SLOKA 111 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
IS TEMPLE WORSHIP ONLY FOR BEGINNERS?
Temple worship is for all men and women at every level of spiritual development. Its meaning and experience deepen as we unfold spiritually through the stages of service, devotion, yoga and enlightened wisdom. Aum.
BHASHYA
We never outgrow temple worship. It simply becomes more profound and meaningful as we progress through four spiritual levels. In the charya pada, the stage of selfless service, we attend the temple because we have to, because it is expected of us. In the kriya pada, the stage of worshipful sadhanas, we attend because we want to; our love of God is the motivation. In the yoga pada, we worship God internally, in the sanctum of the heart; yet even the yogi immersed in the superconscious depths of mind has not outgrown the temple. It is there–God’s home on the earth plane–when the yogi returns to normal consciousness. So perfect is the temple worship of those who have traversed the jnana pada that they themselves become worship’s object–living, moving temples. Yea, temple worship is never outgrown. The Vedas give praise, ”Homage to Him who presides over all things, that which was and that which shall be; to whom alone belongs the heaven, to that all-powerful Brahman be homage! From Fullness He pours forth the full; the full spreads, merging with the full. We eagerly would know from whence He thus replenishes Himself.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 266 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
INTRICACIES OF THE LAW
On resolving karma, our friend Tiru M. Arunachalam wrote, ”Nonattachment to the fruits of action stops kriyamana from accumulating. Prarabdha is experienced and ceases with this birth; and sanchita is burnt away by the diksha of the guru.” It is the satguru who holds the power to mitigate and redirect a person’s karma. The guru always sees the good in a person and encourages that goodness. With his authority, this automatically mitigates the detrimental areas the person could fall into because of his past actions.
Naturally, karma also determines the circumstance of one’s life in the Antarloka after death. The infallible law of karma continues for disembodied souls between births, though many karmas can only be fulfilled in physical incarnation. Thus, Earth is called Karma-kshetra, ”arena of karma.” Karma is also binding, to varying degrees, for those who have attained moksha and are living in the Antarloka and for those who have attained residency in the Sivaloka until vishvagrasa, ultimate merger in the Primal Soul, Parameshvara.
Prarabdha karmas fructify in a given lifetime, fortified by the ripe karmas that are experienced in the in-between. Some of what is learned in the Antarloka is used in the next birth, to know how to best face the prarabdha karmas as they manifest. Some of what is learned will only be used in future births. Karma made in the Antarloka, positive or negative, is added into the big sanchita basket; and, of course, some of it also bears fruit.
All karmas are either ripe or unripe, ready or unready. Of the prarabdha karmas that one is born with, some are immediately released, and others will be ready only in later years of life. This is why if a person commits suicide, the repercussions are drastic, because he has blocked and interrupted the fulfillment of the prarabdha karmas that he had set about to consume in this birth. Then it is like a stringhopper in the inner worlds that must be unraveled when he arrives there unexpectedly.
The prarabdha karmas, as they ripen, open up as you go on through life. Similarly, of the kriyamana karmas created, some are ripe and some are not ripe. Some immediately bear fruit and are consumed in this life. Others go to seed and enter the big sanchita karma bank to be experienced in future births as prarabdha karma. Whatever is not experienced and resolved in the current life is taken by you to the inner world as a basket of seeds. A mystical person who knows he is going to incarnate again can work on these seeds consciously.
SUTRA 266 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
SHARING THE TEACHINGS WITH OTHERS
All my devotees reach out for new members by enthusiastically printing and distributing Hindu literature and putting sacred texts of our lineage into libraries, bookstores and educational institutions worldwide. Aum.
LESSON 266 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
THE WAY AFTER REALIZATION
When a yoga guru brings others from darkness into light and from light into Self Realization, he is also strengthening his own golden body. When a satguru makes it easy for his sannyasins to remain in the practice of Self Realization, encouraging them and demanding of them the practice of nirvikalpa samadhi, he helps them hold their forces in check through the power of his golden body.
After nirvikalpa samadhi, the sannyasin has a choice to serve mankind or to wait for mankind to unfold into the consciousness that he has attained. This is called being a bodhisattva or upadeshi, one who serves, or an arahat or nirvani, one who waits. The golden body begins to grow through service and by bringing others into enlightenment as a bodhisattva, or through the constant practice of nirvikalpa samadhi while living a strictly secluded life as an arahat, only mixing with those of his own level of realization.
The sahasrara chakra at the top of the head and the ajna chakra at the brow, or the third eye, are the two controlling force centers of the soul body. These force centers become the two lowest chakras of the yoga master’s new golden body, svarnasharira, as this body begins to build after his first nirvikalpa samadhi.
The usual experience before nirvikalpa samadhi is for the aspirant to become a knower of the Self. This could occur at any time during his training. In order to attain this experience of ”touching into the Self,” he must have a complete balance of all odic and actinic forces within him. A noted change in his life pattern often occurs after he becomes a knower of the Self, for the soul body has become released into orbit, and he has then a subsuperconscious control of this body. In other words, the odic-force tie has been released. This body has quickly matured. Then, if practicing contemplation as prescribed by his satguru and finally working out the various karmic binds or holds in the lower odic force field with the help of the guru, he attains complete Self Realization, or nirvikalpa samadhi. Then the golden body, svarnasharira, is born through the merging of the forces of the pituitary and the pineal gland, setting the sahasrara into a constant spinning motion. This constant spinning motion generates the force which propels the yoga adept back into nirvikalpa samadhi. Each time he goes into nirvikalpa samadhi he intensifies a little the spinning movement of this chakra, unfolding it a little more, and as this occurs, the golden body begins to build.
When the yoga adept touches into the Self and becomes a knower of the Self, attains nirvikalpa samadhi, becomes Self Realized, yoga powers come to him. These yoga powers are often renounced, depending upon the rule of the order to which he belongs, whether it be a teaching order or an order of hermits. According to the need, a power is developed. The powers that a yogi can use are as many as the petals within the sahasrara chakra. They are 1,008. These powers are conceived through the nadis–small, elastic-like psychic nerve currents extending out into and through the aura of the body. The nadis work in conjunction with the chakras, and with the major currents of the body, ida, pingala and sushumna.
Remember, when the kundalini force becomes strong within you during a meditation, just sit and be aware that you are aware, a blissful state called kaef in Shum, the language of meditation. You will feel very positive and experience yourself as a great, big ball of energy. When the energy begins to wane, try to absorb it into every cell of your external body, then continue your meditation exactly where you left off. In this way you will build a strong, disciplined nerve system and subconscious mind. This will lead you naturally onto the next inner plateau, then to the next and the next.
Never allow yourself to be complacent in your spiritual attainments. Always continue to strive. Even rishis, swamis and yogis who have totally realized Parasiva continue to work on themselves from within themselves. They don’t let down, because if they did it would be many years before they had the next experience of the timelessness, formlessness, spacelessness of the unspeakable Parasiva experience. The message, therefore, is, at the beginning of meditation and at the end, keep striving. Don’t turn back, but proceed with confidence.
