about that. It is very deep. \u015aiva pervades His creation constantly as ever-present Love and Light of the mind of everyone, as Intelligence and Being; and yet God also has a form. <br><br>In the subtle worlds, \u015aiva has the most beautiful form, not unlike a human form, but an absolutely perfect human form. He thinks. He talks. He walks. He makes decisions. We are fortunate to worship such a great God who pervades everything and yet transcends it, who is both form and beyond form, who is the Self within your very self at this very moment. So, all of you seekers of nondual Truth, you have a truly great path that offers God experience in form and beyond form. How fortunate you are!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>NANDINATHA S\u016aTRA 4: ONENESS WITH THE SATGURU<br>\u015aiva\u2019s devotees strive to be inwardly one with their satguru, acknowledging the paramount need for a spiritual preceptor to guide them on the upward climb, the straight path that leads to Lord \u015aiva\u2019s holy feet. Aum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knowing Self by Self In the earlier stages, before s\u0101dhana is undertaken, the mind is agitated by current karmas and perhaps discouraged by its inability to know or to ful\ufb01ll dharma. In this agitated state the world looks bleak and terrible, and it would be inconceivable to him for God to be any place but <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/lesson-4-living-with-siva\/\">READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-with-siva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4584,"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/4584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kauaishindumonastery.com\/mc-daily-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}