SLOKA 153 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHO WERE THE EARLY KAILASA PRECEPTORS?
Among its ancient gurus, the Kailasa Parampara honors the illustrious Rishi Tirumular and his generations of successors. In recent history we especially revere the silent siddha called ”Rishi from the Himalayas.” Aum.
BHASHYA
Having achieved perfect enlightenment and the eight siddhis at the feet of Maharishi Nandinatha in the Himalayas, Rishi Tirumular was sent by his satguru to revive Saiva Siddhanta in the South of India. Finally, he reached Tiruvavaduthurai, where, in the Tamil language, he recorded the truths of the Saiva Agamas and the precious Vedas in the Tirumantiram, a book of over 3,000 esoteric verses. Through the centuries, the Kailasa mantle was passed from one siddha yogi to the next. Among these luminaries was the nameless Rishi from the Himalayas, who in the 1700s entered a teashop in a village near Bangalore, sat down and entered into deep samadhi. He did not move for seven years, nor did he speak. Streams of devotees came for his darshana. Their unspoken prayers and questions were mysteriously answered in dreams or in written, paper messages that manifested in the air and floated down. Then one day Rishi left the village, later to pass his power to Kadaitswami. The Tirumantiram expounds, ”With Nandi’s grace I sought the primal cause. With Nandi’s grace I Sadasiva became. With Nandi’s grace truth divine I attained.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 153 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
MOTHERS-IN-LAW
When devotees speak with me of their experiences with family togetherness, the mother-in-law is a common concern. Mothers-in-law on both sides are often even the cause of separation or divorce. They often have the attitude, ”This girl is not good enough for my son,” or ”This boy is not good enough for my daughter.” That constant harassment–emotional harassment, mental harassment and even physical harassment–can cause the couple to separate, just for their own peace of mind. When we are asked to ascertain astrological compatibility for marriage, we not only check the compatibility between the boy and the girl, but also between the girl and the boy’s mother.
It is important to be aware that all mothers-in-law of the world–and every daughter may eventually be one–have their own insecurities in giving sons and daughters over to a spouse they don’t know deeply. Social security and pension plans are relatively new, and only exist in certain parts of the world. In the absence of these, worries about the future naturally arise. Every society has evolved solutions to the in-law issue, mothers-in-law, fathers-in law, but in today’s world it’s even more difficult. Young people need to be aware of their needs, their feelings, their insecurities, and have compassion when behavioral patterns that are the by-products of insecurity show themselves, such as being overly dominant, proud, extremely critical and unrelenting. In America there is a sad saying, ”Old and gray and in the way.” The solution used all too often is to put bothersome elders away in nursing homes, rest homes or ”paradise retreats.”
The major focus of the problem is the authority of the mother-in-law and her occasional abuses. But consider also that in modern cultures the authority of elders is all too frequently usurped by both the son and the daughter-in-law, who then wield the power and make life-and-death decisions about their parents. The tables are turned. This causes an even greater instability. One has to ask which is the preferable culture–to allow the elderly to remain in charge of their lives and have a strong say and respect in the family or to deny their contribution and condemn them to a life of helplessness and dependence, which is what happens all too frequently in the West. Obviously, a harmonious balance is needed.
First of all, I suggest that the myth that mothers-in-law are unable to adjust or learn anything new should be thrown out. Second, I hold the husband, the mother-in-law’s son, totally responsible for bringing about harmony in the home so that his wife is happy and not at odds with his mother, and that his mother does not make his wife miserable. As in all family conflicts, each incident must be resolved before sleep. Issues or problems can be put on an agenda, as described in our system of positive discipline, and brought up in a calm manner at the daily family meeting, just as is done nowadays by children in many school classrooms.
Anyone, including mothers-in-law, can change if they want to. A problem mom is a discouraged mom, just as a problem child is a discouraged child. A young bride told me her mother-in-law was totally transformed when she changed her attitude toward her, when she began to consider what it would be like to be in her place and looked for ways to win her love and trust. Without a single confrontation, a single harsh word, their relationship improved and they actually began enjoying each other and working together with enthusiasm.
SUTRA 153 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
THE IDEAL YOUTH-PARENT RELATIONSHIP
Siva’s young adult followers esteem their mother and father. In respecting their parents, they respect themselves and keep the doors open to parental aid and advice on the churning sea of adolescent experience. Aum.
LESSON 153 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
BOUND TO THE PATH
A powerful businessman, a bum on the street, a highly educated scientist and the uneducated field worker could all be sharing the anava marga. It is a path of gratification of the ego, or the gratification of other persons’ egos. These days egos get gratified by going to heads of corporations, meeting important people and bowing before heads of state. It is on the charya marga that we learn that rich and poor, the powerful and lowly are all purushas, pure souls, jivas encompassed in a physical body. And on this marga we learn to bow before God and the Gods. We learn that their home, their officiating place, is the temple, the home shrine and under sacred trees. Being in their presence makes the charya margi feel small. The first glimmer of the feeling of smallness is the first footstep on the charya marga.
Those who are not successful in life yet, and experience the repercussion of karmas of past lives denying them things, experiences, security and wealth, are the ruthless anava margis. For those who have fulfilled their dharmas, and desire has waned for more–they don’t need more money, they don’t need more food, they don’t need more houses, they don’t need more respect–the anava wanes of its own accord, like an old leaf on a tree turns color and falls to the ground. They enter the charya marga and kriya marga with matured respect and humility.
The one who has little desires the most. He takes issues with the smallest things. The instinctive desire to save face is ever prevalent in his mind, for his face is all he’s got. He doesn’t have anything more. The rich and anavically powerful can buy new things, and when something goes wrong in life, change their image by retreating into their money, place, prestige and come out anew. Those full of anava who have satisfied, put to rest, the many desires of life, entering the charya, kriya and yoga margas gain a new spiritual face, a light in the eye and become looked up to even more than they were when they were sought out for donations for worthy causes.
Even the jivanmukta doesn’t like unjust criticisms, but he is bound by his wisdom to nondefensiveness, just, unjust, true or false. ”Let them say what they have to say, and if it affects me, it is helping me on the way to my final mukti.” He would bless them for that. The anava margi is not like people on the other margas, who have mixed feelings about these issues. The anava margi is a prefect in retaliation. That comes as one of the powers or boons of living on this marga, along with deception and the ability to lie one’s way out of a situation. And to save face, place and position, no matter how lowly they might seem, is the goal of life for the anava margi. So, one should never drive the yoga margis, kriya margis back to the anava marga, because they would maintain their higher vision and be masters of the art and win at every turn. They should be left alone to pursue their goals.
In the Saiva Siddhanta system of understanding, the progressive margas define the unfoldment of the individual soul, or the awakening of the chakras. When one comes to the temple because he wants to, has to and needs to live near one, he is on the kriya marga. This does not mean the anava marga has not gone away or he has lost his personal identity. There is a little of the anava always with us right up to the moment of mukti. The anava presides through the fourteen chakras, but is most expressive before the awakening of the knowledge of the Gods and their abilities as helpmates to spiritual unfoldment. You don’t get off the anava marga. Individual ego slowly diminishes as the soul unfolds from marga to marga. Nandi the bull represents the ego, personal identity, and in a large traditional Hindu temple, we see many images of Nandi, getting progressively smaller as we approach the innermost sanctum. This indicates the soul’s progression toward God or the diminishing ego.
