FW: Master Course Lesson 53 - Higher Intuition (Mati), Kundalini Yoga, Indices of Progress in Spiritual Practice

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12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Please do read carefully the sections below on mati,

worship and scriptural study and indicators of spiritual progress. The

definition of mati closely

parallels its description in the highly technical Yoga Sutras (Yoga Aphorisms)

of Patanjali. Gurudeva of Hinduism

Today was a Yoga Siddha (Master) of high order.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">A guru, preferably one who has studied according to

sampradaya and parampara, i.e. tradition and lineage is very necessary for the

higher stages of practice. A good

example of such a guru would be Swami Paramanandaji whom many of you may have

met recently when he held the retreat at Vraj.

yes"> Chinese Ch'an Master Shifu Sheng Yen, and Swami Dayananda

Saraswati would be other gurus with name recognition in the US as guides and

teachers. There are many others

coming to the US now – most are not as well grounded in the theory behind

sadhana or spiritual practice, or in the non-dual realization, where through

aparoksha anubhava or immediate personal cognition one knows various subtle

metaphysical truths, including tenets that all paths to Liberation/Redemption

are valid. If on occasion I use

Sanskrit words, this is unavoidable since certain concepts do not exist in

English and Western philosophy.

Gradually these words are being incorporated into English (and other

Western languages). Brahman is the

most common of these words from Indian metaphysics, now in the Oxford English

dictionary and part of the English language.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">The section on Svarga and Naraka - Heaven and Hell you can

take as read since ye are not troubled by such absolutisms. It is mainly meant

for those trapped by

the doctrinaire fundamentalist aspects of the Semitic faiths – Judaism,

Christianity and Islam. They have

not had exposure to the mystics of these faiths who experienced the same

universal vision – Sarvatmabhava of the Indian Vedantins, c.f. Kabbalists of

attainment, Buber, Eckhardt, and Mansur al Hallaj.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">The section below, Lesson 53 Living With Siva, deals with

the Anahata, Vishuddha, Ajna and Sahasra Chakras, i.e. the 4th Chakra and above

of the conventional 7 Chakras of Kundalini Yoga.

yes"> However, most people everywhere exist largely in the first

three chakras - the Muladhara, Svâdhishthâna and Manipura. If ye want to

practice Kundalini Yoga,

personal instructions from a teacher who has gone the route are critical. Even

in the secular world, one goes to

universities and teachers.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">The Master Lesson below speaks rather casually and without

much explanation of the very advanced personal experiential state of Nirvikalpa

Samadhi (attributeless – (cognitive ego sublated) meditative state).

However, since this lesson is one of a

series, and knowing the attainment and scholarship of the founding pontiff of

Kauai Aadheenam, it is understandable.

The vast majority of people cannot sit quietly for ten minutes without a

wandering mind or physical aches and pains.

yes"> For them, let alone Nirvikalpa Samadhi, even attainment of

dhyana or meditation, and savikalpa samadhi (internal one pointedness on chosen

meditation object) are as distant as getting an Olympics gymnastics medal is to

the average couch potato.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">One has to start with baby steps, then patiently practice

for months, years, decades, nay lives, to achieve the higher metaphysical

realizations. Some peace of mind,

reduction of stress and a sense of being in control of one's life, can come

within six months to two years of sustained practice.

yes"> Even mindlessly repeating Coca Cola for 20 minutes everyday

can bring some benefits - forget about the esoterica of mantra japa with

pratika (icon or representation), dhyana sloka, (meditation verse), mudra

(sacred symbols), anga nyasa, kara nyasa, (bodily and digital purification)

et.al.

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12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">In the West in general, and the US in particular, where

individualism is stressed, we find two syndromes.

yes"> First, there are the people who are allergic to the critical

requirement of personal instruction on spiritual discipline(s) to bring about

seminal psycho-spiritual/physical changes.

yes"> All the information after all is available in books – why do

we need colleges and universities?

Shut them down and just open libraries.

yes"> Obviously, this ridiculous.

yes"> It is only a few very mature and disciplined souls who can

study on their own from books, reflect and see the Truth, and most of them only

after years of formal study and practice.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">The second syndrome is typified by the trusting Hippie

flower children of the 1960s. They

park their brains and become virtual zombies under the control of every

snake-oil salesman-saleswoman/charlatan who comes down the pike. These

impostors take the naïve trusting

minds, money, and often the bodies of the innocent for a ride. The traditional

scriptures of India say

sraddha or reverence and devotion is not blind, unquestioning faith. One should

listen with reverence to the

teacher who does not seem to have any ulterior motive or axe to grind – in

Sanskrit aptakamah. It is only

when shruti or the Revealed Scripture, yukti or reason, and anubhava or

personal experience tally that the teaching or instruction is to be accepted as

valid.

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12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Adi Shankaracharya Bhagavadpada says in his commentary on

Verse 18.66 of the Bhagavad Geeta:

12.0pt;color:black">

"A hundred srutis [Vedic sayings] may declare

that fire is cold or it is dark; still they possess no authority in the

matter." Being opposed to

reason and experience, such statements are to be rejected. Sankara goes on to say,

"Revelation is intended as authority only for knowing what lies beyond the

range of human knowledge," that is, in transcendental matters such as the

existence of heaven and so forth, which can never be objectively proven.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Traditional Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Madhyamika

Buddhism, and other non-dualistic approaches to moksha/nirvana or Liberation

accept the validity of meditative states (c.f. Jeevanamuktiviveka of Vidyaranya

Swami, Tripura Rahasya, Mandukya Karikas).

yes"> However, they do not attach overweening importance even to

the highest samadhi, as do the bhakti, yoga and tantra sampradayas, which set

great, store by them.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">According to the Vedantins, even the highest meditative

states can only give you fixity or concentration of mind (ekagratachitta), and

purity of the internal perceiving organ – mind in a manner of speaking

(antahkaranashuddhi). They cannot

give you Liberation – which being ever your real nature is to be known and

understood (siddha vishaya / prapta vishaya), and not to be obtained or

achieved (sadhya vishaya / prapya vishaya).

yes"> For the mental

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Samadhi, one-pointed state of mind when with attributes

(savikalpa), or sublation of ego when without attributes (Nirvikalpa) is the

fruit or resultant of perfection in meditation

yes"> It enables you to burn your dross, accumulate spiritual

merit, and thus qualify yourself to go to Heavens of various levels of

salubriousness depending on the store of merit you have accumulated. However,

once you have spent a few

trillion years there, you have to come back to the worlds of action. Vacation

or Happy Hour is over. As the Bhagavad Gita puts it so well:

12.0pt;color:black">

margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">BHAGAVAD GITA

9.21

10.0pt;color:darkred;font-weight:bold">te tam bhuktva svarga-lokam visalam

ksine punye martya-lokam visanti

evam trayi-dharmam anuprapanna

gatagatam kama-kama labhante

10.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:bold">WORD FOR WORD

..5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center">

10.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">te -- they; tam -- that;

italic">bhuktva -- enjoying; svarga-lokam

-- heaven; visalam -- vast; ksine -- being exhausted; punye -- the results of their pious

activities; martya-lokam -- to

the mortal earth; visanti -- fall

down; evam -- thus; trayi -- of the three Vedas; dharmam -- doctrines;

anuprapannah -- following; gata-agatam -- death and birth; kama-kamah --

desiring sense enjoyments; labhante -- attain.

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10.0pt;color:blue">

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10.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:bold">TRANSLATION

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10.0pt;color:blue;font-weight:bold">They, having enjoyed that spacious world of

Svarga, their merit (punya) exhausted, enter the world of the mortals; thus

following the Dharma of the Triad (3 Vedas), desiring(objects of) desires, they

attain to the state of going and returning.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Have a nice day now.

12.0pt;color:black">

color:blue;mso-ansi-language:FR">Nagendra Rao

 

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10.0pt;color:black;mso-ansi-language:FR;font-weight:bold">

GURUDEVA

[gurudeva-mastercourse (AT) gurudeva (DOT) dynip.com]

Wednesday, June 04, 2003 5:15 AM

Subj: Master Course Lesson 53

12.0pt;color:black">

bold">The Master Course of Himalayan Academy

bold">By

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bold">Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

12.0pt;color:black">

Sloka 53 from Dancing

with Siva

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Does Hell Really Exist?

Is There a Satan?

12.0pt;color:green">

There is no eternal hell,

nor is there a Satan. However, there are hellish states of mind and woeful

births for those who think and act wrongfully--temporary tormenting conditions

that lift the fiery forces within. Aum.

12.0pt;color:black">

Bhashya

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Hell, termed Naraka, is the lower astral realm of the seven

chakras below the muladhara. It is a place of fire and heat, anguish and

dismay, of confusion, despair, and depression. Here anger, jealousy, argument, mental

conflict, and tormenting moods plague the mind. Access to hell is brought about

by our own thoughts, words, deeds, and emotions--suppressed, antagonistic

feelings that court demons and their aggressive forces. Hell is not eternal.

Nor is there a Satan who tempts man and opposes God's power, though there are

devilish beings called asuras, immature souls caught in the abyss of deception

and hurtfulness. We do not have to die to suffer the Naraka regions, for

hellish states of mind are also experienced in the physical world. If we do die

in a hellish state of consciousness--burdened by unresolved hatred, remorse,

resentment, fear and distorted patterns of thought--we arrive in Naraka fully

equipped to join others in this temporary astral purgatory. The Vedas say,

"Sunless and demonic, verily, are those worlds, and enveloped in blinding

darkness, to which all those people who are enemies of their own souls go after

death."

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12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Aum Namah Sivaya.

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____________________

12.0pt;color:black">

LESSON 53 from Living

with Siva

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Mati: Cognition

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Cognition, mati, is the seventh niyama. Cognition means

understanding; but deeper than understanding, it is seeing through to the other

side of the results that a thought, a word or an action would have in the

future, before the thought, word or action has culminated. Mati is the

development of a spiritual will and intellect through the grace of a satguru,

an enlightened master. Mati can only come this way. It is a transference of

divine energies from the satguru to the shishya, building a purified intellect

honed down by the guru for

the shishya, and a spiritual will developed by the shishya by following the

religious sadhanas the guru has laid down until the desired results are

attained to the guru's satisfaction. Sadhana is always done under a guru's

direction. This is the worthy sadhana that bears fruit.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Mati, cognition, on a higher level is the awakening of the

third eye, looking out through the heart chakra, seeing through the maya, the

interacting creation, preservation and dissolution of the molecules of matter.

Mati is all this and more, for within each one who is guided by the guru's

presence lies the ability to see not only with the two eyes but with all three

simultaneously. The spiritual intellect described herein is none other than

wisdom, or a "wise dome," if you will. Wisdom is the timely

application of knowledge, not merely the opinions of others, but knowledge

gained through deep observation.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">The guru's guidance is supreme in the life of the dedicated

devotee who is open for training. The verbal lineages of the many sampradayas

have withstood the tests of time, turmoil, decay and ravage of external

hostility. The sampradayas that have sustained man and lifted him above the

substratum of ignorance are actually great nerve currents within the sushumna

of the awakened satguru himself. To go further on the path of yoga, one will

encounter within his own sushumna current--within one of the fourteen nadis

within it--a satguru, a guru who preaches Truth. He will meet this guru

in a dream or in his physical body, and through the guru's grace and guidance

will be allowed to continue the upward climb. These fourteen currents, at every point

in time on the surface of the Earth, have a satguru attached to them, ready and

waiting to open the portals of the beyond into the higher chakras, the throat,

the third eye and the cranium.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">To say, "I have awakened my throat chakra,"

"I now live in my third eye" or "I am developing my sahasrara

chakra," without being able to admit to being under a guru, a satguru who

knows and is personally directing the devotee, is foolishness, a matter of

imagination

font-weight:bold">. It is in the heart chakra, the chakra of cognition, that

seekers see through the veils of ignorance, illusion, maya's interacting

preservation, creation and destruction, and gain a unity with and love for the

universe--all those within it, creatures, peoples and all the various

forms--feeling themselves a part of it.

12.0pt;color:black">

Here, on this threshold of the anahata chakra, there

are two choices. One is following the sampradaya of a satguru for the next

upward climb into the vishuddha, ajna and sahasrara. The other is remaining

guru-less, becoming one's own guru, and possibly delving into various forms of

psychism, astrology, some forms of modern science, psychic crime-detection,

tarot cards, pendulums, crystal gazing, psychic healing, past-life reading or

fortunetelling. These psychic abilities, when developed, can be an impediment,

a deterrent, a barrier, a Berlin Wall to future spiritual development. They

develop the anava, the ego, and are the first renunciations the satguru would

ask a devotee to make prior to being accepted.

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">Coming under a satguru, one performs according to the

guru's direction with full faith and confidence. This is why scriptures say a

guru must be carefully chosen, and when one is found, to follow him with all

your heart, to obey and fulfill his every instruction better than he would have

expected you to, and most importantly, even better than you would have expected

of yourself.

mso-color-alt:windowtext">

12.0pt;color:black">

Psychic abilities are not

in themselves deterrents on the path. They are permitted to develop later,

after Parasiva, nirvikalpa samadhi, has been attained and fully established

within the individual. But this, too, would be under the guru's grace and

guidance, for these abilities are looked at as tools to fulfill certain works

assigned by the guru to the devotee to fulfill until the end of the life of the

physical body.

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12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">It is the personal ego, the anava, that is developed through

the practice of palmistry, astrology, tarot cards, fortunetelling, past-life

reading, crystal gazing, crystal healing, prana transference, etc., etc., etc.

This personal ego enhancement is a gift from those who are healed, who are

helped, who are encouraged and who are in awe of the psychic power awakened in

the heart chakra of this most perfect person of the higher consciousness who

doesn't anger, display fear or exhibit any lower qualities.

12.0pt;color:black">

____________________

12.0pt;color:black">

color:black">Sutra 53 of the Nandinatha Sutras

12.0pt;color:black">

color:black">Worship And Scriptural Study

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">All Siva's devotees cultivate bhakti and family harmony in

daily ritual and reflection, Ishvarapujana. Upholding siddhanta shravana, they hear

the scriptures, study the teachings and listen to the wise of their lineage.

Aum.

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____________________

12.0pt;color:black">

LESSON 53 from Merging

with Siva

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A Few Cardinal Signposts

12.0pt;color:black">

12.0pt;color:black">The young aspirant just becoming acquainted with the path

to enlightenment may wonder where he is, how much he has achieved so far. There

are a few cardinal signposts he may identify with to know he has touched into

the inner realms of his mind. Should he ever have experienced a "here and

now" consciousness, causing him to fight the "where and when" of

the future and the "there and then" of the past afterwards, he can

fully impart to himself an award of having achieved some attainment by striving

even more diligently than before. The ability to see the external world as

transparent, a game, a dream, encourages the aspirant to seek deeper. The

moon-like light within the center of his head appears during his tries at

meditation, sometimes giving him the perceptive ability to cognize the intricate

workings of another's external and subconscious states of mind, as well as his

own, intimately.

The ability of the ardent soul to recognize his guru and identify himself in

the actinic flow from whence the master infuses knowledge by causing inner

doors to open is another signpost that the aspirant has become an experiencer

and is touching in on the fringe or perimeter of transcendental states of mind.

12.0pt;color:black">

Many on the path to

enlightenment will be able to identify, through their personal experience, some

of these signposts, and recall many happenings that occurred during their

awakenings. But remember, the recall and the experience are quite different. The

experience is "here and

now;" the recall is "there and then." However, by identifying

the experience and relating it to a solid intellectual knowledge, the ability

will be awakened to utilize and live consciously in inner states of

superconsciousness. After acquiring this ability to consciously live

superconsciously comes the ability to work accurately and enthusiastically in

the material world while holding the intensity of the inner light, giving

perceptive awareness of its mechanical structure. There also comes the

ability to work out quickly in meditation, experiences of the external mind or

worldly happenings through finding their "innerversity" aspects

rather than being drawn out into the swirl of them. In doing so, the

cause-and-effect karmic experiential patterns of the aspirant's life that tend

to lower his consciousness into congested areas of the mind will clear up as,

more and more, the actinic flow of

superconsciousness is maintained as the bursts of clear white light become

frequent.

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____________________

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