SLOKA 32 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
IS THERE GOOD KARMA AND BAD KARMA?
In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum.
BHASHYA
Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving actions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness produces sweet fruits, called punya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called papa. As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adharmic actions impede our progress. The divine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual unfoldment. Performing daily sadhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others’ needs–these evoke the higher energies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the creation of troublesome new karmas. The Vedas explain, ”According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 187 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
PENANCE AND RECONCILIATION
Those who have been physically abused are as much in need of penance to mitigate the experience as are those who abused them. The penance, or prayashchitta, for abusees is called the flower penance, or pushpa prayashchitta. It has been successfully performed by many children and adults to mitigate the hate, fear, resentment and dislike toward the parents, teachers or other adults who beat them, by hitting, pinching, slapping, caning, spanking or other methods of corporal punishment. This penance is very simple to perform, but often very difficult to carry out. Each person–child or adult–who has been beaten at any time, no matter how long ago, is enjoined to put up in the shrine room a picture of the person or persons by whom they were beaten, be it a father, mother or teacher. Then, every day for thirty-one consecutive days, without missing a single day, he or she must place a flower in front of each picture, and sincerely forgive the person in heart and mind. If no picture is available, then some symbol or possession can be substituted, or even a paper with his or her name written on it.
When it becomes difficult to offer the flower of forgiveness, because hurtful memories come up from the subconscious mind, the abused individual must perform the vasana daha tantra, writing down the hurtful memories and burning the paper in a trash can. This tantra releases the deep emotions within the individual who finds that he or she does not like or deeply resents the parent or other relative, school teacher or principal. After writing about these experiences, expressing in words the emotions felt on many pieces of paper, the area of the subconscious mind holding the suppressed anger and resentment gradually disappears as the papers are seen burning to ashes in a garbage can.
Upon recognizing and admitting their fear or hatred of their abuser, they must deal with the pangs of pain that arise each day by mystically turning the slap, beating or spanking into a beautiful flow of prana by placing a flower before the picture with a heart full of love. Each day while performing the ”flowers of forgiveness prayashchitta,” the individual should mentally approach the tormentor–the person or persons who beat him or her–and say, ”I forgive you. I don’t hold anything against you, for I know that you gave back to me the karma that I set in motion by committing similar misdeeds at a prior time.” If possible, this act of verbal forgiveness should be done in person at least once during the thirty-one days, ideally face to face, but at least by phone, if the person is still on this Earth plane.
Of course, for most it’s much easier to pass on the slap or beating to someone else. Parents often hit their own child, or abuse another person in order to ”get it out of their system.” That slap has to go someplace, and turning it into a flower is very, very difficult. This prayashchitta brings up all those awful memories. This discipline brings up all the pain. It brings all the injustice to the surface of the mind. Nevertheless, this tantra, or method, has been a great help to many. It is difficult to forgive, and some had to work very diligently within themselves to face up to being able to place that little flower lovingly before the picture of a parent or a teacher. Many have tried and failed again and again when deep-seated resentment emerged, but finally succeeded in true forgiveness, whose byproduct is forgetfulness. They all feel so much better today. Now they are responsive, creative and happy inside. Yes, hitting people is wrong–and children are people, too.
SUTRA 187 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
MEALTIME TRADITIONS
Siva’s devotees eat with their fingers to energize food. They chew well and include the six tastes daily (sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter and astringent) and a balance of protein and carbohydrates at all meals. Aum.
LESSON 187 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
NOT ANALYZING YOUR DREAMS
When the ego functions in subconscious or subsubconscious dream states, situations are created. These situations, remembered while in a conscious state termed ”awake,” will create on the conscious plane similar happenings. Here again we have a manifestation of the subsubconscious mind in the dream. It is apparent that we dream things that we could not have possibly thought up. Such dreams are a conglomeration of seemingly unrelated happenings that pass through the mind. The unrelated happenings do, however, reimpress the subconscious and conscious mind if remembered, and in turn impress the subconscious again, and similar happenings are created in our everyday life. This, perhaps, is hard to believe, but as each of us thinks back over our life, we can pick instances where this rings true.
To change this picture, use the power of the subconscious mind to clear its sub and release within you the full abundance you were born to live. When using the subconscious mind in manifesting control over this situation, take into consideration that it is not able to eradicate the vibration. But during sleep your subconscious will make it possible for you to continue working out the rate of vibration created while in the dream state and remembered while awake. Simply tell your subconscious mind, when you are in the process of remembering a dream, to work out the remaining particles of that experience during sleep rather than recreating it on the physical plane.
When awakening after having had some bad dreams, say to yourself, ”Great! I must have really started reprogramming the sub of the subconscious mind last night. I certainly should be feeling more positive with a stronger will in a day or two.” The key is to forget about your dreams as soon as you awaken if you are practicing attention, concentration and meditation.
When the ego wakes up from sleep, the physical body should immediately be put into action. To go back into the state of sleep immediately after naturally becoming conscious causes the five positive currents to be unconventionally depolarized; the ego passes into the subsubconscious regions.
