Fwd:Happy Easter, Rob - Thoought this might be intesting to read, Saidicoji!

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The Master Course of Himalayan Academy

by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

 

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Sloka 4 from Dancing with Siva

 

How Can We Learn to Dance with Siva?

 

Dance is movement, and the most exquisite dance is the most disciplined

dance. Hindu spiritual disciplines lead to oneness with God through

self-reflection, surrender, personal transformation and the many

yogas. Aum.

 

Bhashya

 

To progress on the path, we study the Vedas, other scriptures and our

guru's teachings and make every effort to apply these philosophical

truths to daily experience. We strive to understand the mind in its

fourfold nature: chitta, consciousness; manas, instinctive mind; buddhi,

intellectual mind; and ahamkara, ego or I-maker. We perform japa,

meditation and yoga each day. Such spiritual discipline is known as

sadhana. It is the mystical, mental, physical and devotional exercise

that enables us to dance with Siva by bringing inner advancement, changes

in perception and improvements in character. Sadhana allows us to live

in the refined and cultured soul nature, rather than in the outer,

instinctive or intellectual spheres. For consistent progress, sadhana

should be performed regularly, without fail, at the same time each day,

preferably in the early hours before dawn. The most important sadhanas

are the challenges and practices given by one's guru. The Vedas caution,

" The Self cannot be attained by the weak, nor by the careless, nor through

aimless disciplines. But if one who knows strives by right means, his

soul enters the abode of God. " Aum Namah Sivaya.

 

 

 

LESSON 4 from Living with Siva

 

Knowing Self by Self

 

In the earlier stages, before sadhana is undertaken, the mind is

agitated by current karmas and perhaps discouraged by its inability to

know or to fulÞll dharma. In this agitated state the world looks bleak

and terrible, and it would be inconceivable to him for God to be any

place but in the temple. " Certainly God could not reside within myself, "

the unenlightened concludes.

 

In the second stage, when the mind rests peacefully in the fulÞllment of a

life's pattern, dharma, when it has sufÞcient maturity to control and to

dispatch past and current karmas through meditation, prayer and penance,

then indeed God is seen as a helping hand within, but most potently felt

within His temple.

 

In the third stage, the helping hand within becomes more than an aid to

the troubled mind; it becomes pure consciousness itself. Rather than

seeking God outside, God is enjoyed as a vital, integral dimension

of the person, the Life of life, the power and radiant energy of the

universe. The calm within is greater than the outside disturbance. In

this stage of bliss-consciousness, it is clearly seen and exuberantly

experienced that God is indeed within us. The experiencer's perceptions

become acute, and in his daily life he becomes a witness, observing that

others do not see God within themselves. He has a secret that he has

discovered. God within becomes soul-realized as Truth-Knowledge-Bliss,

Satchidananda, the pervasive energy that glues all things together. Mind

becomes serene, peace is seen to be everywhere, and the bliss so strong. A

deeper inner eye opens at this stage, and it is truly perceived that

this same presence of Siva is in each and every living being, permeates

every atom of the universe as the great, sustaining substratum of all

that exists. Only when this is experienced can one truly say that God

is within man and man is within God.

 

To know philosophy without experience is like going on a vacation

to a distant and wonderful place by simply reading a book about the

destination, hearing what others claim is to be enjoyed there. It is

not true experience at all. The only spiritual experience is personal

experience. My satguru, Siva Yogaswami, made it clear that " You will

not attain jnana, wisdom, even if you read a thousand scriptures. You

must know your Self by yourself. "

 

How can we with our Þnite mind come to understand InÞnity, come to

understand God? How can we intellectually encompass something as great

as God? Our scriptures tell us that God Himself is Shankara, the author

of all knowledge, creator of the intellect. He is the great architect of

the universe. Then if God created the intellect, how can the intellect

understand Him? Well, it is possible. It has been done. The intellect

has to expand, and awareness has to transcend the rational mind and see

directly from superconscious knowing. That is why we worship Siva in His

highest form, symbolized by the Sivalinga, the simple elliptical stone.

 

It is good that you are trying to see Siva everywhere. Keep trying. It

will come. Who else can give your Self to you? The unfoldment of the Self

within you is but Siva. He can give you wealth. He can give you health. He

can bestow everything that you would ever need or even desire. But to

worship Him as formless, as we are doing tonight, carries the mind into

inÞnity. Mind can only encompass what it identiÞes with. Mind cannot

identify Truth in this subtle form which represents Siva as beyond the

mind--formless, timeless and spaceless. Yet, within you this very instant,

only shrouded by your ignorance, only shrouded by the ego, which is the

sense of personal identity and separation, is Siva. He is there right

now, not at some Þctitious future time. Just get rid of the maya, the

anava and resolve the karma, and there He will be. The ego is the last

thing to go. It is the last bond to break.

 

Once the bondage of personal ego is broken, it is seen that this

mysterious God is all-pervading. He is what He has created. Think

about that. It is very deep. Siva pervades His creation constantly as

ever-present Love and Light of the mind of everyone, as Intelligence

and Being; and yet God also has a form.

 

In the subtle worlds, Siva has the most beautiful form, not unlike a

human form, but an absolutely perfect human form. He thinks. He talks. He

walks. He makes decisions. We are fortunate to worship such a great God

who pervades everything and yet transcends it, who is both form and beyond

form, who is the Self within your very self at this very moment. So,

all of you seekers of nondual Truth, you have a truly great path that

offers God experience in form and beyond form. How fortunate you are!

 

 

 

 

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Sutra 4 of the Nandinatha Sutras

 

Oneness With The Satguru

 

Siva's devotees strive to be inwardly one with their satguru,

acknowledging the paramount need for a spiritual preceptor to guide them

on the upward climb, the straight path that leads to Lord Siva's holy

feet. Aum.

 

 

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LESSON 4 from Merging with Siva

 

Harnessing the Energies

 

Still other goals must be met: quieting the energies, the pranas,

through pranayama, purifying or refining mind and emotion, quelling the

ever-constant movement of the restless, external mind and its immediate

subconscious, where memories are stored, preserved memories which give

rise to fear, anger, hatred and jealousy. It is our past that colors

and conditions, actually creates, the future. We purge the past in the

present, and we fashion the future in the present.

 

All of these emotions are the powerful force that bursts the seals of the

psychic chakras, four, five, six and seven. Once harnessed, turned inward

and transmuted, this life force drives the spiritual process forward. Ours

is the path of not only endeavoring to awaken the higher nature, but at

the same time and toward the same end dealing positively and consciously

with the remnants of the lower nature, replacing charity for greed and

dealing with, rather than merely suppressing, jealousy, hatred and anger.

 

Most people do not understand that they have a mind, that they have a

body and emotions, that what they are is something far more lasting and

profound. They think they are a mind, they presume they are a body and

they feel they are a given set of emotions, positive and negative. To

progress on the spiritual path, they must learn they are not these

things but are, in fact, a radiant, conscious soul that never dies,

that can control the mind and directs the emotion toward fulfillment of

dharma and resolution of karma. While living in a normal agitated state

of fears, worries and doubts, seeing the deeper truths is impossible. To

such a person there is no doubt about it: " I am fearful. I am worried. I

am confused. I am sick. " He says such things daily, thinking of himself

in a very limited way.

 

This wrong identification of who we are must be unlearned. Before we

actually begin serious sadhana, we must understand ourselves better,

understand the three phases of the mind: instinctive, intellectual and

superconscious. This takes time, meditation and study--study that must

culminate in actual experience of the instinctive mind, the intellectual

mind and the transcendent subsuperconscious state of the mind.

 

Seeing the mind in its totality convinces the seeker that he is something

else, he is the witness who observes the mind and cannot, therefore, be

the mind itself. Then we realize that the mind in its superconsciousness

is pure. We do not have to purify it, except to carry out its native

purity into life, into the intellect by obtaining right knowledge and

transmuting the instinctive or animal qualities. This is accomplished

from within out. It is not as difficult as it may seem.

 

 

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