SLOKA 85 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
HOW IS FAMILY HARMONY MAINTAINED?
In the Hindu family, mutual respect, love and understanding are the bedrock of harmony. By not fighting, arguing or criticizing, members cultivate a spiritual environment in which all may progress. Aum Namah Sivaya.
BHASHYA
For a harmonious joint family, it is vital to make the home strong, the center of activity and creativity, kept beautiful and clean, a sanctuary for each member. While striving to increase wealth, the wise families live within their means, content with what they have. Activities are planned to bring the family close through shared experiences. A gentle but firm hierarchy of respect for elders is maintained throughout the family. In general, the younger, in humility, defers to the elder, allowing him or her the last word. The elder is equally obliged to not misuse authority. Older children are responsible for the safety and care of their younger brothers and sisters. Disputes among children are settled by their mother, but not kept a secret from the father. Actual discipline in the case of misconduct is carried out by the father. When disputes arise in the extended family, responsibility for restoring harmony falls first to the men. However, any concerned member can take the lead if necessary. The Vedas say of grihastha life, ”I will utter a prayer for such concord among family members as binds together the Gods, among whom is no hatred.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 240 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
MOURNING AND FEAR OF DEATH
People wonder about their past lives, but it doesn’t really matter who you were in your past lives. It is the cumulative creation of what you’ve done in the past which has manifested in what you are in this life that should concern you. Knowing how these things are going to manifest in the future is a forewarning that can improve the quality of the next life. Therefore, though possible, it is irrelevant to know what nationality, station in life or occupation one was in the past. What is relevant is the knowledge of accumulated deeds of all the past lives, especially those that will manifest in this life.
People who don’t truly understand reincarnation fear death. Fear of the unknown is part of the human psyche. To understand reincarnation, you have to understand and accept the existence of the astral body and have an intuitive knowledge of the soul. Then you understand that reincarnation is as natural as a child becoming a teenager and a teenager becoming a young adult. Reincarnation records are kept in the sahasrara chakra of every individual. They are readable by inner-plane helpers and by trained psychics. The sahasrara chakra is in the akasha. Every soul is packing his dossier right along with him.
Devotees ask, ”When someone dies, what should be the attitude of loved ones?” Because the fear of death is so much a part of social consciousness today, as ignorance prevails in these matters, sorrow rather than joy is often experienced. In not understanding life in its fullness, many cannot help but misunderstand death. The attitude should be one of joy based on beliefs that come from the knowledge of karma and samsara. Experience of joy and a total release of the loved one would come from a pure understanding of the processes of life.
A better word than death is transition, passing into a new form of life–life into life. It is similar to moving to a new country, having completed all of one’s tasks. Death is a closing of the door on deeds well done, on all beneficial karmas. Karmas performed in ignorance will be faced at a later time. Death is also the opening of a new door to a place where the good and the bad, the happy and the sad experiences are forgotten. Should we not be cheerful and joyous that our loved one has earned a new start, having completed another step on the path?
Inordinate grief, sorrow and loss are felt by those who do not understand the Sanatana Dharma. They are dwelling in the world of darkness. Those who live in the worlds of light understand intuitively. They are happy that the person’s karmic cycle has ended. You have to realize that the person who is dying is going on a joyous journey, and he knows it. He is still going to see his loved ones who are still connected to their physical bodies when they sleep at night, and he is not losing anybody. So, one or two close loved ones in the vicinity at the time of death is enough consolation. Even if no one is with him, he is fine. He is going on a journey. He has the fullness of everything. Why should you mourn for the person who is, at the death experience, having the highest moment of his life?
Mourning at death, for example, is not a part of the Chinese culture. They send money and paper houses and write letters to the departed through the fire ceremony. Morbid mourning is not a part of every culture, as it is among those heavily influenced by Christian beliefs. We must remember that Hindus are often so influenced. Dying is not a super traumatic experience anymore, as people move around the world so much, wives are working and families are not that close. But the fact is that the departed person does not go away, has two bodies besides the physical–astral and soul–and is always there, existent. Whether he is living in his astral body, his purusha body or is in San Francisco or Paris, he is always there.
SUTRA 240 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
TRUTH IN THE PALM OF THEIR HAND
My devotees know that everything they need to fulfill their quest for liberation is found in our consummate Nandinatha Sampradaya. With the final conclusions in their grasp, they look no further. Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 240 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
EXPERIENCES ON THE ASTRAL PLANE
When we are in a dream, it seems so real to us. When we wake up, we reflect on it as a dream, which is usually thought of as unreal. Similarly, Indian philosophers enjoy saying that we are in this life and it seems real until we wake up, through spiritual enlightenment, to a greater reality. If we postulate that dreams are real, we must then acknowledge that what we remember of them is our uninhibited states of consciousness, experience, unencumbered by society, local and national customs or inhibitions planted into the mind by parents at a young age. Knowing this will let us know who we really are, underneath the facade, encumbered by society, suppressed by beliefs and attitudes of the waking state. We are free in our dreams. No one is looking at us. Society, family and friends are not judging us.
Ayurveda physicians state that those of the kapha dosha, which is water and earth, often dream of water. One who is of the pitta dosha, fire nature, dreams of fire. A vata, or air nature, dreams of air. But they also say that it may be best to forget your dreams because they might be produced by indigestion or constipation. And these may be dreams you would not want to remember. Nevertheless, if dreams depict who we really are, it may be beneficial for those under the guidance of a satguru to write them down each morning upon arising and put them at his holy feet at the end of each month. This would be strictly a guru-shishya training relationship and for a specified period of time, not more than four months. It might be scary, even disheartening, for you to do this for yourself. And satgurus would recommend that you forget your dreams upon awakening, for if remembered they may bring that reality into the awakened reality and produce experiences you would not want to experience.
One more thing comes to mind–this is that occasionally I have experienced being absolutely aware, fully conscious of the physical body, eyes closed, while simultaneously seeing through the eyes of the inner body and communicating through thought with astral people in my room. Sometimes when the mathavasis have been late to feed me because I was napping but fully conscious, the guardian devas would come before me with delicious food, nicely prepared, and with their astral hands spoon it into my mouth, and I actually smell and taste it. When the astral meal is over, I am not physically hungry anymore. During the height of the Sri Lanka civil war crisis, when thousands of my devotees there were being killed day after day, several times during the day I deliberately took naps off and on. Just before these sleeps and just before awakening in the morning, I would meet with those who had been killed and bless them one at a time as they came before me. I was totally conscious as my astral hand would put the blessing, the mark of vibhuti, Siva’s sacred ash, upon their forehead. Then they would go on into the Sivaloka. This type of physical-astral experience is definitely not a dream, nor is it a superconscious vision. It is an actual, intense human happening involving this world and its astral double, coexisting in communicative activity. Unlike dreams, which are quickly forgotten, these physical-astral experiences, not unlike superconscious visions, leave an indelible mark in the physical brain and are more vivid months and even years later than when they were experienced.
For three or four years in the late fifties, I researched the death experience and its astral interface with this apparent reality. The dream world was explored, and the astral interface with waking consciousness within it. We discovered that there are many thousands of astral lovers who regularly visit women to satisfy their sexual desires. These women are single, either not married yet, or divorced, or married, but their husbands were not able to satisfy them. It was also discovered that because of this psychic phenomenon, women who have had unhappy marriages are more attracted than men to spiritualism, as it was called in those days. Such astral male lovers are called gandharvas in the Vedas, and their female counterparts are the apsaras. These are definitely experiences, astral-physical-plane interface experiences, as real as happenings during the waking day.
