SLOKA 31 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
HOW DO HINDUS UNDERSTAND KARMA?
Karma literally means ”deed or act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Aum.
BHASHYA
Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate reaction. Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some accumulate and return unexpectedly in this or other births. The several kinds of karma are: personal, family, community, national, global and universal. Ancient rishis perceived personal karma’s three-fold edict. The first is sanchita, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved. The second is prarabdha, that portion of sanchita to be experienced in this life. Kriyamana, the third type, is karma we are currently creating. The Vedas propound, ”Here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will. As is his will, so is his deed. Whatever deed he does, that he will reap.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 31 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
WHOLESOME COMPANY
It is unfortunate that at this time in the Kali Yuga there are more people on the Earth in important positions who have risen into physical birth from the Narakaloka, the world of darkness, than have descended from the Devaloka, the world of light. Therefore, they are strong as they band together in anger, corruption, deceit and contempt for the Devaloka people, who live in the chakras above the muladhara. It is important for the Devaloka people to ferret out who is good company and who is not. They should not presume that they can effect any sustainable changes in the Narakaloka people. And they need to know that the asuric people, bound in anger, greed, jealousy, contempt, covetousness and lust, can make and sustain a difference within the devonic people, bringing them down into their world, torturing and tormenting them with their callous, cruel and insensitive feelings. To sustain shaucha, it is important to surround oneself with good, devonic company, to have the discrimination to know one type of person from another. Too many foolish, sensitive souls, thinking their spirituality could lift a soul from the world of darkness, have walked in where even the Mahadevas do not tread and the devas fear to tread, only to find themselves caught in that very world, through the deceit and conniving of the cleverly cunning. Let’s not be foolish. Let’s discriminate between higher consciousness and lower consciousness. Higher-consciousness people should surround themselves with higher-consciousness people to fulfill shaucha.
Changing to a purer life can be so simple. You don’t have to give up anything. Just learn to like things that are better. That is the spirit of purity. When you give up something because you think you should give it up, that creates strain. Instead, search for a better life; search for shaucha. From tamasic eating we go to rajasic eating, and because sattvic food tastes better and makes us feel better, we also leave much of the rajasic food behind. Are not all persons on this planet driven by desire? Yes, indeed. Then let’s redirect desire and let our desires perfect us. Let us learn to desire the more tasty, sattvic foods, the more sublime sounds the most perfect things we can see, more than the gross, exciting and reprehensible, the desires for which will fade away when we attach ourselves to something better. Let our desires perfect us. The ultra-democratic dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we can use as a New-Age goal and pursue the happiness of something better than what we are doing now that is bad for us. Let’s go forward with the spirit of moving onward.
A devotee told me, ”I gave up coffee because coffee is a stimulant and a depressant. I stopped eating meat because meat is a cholesterol-creating killer and forest decimator.” Another approach would be to give up coffee because you have found a beverage that is better. Test all beverages. Some have found that coffee gives you indigestion and green tea helps you digest your food, especially oily foods and foods that remain in your stomach undigested through the night. It also tastes good. Others have found that freshly picked, nutritious vegetables, especially when cooked within minutes of the picking, give more life and energy than eating dead meat that has been refrigerated or preserved. Still others have found that if you kill an animal and eat it fresh, it has more nutritive value than killing it, refrigerating it, preserving it, then cooking it to death again!
Be mature about it when you give something up. The immature spiritual person will want everyone else to give it up, too. The spiritually mature person quietly surrenders it because it is simply his personal choice and then goes on with his life. The spiritually immature person will make a big issue of giving anything up and want everyone to know about it.
SUTRA 31 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
A PHILOSOPHY WORTHY OF PRIDE
Siva’s followers take pride in the fact that the philosophical basis of their peerless lineage lies in the unity of Siddhanta and Vedanta. This mysterious dance of dualism and nondualism is called monistic theism. Aum.
LESSON 31 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
THE MECHANICS OF ATTACHMENT
Have you ever had people come to you and tell you all of their problems? What did they do? As a pure state of awareness, they came to you as a pure state of awareness. You were not identified in the area of the mind that they are living in. So, they came to you because they want to get out of the area of the mind that they’re living in. They’ve been living in it so long, they think they are that area of the mind, like somebody that has lived in a house so long and is so attached to it that they would rather die than move from the house. So then they come to you and start telling all the problems. First they start with the little ones, and then they start with the big ones, and all their complaints, heartaches and everything that that area of the mind involves in. Now, you can do one of two things. You gently talk with them and bring them out of that area of the mind into your area of the mind, or they can move your awareness right into that area of the mind, too. And they go away and you are feeling terrible. You’re feeling just awful.
You’ve gone to a movie. The movie screen is just a screen. The film is just film. And the light is just light. And yet, the combination of the three can move your awareness into areas of the mind that can upset your nerve system, make you cry, make you laugh, make you have bad dreams for a week, change your whole entire perspective of life–these three combinations of physical elements can do this, if they can attract your attention.
Now, if we are sitting in a movie, and we are realizing that we’re going through moods and emotions but we are not the moods and emotions that we’re going through–all we’re doing is being entertained by our senses–then that’s the mystic. He is enjoying life and what life has to offer. He’s even remembering in past lives when he has had similar experiences that the players are portraying on the screen, and he has empathy with them. He’s living a full and a vibrant life, and yet when he walks out of the movie house, he’s forgotten the whole thing. He doesn’t carry it with him. His awareness is immediately right where he is currently. That’s the power of the great eternity of the moment.
