SLOKA 88 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
HOW ARE AYURVEDA AND JYOTISHA USED?
Ayurveda is the Hindu science of life, a complete, holistic medical system. Jyotisha, or Vedic astrology, is the knowledge of right timing and future potentialities. Both are vital tools for happy, productive living. Aum.
BHASHYA
Ayurveda, rooted in the Atharva Upaveda, deals with both the prevention and cure of disease. Its eight medical arts, with their mantras, tantras and yogas, are based on spiritual well-being and encompass every human need, physical, mental and emotional. Ayurveda teaches that the true healing powers reside in the mind at the quantum level. Wellness depends on the correct balance of three bodily humors, called doshas, maintained by a nutritious vegetarian diet, dharmic living and natural healing remedies. The kindred science of Vedic astrology, revealed in the Jyotisha Vedanga, likewise is vital to every Hindu’s life. It propounds a dynamic cosmos of which we are an integral part, and charts the complex influence on us of important stars and planets, according to our birth chart. Knowing that the stars enliven positive and negative karmas we have brought into this life, in wisdom we choose an auspicious time, shubha muhurta, for every important event. An orthodox Hindu family is not complete without its jyotisha shastri or ayurveda vaidya. The Vedas beseech, ”Peaceful for us be the planets and the moon, peaceful the sun and rahu.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 88 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
QUESTIONS AND CHALLENGES
When you first begin your daily sadhana, it is likely to begin in an awkward way, and you may come to know yourself in a way that you don’t want to know yourself. Don’t be discouraged when the mind runs wild as you sit quietly and are unable to control it. Don’t be discouraged if you find that you are unable to even choose a time to sit quietly for one half hour on a regular daily basis. If you persist, soon all this will be overcome and a firmness of mind will be felt, for it is through the regular practice of sadhana that the mind becomes firm and the intellect pure. It is through the regular practice of concentration that awareness detaches itself from the external mind and hovers within, internalizing the knowledge of the physical body, the breath and the emotions. Concentration of the forces of the body, mind and emotions brings us automatically into meditation, dhyana, and into deeper internalized awareness.
The spiritual practice should be reasonable, should not take up too much time, and should be done at the same time every day. Often seekers who become associated with Hindu sadhana go to extremes and proceed with great vigor in an effort to attain results immediately. Sitting two or three hours a day, they wear themselves out and then stop. Here’s a formula for beginners: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, twenty minutes to a half an hour of sadhana at the same time every day; Saturday and Sunday, no sadhana.
The keys are moderation and consistency. Consistency is the key to the conquest of karma. If you go to extremes or are sporadic in your sadhana, you can easily slide backwards. What happens when you slide backwards? You become fearful, you become angry, you become jealous, you become confused. What happens when you move forward? You become brave, you become calm, you become self-confident and your mind is clear.
It is often feared that meditation and religious devotion cause a withdrawal from the world. The practice of sadhana I have described does not detach you from or make you indifferent to the world. Rather, it brings up a strength within you, a shakti, enabling you to move the forces of the world in a positive way. What is meant by ”moving the forces of the world”? That means fulfilling realistic goals that you set for yourself. That means performing your job as an employer or as an employee in the most excellent way possible. That means stretching your mind and emotions and endurance to the limit and therefore getting stronger and stronger day by day. You are involved in the world, and the world is in a technological age.
The sadhana that you perform will make your mind steady and your will strong so that you can move the forces of the physical world with love and understanding, rather than through anger, hatred, antagonism, cunning, jealousy and greed. Daily sadhana performed in the right way will help you overcome these instinctive barriers to peace of mind and the fullness of being. If you have children, the rewards of your sadhana will help you educate your children properly in fine schools and universities and see that all of their physical needs are met through the flow of material abundance that automatically comes as you progress in your inner life.
Through daily sadhana we shall come to know the body, we shall come to know the emotions, we shall come to know the nerve system, we shall come to know the breath and we shall come to know the mind in its totality. Each one of you will soon be able to mentally pick up all of the dross of your subconscious, throw it within, into the great cavity of inner knowing at the feet of the Gods, there to be absorbed, dissolved and disappear. All this and more can be unfolded from within each one of you through your daily practice of sadhana. Sadhana is one of the great boons given to us in our religion.
SUTRA 88 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
COMMUNICATING DAILY
When away from home, each of Siva’s married men devotees contacts his wife every day to express his love and inquire about her day. He avoids rowdy company and never visits another woman’s home alone. Aum.
LESSON 88 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
STEP FOUR: CONTEMPLATION
Out of meditation we come into contemplation. Contemplation is concentrating so deeply in the inner areas of the mind in which that flower and the species of it and the seed of it and all exist. We go deeper, deeper, deeper within, into the energy and the life within the cells of the flower, and we find that the energy and the life within the cells of the flower is the same as the energy within us, and we are in contemplation upon energy itself. We see the energy as light. We might see the light within our head if we have a slight body consciousness. In a state of contemplation, we might not even be conscious of light itself, for you are only conscious of light if you have a slight consciousness of darkness. Otherwise, it is just your natural state, and you are in a deep reverie. In a state of contemplation, you are so intently alive, you can’t move. That’s why you sit so quietly.
Yogaswami once said, ”I went in and in and in, and so deep within, that a bird was sitting on my head.” That is the type of teaching he would give to cause people to think that the physical body was so quiet and quiet for so long that a bird was just sitting on his head, didn’t even know it was a man sitting there–”I went in and in and in and in so deeply that a bird was sitting on my head.” Go in and in and in and in so deeply that a bird could sit on your head, through the stages of attention, concentration, meditation and contemplation of the inner energies of the universe itself.
When you are in the mind of energy, in that rarefied consciousness, you are not conscious of the Earth or any planets. You are just conscious of the strata of energy that runs through Earth, space and planets. It’s not even really energy. We are only conscious of energy when we are conscious of something that seems to be not energy. However, this is contemplation, the very source of that which is within and running through form.
