SLOKA 45 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
DOES THE UNIVERSE EVER END? IS IT REAL?
The universe ends at mahapralaya, when time, form and space dissolve in God Siva, only to be created again in the next cosmic cycle. We call it relatively real to distinguish it from the unchanging Reality. Aum Namah Sivaya.
BHASHYA
This universe, and indeed all of existence, is maya, Siva’s mirific energy. While God is absolutely real, His emanated world is relatively real. Being relatively real does not mean the universe is illusory or nonexistent, but that it is impermanent and subject to change. It is an error to say that the universe is mere illusion, for it is entirely real when experienced in ordinary consciousness, and its existence is required to lead us to God. The universe is born, evolves and dissolves in cycles much as the seasons come and go through the year. These cycles are inconceivably immense, ending in mahapralaya when the universe undergoes dissolution. All three worlds, including time and space, dissolve in God Siva. This is His ultimate grace–the evolution of all souls is perfect and complete as they lose individuality and return to Him. Then God Siva exists alone in His three perfections until He again issues forth creation. The Vedas state, ”Truly, God is One; there can be no second. He alone governs these worlds with His powers. He stands facing beings. He, the herdsman, after bringing forth all worlds, reabsorbs them at the end of time.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 355 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
STRENGTH OF COMMITMENT
What is our strength? One Supreme God and many Gods. First we have to decide who is the Supreme God. Are you a member of the Saivite Hindu religion? The Vaishnavite Hindu religion? The Shakta Hindu religion? The Smarta Hindu religion? Having made that decision, you will have hope and peace of mind. You will have solace when you need it, and something to pass on to your children. Knowledge is strength. Commitment is strength. Knowing where you stand and what you are, that is strength. Worshiping many Gods is our way, but they are not all the Supreme God. They are His helpers, His creations. There is only one Supreme God, though we call Him by various names. The many Gods, the Mahadevas, will help us. They are specialists created by God.
Hinduism today is a religion of today and tomorrow. It is not just a religion of history books and yesterday. Our religion gives us strength today. It is a religion which worships one Supreme God, with vast scriptures that prescribe the worship and illumine our minds with knowledge about the one Supreme God. Never forget this. Never forsake your Vedic Hindu Dharma, but fulfill it, and you will be rewarded, generation after generation after generation.
There is a movement from within Hinduism itself which poses yet another threat to our religion, a threat to all the sects. I call it ”liberal Hinduism.” Liberal Hinduism is a ”Chellappa stew,” a confused mixture of many things thrown into a one bowl. This movement was started by your forefathers, and it has to be corrected by us through being good Saivites in this life.
What does liberal Hinduism teach? It teaches that it is not necessary to go to the temple, that yoga is not necessary, that all religions are one, that we need not listen to the swamis, and that sectarianism is wrong. What the followers of liberal Hinduism don’t seem to realize is that if they destroy the temples, the sects and the swamis, they will be destroying Hinduism itself.
Liberal Hindus hold an idea that all religions are one. They must not have studied the various religions, or they would have to conclude, as we did in America after years of comparative research, that all religions are not one, not at all alike. I was told that all religions are fundamentally one when I was young, and I believed it until I found out years later that it is a lie. All religions are good insofar as they teach devotion and good conduct, but they are not one. The Christians know that their religion is totally different from Hinduism. They live under no illusions, because they know that the very foundations of Saivism–namely, karma, reincarnation, yoga, God’s existence in all things and the soul’s ultimate merger in God–these beliefs are not their beliefs. Did you know that for a Christian to believe in any of these things is heresy? Absolute heresy. There is very little beyond a belief in a Supreme God and some good moral laws that is common to nearly all religions, but there are many, many differences.
As Saivites, we love everyone. We appreciate and encourage all religious paths. That is our way. But that does not mean that we should abandon our beliefs and practices to embrace Islam or Buddhism. That does not mean that we should put Jesus on the altar in our shrine room, which is exactly what the liberal Hindus do. I was at a Saivite institution the other day and was shocked to find that Jesus, Krishna and Buddha were there together on the altar in the prayer room. There was no image of Ganesha or Murugan or Siva, yet they called themselves Saivites. I asked what it meant. They explained, ”We believe in all religions, Swami.” They were worshiping every God except their own! That complacent syncretism is the result of faulty, liberal Hindu thinking.
The Christians don’t have Lord Ganesha presiding over Sunday services. Of course not. It would be unthinkable. For Saivites to put Jesus or Mary on the altar is an invitation to every Christian missionary to enter your home, to enter the minds of your children. It is the first sign of the breaking of your faith. That is certainly how the Christians take it. They will see you as a prime target, and they will say among themselves, ”It won’t be long now.”
SUTRA 355 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
DEMURENESS IN CONVERSATIONS
My Saiva monastics, in respect, stand no closer than an arm’s length during conversations. When speaking to men and women together, they direct their attention mostly to the men, as is traditional. Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 355 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
AN EVENT WORTH CELEBRATING
The tunnel of light that is experienced by so many people at the point of death is the portal they are going through, the window, the chakra. It is a tunnel, and it has distance, because it takes time, consciousness, to go from one end to the other. Passing through the tunnel is leaving this world and going into another. You do that in meditation, too. You leave the light of the physical plane and go into the light in the inner world. Death takes place in a short period, but is a foreboding affair to those who have never meditated. But dying is not such a dramatic experience really. Every night you ”die” and leave your physical body. It is very similar. Every night mystics leave their physical body, go and meet and converse with other mystics on the inner planes. That’s why they know each other when they meet on the physical plane. Samadhi, the exalted meditative state, which literally means ”holding together completely,” is also a word used to describe dying. Why is that? Because deep contemplation is similar to a death experience; only the silver cord is not separated. This cord is an astral-pranic thread that connects the astral body through the navel to the physical body. It is a little like an umbilical cord. The only full separation comes when the cord is cut at mahasamadhi, the true death of the physical body. People die all the time, but if the cord is not broken, they come back. You die all the time. The cord being broken makes for a twenty-four-hour consciousness in the inner world, as compared to a sixteen-hour consciousness in the physical world.
Many people wish that they were dead and give up on life, look at death as an escape rather than a fulfillment. These cumulative thoughts and desires can create the near-death experience. The welcoming devonic helpers of Lord Yama, the benevolent God of the death experience, don’t pay any attention, because they know the person is not going to die. The person thinks he is going to die, but they know he is not. He has just conjured it up. Just like a conjured illness.
If a person knows he is terminally ill, that knowledge is a blessing, for he can prepare. He should not hesitate to tell his relatives he is going to die, and that is a wonderful blessing for them, as they can prepare for his great departure. Now all know he has finally arrived at the end of his prarabdha karmas and is going to fly. In turn, family and friends should release him, be happy. He is going to be happy with no physical body. For they know they will be as close to him in his astral and soul body as they were in his physical body. They will visit him every night when they sleep, in the inner worlds, and learn many things from these loved ones as to how to prepare for their own great departure, be it sudden or prolonged. Don’t cry; you will make him unhappy. You should be happy for him, because he is going to be happy. It is not a sad occasion. For Hindus, death is a most exalted state, an incredible moment that you spend your whole life preparing for. Birth is the unhappy occasion. Death should be a big party. He has just gone through his day of Brahma.
The sadness at death comes from Western attitudes. Western thought has to be reversed. Here a child comes into birth. It is sad, because he was all right before he was born. Now his prarabdha karmas are going to start to explode. He has to deal with his past, which he did not have to deal with in the Devaloka. He has a chance to make new karmas. The time of birth is the grave time. When he dies, that means that section of the jyotisha is finished and he can go and have a great rest and be with intelligent people. It is great inside there and difficult out here.
When someone tells me they or a loved one have cancer, AIDS or some other incurable disease, my counsel is this. Everyone dies, but it is a blessing to know when you are going to die, because then you can prepare for it, make a decision whether you are going to be reborn, do intense sadhanas, make preparations. Eastern men don’t fight terminal cancer or AIDS. They go to an astrologer or palmist, ascertain their time of death, then prepare themselves. It’s really a blessing. It’s best not to fight it or ”cure it,” since you are interrupting your timing. Just let it happen. Heed the wisdom of the Vedas, ”When a person comes to weakness, be it through old age or disease, he frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, a fig or a berry releases itself from its stalk.”
Hindus go to special sacred places to die, because that’s where holy people live, in that part of the astral plane. That place has access to other planets, or to the moon. A lot of people go to the moon when they die and live there. Jews who die go to Israel. That’s their holy land. You can get caught in the astral plane or some bardo mind-flow that would contain you for a long time, and then get a bad birth if you do not go to a special place to die. So, you want at least to die near a temple. A temple is connected to the three worlds. We brought India to the West with our temples and by encouraging more to be built. The Indian people don’t mind dying in the West since all the temples are here. They love all the temples they have built, especially our Kadavul Temple, for it feels so sacred to them. All of the temples in the West are connected to other temples in Sri Lanka and India.
