SLOKA 26 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT IS OUR INDIVIDUAL SOUL NATURE?
Our individual soul is the immortal and spiritual body of light that animates life and reincarnates again and again until all necessary karmas are created and resolved and its essential unity with God is fully realized. Aum.
BHASHYA
Our soul is God Siva’s emanational creation, the source of all our higher functions, including knowledge, will and love. Our soul is neither male nor female. It is that which never dies, even when its four outer sheaths– physical, pranic, instinctive and mental–change form and perish as they naturally do. The physical body is the annamaya kosha. The pranic sheath of vitality is the pranamaya kosha. The instinctive-intellectual sheath is the manomaya kosha. The mental, or cognitive, sheath is the vijnanamaya kosha. The inmost soul body is the blissful, ever-giving-wisdom anandamaya kosha. Parashakti is the soul’s superconscious mind–God Siva’s mind. Parasiva is the soul’s inmost core. We are not the physical body, mind or emotions. We are the immortal soul, atman. The sum of our true existence is anandamaya kosha and its essence, Parashakti and Parasiva. The Vedas expostulate, ”The soul is born and unfolds in a body, with dreams and desires and the food of life. And then it is reborn in new bodies, in accordance with its former works. The quality of the soul determines its future body; earthly or airy, heavy or light.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 26 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
DIET AND GOOD HEALTH
By following mitahara you can be healthier, and you can be wealthier. A lot of money is wasted in the average family on food that could go toward many other things the family needs or wants. If you are healthier, you save on doctor bills, and because this also helps in sadhana and meditation, you will be healthy, happy and holy. Overeating repels one from spiritual sadhana, because the body becomes slothful and lazy, having to digest so much food and run it through its system. Eating is meant to nourish the body with vitamins and minerals to keep it functioning. It is not meant for mere personal, sensual pleasure. A slothful person naturally does not have the inclination to advance himself through education and meditation, and is unable to do anything but a simple, routine job.
We recently heard of a Western science lab study that fed two groups of rats different portions of food. Those who were allowed to have any amount of food they could eat lived a normal rat life span. Those who were given half that much lived twice as long. This so impressed the scientists that they immediately dropped their own calorie input and lost many pounds, realizing that a long, healthy life could be attained by not eating so much.
People on this planet are divided in two groups, as delineated by states of consciousness. The most obvious group is those ruled by lower consciousness, which proliferates deceit and dishonesty and the confusion in life that these bring, along with fear, anger, jealousy and the subsequent remorseful emotions that follow. On the purer side are those in higher consciousness, ruled by the powers of reason and memory, willpower, good judgment, universal love, compassion and more. A vegetarian diet helps to open the inner man to the outer person and brings forth higher consciousness. Eating meat, fish, fowl and eggs opens the doors to lower consciousness. It’s as simple as that. A vegetarian diet creates the right chemistry for spiritual life. Other diets create a different chemistry, which affects your endocrine glands and your entire system all day long. A vegetarian diet helps your system all day long. Food is chemistry, and chemistry affects consciousness; and if our goal is higher consciousness, we have to provide the chemistry that evokes it.
SUTRA 26 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
SHARING RICE WITH OTHERS
Lovers of Siva, before preparing any meal, place in a vessel one handful of uncooked rice. This modest sharing is offered at their satguru’s tiruvadi each full-moon day to be shared by him with the less fortunate. Aum.
LESSON 26 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
BE LIKE THE RIVER WATER
You can plainly see that we have to go into the subconscious basement and straighten it out, if need be, by letting go and becoming free. That’s easy to say. It’s a little more difficult to do. Why? Because the basement took time to fill, and it takes time to clean. If we were to straighten out the subconscious basement too fast, that would not be good. It would be going against a natural law. It would be like pouring hot water on plants, as they do commercially, to make them bloom quickly. We must not force natural laws, so we take time in our spiritual unfoldment. The more time you are willing to take, the less pressure you have on yourself and the faster you will attain a permanent enlightenment.
Let’s look again at the river of life as it flows into the sea, and again relate that to ourselves and see ourselves letting go of the river banks, merging ourselves into this river, flowing with it and realizing ourselves as the essence of life. Let us not worry about the past ever again. Do not even think about the past. Face everything that comes up in the light of the present, not in the darkness of the past.
Be like the river water. Water flows freely anywhere, easily finding its way around rocks and trees. Be pliable in your life, moving in rhythm with life. Let go of everything that blocks the river of life’s energy. Watch your thinking and be careful of your thoughts. Judge every action that you make, judge every word you speak, with this law: ”Is it true? Is it kind? Is it helpful? Is it necessary?” Become your own kind judge and make each second a day of judgment, for each second is really a day, if you live life fully. If you live completely each second, you will experience many days inside each twenty-four hours.
Be free from life’s attachments and don’t allow any more negative attachments to occur in your life. Loosen yourself–be free. Attachments bring all sorts of complications. Freedom brings no complications at all. So, that is what we have to do, recreate our lives each second. Become affectionately detached and manifest a greater love through action. Selfless service to mankind makes you free in the world of mortals. Measure yourself objectively with the river of life and merge with it into the sea of life. Let your service to mankind begin at home and radiate out to the world. Begin at home, with those closest to you, before venturing out among friends and strangers. Let your example be your first teaching. Be free from the past; abide in the present; detach yourself from the future; and live in the eternal now.
