SLOKA 27 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
HOW IS OUR SOUL DIFFERENT FROM SIVA?
Our soul body was created in the image and likeness of the Primal Soul, God Siva, but it differs from the Primal Soul in that it is immature. While Siva is unevolutionary perfection, we are in the process of evolving. Aum.
BHASHYA
To understand the mysteries of the soul, we distinguish between the soul body and its essence. As a soul body, we are individual and unique, different from all others, a self-effulgent being of light which evolves and matures through an evolutionary process. This soul body is of the nature of God Siva, but is different from Siva in that it is less resplendent than the Primal Soul and still evolving, while God is unevolutionary perfection. We may liken the soul body to an acorn, which contains the mighty oak tree but is a small seed yet to develop. The soul body matures through experience, evolving through many lives into the splendor of God Siva, ultimately realizing Siva totally in nirvikalpa samadhi. Even after Self Realization is attained, the soul body continues to evolve in this and other worlds until it merges with the Primal Soul, as a drop of water merges with its source, the ocean. Yea, this is the destiny of all souls without exception. The Vedas say, ”As oil in sesame seeds, as butter in cream, as water in river beds, as fire in friction sticks, so is the atman grasped in one’s own self when one searches for Him with truthfulness and austerity.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 337 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
TOOLS FOR EDUCATION
Education is a major issue in religious communities around the world today, including our own Hindu communities. Those who value their traditions everywhere are worried. They see all too clearly that children are learning another culture, or a nonculture, instead of absorbing the precious things in the various heritages. Elders, mothers and fathers, teachers and spiritual leaders are all wondering the same thing about traditional values: ”How are we going to pass them along, assure that they will survive?”
The Swaminarayan Fellowship has one good answer: involvement of youth at all levels. They know the importance of inculturalization. Individual families have another answer: keep kids out of public schools, use home-schooling systems, of which there are many these days. India is seeking answers, too, and is striving for a balance that incorporates Western knowledge and Eastern wisdom–not an easy goal to accomplish, and as yet unaccomplished for India’s 250 million school children. It’s even hard to offer them wholesome Hindu literature, since so many books for children and other educational tools are heavily slanted toward violence. Many will excuse it when a God slays a demon or when an indignant sage destroys some evil person, but to my thinking that is also violence, making such stories unacceptable for the minds of our young ones. Presenting violence as a good thing, even a somehow holy thing, definitely causes problems in today’s society, where hurtfulness is seen as a simple and legitimate solution to many problems. Many parents are at a loss as to how to solve the problems that surround the education of their youth. One solution they turn to is sending them off to boarding school. This is not a great answer. This is not even a good answer.
Saivites of the world are now uniting in one common cause: to pass on the knowledge of Saivism to the next generation. They are protecting the minds of their children, saturating the minds of their children, educating the minds of their children, penetrating the minds of their children with the knowledge of our great God Siva, with the knowledge of Lord Ganesha, Lord Murugan, the devonic worlds, the powerful temples of our religion in which God Siva in His etheric body comes personally and blesses the devotees.
Where is religion preserved? It is preserved in the minds of children, recorded in the brain cells of our youth, stored there for the future. We must teach the Saiva Dharma to our children. For this we need more Saivite courses, more Saivite schools and more Saivite parents willing to teach the young ones. We owe it to the next generation, the next, the next and the next. Share your knowledge with them. Have them memorize a consistent and logical approach to Saivite Hinduism. Then their life experiences are imprinted intelligently as they draw upon those memories to control their karma and dharma.
In the ancient days, the Saivite kings, the maharajas, were responsible for the religion. They saw to it that the priests performed their duties, that the pandits added to the store of knowledge, that the temples were built and maintained and that religion flourished throughout the land and remained alive in the minds and hearts of the people. This was the dharma of the kshatriya caste, headed by the kings, their ministers and heads of state. When the Saivite kings fell from power, the entire caste system was, for all practical purposes, left there on the battlefields. Decades have passed, and now we are in a technological age where computers and machinery replace more burdensome work, where caste is a matter of choice, not birth, where the common man and woman have replaced the royal powers as the protectors of Saivism.
SUTRA 337 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
RESERVE TOWARD WOMEN
All Siva’s monastics honor all older women as their mother and younger women as their sisters. Intensely renounced, modest and reserved, they avoid extended conversation and exchange of subtle energies. Aum.
LESSON 337 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
AFTER THE FIRST GREAT SAMADHI
Rare are the diligent sannyasins who, after working for many years within themselves, each in his own time, burst through superconsciousness into nirvikalpa samadhi, the realization of the timeless, causeless, spaceless Self. Many strive to attain Self Realization during many lifetimes and then for many years in their present birth. The many lives have brought certain accomplishment which leads to their first breakthrough into nirvikalpa samadhi. The first breakthrough into samadhi happens quickly, so that the subtle parts of the mind, shall we say, are not consciously aware of what is actually taking place and what has actually happened, because they are not used to being consciously aware in the higher states of consciousness. However, when the renunciate has broken through to the Self, Parasiva, he has the possibility of the full use of his mind, the higher states of consciousness as well as the full understanding of lower states of consciousness and how his individual awareness travels from one state to another. The mere fact he has broken through to samadhi means that he was able to justify experience enough in his subconscious mind so that his subconscious mind could fall into line, into the habit pattern of pure concentration. When the conscious mind is in concentration upon one single thing, the subconscious mind is in concentration also, following the pattern of the conscious mind, on one particular thing. Then that expands consciousness automatically into the superconscious state of mind. With the understanding of the functioning of the superconscious mind, and not being deluded by any of the ramifications of the superconscious mind, often a renunciate has managed to go right into the very core and actually break through to the Self. This is what has happened to him.
Each soul comes into Self Realization differently, because each has a different mind, a different subconscious mind and a different conscious mind, with a different nature, so naturally his reaction through experience before the experience of Self Realization and his reaction afterwards, being of the conscious and subconscious mind, is going to be different, depending upon his background and understanding and his nationality, etc.
The teachings of yoga are so basically simple and so basically concrete. And the most beautiful thing in the world, on contemplation, is the simplest thing in the world. The most beautiful design is the simplest design. So, simply since one has realized the Self and gone into nirvikalpa samadhi once, then obviously the simplest thing to do is to do it again. This is the practice of samadhi. When one has accomplished this a second time, do it again. Realize the Self again and again and again. Each time the renunciate comes out of samadhi, he will rebound, and it is like popping back into a different aspect of the mind. Or he will actually have more conscious awareness of the mind and totality of the mind. In other words, he will have a greater capacity of expanded consciousness. Or, in still other words, he will become consciously more superconscious for longer periods of time each time he experiences nirvikalpa samadhi.
When a beginning devotee is going up the path, he is spontaneously superconscious now and again. After his first samadhi, he has realized that he has had longer periods of superconsciousness. After his second samadhi, he will be more and more aware of the superconscious mind, and after the next samadhi, he will be even more and more aware of the superconscious mind. However, each will unfold the superconscious mind and superconscious possibilities, powers, etc., differently than another, due to the fact that all have different backgrounds, personalities and such; for though he realizes the Self, the entirety of the basic nature does not change. However, his understanding of his own control of his tendencies, the overall control that he has, and his ability to mold his own life–that starts a process which transforms him gradually and increasingly as he becomes more and more familiar with the laws of going into and out of nirvikalpa samadhi.
