When we study and practice our religion, we are not necessarily performing deep sādhana. We are simply dispatching our religious duties. These duties are concisely outlined in the pañcha nitya karmas, the five minimal religious obligations of Hindus. The first duty is dharma, proper conduct, living one’s life according to the teachings of the Tirukural and atoning for misconduct. The second duty is upāsana, worship, performing a personal vigil each day, preferably before dawn, including a pūjā, followed by the performance of japa, scriptural study, and meditation. The third duty is utsava, holy days, observing each Friday (or Monday) as a holy day, as well as the major festival days through the year. On the weekly holy day, one cleans and decorates the home altar, attends the nearby temple and observes a fast. The fourth duty of all Hindus is tirthayātrā, pilgrimage. At least once each year, a pilgrimage is made to a Hindu temple away from one’s local area. Fifth is saṁskāras, the observance of traditional rites of passage, including nāmakaraṇa, name-giving; vivāha, marriage; and antyeshṭi, funeral rites. ¶Another vital aspect of Hindu duty is service. The Vedas remind us, “When a man is born, whoever he may be, there is born simultaneously a debt to the Gods, to the sages, to the ancestors and to men” (Śukla Yajur Veda, SB 1.7.2.1. VE, P. 393). Service to the community includes helping the poor, caring for the aged, supporting religious institutions, building schools and upholding the lofty principle of ahiṁsā in raising one’s children. Hinduism is a general and free-flowing, relaxed religion, experienced in the temple, in the āśramas, the aadheenams, at festivals, on pilgrimage and in the home. ¶The performance of personal sādhana, discipline for self-transformation, is one step deeper in making religion real in one’s life. Through sādhana we learn to control the energies of the body and nerve system, and we experience that through the control of the breath the mind becomes peaceful. Sādhana is practiced in the home, in the forest, by a flowing river, under a favorite tree, in the temple, in gurukulas or wherever a pure, serene atmosphere can be found. A vrata, vow, is often taken before serious sādhana is begun. The vrata is a personal pledge between oneself, one’s guru and the angelic beings of the inner worlds to perform the disciplines regularly, conscientiously, at the same time each day.§
Many of you here today have studied with me for some time and understand how a good religious life can be lived in this technological age. You have learned how to pass the knowledge of Śaiva Dharma on to the next generation, the next and the next. But you may not yet feel fully confident to teach Śaiva Dharma outside your home and immediate family. All of you are preparing yourselves to be teachers of Śaiva Dharma, so that the Śaivite who has not had the benefits of knowing a lot about his religion may know more, so that the Hindu who does not have the benefit of knowing whether he is a Śaivite, a Vaishṇavite, a Śakta or a Smārta may learn the difference and then fully practice one of these four great religions of our heritage. In order to teach with confidence, you must train yourselves. Since this is an inner teaching, you must train yourselves inwardly through the regular daily practice of sādhana. ¶Who sets the course of sādhana? The course of sādhana can be set by an elder of the Hindu community. It can also be set by one’s satguru. Your mother and father, who are your first gurus, can also set the course of sādhana for their children. Or, it can be set by yourself, from a book. There are many fine books available, outlining the basics of yoga, sādhana and meditation. ¶Where does sādhana begin? It begins within the home, and it begins within you. This is ancient wisdom recognized not only in India, but among many great civilizations of history. Thus upon the wall of a famous ancient Greek temple and oracular center at Delphi was inscribed “Know thyself.” The religion of the Greeks, which was in many respects not unlike Hinduism, is long since gone, but remaining temple ruins testify to its magnificence. By disciplining your mind, body and emotions through sādhana, you come more and more into the inner knowing of yourself. ¶You will first discover that when the breath is regulated, it is impossible for the thinking mind to run wild, and when the breath is slightly held, it is impossible for more than one thought to remain vibrating in the mind at a time. You will experience that when the nerve currents are quieted through diaphragmatic breathing, it is impossible to be frustrated, and it is possible to absorb within yourself, into the great halls of inner learning, into the great vacuum within you, all of your problems, troubles and fears, without having to psychoanalyze them. ¶Through the regular practice of scriptural study, which is a vital part of your daily sādhana vigil, you will soon find that it is possible to touch into your subsuperconscious mind and complement that study with your own inner knowing. After you are well established in your sādhana, you will enjoy a greater ability to discipline your body, your breath, your nerve system and your mind. ¶We first have to learn that in order to control the breath, we have to study and understand the breath, the lungs, how the body is constructed and how the prāṇas move through it. This enables us to understand the subtle system within the body that controls the thinking mind. Then we are ready to study the mind in its totality. §
In Merging with Śiva we embarked on a great study of the mind in its totality. Here we shall review the five states of mind. The conscious mind is our external mind. The subconscious mind contains our memory patterns and all impressions of the past. The sub of the subconscious mind holds the seeds of karmas that are not yet manifest. The subsuperconscious mind works through the subconscious mind, and intuition flows daily as a result. Creativity is there at your bidding. Your superconscious mind is where intuitive flashes occur. The accomplished mystic can consciously be in one country or another instantaneously, according to his will, once he has, through the grace of Lord Śiva, attained a full inner knowing of how to remain in Satchidānanda, the superconscious mind, consciously, without the other states interfering. ¶Yes, sādhana begins in the home, and it begins with you. It must be practiced regularly, at the same time each day—not two hours one day, one hour the next and then forgetting about it for three or four days because you are too busy with external affairs, but every day, at the same time. Meeting this appointment with yourself is in itself a sādhana. In the technological age nearly everyone finds it difficult to set one hour aside in which to perform sādhana. This is why in your sādhana vrata you promise to dedicate only one half hour a day. In the agricultural era, it was easy to find time to perform sādhana two to three hours a day. Why? The demands of external life were not as great as they are now, in the technological age. Half an hour a day, therefore, is the amount of time we dedicate for our sādhana. ¶Brahmachārīs and brahmachāriṇīs, celibate men and women, in their respective gurukulas dedicate their time to the performance of sādhana. They rise together early in the morning, perform their sādhana as a group, and then are off to their daily work. The regular practice of sādhana, they have found, enables them to get along admirably well with one another because of their newly acquired abilities of absorbing their difficulties, thus avoiding argument and confrontation. In these gurukulas, found worldwide, various kinds of sādhanas are performed, such as scriptural study, chanting the names of the Lord on the japa beads, group chanting of bhajanas, the singing of Devarams and the yogic concentration of holding the mind fixed on one point and bringing it back to that one point each time it wanders. The more disciplined gurukulas religiously administrate group sādhana at the same time each day, every day without fail. Daily life revolves around this period of sādhana, just as in a religious Śaivite home life revolves around the shrine room and each one’s daily personal vigil. ¶Ask yourself what you put first in your daily life. Do your emotions come first? Does your intellect come first? Do your instinctive impulses come first? Does your striving to overcome worries and fears and doubt come first inside of you? Does your creativity, your love for all humanity, your search for God and peace within yourself come first inside of you? What are your priorities? The pañcha nitya karmas outline our basic religious priorities. Your inner priorities in implementing these five duties must be just as well defined, and you must define them for yourself and therefore, come to better “Know thyself.” §
When you first begin your daily sādhana, it is likely to begin in an awkward way, and you may come to know yourself in a way that you don’t want to know yourself. Don’t be discouraged when the mind runs wild as you sit quietly and are unable to control it. Don’t be discouraged if you find that you are unable to even choose a time to sit quietly for one half hour on a regular daily basis. If you persist, soon all this will be overcome and a firmness of mind will be felt, for it is through the regular practice of sādhana that the mind becomes firm and the intellect pure. It is through the regular practice of concentration that awareness detaches itself from the external mind and hovers within, internalizing the knowledge of the physical body, the breath and the emotions. Concentration of the forces of the body, mind and emotions brings us automatically into meditation, dhyāna, and into deeper internalized awareness. ¶The spiritual practice should be reasonable, should not take up too much time, and should be done at the same time every day. Often seekers who become associated with Hindu sādhana go to extremes and proceed with great vigor in an effort to attain results immediately. Sitting two or three hours a day, they wear themselves out and then stop. Here’s a formula for beginners: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, twenty minutes to a half an hour of sādhana at the same time every day; Saturday and Sunday, no sādhana. ¶The keys are moderation and consistency. Consistency is the key to the conquest of karma. If you go to extremes or are sporadic in your sādhana, you can easily slide backwards. What happens when you slide backwards? You become fearful, you become angry, you become jealous, you become confused. What happens when you move forward? You become brave, you become calm, you become self-confident and your mind is clear. ¶It is often feared that meditation and religious devotion cause a withdrawal from the world. The practice of sādhana I have described does not detach you from or make you indifferent to the world. Rather, it brings up a strength within you, a śakti, enabling you to move the forces of the world in a positive way. What is meant by “moving the forces of the world”? That means fulfilling realistic goals that you set for yourself. That means performing your job as an employer or as an employee in the most excellent way possible. That means stretching your mind and emotions and endurance to the limit and therefore getting stronger and stronger day by day. You are involved in the world, and the world is in a technological age. ¶The sādhana that you perform will make your mind steady and your will strong so that you can move the forces of the physical world with love and understanding, rather than through anger, hatred, antagonism, cunning, jealousy and greed. Daily sādhana performed in the right way will help you overcome these instinctive barriers to peace of mind and the fullness of being. If you have children, the rewards of your sādhana will help you educate your children properly in fine schools and universities and see that all of their physical needs are met through the flow of material abundance that automatically comes as you progress in your inner life. ¶Through daily sādhana we shall come to know the body, we shall come to know the emotions, we shall come to know the nerve system, we shall come to know the breath and we shall come to know the mind in its totality. Each one of you will soon be able to mentally pick up all of the dross of your subconscious, throw it within, into the great cavity of inner knowing at the feet of the Gods, there to be absorbed, dissolved and disappear. All this and more can be unfolded from within each one of you through your daily practice of sādhana. Sādhana is one of the great boons given to us in our religion. §
When the devas within your home see you performing your sādhana each day, they give you psychic protection. They hover around you and keep away the extraneous thought forms that come from the homes of your neighbors or close friends and relatives. They all mentally chant “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya,” keeping the vibration of the home alive with high thoughts and mantras so that the atmosphere is scintillating, creating for you a proper environment to delve within yourself. The fact that the devonic world is involved is one more good reason why you must choose a specific time for sādhana and religiously keep to that time each day, for you not only have an appointment with yourself but with the devas as well. ¶By performing the pañcha nitya karmas, living the yamas and niyamas to the best of your ability and performing your daily sādhana, your religion becomes closer and closer to you in your heart. You will soon begin to find that God Śiva is within you as well as within the temple, because you become quiet enough to know this and experience that Lord Śiva’s superconscious mind is identical to yours; there is no difference in Satchidānanda. From this state, you will experience the conscious mind as “the watcher” and experience its subconscious as the storehouse of intellectual and emotional memory patterns. In daily life you will begin to experience the creativity of the subsuperconscious mind, as the forces of the First World are motivated through love as you fulfill your chosen dharma in living with Śiva. ¶Thus our religion is an experiential religion, from its beginning stages to the most advanced. You have already encountered the magic of the temple, and you have had uplifting experiences within your home shrine. Now, as you perform your sādhana, you will enjoy spiritual experiences within yourself on the path of self-transformation. ¶It is up to you to put your religion into practice. Feel the power of the Gods in the pūjā. If you don’t feel them, if you are just going through ritual and don’t feel anything, you are not awake. Get the most out of every experience that the temple offers, the guru offers, the devas offer, that your life’s experiences, which you were born to live through, offer. In doing so, slowly the kuṇḍalinī begins to loosen and imperceptibly rise into its yoga. That’s what does the yoga; it’s the kuṇḍalinī seeking its source, like the tree growing, always reaching up to the Sun. ¶It is up to you to make the teachings a part of your life by working to understand each new concept as you persist in your daily religious practices. As a result, you will be able to brave the forces of the external world without being disturbed by them and fulfill your dharma in whatever walk of life you have chosen. Because your daily sādhana has regulated your nerve system, the quality of your work in the world will improve, and your mood in performing it will be confident and serene. ¶When your sādhana takes hold, you may experience a profound calmness within yourself. This calmness that you experience as a result of your meditation is called Satchidānanda, the natural state of the mind. To arrive at that state, the instinctive energies have been lifted to the heart chakra and beyond, and the mind has become absolutely quiet. This is because you are not using your memory faculty. You are not using your reason faculty. You are not trying to move the forces of the world with your willpower faculty. You are simply resting within yourself. Therefore, if you are ever bothered by the external part of you, simply return to this inner, peaceful state as often as you can. You might call it your “home base.” From here you can have a clear perception of how you should behave in the external world, a clear perception of your future and a clear perception of the path ahead. This is a superconscious state, meaning “beyond normal consciousness.” So, simply deepen this inner state by being aware that you are aware. §
A great flow of prāṇa is beginning to occur among the families of our congregation worldwide because each one has decided to discipline himself or herself and the children to perform sādhana. That brings the prāṇa under control. If the prāṇa is not under the control of the individual, it is controlled by other individuals. The negative control of prāṇa is a control, and positive control of prāṇa is a control. That’s why we say, “Seek good company,” because if you can’t control your prāṇa, other people who do control their prāṇas can help you. The group helps the individual and the individual helps the group. If you mix with bad company, then the prāṇas begin to get disturbed. Once that happens, your energies are like a team of horses out of control. It takes a lot of skill and strength on the part of the individual to get those prāṇas back under control. ¶The control of prāṇa is equally important on the inner planes. When you leave the physical body, you are in your astral body, your subtle body. It is not made of flesh and bones like your physical body—as the Buddhists say, “thirty-two kinds of dirt wrapped up in skin.” The astral body is made of prāṇa. It floats. It can fly. It’s guided by your mind, which is composed of more rarefied prāṇa, actinic energy. Wherever you want to go, you’ll be there immediately. And, of course, you do this in your sleep, in your dreams and after death. Many of you have had astral experiences and can testify how quickly you can move here and there when your astral body is detached from the physical body. However, if you don’t have control of your prāṇa, you don’t have control of your astral body. Then where do you go when you drop off your physical body at death? You are magnetized to desires, uncontrollably magnetized to fulfilling unfulfilled desires. You are magnetized to groups of people who are fulfilling similar unfulfilled desires, and generally your consciousness goes down into lower chakras. Only in controlling your astral body do you have conscious control of your soul body, which is, of course, living within the astral body and resonating to the energy of the higher chakras. ¶My satguru, Siva Yogaswami, spoke of Śaivism as the sādhana mārga, “the path of striving,” explaining that it is a religion not only to be studied but also to be lived. “See God everywhere. This is practice. First do it intellectually. Then you will know it.” He taught that much knowledge comes through learning to interpret and understand the experiences of life. To avoid the sādhana mārga is to avoid understanding the challenges of life. We must not fail to realize that each challenge is brought to us by our own actions of the past. Yes, our actions in the past have generated our life’s experiences today. All Hindus accept karma and reincarnation intellectually, but the concepts are not active in their lives until they accept the responsibilities of their own actions and the experiences that follow. In doing so, no blame can fall upon another. It is all our own doing. This is the sādhana mārga—the path to perfection. ¶The sādhana mārga leads us into the yoga pāda quite naturally. But people don’t study yoga. They are not taught yoga. They are taught sādhana, and if they don’t perform it themselves—and no one can do it for them—they will never have a grip strong enough over their instinctive mind and intellectual mind to come onto the yoga mārga, no matter how much they know about yoga. So, we don’t learn yoga. We mature into it. We don’t learn meditation. We awaken into it. You can teach meditation, you can teach yoga, but it’s all just words unless the individual is mature and awake on the inside. ¶To be awake on the inside means waking up early in the morning. You woke up early this morning. That may have been difficult. But you got the body up, you got the emotions up, you got the mind up, and your instinctive mind did not want to do all that. Did it? No! Spiritual life is a twenty-four-hour-a-day vigil, as all my close devotees are realizing who have taken the vrata of 365 Nandinātha Sūtras. It means going to bed at night early so you can get up in the morning early. It means studying the teachings before you go to bed so that you can go into the inner planes in absolute control. It means in the morning reading from my trilogy, Dancing with Śiva, Living with Śiva and Merging with Śiva, to prepare yourself to face the day, to be a strong person and move the forces of the world. §
Devotees who are doing sādhana and who are in the gṛihastha āśrama, between age twenty-four and forty-eight, should move the forces of the world rightly, dynamically, intelligently, quickly and make something of their lives. Such devotees should not be stimulated by competition. In today’s world most people have to be stimulated by competition to produce anything worthwhile, even if that means hurting other people. They have to be stimulated by conflict to produce anything worthy of producing in the world, and that hurts other people. They have to be stimulated by their home’s breaking up, and that hurts other people. And they have to be stimulated by all kinds of other lower emotions to be able to get enough energy to move the forces of the world to do something, whether it be good or bad. Those who perform sādhana draw on the forces of the soul to move the forces of the world and make a difference. ¶It is during the latter stages of life that family devotees have the opportunity to intensify their sādhana and give back to society of their experience, their knowledge and their wisdom gained through the first two āśramas. The vānaprastha āśrama, age forty-eight to seventy-two, is a very important stage of life, because that is the time when you can inspire excellence in the brahmacharya students and in the families, to see that their life goes along as it should, according to the Nandinātha Sūtras, which have the entire ideal life pattern embedded within them. Later, the sannyāsa āśrama, beginning at seventy-two, is the time to enjoy and deepen whatever realizations you have had along the way. We are all human beings, and every one of us—including the sapta ṛishis, seven great sages who help guide the course of mankind from the inner planes—is duty-bound to help everyone else. That is the duty. It must be performed by everyone. If you want to help somebody else, perform regular sādhana. ¶Traditionally, a Hindu home should be a reflection of the monastery that the family is attached to, with a regular routine for the mother, the father, the sons, the daughters, so that everyone is fulfilling their rigorous duties and sādhanas to the very best of their ability. We had a seventeen-year-old youth here as a guest in our monastery from one of our families in Malaysia that performs sādhana. That sādhana enabled him to come here to perform sādhana. If his parents had not been performing sādhana in their home regularly, he would not have been inclined to come here and perform a more strenuous sādhana with us. ¶I was asked recently what to do about all the things that you cannot avoid listening to and seeing on the TV and news and reading about—atrocities, crime, murders, poverty, unfairness—which may tend to disturb one’s sādhana. To perform good sādhana, we have to have a good philosophical foundation, which is found in Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva—The Master Course trilogy. A good philosophical foundation allows us to understand why we have the highest and the lowest human expressions here on planet Earth. Philosophers and mystics have for centuries said, “Only on planet Earth in a physical body can you realize the Self, because only here, in this world, do you have all twenty-one chakras functioning.” You need the lowest in order to realize the highest. Some people are born peaceful because of merits attained in past lives. They are born helpful, and they are the uplifters of mankind. Others are born angry, scheming, conniving, resentful, and they are the doubters, the detractors, of mankind. But all have an equal place here on planet Earth. All are going through a similar evolution up the spinal column to the top of the head, through the door of Brahman and finally out. ¶From the Western religionist’s point of view, God is doing it all. He is punishing mankind. He is helping mankind. And many Hindus who were raised in Christian schools hold that perspective. But from the perspective of Sanātana Dharma, the oldest religion in the world, we do it all. By our karmas we are creating our future this very moment. So, as you proceed in your sādhana, disconnect from the lower and proceed into the higher. As a family person, it is your dharma to serve society, uplift mankind and help relieve human suffering within your sphere of influence. But do not try to fix, or even entertain the desire to fix, that which you cannot fix, which is the karma, the action and reaction, of individuals who are going through the lower phases of life and must experience what they are experiencing and which you read about and hear about daily in newspapers, on TV and on the Internet. §