Lesson 118.BE A FRIEND TO YOURSELF.

SLOKA 118 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT IS THE SANNYASIN’S KUNDALINI PATH?
The sannyasin balances within himself both the male and female energies. Complete unto himself, he is whole and independent. Having attained an equilibrium of ida and pingala, he becomes a knower of the known. Aum.

BHASHYA
There arises within the sannyasin a pure energy, neither masculine nor feminine. This is the sushumna current coming into power through which he gains control of the kundalini force and eventually, after years of careful guidance, attains nirvikalpa samadhi. Eventually, in one life or another, all will turn to the renunciate path. However, it would be equally improper for a renunciate-minded soul to enter family life as for a householder to seek to be a sannyasin. A word of warning. Be cautious of those who promise great kundalini awakenings and spiritual rewards from severe practices without preparation, initiation and renunciation. Those entering the serious life of sannyasa must be prepared to follow the traditional path of unrewarded sadhana through the years, apart from dear family and friends. Such is the way to reach the truth of yoga. It takes many, many years for the soul to thus ripen and mature. The Tirumantiram affirms, ”Many are the births and deaths forgotten by souls shrouded in ignorance, enveloped in mala’s darkness. At the moment Great Siva’s grace is gained, the renunciate attains the splendorous light.” Aum Namah Sivaya.

LESSON 118 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
OVERLAPPING REACTIONS

When you die, you are freed from your senses. While you are living, you are caught up in your senses and reacting to memories of things you wish you had or had not done. Many people live in a constant state of overlapping reactions. They try to find peace of mind on the outside, externally. Reactions are caused by what we have placed in the subconscious mind that we have not fully understood. Reactions are packed away in the subconscious mind, influencing our everyday life, attracting our successes and failures to us. We keep meeting blocks because of our reactions in the subconscious mind that we set up in the past. Overcome these reactions, and opportunities will open up and we will begin to succeed. Reaction is a natural thing, either positive or negative. If we are reacting in a negative way, that is because of lack of understanding; if in a positive way, that gives us more understanding, and we become our own teacher or psychologist.

If you do not understand your reaction to something, wait until it subsides emotionally, so you will not be upset, then try to understand it by writing about it in a quiet moment. Then burn the paper in an inauspicious fire, such as in a garbage can. This vasana daha tantric process releases or detaches the emotion from the memory. This means that the memory of the experience no longer harbors the emotion that was previously attached to it and vibrating twenty-four hours a day. You will still have the memory, but without a reaction or emotional charge attached to it.

There are many individuals who get their security from their reactions, who make themselves disappointed and keep themselves in a constant state of emotional vibration. Peace of mind is not a blank state. It is not having emotion attached to the memory patterns within the subconscious. These memory patterns, once freed from emotion, remain at peace, and then pure contentment resides through the entire mind. A negative reaction can be likened to a fog over the city. You cannot see clearly because of the fog.

When we react to something, how long does it take before it subsides? How can we guide our lives so as to have only positive reactions? We have to awaken a certain control over our nature. We have to anticipate what is going to happen to us. Whether we admit it or not, we attract everything that happens to us. What we react to, and what we have reacted to in the past, we will create in our future. If we face experience with understanding, we will free ourselves from recreating past unpleasant experiences. Experience is man’s greatest chain. It holds him in a certain pattern. The chains of experience get stronger and stronger until man enters spiritual life through the realms of understanding. Every man must decide whether he wants to be caged in by experience or be freed by understanding the cause of the experience.

A negative reaction may have been set up in the mind many years ago. How long does it take to subside? In a person with some understanding, the initial reaction will subside in a few hours, but it takes five to seven days before it subsides enough for him to get a complete understanding. The average man reacts to something every day. That’s what makes him average. A reaction today, another one tomorrow, another one the day after tomorrow, then those reactions are overlapping. To stop these overlapping reactions, we have to sit down and face everything that we have created for ourselves in the past and control our circumstances until the reaction subsides.

Be on your guard. Control your circumstances and your life. Guard your weak points with understanding, and don’t allow yourself to be put into a position where you will react. Then you can become fully conscious of what is within you and within your fellow man.
SUTRA 118 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
TRADITIONS OF CONJUGAL LIFE
Siva’s followers who are married regulate their sex life according to traditionally accepted standards. They confine their affectionate looks to one another and do not hold hands, embrace, caress or kiss in public. Aum.

LESSON 118 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
BE A FRIEND TO YOURSELF

In the process of spiritual unfoldment, which brings you closer and closer to merging into the eternal now, you have to become accustomed to a new you. Become acquainted with yourself, become an old friend to yourself, and you will find living in the moment, in the inspiration of now, becoming second nature to the new you. Remember, it takes time to become an old friend to yourself, the same amount of time it would take to acquire a mature friendship with someone else.

In our beginning meditations on the Saivite path of enlightenment, we must establish firmly in our intellect the basic truth of ”the now.” Now and its seeming counterparts, ”then and when,” are only ambiguous to us when the instinctive energies are scattered and unrelated and when there is absolutely no self-discipline of the vital forces which, when accomplished, harnesses man’s individual awareness in such a way that he becomes, over long periods of time, actually aware that he is aware, as well as being aware that his awareness is entangled in the externalities of mind due to an eventful scattering of instinctive forces. Furthermore, his awareness persists in the intuitive know-how and ability to disentangle itself from that external state as it becomes yanked back, deep within its natural state, the eternity of the moment. This ability is acquired through regular and regulated practice of yoga, diaphragmatic breathing and simple, yet profound, inner, mental, intuitive practices performed daily at the same time.

Having preceded the practice of yoga by firmly establishing in the subconscious realm of the mind the inevitability of the permanency of the moment, called now, through all areas of thought, there is one dispelling power, and that is man’s personal ability to withdraw his awareness from past and future and, from that static state, view out upon all areas of thought rather than wallow in them. We transgress our heritage on this planet through spending inordinate amounts of time in past and future and the mixture of the two. The penance is misery, confusion and sorrow, as we stumble over the furniture in a darkened room. Turn on the light, claim your heritage and live in the moment. Center awareness deep within the head. Sit in the center of the room. Enjoy the artifacts, rest in the center of the mind and view the panorama. Only by experiencing and acquiring the ability to reexperience, through the practice of yoga, the eternity of the moment can the aspirant allow deeper and deeper access to the fullness of his being.

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