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 336 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
SONG OF THE SANNYASIN
Wake up the note! the song that had its birth
Far off, where worldly taint could never reach,
In mountain caves and glades of forest deep,
Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame
Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream
Of knowledge, truth and bliss that follows both.
Sing high that note, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Strike off thy fetters! bonds that bind thee down,
Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore–
Love, hate; good, bad; and all the dual throng.
Know slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free;
For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind.
Then off with them, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Let darkness go; the will-o’-the-wisp that leads
With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom.
This thirst for life forever quench; it drags
From birth to death, and death to birth, the soul.
He conquers all who conquers self.
Know this and never yield, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
”Who sows must reap,” they say, ”and cause must bring
The sure effect: good, good; bad, bad; and none
Escapes the law. But whoso wears a form
Must wear the chain.” Too true; but far beyond
Both name and form is atman, ever free.
Know thou art That, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams
As father, mother, children, wife and friend.
The sexless Self–whose father He? whose child?
Whose friend, whose foe, is He who is but One?
The Self is all in all–none else exists;
And thou art That, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
There is but One: the Free, the Knower, Self,
Without a name, without a form or stain.
In Him is maya, dreaming all this dream.
The Witness, He appears as nature, soul.
Know thou art That, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world
Nor that can give. In books and temples, vain
Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds
The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament.
Let go thy hold, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Say, ”Peace to all. From me no danger be
To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high,
In those that lowly creep–I am the Self in all!
CAll life, both here and there, do I renounce,
All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and fears.”
Thus cut thy bonds, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Heed then no more how body lives or goes.
Its task is done: let karma float it down.
Let one put garlands on, another kick
This frame: say naught. No praise or blame can be
Where praiser, praised, and blamer, blamed, are one.
Thus be thou calm, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed
Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman
As his wife can ever perfect be;
Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he
Whom anger Chains, can ever pass through maya’s gates.
So, give these up, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend?
The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed, and food
What chance may bring–well cooked or ill, judge not.
No food or drink can taint that noble Self
Which knows Itself. Like rolling river free
Thou ever be, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Few only know the truth. The rest will hate
And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed.
Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help
Them out of darkness, maya’s veil. Without
The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go
Beyond them both, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
Thus day by day, till karma’s power’s spent,
Release the soul forever. No more is birth,
Nor I, nor thou, nor God, nor man. The ”I”
Has All become, the All is ”I” and Bliss.
Know thou art That, sannyasin bold!
Say ”Om Tat Sat, Om!”
”Song of the Sannyasin” by Swami Vivekananda is quoted, with written permission, from Inspired Talks, My Master and Other Writings; copyright 1958 by Swami Nikhilananda, trustee of the estate of Swami Vivekananda; published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York.
SUTRA 336 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
NEVER INDULGING IN SEXUAL FANTASY
All Siva’s monastics strictly avoid sexual fantasy, knowing that it opens the door to the progressive stages of glorifying sex, flirting, desirous glances, love talk, pining, deciding to have sex and finally intercourse. Aum.
LESSON 336 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
BIRTH OF THE GOLDEN BODY
The golden body, svarnasharira, is a body made of golden light. After many experiences of Parasiva, it gradually descends from the seven chakras above the sahasrara into the ajna chakra, which then becomes the soul’s muladhara, then down into the vishuddha chakra, which then becomes its muladhara, and then down into the anahata, which then becomes its muladhara.
All seven chakras above the sahasrara slowly come down and down and down until the entire astral body is psychically seen, by mystics who have this sight, as a golden body. The astral body slowly, slowly, slowly dissolves into the golden body. That is what I have seen happen. That is what our parampara and our sampradaya know from experience. Experience is the only true knowing–a knowing that can be verified in books, through others who have the same knowing, but a knowing that no others know who have not had the same experience. To them it is only a concept, a nice one maybe, but just a concept or written off as an opinion.
When the golden body fully enters the physical, having taken over the astral, the knowing that is known comes unbidden. It is beyond reason but does not conflict with it. It is a living scripture but does not conflict with those written by seers of the past who have seen and their records have become scripture. So great is the Sanatana Dharma that it defies all who doubt it, all who disdain it, all who disregard it, all who degrade it, with personal realization of its Truth.
This golden body, which begins to build into a golden body after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, is connected to the sahasrara chakra. In other words, the sahasrara chakra is the home base in the physical body for the golden body. There are twelve basic unfoldments to this chakra as the golden body grows. When the realized sannyasin travels in high states of contemplation, he moves freely in his golden body and can help and serve mankind. Over time, he gains a conscious control of the sahasrara chakra as a force center which propels him into inner space.
It is this golden body, as it refines and refines and refines itself within the Sivaloka after moksha, that finally merges with Siva like a cup of water being poured into the ocean. That same water can never be found and put back into the cup. This truly is svarnasharira vishvagrasa, the final, final, final merging with Siva.
