Lesson 12. INNER STATES, OUTER STATES.

SLOKA 12 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
HOW DO SAIVITES REGARD OTHER FAITHS?
Religious beliefs are manifold and different. Saivites, understanding the strength of this diversity, wholeheartedly respect and encourage all who believe in God. They honor the fact that Truth is one, paths are many. Aum.

BHASHYA
Since the inner intent of all religions is to bind man back to God, Saivite Hindus seek not to interfere with anyone’s faith or practice. We believe that there is no exclusive path, no one way for all. Saivites profoundly know that God Siva is the same Supreme Being in whom peoples of all faiths find solace, peace and liberation. Nonetheless, we realize that all religions are not the same. Each has its unique beliefs, practices, goals and paths of attainment, and the doctrines of one often conflict with those of another. Even this should never be cause for religious tension or intolerance. Saivites respect all religious traditions and the people within them. They know that good citizens and stable societies are created from groups of religious people. Saivite leaders support and participate in ecumenical gatherings with all religions. Still, Saivites defend their faith, proceed contentedly with their practices and avoid the enchantment of other ways, be they ancient or modern. The Vedas explain, ”Let us have concord with our own people, and concord with people who are strangers to us. Ashvins, create between us and the strangers a unity of hearts.” Aum Namah Sivaya.

LESSON 12 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
NONINJURY FOR RENUNCIATES

Ahimsa is the first and foremost virtue, presiding over truthfulness, nonstealing, sexual purity, patience, steadfastness, compassion, honesty and moderate appetite. The brahmachari and sannyasin must take ahimsa, noninjury, one step further. He has mutated himself, escalated himself, by stopping the abilities of being able to harm another by thought, word or deed, physically, mentally or emotionally. The one step further is that he must not harm his own self with his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own actions toward his own body, toward his own emotions, toward his own mind. This is very important to remember. And here, at this juncture, ahimsa has a tie with satya, truthfulness. The sannyasin must be totally truthful to himself, to his guru, to the Gods and to Lord Siva, who resides within him every minute of every hour of every day. But for him to truly know this and express it through his life and be a living religious example of the Sanatana Dharma, all tendencies toward himsa, injuriousness, must always be definitely harnessed in chains of steel. The mystical reason is this. Because of the brahmachari’s or sannyasin’s spiritual power, he really has more ability to hurt someone than he or that person may know, and therefore his observance of noninjury is even more vital. Yes, this is true. A brahmachari or sannyasin who does not live the highest level of ahimsa is not a brahmachari.

Words are expressions of thoughts, thoughts created from prana. Words coupled with thoughts backed up by the transmuted pranas, or the accumulated bank account of energies held back within the brahmachari and the sannyasin, become powerful thoughts, and when expressed through words go deep into the mind, creating impressions, samskaras, that last a long time, maybe forever. It is truly unfortunate if a brahmachari or sannyasin loses control of himself and betrays ahimsa by becoming himsa, an injurious person–unfortunate for those involved, but more unfortunate for himself. When we hurt another, we scar the inside of ourself; we clone the image. The scar would never leave the sannyasin until it left the person that he hurt. This is because the pranas, the transmuted energies, give so much force to the thought. Thus the words penetrate to the very core of the being. Therefore, angry people should get married and should not practice brahmacharya.
SUTRA 12 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
EXCELLENCE AND NONCOMPETITIVENESS
Those who live with Siva endeavor to be their best in whatever they do, to excel and make a difference. Even so, they remain apart from the demeaning and contentious ”winners and losers” spirit of competition. Aum.

LESSON 12 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
INNER STATES, OUTER STATES

When you look out through the eyes of your soul, it’s like a great executive in a large building’s penthouse office. His desk is right in the middle of that office, and he looks out and he sees the people working around him. Then he looks farther out, and he sees the vast panes of windows. Then he looks farther out, and he sees the city below, and he sees the sky, he sees the traffic. Then he looks back into himself. He sees his subconscious mind, with thoughts about his home life and other things that do not involve his immediate surroundings in this grand office. He looks deeper into himself and he has an intuitive flash. Something has come to him, how he can help his enterprise be moved and motivated in a more dynamic way. He looks deeper within himself for the source of where that intuitive flash comes from, begins to see light within his head, light within his body. Again he becomes conscious of people working around him. Again he becomes conscious of the panes of the windows. He has to leave this office. He goes down in an elevator. He walks out onto the street. He is the same being. His perspective is an inner perspective. He doesn’t go up and down in consciousness.

The mystic does not go up and down in consciousness. It only seems like that. But that is not actually what happens. It makes it very difficult when we hold the up-and-down and good-and-bad concepts, because they work in time sequences. If we are bad, it takes a certain amount of time before we can become good. And if we are good, there is a great possibility that we might be bad during a certain period of our life. If we are in a high state of consciousness, percentages have it that we may be in a low state of consciousness. It’s going to take a lot of time to climb up high, and we might fall down, so what’s the use? We have all of these semantic connotations with the words good and bad and up and down, and therefore we throw them out of our mystical vocabulary and the connotations that go along with them. We say we go within, deep within. We say we come out, into outer consciousness. We say there is no good, there is no bad, there is just experience, and within each experience there is a lesson. Some experiences might make our nervous system react so strongly that it may take hours to pull ourselves together.

But once we pull ourselves together, that exercise evolves the body of the soul that much more. We have transmuted tremendous instinctive and intellectual energies into this body of the soul. We have fed it. We have given it a good meal. And we never face that same experience again, nor react the same way.

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