SLOKA 25 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT DOES LORD KARTTIKEYA’S VEL SIGNIFY?
The lancelike vel wielded by Lord Karttikeya, or Skanda, embodies discrimination and spiritual insight. Its blade is wide, long and keen, just as our knowledge must be broad, deep and penetrating. Aum Namah Sivaya.
BHASHYA
The shakti power of the vel, the eminent, intricate power of righteousness over wrongdoing, conquers confusion within the realms below. The holy vel, that when thrown always hits its mark and of itself returns to Karttikeya’s mighty hand, rewards us when righteousness prevails and becomes the kundalini serpent’s unleashed power thwarting our every effort with punishing remorse when we transgress dharma’s law. Thus, the holy vel is our release from ignorance into knowledge, our release from vanity into modesty, our release from sinfulness into purity through tapas. When we perform penance and beseech His blessing, this merciful God hurls His vel into the astral plane, piercing discordant sounds, colors and shapes, removing the mind’s darkness. He is the King of kings, the power in their scepters. Standing behind the temporal majesty, He advises and authorizes. His vel empowering the ruler, justice prevails, wisdom enriches the minds of citizens, rain is abundant, crops flourish and plenty fills the larders. The Tirumurai says, ”In the gloom of fear, His six-fold face gleams. In perils unbounded, His vel betokens, ’Fear not.'” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 335 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
THE WAY OF OLD SOULS
Wouldn’t we have a wonderful world of living with Siva if two thirds of the people on this planet were spiritual lights and had nothing on their mind but to spread the dharma of right thought, right speech and right action? It truly would be a global village, a haven, a wonderland. But during this yuga, it may not be possible, because younger souls inhabit the planet in abundance, and their only method of discipline among themselves is with the fist, the hatchet, the whip and harsh, insulting words. In this way they accrue much karma to be worked out in another birth. This makes a lot of sense, for if they did not make new karma they would not reincarnate and never become older souls. It is the tragedies, the hurts, the fears, the arguments that remain unresolved that goad the young souls onward. They learn by their own mistakes, but very slowly, taking the lessons out of their experiences and always blaming on others what has happened to them. This and most of the above is how we come to distinguish an old soul from one in the intermediate grade and those who are unverified.
The intermediate souls struggle with their emotions; they hurt themselves more than others. Misunderstanding is not their enemy. It is their teacher of new discoverings. Theirs is the never-ending search. Theirs is the never-ending, not-being-able-to-reach-the-end search. Unlike the young souls, their desires are well-defined. Unlike the young souls, their intellection has some development, maybe not keen but usable. For them, religion is an acceptable solution. They are not superstitious, meaning believing in what they do not understand, as are the young souls. They must be satisfied with adequate reasons of why, how and what the future holds. The intermediate souls all have to learn not to drag the past through life with them in the form of resentment, unforgivingness through unforgettability. This one lesson and this alone distinguishes them from their older examples. But they do look to the older souls for help and for solace, seeking to hold their hand, lean on their shoulder and share with them some of their experiential burdens.
Taking up sannyasa as a young man and fulfilling the goals and disciplines of monastic life is for the older souls. These forgiving, intelligent beings rely on their memories of their past when they were young souls. They rely on their memories of the past when they were intermediate souls. They rely on their superconscious abilities to look through and see into every situation, every happening, of past, present and future. Their test, their supreme test, is to balance their inner and their outer life. So, they renounce the world, and in their renouncing, the world they renounced renounces them. Their humanness is still there, their striving is still there, and their seeking for elucidation is still there. But what is not there is the sense of their small self. The sense of the little I’go. The sense of ”me and mine” is replaced by ”us” and ”ours.”
Not all old souls are ready for holy orders of sannyasa, but some of them are, and these rare few have special qualities. Loyalty to their lineage is one of the most important, and another is love in their will. This means that they do make happenings happen in the external world. They do effect change, but they do not claim reward or recognition. They do not sulk if appreciation is not forthcoming. They move on, ever impelled by their spirituality, that ever-moving force of inspiration that does good rather than harm, that ever-moving spiritual force that quells the external ego and gives credit to others. That rewarding ability to see into the future, prepare for it and to guide others into it is theirs to develop.
Young souls merge with each other. Intermediate souls merge with projects and learning new things, merging with the mind and the intellect. Older souls, seeking the Self beyond the mind, merge with the Spirit and with things spiritual. For them, a pure and nearly perfect life calls. They intuitively know that the profound merger of jiva in Siva is no easy task, to be accomplished in a weekend seminar or yoga class. So they go farther, they renounce, they take up the ideals of the four Vedas–not to parrot them, but to live them, just as did the rishis of yore. That leads to the path of the renouncer, to the sannyasin in the Indian tradition.
Though it may not be your dharma to formally renounce the world, you can benefit your search immensely by knowing how the great ones seek to live and respond to life. You can find ways in the midst of your life to follow their example.
Realize that the sannyasins, the sadhus and the host of nameless mendicants from the traditional orders of Hinduism do have built within them the spiritual, social, cultural structure that has survived siege and pestilence within the countries they serve. But most importantly, these three million soldiers of the within have survived the siege of their lower self, the pestilence of their own mind, and risen above to the heights. This book, Living with Siva, contains within it the wisdom which, once read and understood, becomes knowledge to make the conquest of all conquests, the victory over the instinctive-intellectual mind and all that it contains. All this and more is summed up so eloquently in the ”Song of the Sannyasin,” in Sunday’s lesson, a stirring poem by Srila Sri Swami Vivekananda Maharaj (1863-1902), composed in July, 1885, at Thousand Island Park, New York. I advise my monastic followers to live it, just live it, and try to fulfill in your life these high ideals. To all readers of this book, I say, proceed with confidence along the path of sadhana, through which dancing with Siva, living with Siva and merging with Siva is assured and certain. That’s the way it is, and that is the way it is.
SUTRA 335 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
OVERCOMING THE FOUR OBSTACLES
Siva’s monastics regard sex, money, food and clothes as the prime challenge to their spiritual quest, harboring the potential to reinvolve them in the world. Thus, they restrain themselves accordingly. Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 335 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
THE DEATH OF THE SMALL SELF
When the emotions begin to react in a systematic way, and hate and fear and jealousy and love and passion and all of those emotions begin to function properly, and awareness flows out into the conscious mind, the physical body begins to assume a mature, intelligent appearance. You can look at the person and judge, ”By looking at his body, I see that he is an intelligent man.” That means all of his instinctive and intellectual faculties are developed and working simultaneously together. However, he may be yet to turn inward. Perhaps you can ascertain this by looking into his eyes. Perhaps in this life he will turn inward, when he has satisfied some of his desires he is setting into motion. As soon as he begins to turn inward, he begins to nourish his spiritual body. It starts to grow within the emotional body. It grows like a child, fed by all of his good deeds. All of his selflessness and selfless actions toward others feed that body. All of his working with himself, conquering instinctive emotions within himself, is food for that body, as it draws from the central source of energy. All of his selfishness and greed and giving power to the instinctive elements starve this spiritual body. You have heard about the suffering of the soul. As it unfolds, it cries out and wants more attention. This is man’s struggle within himself.
Finally, the spiritual body grows up into a mature body and unfolds the subsuperconscious mind, grows up more and becomes aware in the superconscious mind, taking on more spiritual force from the Infinite. Ultimately, it takes over the astral emotional-intellectual body.
That is the whole story of the inner awakening that is occurring within each of us. The mere fact that it makes sense to you as you read about it means you are in the process of this experience of superconsciousness moving out into the conscious plane.
Ultimately, you begin to go through the harrowing experiences of past karma with your eyes firmly set upon your ultimate goal: Self Realization. As you live your life in service to mankind, reprogramming your subconscious and facing all of the things that you didn’t face fully through your many past lives while working with your emotions and intellect, finally you come to the crucifixion of the ego. This happens when your last experiences have begun to fade and you no longer see yourself as a ”Mr. Somebody” who came from some community somewhere, who is of a certain nationality and who, incidentally, distinguishes himself from all other people because he is on the path to enlightenment and he knows a lot of people that are not.
This great spiritual pride of the personal ego finally is crucified. It is put on the cross of man’s own spiritual discernment. The death of the ego is a tremendous experience. You go through the dark night of the soul and feel that your family, friends and even the Gods have deserted you. During this time, you do not see light anymore. You see blackness all through the body, as all of the accumulated experiences of the many, many lives come in on you and you are not even aware where your awareness is in the mind. You can’t figure it all out. It happens too rapidly. Then finally: ”I am That. I am.” You burst into the Self God.
