SLOKA 61 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF GOOD CONDUCT?
Good conduct is right thought, right speech and right action. It is virtuous deeds in harmony with divine law, reflecting the soul’s innate purity. As a staff is used to climb a mountain, so must virtue be used in life. Aum.
BHASHYA
Good conduct, sadachara, determines our behavior in day-to-day life. We should be uplifting to our fellow man, not critical or injurious. We should be loving and kind, not hateful or mean. We should express the soul’s beautiful qualities of self-control, modesty and honesty. We should be a good example to others and a joy to be around, not a person to be avoided. Good conduct is the sum of spiritual living and comes through keeping good company. When heart and mind are freed of baseness, when desires have been tempered and excesses avoided, dharma is known and followed, and good conduct naturally arises. The Hindu fosters humility and shuns arrogance, seeks to assist, never to hinder, finds good in others and forgets their faults. There is no other way to be called a true devotee, but to conduct ourself properly within ourself and among our fellow men. The Vedas say, ”Let there be no neglect of Truth. Let there be no neglect of dharma. Let there be no neglect of welfare. Let there be no neglect of prosperity. Let there be no neglect of study and teaching. Let there be no neglect of the duties to the Gods and the ancestors.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 61 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
TAPAS: AUSTERITY
The tenth and final niyama is austerity, performing sadhana, penance, tapas and sacrifice. All religions of the world have their forms of austerity, conditions which one has to live up to–or which individuals are unable to live up to who are too lazy or too dull-minded to understand; and Hinduism is no exception. Our austerities start within the home in the form of daily sadhana. This is obligatory and includes puja, scriptural reading and chanting of holy mantras. This personal vigil takes about half an hour or more. Other sadhanas include pilgrimage to a far-off sacred place once a year, visiting a temple once a week, preferably on Friday or Monday, attending festivals and fulfilling samskaras, rites of passage, for the children especially, but all the family members as well. To atone for misdeeds, penance is obligatory. We must quickly mitigate future effects of the causes we have set into action. This is done through such acts as performing 108 prostrations before the God in the temple.
Tapas is even more austere. It may come early in a lifetime or later in life, unbidden or provoked by raja yoga practices. It is the fire that straightens the twisted life and mind of an individual, bringing him into pure being, giving a new start in life, awakening higher consciousness and a cosmic relationship with God and the Gods, friends, relatives and casual acquaintances. Tapas in Hinduism is sought for, feared, suffered through and loved. Its pain is greater than the pains of parturition, but in the aftermath is quickly forgotten, as the soul, in childlike purity, shines forth in the joys of rebirth that follow in the new life.
Tapas is walking through fire, being scorched, burnt to a crisp, crawling out the other side unburnt, without scars, with no pain. Tapas is walking through the rain, completely drenched, and when the storm stops, not being wet. Tapas is living in a hurricane, tossed about on a churning ocean in a small boat, and when the storm subsides, being landed on a peaceful beach unharmed but purified. Tapas is a mind in turmoil, insane unto its very self. A psychic surgery is being performed by the Gods themselves. When the operation is over, the patient has been cut loose of the dross of all past lives. Tapas is a landslide of mud, a psychic earthquake, coming upon the head and consuming the body of its victim, smothering him in the dross of his misdeeds, beneath which he is unable to breathe, see, speak or hear. He awakens from this hideous dream resting on a mat in a garden hut, smelling sweet jasmine, seeing pictures of Gods and devas adorning the mud walls and hearing the sound of a flute coming from a distant source.
Truly, tapas in its fullest form is sought for only by the renunciate under the guidance of a satguru, but this madness often comes unbidden to anyone on this planet whose dross of misdeeds spills over. The only difference for the Hindu is that he knows what is happening and how it is to be handled; or at least the gurus know, the swamis know, the elders know, the astrologers know. This knowledge is built into the Hindu mind flow as grout is built into a stone wall.
SUTRA 61 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
EXCEPTIONS TO AHIMSA
Siva’s devotees, when unable to observe ahimsa perfectly, may claim three exceptions to preserve one life over another. But these must be used sparingly, reluctantly, after the noninjurious options have been tried. Aum.
LESSON 61 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
THE CYCLES OF EXPERIENCE
There are many things in life which endeavor to keep us away from our true being. These are the cycles of life. We must watch and be careful of these recurring cycles in our life. These joyous and sorrowful occurrences that awareness experiences, sometimes each day, sometimes each week, sometimes each month, are totally dependent upon the positive control that we have of awareness. But then there are greater experiences that have even longer cycles–perhaps a three-year cycle, a five-year cycle, a ten-year cycle or a fifteen-year cycle.
The subconscious area of the mind is something like the sacred cow of India. It relives what it takes in. The cow will take in grass and chew it, and then she will chew her food all over again at a later time. The subconscious area of the mind does the same thing. You will find yourself aware of reliving your life, or getting back into the same cycle of the same pattern of life that you experienced many years ago. This you want to avoid, naturally. It is easy. Ponder over what you are doing now, how you are living, and then go back and find out within yourself how that compares to a previous time in your life when you were living more or less in the same way. In this way, you will come to know what area of the mind you will become aware in next.
If something good happened to you after a series of events in the past, you can expect something good to happen to you again. If something happened that was not as good or joyous as you would like it to have been, then you can know that you will become aware in this area of the mind in the future. This you can avoid. You have the power to control your cause and effect.
