SLOKA 91 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
\nWHAT ARE HINDUISM’S RITES OF PASSAGE?
\nHindus celebrate life’s crucial junctures by holy sacraments, or rites of passage, called samskaras, which impress the subconscious mind, inspire family and community sharing and invoke the Gods’ blessings. Aum.<\/p>\n
BHASHYA
\nFor the Hindu, life is a sacred journey in which each milestone, marking major biological and emotional stages, is consecrated through sacred ceremony. Family and friends draw near, lending support, advice and encouragement. Through Vedic rites and mantras, family members or priests invoke the Gods for blessings and protection during important turning points, praying for the individual’s spiritual and social development. There are many sacraments, from the rite of conception to the funeral ceremony. Each one, properly observed, empowers spiritual life and preserves Hindu culture, as the soul consciously accepts each succeeding discovery and duty in the order of God’s creation. The essential samskaras are the rites of conception, the three-month blessing, hair-parting, birth, name-giving, head-shaving, first feeding, ear-piercing, first learning, puberty, marriage, elders’ vows and last rites. The holy Vedas proclaim, ”From Him come hymns, songs and sacrificial formulas, initiations, sacrifices, rites and all offerings. From Him come the year, the sacrificer and the worlds in which the moon shines forth, and the sun.” Aum Namah Sivaya.<\/p>\n
LESSON 91 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
\nSADHANA AND LIFE’S STAGES<\/p>\n
Devotees who are doing sadhana and who are in the grihastha ashrama, between age twenty-four and forty-eight, should move the forces of the world rightly, dynamically, intelligently, quickly and make something of their lives. Such devotees should not be stimulated by competition. In today’s world most people have to be stimulated by competition to produce anything worthwhile, even if that means hurting other people. They have to be stimulated by conflict to produce anything worthy of producing in the world, and that hurts other people. They have to be stimulated by their home’s breaking up, and that hurts other people. And they have to be stimulated by all kinds of other lower emotions to be able to get enough energy to move the forces of the world to do something, whether it be good or bad. Those who perform sadhana draw on the forces of the soul to move the forces of the world and make a difference.<\/p>\n
It is during the latter stages of life that family devotees have the opportunity to intensify their sadhana and give back to society of their experience, their knowledge and their wisdom gained through the first two ashramas. The vanaprastha ashrama, age forty-eight to seventy-two, is a very important stage of life, because that is the time when you can inspire excellence in the brahmacharya students and in the families, to see that their life goes along as it should, according to the Nandinatha Sutras, which have the entire ideal life pattern embedded within them. Later, the sannyasa ashrama, beginning at seventy-two, is the time to enjoy and deepen whatever realizations you have had along the way. We are all human beings, and every one of us–including the sapta rishis, seven great sages who help guide the course of mankind from the inner planes–is duty-bound to help everyone else. That is the duty. It must be performed by everyone. If you want to help somebody else, perform regular sadhana.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, a Hindu home should be a reflection of the monastery that the family is attached to, with a regular routine for the mother, the father, the sons, the daughters, so that everyone is fulfilling their rigorous duties and sadhanas to the very best of their ability. We had a seventeen-year-old youth here as a guest in our monastery from one of our families in Malaysia that performs sadhana. That sadhana enabled him to come here to perform sadhana. If his parents had not been performing sadhana in their home regularly, he would not have been inclined to come here and perform a more strenuous sadhana with us.<\/p>\n
I was asked recently what to do about all the things that you cannot avoid listening to and seeing on the TV and news and reading about–atrocities, crime, murders, poverty, unfairness–which may tend to disturb one’s sadhana. To perform good sadhana, we have to have a good philosophical foundation, which is found in Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva–The Master Course trilogy. A good philosophical foundation allows us to understand why we have the highest and the lowest human expressions here on planet Earth. Philosophers and mystics have for centuries said, ”Only on planet Earth in a physical body can you realize the Self, because only here, in this world, do you have all twenty-one chakras functioning.” You need the lowest in order to realize the highest. Some people are born peaceful because of merits attained in past lives. They are born helpful, and they are the uplifters of mankind. Others are born angry, scheming, conniving, resentful, and they are the doubters, the detractors, of mankind. But all have an equal place here on planet Earth. All are going through a similar evolution up the spinal column to the top of the head, through the door of Brahman and finally out.<\/p>\n
From the Western religionist’s point of view, God is doing it all. He is punishing mankind. He is helping mankind. And many Hindus who were raised in Christian schools hold that perspective. But from the perspective of Sanatana Dharma, the oldest religion in the world, we do it all. By our karmas we are creating our future this very moment. So, as you proceed in your sadhana, disconnect from the lower and proceed into the higher. As a family person, it is your dharma to serve society, uplift mankind and help relieve human suffering within your sphere of influence. But do not try to fix, or even entertain the desire to fix, that which you cannot fix, which is the karma, the action and reaction, of individuals who are going through the lower phases of life and must experience what they are experiencing and which you read about and hear about daily in newspapers, on TV and on the Internet.
\nSUTRA 91 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
\nWOMEN’S ATTIRE
\nSiva’s women devotees wear, whenever appropriate, traditional Hindu attire, always at home and in the temple, adding rich jewelry for cultural events. Ever modest and elegant, they never expose breasts or thighs. Aum.<\/p>\n
LESSON 91 FROM MERGING WITH SIVAAfter the deep samadhi of Self Realization, our perspective couldn’t really be called vast; we simply see things the way they are. And it’s as simple as that. We see things the way they are, and that is the way they are, from the inside out. You look at a tree. You see the energies of the tree all working within the tree. Then, after that, you see the leaves and the bark, and yet you see it all at the same time, all working together. That is Self Realization.<\/p>\n
Those are the five steps on the path of enlightenment, five steps that you have to work with. The first one could be the most difficult–attention. It is making a strong, brave soldier that’s going on a great mission out of awareness. By calling awareness to attention, awareness immediately has to detach itself from that which it was previously aware of. For when awareness is attached to that which it is aware of, it thinks it is that thing. It doesn’t think it is that thing, but seemingly so. When we detach awareness from that which it is aware of, we can move freely through the mind, first in a limited area of the mind, then in a more and more vast area of the mind.<\/p>\n
Then we learn to concentrate, which awakens the power of observation. If you have attention and concentration, the other stages come automatically. But for Self Realization, you have to really want it more than your life, for that deep samadhi, that’s what it is, more than your life. The realization of the Self, beyond the rarefied areas of pure consciousness, is more than your life. You have to want it more than your life.<\/p>\n
Memorize these five steps: attention, concentration, meditation, contemplation, samadhi. Now, there are various stages of samadhi–savikalpa samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi–but when I use the word samadhi, I refer to Self Realization, the Totality, the Ultimate, which I just described. It is worth seeking for. It is worth striving for. It is worth making a mission of existence on this planet for.<\/p>\n
We are not on this planet to become educated, to get things, to make money, to dress up the physical body, to acquire property, to feed ourselves. We are on this planet for the realization of the Self, for that one thing, to go within ourselves. That is why we have come to this planet, and we will keep coming back through the process of reincarnation, time and time and time again, until that awareness grows up into a great big ball, where it is strong enough to move through the rarefied areas of the mind–if we are comparing awareness to a ball, from a ping-pong ball, to a volleyball, to a beach ball–and finally, we are just there. Intellectually, we have to compare awareness to something in order to get the idea. Once we have the idea and have caught the vibration and have released awareness from that which it is aware of, we are on our way in our innersearch for the ultimate goal, inwardly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SLOKA 91 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA WHAT ARE HINDUISM’S RITES OF PASSAGE? Hindus celebrate life’s crucial junctures by holy sacraments, or rites of passage, called samskaras, which impress the subconscious mind, inspire family and community sharing and invoke the Gods’ blessings. Aum. BHASHYA For the Hindu, life is a sacred journey in which each milestone, marking major biological and emotional stages, is consecrated through sacred ceremony. Family and friends draw near, lending support, advice and encouragement. Through Vedic rites and mantras, family members or priests invoke the Gods for blessings and protection during important turning points, praying for the individual’s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5680","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\/5680","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=5680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revers-sun.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}