SLOKA 3 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT IS MEANT BY ”DANCING WITH SIVA”?
All motion begins in God and ends in God. The whole universe is engaged in a whirling flow of change and activity. This is Siva’s dance. We are all dancing with Siva, and He with us. Ultimately, we are Siva dancing. Aum.
BHASHYA
The world is seen as it truly is–sacred–when we behold Siva’s cosmic dance. Everything in the universe, all that we see, hear and imagine, is movement. Galaxies soar in movement; atoms swirl in movement. All movement is Siva’s dance. When we fight this movement and think it should be other than it is, we are reluctantly dancing with Siva. We are stubbornly resisting, holding ourselves apart, criticizing the natural processes and movements around us. It is by understanding the eternal truths that we bring all areas of our mind into the knowledge of how to accept what is and not wish it to be otherwise. Once this happens, we begin to consciously dance with Siva, to move with the sacred flow that surrounds us, to accept praise and blame, joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity in equanimity, the fruit of understanding. We are then gracefully, in unrestrained surrender, dancing with Siva. The Vedas state, ”The cosmic soul is truly the whole universe, the immortal source of all creation, all action, all meditation. Whoever discovers Him, hidden deep within, cuts through the bonds of ignorance even during his life on earth.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 158 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
DRAWBACKS OF LATE MARRIAGES
The further a culture strays from the basic laws of early marriage, the more difficulty do its people have mentally and emotionally, and the more difficult it is for them to awaken spiritually. They have to struggle to internalize and utilize the laws of willpower, concentration and meditation; whereas in a spiritually adjusted Asian home, inner knowledge and inner peace are more or less second nature.
Now let us consider marriage the way we know it today in the West. Boys and girls grow up and may not enter into marriage until eighteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty or later. Along the way they enter into various relationships, and each time they wonder, ”Is this the right one?” They compare one experience with another, and each experience they have in this line makes them more unsure of themselves than the last. When marriage finally does happen, instead of the wife going to the husband’s home and looking to him completely for her security, she goes to him with reservation.
Prior to many Western marriages, the years of looking around, wondering, investigating, experimenting and dating only build up an unnatural conscience, because during the crucial, early years, the young men and women are going against the natural inclinations of their own soul, and the resulting states of uneasy conscience only make them insecure. The man who does marry with a foundation of such insecurity can no longer depend fully upon himself, and he finds himself depending upon his wife. She, in turn, is only half depending upon him. They are like two rickety posts leaning up against each other. Jar them a little bit, and they both fall down. By contrast, a well-raised man who marries early develops, with the support of his family, a natural reliance upon his own inner being, and the wife depends upon her husband.
Perhaps you wonder what this force is that amalgamates a husband and wife at their early age. It is an inner force of the nervous system. Perhaps you are somewhat familiar with the central nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. The arms and legs could be likened to the gross projections of our nervous system which can be seen with the two eyes. But there is also a subtle projection of man’s nervous system composed of millions of tiny nerve currents which radiate out from his body and which form an aura about him. When you are close to someone, it is through this subtle nerve force of the aura that you can feel how that person feels.
Before a young boy or girl reaches puberty, the nervous system is pure and strong and vital in its growth, providing the child is not beaten or abused and lives in a harmonious home. If you could see psychically the subtle nervous system that permeates the physical body and extends beyond it, you would find that it has little hooks at the end of the nerve force. In an early marriage, these little hooks come together, connecting the boy and the girl like interlocking fingers, and thus the subtle nervous system of each grows together.
The soul brings the boy and girl together, the mind brings them together, and finally the nervous system in this manner binds them closer and closer together in an actual amalgamation. Once the subtle forces are completely intertwined, they cannot be torn apart. This is why children scheduled for an early marriage are watched very closely, because until the marriage actually takes place, the power to properly amalgamate the subtle forces and projections of this nervous system may be lost. This virginal power may be dissipated in an instant, never to be regained until a new birth. The children are watched so that they do not have any sexual experience with another of the opposite sex before their intended marriage. If they do, the pristine amalgamating power of the subtle nervous system is lost; and though they could still come together in marriage, there would not be the same binding force to hold their lives together. Thus, early marriage as described above is the ideal only when both boy and girl are virgins.
SUTRA 158 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
RESPONSIBLE MONEY MANAGEMENT
Siva’s devotees keep a monthly budget and regulate expenses according to their revenues. They never abuse credit or indulge in extravagant buying, for they know that spending in excess of income invites misery. Aum.
LESSON 158 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
PREPARATION AND PROPRIETY
The mantra is the name of the inner-plane being whom you are calling. If you say, ”Aum Namah Sivaya,” are you ready to see what Siva will show you, once He comes and lifts the veils? Maybe a little preparation–cleaning a few things, straightening up the house, the subconscious basement–is in order first. If you say, ”Aum Saravanabhava,” is your mind really ready to become peaceful, or is it disturbed by fits of anger? But every soul is ready to say, ”Aum,” and come to the feet of the Lord of Categories, who will set everything in order from the many yesterdays.
If you are in the temple worshiping Lord Muruga, the mantra Aum Saravanabhava obviously has a total overall effect. If you say ”Aum, Aum, Aum” in front of Ganesha, Ganesha becomes conscious of your presence. The Deities are present in the temple. They may not be present in a person’s home or under a tree. The main effect the mantra would have then would be to focus the concentration and quiet the mind.
If someone is already meditating and is self-instructed, not under a guru, and working for an eventual initiation to receive a mantra upon which to do japa, then whatever japa is performed should neither be too much nor too intense. We suggest for the non-Hindu Aum, and for the unitiated Saivite Aum Saravanabhava, 108 repetitions prior to meditation. This is totally on the safe side and will greatly enhance the meditation.
There is an idea that there is a special mantra for each person, and that a mantra should be secret. It has been my experience that gurus who are amassing wealth from unsuspecting Americans and Europeans will give all kinds of mantras. And they will be couched in a format that is sellable, like packaged merchandise. They will be made secret. But none of the traditional mantras that produce true realization and are lauded and acclaimed are secret. They are well-known by every Hindu in the world. Each Hindu throughout the world knows whether he has purified himself or not, and prepared himself or not, sufficiently to pronounce them–though he may pronounce them at any time he wishes, and an impact and a beneficial effect will follow in his life. But the spiritual impact of pronouncing a mantra after earning an initiation–this does not mean paying for it, but earning it through study and practice, character building, improving, proving oneself to one’s guru–that effect is life-altering. It cleans the karmas of many past lives, perfects the lives of the future, and lays the foundation for moksha at the end of this or a future life. Let this not be misunderstood.
There are two classes of mantras, not powerful and powerful, meaning potentially dangerous. The only danger that a powerful mantra could have is opening a person to himself. The problem is not with the mantra, but with what is inside the individual when the chakras open and he can see his karmas of the past and his impending karmas of the future. That’s why a mantra is carefully given, like a medical prescription. You don’t give two aspirins to a baby. You give a half of one, or a quarter. And just as a child’s physical body takes years to grow up, so do the mind and emotions. If the early adult years are put into training and purification through karma yoga, bhakti yoga and study of Vedanta, then there are no troubles on the path to enlightenment. To turn on a light in a dark room with a flick of a switch is quite a shock to the darkness of the room itself. Would we want this to happen within the individual on the path? No. We want to turn up the dimmer very slowly so he or she can gradually adjust to the brightness that was there all the time.
Many people want initiation because they want to get away from something. They want something to cure their ills. Others don’t know what they want. They are disturbed, distraught with their prarabdha karmas, and they want relief. What they should be given is Saiva Siddhanta–a comprehensive path of accomplishment. They should not be given a high-powered mantra that will, when it opens the mind, cause more frustration and disturbance from what the seeker sees. But once given such initiation–having no tools, mentally, emotionally or physically, to conquer the past karmas that the experiential emotions are intensifying (which should have been conquered through karma yoga and bhakti yoga)–the seeker falls into despair. It is the conscientious guru’s responsibility to provide an on-going, progressive training prior to initiation and to continue it afterwards. Those who make their living by selling mantras would be considered fraudulent by traditional Hindu standards.
