\n
SLOKA 32 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
\nIS THERE GOOD KARMA AND BAD KARMA?
\nIn the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum.<\/p>\n
BHASHYA
\nKarma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving actions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness produces sweet fruits, called punya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called papa. As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adharmic actions impede our progress. The divine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual unfoldment. Performing daily sadhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others’ needs–these evoke the higher energies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the creation of troublesome new karmas. The Vedas explain, ”According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.” Aum Namah Sivaya.<\/p>\n
LESSON 32 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
\nHRI: REMORSE AND MODESTY<\/p>\n
Hri, the first of the ten niyamas, or practices, is remorse: being modest and showing shame for misdeeds, seeking the guru’s grace to be released from sorrows through the understanding that he gives, based on the ancient sampradaya, doctrinal lineage, he preaches. Remorse could be the most misunderstood and difficult to practice of all of the niyamas, because we don’t have very many role models today for modesty or remorse. In fact, the role for imitation in today’s world is just the opposite. This is reflected in television, on film, in novels, magazines, newspapers and all other kinds of media. In today’s world, brash, presumptuous, prideful–that’s how one must be. That’s the role model we see everywhere. In today’s world, arrogant–that’s how one must be. That’s the role model we see everywhere. Therefore, to be remorseful or even to show modesty would be a sign of weakness to one’s peers, family and friends.<\/p>\n
Modesty is portrayed in the media as a trait of people that are gauche, inhibited, undeveloped emotionally or not well educated. And remorse is portrayed in the world media as a characteristic of one who ”doesn’t have his act together,” is unable to rationalize away wrongdoings, or who is not clever enough to find a scapegoat to pin the blame on. Though modesty and remorse are the natural qualities of the soul, when the soul does exhibit these qualities, there is a natural tendency to suppress them.<\/p>\n
But let’s look on the brighter side. There is an old saying, ”Some people teach us what to do, and other people teach us what not to do.” The modern media, at least most of it, is teaching us what not to do. Its behavior is based on other kinds of philosophy–secular humanism, materialism, existentialism, crime and punishment, terrorism–in its effort to report and record the stories of the day. Sometimes we can learn quite a lot by seeing the opposite of what we want to learn. The proud and arrogant people portrayed on TV nearly always have their fall. This is always portrayed extremely well and is very entertaining. In their heart of hearts, people really do not admire the prideful person or his display of arrogance, so they take joy in seeing him get his just due. People, in their heart of hearts, do admire the modest person, the truthful person, the patient person, the steadfast person, the compassionate person who shows contentment and the fullness of well-being on his face and in his behavioral patterns.<\/p>\n
We Hindus who understand these things know that hri, remorse, is to be practiced at every opportunity. One of the most acceptable ways to practice hri, even in today’s society, is to say in a heartfelt way, ”I’m sorry.” Everyone will accept this. Even the most despicable, prideful, arrogant, self-centered person will melt just a little under the two magic words ”I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n
When apologizing, explain to the person you hurt or wronged how you have realized that there was a better way and ask for his forgiveness. If the person is too proud or arrogant to forgive, you have done your part and can go your way. The burden of the quandary you have put him into now lies solely with him. He will think about it, justify how and why and what he should not forgive until the offense melts from his mind and his heart softens. It takes as much time for a hardened heart to soften as it does for a piece of ice to melt in a refrigerator. Even when it does, his pride may never let him give you the satisfaction of knowing he has forgiven you. But you can tell. Watch for softening in the eyes when you meet, a less rigid mouth and the tendency to suppress a wholesome smile.
\nSUTRA 32 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
\nLIVING AND PREACHING SIVA’S PATH
\nSiva’s followers of my lineage study, live and preach to the world our peerless theological doctrine, called by various names: monistic theism, Advaita Ishvaravada, Advaita Siddhanta and Shuddha Saiva Siddhanta. Aum.<\/p>\n
LESSON 32 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
\nLIVING TWO-THIRDS WITHIN<\/p>\n
Living two-thirds within oneself and one-third in the external world–how do we do it? As soon as we live within ourselves, we become conscious of all of our various secret thoughts, all of our various emotions, that we would just as soon be without. Therefore, we distract ourselves and endeavor to live two-thirds in the external world and only one-third within ourselves. As aspirants on the path, you have to live your life two-thirds within yourself. When you are conscious of the thoughts that you don’t want to think, the emotions that you don’t want to feel, go deep within where they don’t exist. Take awareness to the central source of energy, right within the spine itself. Feel that energy flowing through the body, moving the muscles, enlivening the cells. Then you are two-thirds within yourself, and the world looks bright and cheery all the time; the sun is always shining. Immediately, when we begin to identify totally with our thoughts as being reality, then we begin to make mistakes. We’re living two-thirds in the external world.<\/p>\n
How to strike the balance? Regulate the breath throughout the day. Keep the spine always straight. Always sit up straight. As soon as the spine is bent, awareness is externalized. We’re living two-thirds in the external area of the mind and only one-third in. As soon as the spine is straight, our awareness is internalized. We’re living two-thirds within and only one-third out.<\/p>\n
What’s the biggest barrier? Fear. Afraid of our secret thoughts. Afraid of our secret feelings. What’s the biggest escape from fear? Go to the center, where energy exists, the energy that moves the life through the body. The simplest way is move your spine back and forth. Feel the power that moves that spine. Feel the power that moves that spine back and forth. Feel that energy going out through the physical body. Open your eyes and look at the world again, and you’ll see it bright and shiny. You’re two-thirds in and one-third out in awareness. You’re balanced.<\/p>\n
”Be renewed by a change of your mind.” Be renewed by releasing awareness from one area of the vast universe of the mind, drawing it back into its source and, releasing it again, sending it to another of the vast areas of the mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SLOKA 32 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA IS THERE GOOD KARMA AND BAD KARMA? In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum. BHASHYA Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving actions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness produces sweet fruits, called punya. Unkindness yields <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-lesson-with-gurudeva","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}