\n
SLOKA 50 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
\nSHOULD ONE AVOID WORLDLY INVOLVEMENT?
\nThe world is the bountiful creation of a benevolent God, who means for us to live positively in it, facing karma and fulfilling dharma. We must not despise or fear the world. Life is meant to be lived joyously. Aum Namah Sivaya.<\/p>\n
BHASHYA
\nThe world is the place where our destiny is shaped, our desires fulfilled and our soul matured. In the world, we grow from ignorance into wisdom, from darkness into light and from a consciousness of death to immortality. The whole world is an ashrama in which all are doing sadhana. We must love the world, which is God’s creation. Those who despise, hate and fear the world do not understand the intrinsic goodness of all. The world is a glorious place, not to be feared. It is a gracious gift from Siva Himself, a playground for His children in which to interrelate young souls with the old–the young experiencing their karma while the old hold firmly to their dharma. The young grow; the old know. Not fearing the world does not give us permission to become immersed in worldliness. To the contrary, it means remaining affectionately detached, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf, being in the world but not of it, walking in the rain without getting wet. The Vedas warn, ”Behold the universe in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves on earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal. Set not your heart on another’s possession.” Aum Namah Sivaya.<\/p>\n
LESSON 50 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
\nSCRIPTURAL LISTENING<\/p>\n
Siddhanta shravana, scriptural study, the sixth niyama, is the end of the search. Prior to this end, prior to finding the satguru, we are free to study all the scriptures of the world, of all religions, relate and interrelate them in our mind, manipulate their meanings and justify their final conclusions. We are free to study all of the sects and sampradayas, all denominations, lineages and teachings, everything under the banner of Hinduism–the Saivites, the Vaishnavites, the Smartas, Ganapatis, Ayyappans, Shaktas and Murugans and their branches.<\/p>\n
Scriptures within Hinduism are voluminous. The methods of teaching are awesome in their multiplicity. As for teachers, there is one on every corner in India. Ask a simple question of an elder, and he is duty-bound to give a lengthy response from the window he is looking out of, opened by the sampradaya he or his family has subscribed to, maybe centuries ago, of one or another sect within this great pantheon we call Hinduism.<\/p>\n
Before we come to the fullness of siddhanta shravana, we are also free to investigate psychologies, psychiatries, pseudo-sciences, ways of behavior of the human species, existentialism, humanism, secular humanism, materialism and the many other modern ”-isms,” which are so multitudinous and still multiplying. Their spokesmen are many. Libraries are full of them. All the ”-isms” and ”-ologies” are there, and they beckon, hands outstretched to receive, to seduce, sometimes even seize, the seeker. The seeker on the path of siddhanta shravana who is at least relatively successful at the ten restraints must make a choice. He knows he has to. He knows he must. He has just entered the consciousness of the muladhara chakra and is becoming steadfast on the upward climb.<\/p>\n
Have full faith that when your guru does appear, after you have made yourself ready through the ten restraints and the first five practices, you will know in every nerve current of your being that this is your guide on the path through the next five practices: 1) siddhanta shravana, scriptural study–following one verbal lineage and not pursuing any others; 2) mati, cognition–developing a spiritual will and intellect with a guru’s guidance; 3) vrata, sacred vows–fulfilling religious vows, rules, and observances faithfully; 4) japa, recitation of holy mantras–here we seek initiation from the guru to perform this practice and; 5) tapas, performing austerity, sadhana, penance and sacrifice, also under the guru’s guidance.<\/p>\n
Siddhanta shravana is a discipline, an ancient traditional practice in satguru lineages, to carry the devotee from one chakra in consciousness to another. Each sampradaya defends its own teachings and principles against other sampradayas to maintain its pristine purity and admonishes followers from investigating any of them. Such exploration of other texts should all be done before seeking to fulfill siddhanta shravana. Once under the direction of and having been accepted by a guru, any further delving into extraneous doctrines would be disapproved and disallowed.<\/p>\n
Siddhanta shravana is more than just focusing on a single doctrine. It is developing through scriptural study an entirely new mind fabric, subconsciously and consciously, which will entertain an explanation for all future prarabdha karmas and karmas created in this life to be experienced for the duration of the physical life of the disciple. Siddhanta shravana is even more. It lays the foundation for initiation within the fabric of the nerve system of the disciple. Even more, it portrays any differences in his thinking, the guru’s thought, the sampradaya’s principles, philosophy and underlying practices.
\nSUTRA 50 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
\nMODERATE APPETITE AND PURITY
\nAll devotees of Siva observe mitahara, moderation in appetite, not eating too much or consuming meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. They uphold shaucha, avoiding impurity in body, mind and speech. Aum Namah Sivaya.<\/p>\n
LESSON 50 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
\nBEYOND PAST AND FUTURE<\/p>\n
Whenever man comes to the point in his evolution where he has sufficient mastery in the mind to produce ”things,” he suffers for the lack of peace, for in his activity on the mental spheres in conceiving, planning, gathering the forces together and finally viewing the outcome as a physical manifestation, he has exercised an intricate control over the nerve fibers of his mind. Thus caught in this pattern, he must go on producing to insure his mental security, for should he stop for a moment, the whiplash upon his senses as the generative functions ceased to be active would cause paranoiac depressions, at times almost beyond repair.<\/p>\n
The man looking into the ”where and when” of the future, blending his energies with those who are also striving to evolve into a more ramified state of mind, can suffer well if he keeps going, producing, acquiring and believing that materiality is reality. Evolution of the species takes its toll, for as man’s mind evolves, he is no longer content projecting into the ”where and when” of the material consciousness, and as he seeks some reward of peace for his efforts, he begins to look into the past for solutions, the ”there and then” of it all. Thus, finding himself born into a cross-section of awareness between past and future, having experienced both of these tendencies of the mind, causes him to reflect. Philosophy holds few answers for him. Its congested mass of ”shoulds” and ”don’ts” he knows has proved more to the philosopher who cleared his mind on paper than to the reader who has yet to complement with inner knowing its indicated depths.<\/p>\n
Occultism is intriguing to him, for it shows that there are possibilities of expression beyond the senses he has become well accustomed to using. But again, evolution rounding his vision causes him to discard the occult symbolism, laws and practices as another look into the past or future of the mind’s depths.<\/p>\n
The idea of yoga, union through perceptive control of the flow of thought, and of the generative processes of a perceptive idea before thought is formed, is most satisfying. The cognition of the actinic process of life currents intrigues him, and he looks further into the practice of yoga techniques and finds that peace is gained through a conscious government first of the life currents through the body and second of the realm of ideas as they flow into thought. And while remaining the observer of it all in the eternity of the here and now, the seeker fully realizes that time, space and causation are only indicated through holding an off-balanced consciousness of past and future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SLOKA 50 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA SHOULD ONE AVOID WORLDLY INVOLVEMENT? The world is the bountiful creation of a benevolent God, who means for us to live positively in it, facing karma and fulfilling dharma. We must not despise or fear the world. Life is meant to be lived joyously. Aum Namah Sivaya. BHASHYA The world is the place where our destiny is shaped, our desires fulfilled and our soul matured. In the world, we grow from ignorance into wisdom, from darkness into light and from a consciousness of death to immortality. The whole world is an ashrama in which <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4845","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\/4845","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=4845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}