Good evening, everyone! Vanakkam. Anbe Sivamayam Satyame Parasivam. God Śiva is Immanent Love and Transcendent Reality. The American devotees of our great God Śiva are very happy to be here today at this beautiful temple in Sri Lanka. It is so inspiring to see this temple being well maintained, improved, managed in a responsible way and filled with Śaivite souls. Your open and lovely faces remind me of beings in the Devaloka. We feel blessed here. ¶Śaivism is the greatest religion in the world, and we are all very fortunate and proud to be Śaivites. Why is it great among all the world’s great religions? It has the most ancient culture on the planet. It has scriptures that are utterly profound. It has sacred hymns that stir the soul. It has unparalleled disciplines of yoga and meditation. It has magnificent temples that are truly holy. It has devoted sages and holy men and women to guide our life and lead us to Lord Gaṇeśa, who leads us to Lord Murugan and finally to the Supreme God, Śiva. Śaivism has God and the Gods. It has charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna. It has so many enlightened beliefs, including karma and reincarnation. That is why I call our religion the greatest in all the world. ¶I believe that this oldest religion of the farthest past is also the religion of the future, the religion best suited to the technological age. I think we should present Hinduism as it is today, as a vibrant religion of the present. Then it will survive into glorious futures. We need inspired people to serve Śaivism with a strong will and a positive mind. In this effort, all differences must be set aside so we can work together on powerful programs that will bring progress; and that progress will inspire others, make them enthusiastic, show them that Śaivism can be brought into the technological age for the good of the next generation, the next and the next. ¶What happens when a religion is lost in yesterday and not brought forward to guide its followers today and on into the future? All kinds of problems arise. The youth begin to think religion is obsolete, abandon it and become immersed in worldliness, often in activities that are adharmic. They leave the Śaivite path, the Śaiva Neri. Families break up, friends argue, and people fight within themselves and with one another. Poor citizens are raised in the absence of ethics. Unrest and discontentment reign, and the entire nation suffers. So many problems arise when religion is lost, when people don’t know the right things to do. They become unhappy, restless, unstable. They have nothing to lean on, no place to turn in difficult times. This leads to abuse, to divorce, to suicide, to disease, to murder and dozens of sad experiences and hellish states of mind. ¶People who do have a religion live a very different life. Recently a large sum of money was spent to conduct a vast survey on the effects of religion in people’s lives in America. Thousands of people from every walk of life were interviewed throughout the United States as to their religion, their jobs and their family life. It was found that those with a religion and who really followed that religion were happier, wealthier and healthier than those who had no spiritual life. The researchers concluded that nonreligious people were less happy in their home life, less successful in their businesses and personal relationships, and more prone to anxiety, stresses and strains. We have to take that information seriously and determine to live our spiritual life fully, in all its dimensions. We have to realize that there are serious problems awaiting us if we are half-hearted and live a double standard. Therefore, it is important, both for the individual and the country, that we preserve the Śaiva Dharma and bring it forward into the technological age. §
Many years ago I was given a beautiful description of Śaivism. I was told that Śaivism is like ghee. The cow eats grass all day and from it produces gallons of white milk. The dairyman separates out the rich cream. The cream is then churned into sweet butter. Finally, the butter is boiled to produce a tiny amount of ghee, the essence of milk. Like ghee, Śaivism is the essence of religion. ¶In the past decades I have found that instead of preserving and enjoying this ghee, people are pouring it into a brass pot and diluting it with Western rationalism, diluting it with liberal Hinduism, diluting it with unorthodox practices and beliefs of all kinds. That precious ghee has been turned into a greasy water which is not fit for anything except to be thrown out. Therefore, I call upon the united Śaivites of the world to protect, preserve and promote the Śaiva Samayam by bringing a stop to this dilution of our religion. This dilution is caused by Western influences, by the efforts of alien religions to convert our members, by liberal-Hindu thinking which seeks to destroy the traditions of temple worship and sectarian customs and, most importantly, by our own neglect. ¶Only the united Śaivites of the world can solve these problems. It is not enough to understand these problems or to complain about them. Objecting is not enough. We have to have a plan, a purpose, persistence and push. We have to put that plan forward with a positive mind, a practical approach and a dynamic will in order to make Śaivism the religion of the future, bringing it out of the agricultural era and into the technological age. ¶Here in Sri Lanka there is a misconception that in order to progress, in order to move into the age of technology, we have to abandon our religion, give up our culture. That is a false concept. Religion does not conflict with technology, but enhances it, gives it balance and purpose. As soon as a young man or woman gets a Western education, he or she assumes that the old traditions don’t apply anymore and becomes ashamed to worship God and the Gods. Where are the spiritual leaders who can explain that this need not be so? It is too bad that our religious leaders aren’t teaching the fact that Śaivism is the one religion on the planet best suited to this great age, which agrees most closely with the most advanced postulations of modern science, yet it is itself even more advanced. ¶In Bali, the technological age did not conquer religion. Rather, Śaivite religious leaders harnessed technology to serve their distinct way of life. There the Śaivite traditions have been valued and protected. On American national television a few months ago, a beautiful program on Bali’s Śiva festival, Ekadaśa Rudra, was shown—a massive celebration held for ten days only once every hundred years. A Balinese high priest was interviewed. He was proud to be a Śaivite and told the reporter, “We use technology here in Bali. We are not overcome by technology.” I am afraid to say that technology is overcoming many of us here in Sri Lanka. It is a dangerous trend. Unless we reverse it through education, it will gather momentum, and changes will come more and more quickly, not positive changes, but negative ones that destroy the religious character of people and nations. §
Devout Hindus have a hard time dividing life into the sacred and the profane. It is life, and it is all divine expression. Thus, Hindu art is sacred art, Hindu music is devotional music. Even business, for the devout Hindu, is not just livelihood but a way of serving God, the community and helping mankind. ¶But we must admit that not all Hindus live the life as fully as they might. There has evolved a double standard in the modern world. There are those who are consistent as Hindus in the temple as well as at home, whose home life is consistent with their behavior in the temple, whether they live in Europe or in an Indian village. There are also those who are Hindus when it is convenient and something else when it is not. A good, hard look at oneself once in a while is beneficial, especially at the time of year when many Hindus send Christmas cards. Do they send greetings to acknowledge the holy days of Islam or Judaism? No. But, having been educated in Christian schools, they feel it’s all right to send Christmas cards. Christian on the inside and Hindu on the outside—it’s a double standard. Rice and curry at the temple, a Big Mac beef burger on the way home. Of course, we would always encourage friendly gestures of goodwill and polite exchanges of good wishes with school mates, neighbors, colleagues, business and professional associates or customers who are members of another community, but that can be done without compromising our Hindu identity. There are perfectly neutral and secularized season’s greetings cards, devoid of religious expression. ¶Fortunately, the duplicity is changing. Hindus are getting more confident about living their culture, even in the West. A recent speaking tour in Canada and California brought to my attention an awakening in the older generation (for the sake of their children, they explained), and that is to be one hundred percent Hindu all the time, living the culture at home, in the workplace, the temple and even in dreams. One temple I visited in Toronto had set up a dress code for the devotees: elegant Hindu attire for ladies—no shorts, slacks, skirts, etc., and only traditional attire for men. Those who don’t comply are not admitted. Yes, there was at first some reaction, management told me. Even now, there are some who just won’t come to the temple if they can’t worship the Lord in T-shirts and tight jeans. But so many others who don’t appreciate the double standard and previously would stay away—because worshipers were dressing so immodestly—have since replaced the dropouts. The strictness has brought other boons along with it, such as a one-hour, absolutely silent meditation by two or three hundred people prior to the evening pūjā. The management prides itself on cleanliness, decorum and discipline. My group arrived there shortly after a feeding of several thousand. The kitchen was immaculate. So was the dining room. Similar efforts to bring forward the whole of our tradition are underway in other communities as well. ¶There is an old saying, “Clothes make the man.” And it must be equally true that clothes make the woman. Dress codes are a growing issue in many temples throughout the world, and in āśramas and maṭhas, too. This is being discussed not only in Hinduism but in other religions as well. ¶In international airports all over the world we see so many kinds of clothing. Airports are beginning to look like backstage at the opera—a flamboyant array—not of actors pretending to be who they are not, but an array of people whose clothing declares who they are. A materialist wears his shirt and tie. The Muslims are elegantly dressed. The colorful African tribals, stately Japanese Shintoists and modest Buddhists are in their traditional garb. Catholics dress demurely; Protestants informally. You can spot an existentialist just like that. And of course, you can never miss the punk rockers or the hippies. A kurta shirt, shawl and loosely fitted pants are definitely Hindu, and go well with the wife’s wearing a sārī or puñjābi. §
The clothing we wear shapes our attitudes, cultural behavior and the friendships we hold. Clothes do affect our moods and emotions and make a declaration of who we are. My recommendation is to be who you are and let the world know it, even in the workplace, unless a dress code does not permit this, of course. This includes wearing the sacred forehead marks and Hindu jewelry, wedding pendant, toe rings, earrings and beads. The message is: don’t be afraid to be a Hindu, which includes dressing like a Hindu. ¶Boldly proclaim your faith to the world. Others proclaim theirs. I will never forget seeing the many spiritual and parliamentary leaders in Moscow at the Global Forum on Human Survival in January of 1991. Many were dressed in Western suits and ties, and it was hard to tell who among them were from the West, or from Africa or India, and harder still to tell who was a religious person and who a politician. But at the Millennium Peace Summit of Religious Leaders at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York in 2000, there were so many, perhaps most, who wore their native dress. I knew instantly who they were, where they were from and what they represented. They carried the stronger message and showed by their clothes that they were proud of their tradition, and that they intended to preserve it. That kind of strength is good to see in a world that has mistaken drab uniformity for security. ¶This is what temple societies and elders and swāmīs and gurus are all thinking deeply about—“Should my aśrama look like a hippie commune, or a serious place of yoga? Should our temples look like advertisements for Levi-Strauss acid-washed jeans?” Many say, “Well, God in the temple doesn’t care how I’m dressed. It’s how I am on the inside that counts.” This is a weak excuse. We cannot be one way on the inside and another on the outside. It’s all us, inside and out. Even in elegant restaurants, a coat and tie is required. They will lend these to you at the door. Just as is done today at temples in Bali, we loan wrap-arounds and shawls to those who walk into our temples wearing T-shirts and shorts. Perhaps the way things are heading, one day the Gods in the temples will have the dress of the day: a baseball cap turned backwards, a T-shirt, baggy pants. Perhaps that would satisfy the issue and end the controversy. What do you think? ¶Women say that they think and act and move differently when they are dressed in a sārī than in Western casual clothing. Another point—men look nicer in the traditional Indian outfit than they do in Western coats, shirts and trousers. But many are shy to wear Hindu clothing, especially the men. They need not be. Last summer a girl we know was scared to death to go to college in her puñjābis. But she tried it. Within four days some of the American coeds came up and asked, “What do you call that outfit? We want one like it, too. It’s so beautiful.” So much for our fears! ¶Swami Vivekananda noted, “The sārī of our women and the choga and turban of our men defy comparison as regards beauty in dress. The tight dresses cannot approach in loveliness the loose ones that fall in natural folds.” Hindus dressed like Hindus behave like Hindus. Don’t underestimate the power of our dress, how it influences our attitudes, feelings and even the company we keep. This is food for thought, isn’t it? Think about it. §
Every nation, village, organization, society and even small group has certain goals to accomplish, ideals to live by and a mission it seeks to fulfill. But every organization and group, large or small, has something else as well: detractors. They are usually friendly, kindly, sociable and fun to be with. They’re often intellectually bright and more sophisticated than most. They can be the life of the party, the ones who get things going, serve the prasāda and talk a mile a minute. They are often popular, welcomed onto every committee and board of trustees, because people feel their energy and inspiration will implement the objectives of the organization, be they building a temple, promoting a publication, saving the rain forests or reorganizing Hindu society into traditional ways of life, culture and arts. ¶Their special social skills promote them quickly through the ranks. Once in an influential position, they speak wisely on subjects irrelevant to the central purpose of the organization. Given the chance, they can turn a not-so-wealthy āśrama into an up-and-coming business, thus diluting the original holy impulse of selfless, humble service. Of course, they do perform worship, but in most cases it is not genuine, and just enough to keep them in with a religious group. Given a project, they may balk or procrastinate—delaying a mailing to the point that when it arrives it is useless, or refraining from doing it at all. They are never without a good reason for their actions, having been educated in the venerable “Book of Excuses.” At meetings they are quite competent to tell in compelling terms why a project that all wish to manifest is not possible. They are equally capable of making everyone question the mission of the organization and their part in it. They politic to redefine the group’s chartered purpose, to make it fit into their own ideas. These rājas of reason have many ruses to discourage others from fitting in, and will go to great efforts to bring up irrelevant alternatives and possibilities which cloud the group’s thinking and undermine its commitments. All this may seem overstated, perhaps over-generalized, but from my experience I assure you that it is not. ¶These, my friends, are detractors. Though they may appear to be allies, they are not. The worst of them, I would say, are guided by asuric forces which seek to undermine, erode and create confusion. Detractors also endeavor to control and then stifle the religious leaders—the swāmīs, pandits, priests and the guru—by setting schedules as to whom they should or should not meet, what they should and should not say. If they can, they will cleverly edit a religious institution’s written works into oblivion and relegate the founder to being a feeble figurehead, a mere picture hanging on the wall. ¶Detractors are something to be deeply concerned about. Don’t hope that they will one day turn around and be defenders of faith. They won’t. By divine, dharmic law, devotees who are dedicated to the goals of their group are wrong to associate with detractors, who often seek to replace the religious agenda with a social one. Rather, they must be dissociated from and seen as foes to the forces of dharma, antagonists who do not allow others to preserve the thrust of the founder’s goals. Every group should rigorously test each one within it to determine who is vowed to fulfill the goals of the organization and who will hamper them every step of the way, resist and refuse to fit in fully, and politic to cause others to do the same. Their favorite mode of operation is the erosion method, continually taking up time, even if it’s only five minutes today and eight minutes tomorrow. Their presence is always a burden, as they deter, delay and inhibit the mission by their remarkable irrelevancies and intolerable subtle obstinacy. Asuric invasion comes through such detractors, who rely on anger, pouting, gossip, backbiting and emotional upheavals to get their way. Once having been admitted into the central fold, they employ these means of motivation even more openly than before, to the utter distress of devotees who are humbly striving to follow dharma and to fulfill the stated mission of the organization. Now, I am not saying these are all necessarily bad people, though some are definitely there to intentionally infiltrate, dilute and destroy. Others may have, in their own minds, perfectly good intentions and may be entirely unaware of their negative effect on the group. But that does not excuse them. It is important to stress that for religious service to be effective, there must be absolute group harmony. For words to go deep and lives to be changed for the better, everyone’s prāṇas must be flowing together on an equal wavelength. All must be kindred in their vows and unified in their determination to fulfill the goals of the āśrama, society, temple or mission. ¶The big question remains: how to get rid of detractors once they are discovered. Quite probably they have made many friends, are tied into key projects, have contributed a great deal of money and gained a position of control. If detractors are discovered, don’t confront them. Don’t accuse them. Don’t try to persuade or convince them to be different. Don’t expect them to change. Be persistent in maintaining the original goals of the institution. Uphold the dharma and be unified with those who are loyal. Quietly let the detractors go their way, or into another group that is more suited to them. Without them, the mission will soar. Religious organizations must not tolerate domination by wealthy or influential patrons or members who do not support the shared goals. An indigent widow’s single rupee in the huṇḍi and a billionaire’s one million should have equal weight in the minds of the trustees. §
In the past months, we have talked to many groups about the abuse of women and children, of animals and our environment. And there is yet another kind of abuse whose victims have silently suffered without our concern, without our intervention, and mostly without our even knowing about it. I’m speaking of our temple priests, who are being mistreated and abused all over the world. This is a distressing problem that I hear about nearly every week and am working steadily to solve. ¶It is time that we talked about this atrocity. Hindu priests, known as pujārīs, are being mistreated, humiliated and bashed—emotionally, mentally and even physically—by temple managers, trustees and sometimes even devotees. We all know that this is not right. Still, with few exceptions, no one is objecting, except of course the priests themselves. Their objections and efforts to provide for their own security go largely unheard, as they are looked down upon by management as uneducated, simple people who merely perform rote rituals. In truth, they are a noble army of soldiers of the within, who are the heart of Hinduism’s spiritual leadership. ¶Priest bashing is a popular sport outside of India. Back in India, priests have their saṅga and elders to stand up for them. Outside India, when a priest falls into disfavor, the slightest infractions are used against him, and serious accusations are quickly levelled to blacken his name, hurt him and force him out. Accusation of wrongdoing in handling money is a favorite ploy and usually the first to be used. The list goes on, giving management the license to yell at him, push him, ignore his needs, embarrass him in front of his peers and humiliate him in public. In Australia, a priest spent two weeks in the hospital following an incident of severe and traumatic public humiliation. There have been too many cases for us to take lightly the hiṁsā hurts inflicted upon priests serving in foreign lands. With a sympathetic attorney’s help, one priests’ group in California formed their own organization for protection, but this is still the exception. ¶It is bad enough inside India, but even worse outside. At least in India the priest is on home ground, knows the rules of the region and has moral, emotional and even legal support available. And, of course, he has his extended family to turn to. Outside of India, many priests have none of these support systems. Many priests are isolated and vulnerable in so many ways—often living alone, with only a temporary visa. Many don’t know the laws and customs of the country they serve in, and may not know the language too well, so they are often at the mercy of the temple managers for everything. They are disadvantaged in another way, too: if a priest has to return to his village, he will face a second humiliation as elders and peers make him answer up to the gossip, insinuations and accusations that have accumulated against him. ¶Yes, bashing Hindu temple priests is a worldwide tragedy, and those who perpetrate these acts are also bashing the Sanātana Dharma. But abusing priests is not to be taken lightly. Those who can invoke blessings from the Gods can also invoke curses from asuric forces of this planet for their own protection when angered, embarrassed and deeply hurt. Hindu temple priests deserve respect for the richness of their holy profession, the dignity of their office and the importance of their function. They should not be mistreated or interfered with. They have earned the same respect that any professional in “the real world” enjoys. When swāmī bashing was in vogue years ago, swāmīs took it seriously. They got to know each other better, stood up for each other and put a stop to the nonsense. ¶Women today are taking such a stand against their own husbands who take sadistic joy in battering them repeatedly. When these transgressions are brought before the public, changes are often set in motion. Attitudes change. Soon the media changes its ways of reporting on abuse. Laws eventually change. We have seen this happen with child abuse, with racial abuse, with sexual abuse. The time has now come for us all to change our attitudes about abusing temple priests. This will require temple managers to adjust their thinking. It will also require the international priesthood of Sanātana Dharma to take a firm stand against their molesters and refuse to meekly submit, day in and day out, to harassment or to being relegated to janitorial work and the handling of shoes. Some priests work fourteen hours a day and more. They are treated like servants of the manager rather than servants of the temple Gods. Let’s put an end to this shameful mistreatment and the bad karma that it creates. Let’s honor, love and respect our priests. Let’s make our priests happy. Happy priest, happy temple, happy Gods, happy devotees. That’s the way it works.§
Commitment is a big word and a very scary word to many people nowadays. The word commitment means responsibility. The word commitment brings up our willpower. Many people think the word commitment is too limiting. We can sum up commitment in one word, dharma. The path of dharma is the path of one commitment after another commitment. In between the commitments is fulfillment of the commitment, which is another word for duty. We are here to realize God Śiva within ourself. We are here to resolve all the karmas we put in motion in past lives. We are here to manage our affairs so properly that eventually we do not have to come back into a physical body anymore. This takes tremendous commitment, and our great Hindu religion gives us the knowledge of how to be committed. ¶If your religion is not manifesting daily in your life, then basically you don’t have a religion. You just have some sort of Indian culture which will eventually go away and be replaced with another kind of a culture, because it doesn’t really matter to you. Someone asked me recently, “How do I know what to be committed to?” The answer: “What do you believe in?” Belief is a magical thing. It’s like a vitamin; it permeates your whole system. A belief can be taken away and another belief can replace it, or the belief can be strengthened through commitment. Be committed to your beliefs, or find beliefs that you can be committed to, then build on them. Then you will leave your footprints on the San Mārga of time. Otherwise, you are just sitting in one place, making no progress. Nothing is happening in your life. The karmas aren’t working right, and you are not able to face life. ¶If you feel, day after day, that you are in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, then I would say you are a being who is fully committed to the spiritual path. If, day after day, you feel you don’t know whether you are in the right place or not, and things are always “happening to you,” that you are like a little boat on the great ocean of life being tossed around, here and there, then you should look within yourself and find out where you stand on the scale of life itself. What are your basic beliefs? What are your basic commitments? Ask yourself. ¶There are many things to be committed to. Youths should be committed to an education that prepares them for what they plan to do in the future. Mothers should be committed to raising their children, making them good citizens, though some mothers don’t care whether their children are good citizens or not. They just don’t care. They are not even committed to raising their own children. They give them over to somebody else to raise: “Here, you do it.” Day-care centers are opening up all across the nation, though statistics show that children educated in day-care centers are terrible students when they get into school—discouraged, undisciplined, unruly students. Husbands should be committed to raising up their family, taking care of their wife and children. That is a commitment that they have to fulfill. If they don’t fulfill it, they are making an unworthy karma. But many husbands are not even committed to that. ¶Commitment and dharma are just about the same. Dharma brings law and order into life, gives us rules to follow and guides us along. Where does commitment come from? Commitment comes from the soul. The intellectual mind is going this way and that way all the time, controlled or antagonized by other people’s opinions most of the time and by how society is thinking. Commitment comes from the soul. It is a quality of the soul which you can teach to the next generation. Another quality of the soul is observation. Still another intuitive quality of the soul is creativity, which should be encouraged in every child. Through commitment, the soul dominates the intellect and the intellect dominates the instinctive mind. This is religion in action. This is living with Śiva.§