SLOKA 126 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT ARE HINDU REVEALED SCRIPTURES?
The Vedas and Agamas, revealed by God, are Hinduism’s sovereign scriptures, called shruti, ”that which is heard.” Their timeless truths are expressed in the most extraordinarily profound mystical poetry known to man. Aum.
BHASHYA
Veda, from vid, ”to know,” means ”supreme wisdom or science.” Similarly, Agama, which names the sacred sectarian revelations, means ”descent of knowledge.” The Vedas and Agamas are eternal truths transmitted by God through great clairaudient and clairvoyant rishis. They are Hinduism’s primary and most authoritative scriptures, expounding life’s sacredness and man’s purpose on the planet. These psalms of wisdom were disclosed over many centuries, memorized and orally conveyed from generation to generation within priestly families, then finally written down in Sanskrit in the last few millennia. The subtly symbolic language of shruti, the cherished word of God, is lyrical and lofty. In imparting religious practice, rules and doctrine, the Vedas are general and the Agamas specific. The Vedas extol and invoke a multiplicity of Gods through elaborate fire rituals called yajna. The Agamas center around a single Deity and His worship with water, flowers and lights in sanctified temples and shrines. The Tirumantiram lauds, ”Two are the scriptures that Lord Siva revealed–the primal Vedas and the perfect Agamas.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 281 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
THE ART OF FORGIVENESS
The Vedas are full of verses which speak of the Divine within man, and therefore Hindu Dharma today implores us to let go of grudges, resentment and especially self-contempt. Most people today are working harder to correct the faults of others than they are their own. It is a thankless job. It truly is. Most are trying to recreate the relatively real world into being absolutely real. Another thankless job. The wise implore us to accept things as they are, to be happy and content at every point in time. They tell us: do not be discouraged in seeing the failings of others. Rather, let it help awaken your understanding of them as to where they are in consciousness and the suffering they must be going through. If others harm you in thought, word or deed, do not resent it. Rather, let it awaken compassion, kindness and forgiveness. Use it as a mirror to view your own frailties; then work diligently to bring your own thoughts, words and deeds into line with Hindu Dharma.
The secret is that we have to correct all matters within ourselves. We have to bear our karmas–the reactions to our actions–cheerfully. And what are the apparent injustices of life but the self-created reactions of our own past actions in this or a former life? The person of perfect understanding accepts all happenings in life as purposeful and good. We must be grateful to others for playing back to us our previous actions so that we can see our mistakes and experience the same feelings we must have caused in others. It is in this way that we are purified and trained not to commit the same adharmic acts again.
All the great ones have preached the art of forgiveness. First we must learn to forgive ourselves, to accept ourselves as we are and proceed with confidence. Many people live their whole lives immersed in guilt. It’s a way of life passed on from generation to generation. It’s like a passive fear, different from a threatening fear. Certain religions push people into fear and guilt. Therefore, if they don’t feel guilty, they don’t feel that they are being religious. Mary Baker Eddy once said God is love and was viciously attacked for it by the Christian community of her day, who believed with a vengeance that God is wrathful, fear invoking. Families who live in guilt pass it on to their children. People who live in a state of guilt don’t give a lot, they don’t produce a lot, and they don’t move forward spiritually very far.
New energy is released for a healthy future when we forgive ourselves. Yes, forgiveness is a powerful force. We must start with ourselves, for as long as we hold self-contempt, we are unable to forgive others, because everyone else is a reflection of ourself. We react to what we see in them that we are not ready to face up to in ourselves.
It is a great power to be able to look beyond ourselves and see others as they really are, how they really think and how they really feel. When we are wrapped up in our own individual ego, this is hard to do. We surmise that those we know are exactly like us, and we find fault with them when they are not. But eventually we break the shell of the ego–an act symbolized by smashing the rough, dark brown coconut in the temple, revealing the beauty of the pure, white fruit inside which represents our pristine spiritual nature. It takes a hard blow to subdue our ego, and this is never without pain. But we can remove the ego’s hard shell painlessly through absolute surrender to Hindu Dharma, absolute surrender to our own soul, to God within us. External worship and internal worship, external surrender and internal surrender, bring about the softening of the ego and the unveiling of spirit.
SUTRA 281 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
CONCEIVING SONS FOR THE MONASTERY
Each Saiva Siddhanta Church family prays to birth a son for the monastery. Prior to conception, parents mix with the swamis and beseech the Gods to bring through a divine soul destined to perpetuate our lineage. Aum.
LESSON 281 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
14 REGIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Hindus scriptures speak of three worlds, fourteen worlds and countless worlds. These are different ways to describe Siva’s infinite creation. Of the fourteen worlds, seven are counted as rising above the earth and seven as descending below it. Correspondingly, there are fourteen great nerve centers in the physical body, in the astral body and in the body of the soul. These centers are called chakras in Sanskrit, which means ”wheels.” These spinning vortices of energy are actually regions of mind power, each one governing certain aspects of the inner man, and together they are the subtle components of people. When inwardly perceived, they are vividly colorful and can be heard. In fact, they are quite noisy, since color, sound and energy are all the same thing in the inner realms.
When awareness flows through any one or more of these regions, the various functions of consciousness operate, such as the functions of memory, reason and willpower. There are six chakras above the muladhara chakra, which is located at the base of the spine. When awareness is flowing through these chakras, consciousness is in the higher nature. There are seven chakras below the muladhara chakra, and when awareness is flowing through them, consciousness is in the lower nature. In this Kali Yuga most people live in the consciousness of the seven force centers below the muladhara chakra. Their beliefs and attitudes strongly reflect the animal nature, the instinctive mind. We want to lift our own consciousness and that of others into the chakras above the muladhara. This brings the mind out of the lower nature into the higher nature. We do this through personal sadhana, prayer, meditation, right thought, speech and action and love for Lord Siva, who is All in all.
The muladhara chakra, the divine seat of Lord Ganesha, is the dividing point between the lower nature and the higher nature. It is the beginning of religion for everyone, entered when consciousness arrives out of the realms below Lord Ganesha’s holy feet.
The physical body has a connection to each of the seven higher chakras through plexes of nerves along the spinal cord and in the cranium. As the kundalini force of awareness travels along the spine, it enters each of these chakras, energizing them and awakening in turn each function. In any one lifetime man may be predominantly aware in two or three centers, thus setting the pattern for the way he thinks and lives. He develops a comprehension of these seven regions in a natural sequence, the perfection of one leading logically to the next. Thus, though he may not be psychically seeing spinning forces within himself, man nevertheless matures through memory, reason, willpower, cognition, universal love, divine sight and spiritual illumination.
It may help, as we examine each of these centers individually, to visualize man as a seven-storied building, with each story being one of the chakras. Awareness travels up and down in the elevator, and as it goes higher and higher, it gains a progressively broader, more comprehensive and beautiful vista. Reaching the top floor, it views the panorama below with total understanding, not only of the landscape below, but also of the relation of the building to other buildings and of each floor to the next.
In Sanatana Dharma, another analogy is used to portray the chakras–that of a lotus flower. This flower grows in lakes and pools, taking root in the slimy mud below the surface where no light penetrates. Its stem grows upward toward the light until it breaks the surface into fresh air and sunshine. The energy of the sun then feeds the bud and leaves until the delicate lotus blossom opens. The first chakra, is called the root chakra, muladhara. Awareness takes root in the baser instincts of human experience and then travels through the waters of the intellect, becoming more and more refined as it evolves, until finally it bursts into the light of the superconscious mind, where it spiritually flowers into the 1,008-petaled lotus chakra at the top of the head. By examining the functions of these seven great force centers, we can clearly cognize our own position on the spiritual path and better understand our fellow man.
