Shortly after the Kadavul Naṭarāja Deity arrived from India at Kauai Aadheenam, our monastery-temple complex on the Garden Island of Kauai, we received the wonderful boon of communicating with the inner worlds through written prayers. With this six-foot-tall bronze image of the Lord of Dance came tens of thousands of devas. It was revealed to us that these devonic helpers, though unseen to the physical eyes, are skilled in the art of fulfilling prayers. We were delighted to know that written prayers could be offered into their hands through the sacred fire that burns perpetually at Lord Naṭarāja’s holy feet. In those early days of the beginning of the first Śiva temple in the United States, we felt blessed that this magical boon had come to us. Written prayers were offered up through the sacred temple fire and soon answered. The faith began to build among the devotees. The temple yantra was now fully activated. ¶But there was a problem. Sometimes, in devotees’ emotional fervor, prayers were hastily scribbled out and could not be easily read. Seekers assumed that their requests and pleas for help or solace would be known by the Gods and devas who know them personally, and therefore they were not careful enough in composing their prayers, some even forgetting to sign their name or note the date. We soon learned that if prayers were not answered, it might be simply due to incompleteness or illegibility. We also became aware that sufficient explanation must be given for the inner-plane helpers to provide adequate assistance. ¶Here is why absolute clarity is necessary in each written prayer. The astral image of each prayer that arrives in the Second World, or astral plane, is an exact duplicate of its physical-plane counterpart, but not quite as clear—more like a carbon copy. So if the physical-plane original is not clear, its astral counterpart will be even less clear. It will be blurred, like trying to read a letter without one’s eyeglasses. Even the astral counterparts of typewritten documents prepared in small type are difficult to read in the inner worlds, we were told. ¶To solve the problem of illegibility, the devas themselves gave a new script, which came through from the inner sky in Paris in the early ’70s. The devas called this script Tyēīf. It is designed to look like bamboo leaves, arranged in an intricate pattern to form 135 characters or “images,” the first twenty-six of which correspond to the English alphabet. Here is the word Tyēīf written in the devas’ script: tyeif ¶Writing and delivering prayers to the Devaloka through the sacred fire is an ancient Nātha Sampradāya practice. Today this method of communication is still employed in Shinto and Taoist temples in Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia and other areas of Southeast Asia. The prayers are written down and placed in the temple fire. As the paper burns, the astral double of the prayer appears in the Devaloka. The prayer is then read by the devas, who proceed to carry out the devotee’s requests. These temple devas are fully dedicated to assist all who come through the temple doors with their emotional, mental and physical problems. ¶It was made very clear to me, however, that prayers may only be sent to the Devaloka in a sanctified havana kuṇḍa where special arrangements have been made with the devas. §
In our own Kailāsa Paramparā, there is a similar but uniquely different example of direct communion between the inner worlds and the outer. My guru’s guru’s guru’s guru, known as the Rishi from the Himalayas, sat for meditation in a tea shop in Bangalore, South India, for seven years, never speaking a word or moving a muscle. Devotees flocked to this extraordinary sage, and with them came the normal quota of problems, questions, prayers and needs. Though they only spoke these needs in their own private thoughts, they were mystified by the way that answers came floating down on twisted-up slips of paper, from an unseen source above the ṛishi’s head. Devotees would open up these messages to find the exact answers to their unspoken questions. Our prayers burned in the sacred fire are going in the opposite direction, and the answers are coming in more subtle, indirect ways that become obvious as satisfaction is experienced. ¶The knowledge of reincarnation, astral travel, channeling messages from the departed, auras and oh-so-many other psychic mysteries of the soul are an intrinsic part of the Western world in this age of communication, just as these phenomena have been an acknowledged part of life in the East since the dawn of mankind. Communicating with the Gods and their devas, invoking, courting and keeping happy angels and devas in home shrines has been at the core of nearly every religion in the world ever since religions have existed. ¶Methods of communication with one’s guardian devas, their friends and associates and the Gods they so faithfully serve are many: the Ouija board, automatic writing, materialization seances, swinging pendulums, extracting knowledge from crystals, sending letters and gifts through sacred temple fires, clairvoyance, clairaudience, early-morning dreams, messages and predictions from entranced mediums, the readings of subtle signs, interpreting the sounds of lizards and crows, visiting psychic mentors, fortunetellers, palmists, astrologers, priests and shamans, exorcism, revelation of knowledge from deep meditation, and more. All of these are tantras of communication. A tantra is a method, preceded by learning, which often requires an initiation, but not always. ¶It is no accident that you and I are together and you are reading this book and have gotten this far. A great thought form and several devas accompany this book which you are now holding. They have guided you to it and are now with you, their inner mind and your inner mind communicating as you continue to read. This highly charged book is itself a doorway into the inner planes. Put it under your pillow when you sleep at night. Study it through the day and absorb the inner knowledge.§
The Gods, their devas and your own guardian devas are ever ready to respond to requests for help and guidance. You may well ask, “How are prayers answered?” It is well known that religious people have guardian devas, or angels, helping them through their Earthly experience. Established families who have kept the continuity of togetherness generation after generation court the same devonic beings century after century in their home shrines. In our technological age it is difficult to maintain this kind of togetherness or to attend properly to the home shrine. Therefore, other means of communication with the devonic guardians must be used. ¶Those who worship in Śiva temples slowly gain acceptance into the devonic realms of the Gods, and one or two of the uncountable numbers of devonic intelligences often return with the devotee to his home. When this happens, the home immediately has within it the feeling of fullness. It is these guardian devas who are the first to receive the devotee’s written prayers when they are transferred to the Devaloka through the sacred fire. They read each prayer carefully. If they cannot immediately respond, the prayer is given to a waiting dispatcher along with some personal advice about the individual or the family from their guardian deva. The dispatcher carries the prayer, along with the guardian deva’s advice, to the group of devonic helpers who can best fulfill the request. ¶There are many groups of devas who sit in saṅgam circles, communicating with one another through thought transference. When they receive a prayer, read and understand it, through the power of consensus their group mind begins the process of fulfillment. After the prayer has been read and understood by each one present, it enters their inner minds. When this happens, the solution, karmically proper, is revealed to all. One or several of the devas is then seen to vanish from the group, on their way through inner space to execute the request. Because Earth time and astral time are different, the entire process takes about three Earth days from the time the prayer is offered until the time that it is fulfilled. ¶These saṅgams of devas configure themselves in circles of six, twelve, twenty-four and thirty-six. They dispatch many kinds of requests, some business, some health, some personal, some creative, some marital, some mental and others emotional. There is a saṅgam circle of devas for literally every department of life. These saṅgams service the needs of devotees in many temples and shrines in China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, India, Africa, North America, Europe and other areas of our planet. ¶Before the Gods and devas can respond to your request, they must examine a time line extending ninety-nine years into the past and ninety-nine years into the future. Then they divide the possible decisions into nine groups to choose their course of helpfulness to your karmic pattern. Their duty is not to alter time or experience or to manipulate karmas, but to assist you in going through your natural karmas and to mitigate, nullify and soften the effects of karmas of the past that touch you in the present, whether they be good, mixed or bad. Therefore, it is important to delineate your state of mind as you write your prayer. ¶The devas surrounding all Nātha temples and shrines respond best to written requests. The Gods and devas do not normally read your thoughts—only the thoughts directed to them—and they never interfere in the natural karmas of individuals who come into these places of worship. Hindus often say, “God knows my need. He will fulfill it.” This is generally true for those who have sufficient mental prowess and intensity of thought, the inner fire burning in the maṇipūra chakra, in the heart chakra and in the head. But in our day-to-day states of consciousness, it is most fruitful to clearly and precisely let our thoughts be known through the written word. This is the great boon the Nātha temples have to offer—the direct, intricately concise, two-way communication between this and the higher inner world. §
You may be wondering if you can send written prayers in Tyēīf to loved ones who have passed on to the inner world. The answer is, yes, you can. Your guardian deva will hand the prayer to the loved ones, relatives or close friends. They can be communicated with. Through such prayers, many devotees who are feeling badly about their behavioral patterns toward a departed member of their family apologize for misdemeanors performed during their relative’s Earthly life. They make the apology by writing a letter in the magical Tyēīf script. It is received by a guardian deva and promptly delivered. Everything happens quite efficiently and rapidly in the inner world. In Japan and elsewhere in Asia not only are letters sent to the departed, but many gifts as well are placed in the sacred fire—gifts such as automobiles made of cardboard, money, food and more. The cardboard car and other items, when burned, will reappear in the astral world. ¶Those who have recently given up their physical bodies are easy to reach, because more often than not they are still close to Earth consciousness and enjoy receiving communication from loved ones in the form of written prayers. Souls who are well settled in the inner world but who are nearly ready to reincarnate are also easy to contact in this way. Souls who have attained mukti, freedom from rebirth, but who are not yet ready to enter into higher planes where they will no longer be involved with or communicate with those in Earth consciousness—because they have not yet finished helping their devotees to attain their highest potential in this lifetime—will also receive friendly messages from their loved ones on Earth. Many chelas communicate with their departed gurus in this way. ¶There is a vast inner network of devonic helpers, ever working, never sleeping. They are nourished on the prāṇas of the most refined morsels of Śiva consciousness. They never take time out even to eat a meal. There is a continuity of consciousness in the Devaloka that we do not experience in our earthly bodies. It is in the world of the Gods and their devas that the mass consciousness is guided through its evolution—the evolution of the māyā of the constant, interlaced action of creation, preservation and dissolution. This mighty group of soldiers of the within, preceptors of dharma, lords of karma, is ever active, available and ready to serve those who seek. ¶Sending prayers into the inner world through the sacred fire is simply a means of communicating with those powerful beings who do not possess a physical body. Using the Tyēīf script is as simple as writing then mailing a letter, sending an e-mail or a fax. Through this means, you can even communicate in Tyēīf with someone living in a physical body in a far-off place. They will receive your message from a dispatcher at night when they are out of the physical body during sleep and conscious on the astral plane. This is truly a magical way of reaching into the inner world and contacting friends and relatives asleep at night in a far-off place. ¶You are also an inner soul and can be seen by the devas in their world. They see you in your soul body. Psychic persons living in physical bodies can often see the devas. §
You may ask if the devas perform only good for us, and if they test us or punish us. All devas are under one of the Gods. When you write prayers to Lord Gaṇeśa, some of His devas go to work in finding a solution for you. It is the same for Lord Murugan. Lord Śiva is creator, preserver and destroyer of all that exists, but He also has tens of hundreds of thousands of devas who serve His devotees. All Śiva temples are ahiṁsā, benign. The temple devas who answer prayers are those who represent only two of Śiva’s powers: that of creation and that of preservation. The innocent requests, void of malice toward others, are considered benign and acceptable. No request is fulfilled for a bad thing to happen—the death of an enemy, the failure of one person so that another can succeed, the displacement of a neighbor, the fall of business competitors, the injury of those who have injured us, the death of an infidel, equal retaliation for hurts received (the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth philosophy). Any such retaliatory, hurtful, hiṁsā request is automatically placed into another sacred homa fire in the inner world by the first deva who reads it and sent back to the sender in tongues of fire to his heart to stimulate the fire of tapas, to soften his heart and to lift this young soul into higher consciousness, out from the asuric realms in which he lives. No, the Śiva temple’s sacred fires can never be used for black magic, gray magic or the manipulation of other lives for the personal benefit of one’s own. Hurtfulness, hiṁsā, is to be avoided, lest it stimulate the fires of tapas within the hiṁsā advocate and begin a process of purification that one might not be quite ready for. ¶There is no need to fear tapas, though it can be painful to see the malice wished on another come back to oneself. This is Śiva’s mode of dissolution, a grace that burns away ill will and brings about a softening of the heart. It is one’s own malice that must be faced and overcome and destroyed. When tapas begins, it will burn off the accumulated dross from the wrongdoings of many past lives and eventually lift the soul to higher consciousness. This is why we call higher consciousness “Śiva consciousness.” But tapas is a painful process, one to be avoided by not wishing harm on another through the sacred fire. ¶You can gently purify yourself, while avoiding the burning fire of tapas, by following the disciplines of Śaivite religious life and sādhana such as the yamas and niyamas, the pañcha nitya karmas, scriptural study and other personal disciplines given by the Kailāsa Paramparā satgurus. These keep the fires of tapas only warm, not burning hot, and accomplish the same purpose over a prolonged period of time. §
Several years ago we created a Tyēīf font for the computer, to make it easy to write legible prayers in Tyēīf. On our website‚ at www.HimalayanAcademy.com/fonts/, you can download the font and also find out more about writing prayers. It is good for your powers of concentration to learn to read the Tyēīf script, but if you are using a computer, this is not really necessary, unless you want to write Tyēīf by hand, which many do. The easiest way to compose your prayer on a computer is to type in an English font, such as Geneva, and then select the text and change it to the Tyēīf font. Prayers written in Tyēīf have built-in confidentiality. You might leave a prayer to the devas on your desk. As few people read the Tyēīf script readily, confidentiality is ensured. ¶Should you be traveling and not have your computer with you, you can always write your prayers in Tyēīf the old-fashioned way, by hand. It is artistic to use a soft flow pen, and even more artistic to use a Japanese ink brush. If you want to be really modern, use a black, sharp-pointed pen. The Tyēīf script looks good coming from whatever plume you choose. Many devotees enjoy writing Tyēīf by hand in vertical columns from top to bottom. When writing by hand, this is quite acceptable. Always use black ink, never colors. Black translates to white or gray in the inner world, where the prayer appears reversed. The paper that is white becomes black, and the letters that are black become white. It is only by two or three devas holding it and putting their prāṇas into it that the prayer again becomes black on white as it appeared when it was sent. They do this only when they want to keep the document to study it. Many prayers are so simple that they can be easily memorized as they appear on the black background in white ink, and it is not worthwhile energizing them into a durable form. ¶If you use colored paper and colored ink in writing your prayers, your words could be unreadable, even using the Tyēīf script. Colored paper appears dark purplish-blue in the inner world, somewhat like the ashes of burned paper, still intact, but barely legible, ready to disintegrate at the first touch. Therefore, just sit down and write your prayer in Tyēīf with a black pen on white paper. ¶Typed documents—on one side of the page only—are acceptable and easily read in the inner world, as long as the size of the type is not too small. Typewritten prayers (again, on one side of the page) in English or any language are also acceptable to the devas, as are hand-printed prayers that are written with well-rounded, clearly formed letters. Be sure to sign the prayer and also include the date. ¶The writing of prayers can be done in several ways. Each devotee can write his or her own prayer about personal questions, needs or problems. One can pray for another person, for a group of people, or for a situation to clear up within a group or community, even for solutions to national or world problems. Every prayer received is answered in some way, however mysterious. Not one is neglected, ever. ¶The Gods and devas look very carefully into the karma of the devotee before taking any action. Because of this, it is always best to describe two or more alternatives that you would be satisfied with in each prayer, rather than insisting on only one solution. This is because your first preference may not be possible in your karmic pattern or, without your knowing, it may actually be the worst possible thing that could happen to you. In this case, your prayer would be answered with a non-answer. Therefore, it is wise to suggest two or more alternatives when making a request. For example, in seeking help in finding employment, you might suggest three places you would be content at, indicating first choice, second and third. §
We are reminded not to ask for services that the devas would normally provide, such as “Please help me,” or “Please bless me, devas.” These services are automatically performed by the guardian devas of each devout individual without asking. When not responding to requests, the devonic saṅgams send their prāṇas, with thoughts of help and healing, through the guardian devas of the devotee. They literally flood the guardian devas with prāṇas to be used by them to glorify the home and protect their wards in daily life in the physical world. This is a service given without asking. It refers to the flow of prāṇic energy to the devotee, as opposed to getting permission. To receive such blessings for yourself and to receive blessings to start a project are two different things. ¶Devonic helpers often do know what a devotee needs, but they are admonished by the dharmic law that requires that they must be asked before steps toward fulfillment can be taken. They are controlled by the worthy law of noninterference in the lives of those who do not pray. Prayer simply means politely asking. This ancient law is: “The devotee must first take one step toward the guru. Then the guru will take nine steps toward the devotee.” Many guardian devas connected to the saṅgam groups of devas are inner-plane gurus of karma, and when asked they will fulfill their nine steps quite willingly and abundantly. ¶Clarity is essential for the devas to fulfill the petitions to the lasting satisfaction of each devotee. For complex issues, the explanations may need to be lengthy. Names and addresses of the various parties involved should be included. Along with your prayers, you can send typed documents, copies of contracts, etc., to clarify the subject. In this way you can make sure that the Gods and their devas are aware of the details of your prayer and understand your need fully. ¶Mail or fax your prayers to a temple that knows how to handle prayers through its sacred fire. At our temples we regularly receive and accept prayers for the sacred fire from members of the Hindu religion, for they have Hindu guardian devas who are prepared to help with their needs. Non-Hindus have guardian devas of other traditions and are not encouraged to write prayers to the Hindu devas. Prayers for the sacred fire can be sent to Kadavul Hindu Temple, 107 Kaholalele Road, Kapaa, Hawaii, 96746-9304 USA. Write “prayer” on the outside of the envelope. All prayers are confidential, never read by the priests. It is traditional to give a gift of gratitude if a prayer is answered to your satisfaction, but not before. If you feel inclined to send a love offering with your prayers, for previous prayers answered, be sure to keep it outside the sealed envelope containing your prayers, as that will be placed into the sacred fire unopened. Kadavul Hindu Temple has its own rules for accepting prayers to be burned in the sacred fire. Please email for more information if you wish to send a prayer. ¶One word of caution: it would be weakening to depend entirely on the inner-world devas to do everything for you. There are many, many things that you can do yourself to overcome difficulties and carve a positive future. They say, “When the will rises and commands, even the Gods are willing to obey.” You have to use your willpower first, and try your very best to do the very best that you can. Then you get all the devonic help available. Don’t just send in prayers and say, “Live my life for me, inner-world beings. I am not going to do anything. I will just sit back, put my feet up and let you do everything for me.” It does not work that way.§