DOES HINDUISM HAVE EPICS AND MYTHS ?

The Mahabharata and Ramayana are Hinduism's most renowned epic histories, called Itihasa. The Puranas are popular folk narratives, teaching faith, belief and ethics in mythology, allegory, legend and symbolism.

Hinduism's poetic stories of rishis, Gods, heroes and demons are sung by gifted panditas and traveling bards, narrated to children and portrayed in dramas and festivals.

The Mahabharata, the world's longest epic poem, is the legend of two ancient dynasties whose great battle of Kurukshetra is the scene of the Bhagavad Gita, the eloquent spiritual dialog between Arjuna and Krishna.

The Ramayana relates the life of Rama, a heroic king revered as the ideal man. The Puranas, like the Mahabharata, are encyclopedic in scope, containing teachings on sadhana, philosophy, dharma, ritual, language and the arts, architecture, agriculture, magic charms and more. Of eighteen principal Puranas, six honor God as Siva, six as Vishnu and six as Brahma.

The witty Panchatantra, eminent among the "story" literature, or katha, portrays wisdom through animal fables and parables. The Bhagavad Gita proclaims, "He who reads this sacred dialog of ours, by him I consider Myself worshiped through the sacrifice of knowledge. And the man who listens to it with faith and without scoffing, liberated, he shall attain to the happy realm of the righteous.".

Impact Of Television

Television has not helped society to raise its children. In fact, it has virtually stopped the proper education of the child in those communities where it is watched for hours each day. Instead of developing an active curiosity by adventuring for hours through a forest or climbing a tree, instead of discovering the wonders of nature and art, music, literature and conversation, instead of becoming involved in sports and hobbies, children are mentally carried along by television stories through positive and negative states of mind.

They become uncreative, passive, inactive, never learning to use their own minds. Admittedly, not all television is negative. Some of it can be quite educational; but hours and hours each day of passive absorption is not good for a child's mental and emotional development. Children need to be active, to involve themselves in a wide variety of experiences. If the mother is there, she can intelligently guide their television, being careful that they do not get in the habit of watching it for hours on end, and watching that bold sex, casual and brute violence, raw language and other bad influences are not a daily experience. When the program is over, she can send them out to play. Or, better still, she can take a few minutes to explain how what they just saw on TV relates, or often does not relate, to real life.

Of course, if she is gone, they will watch anything and everything. For the young, television is one of the most senseless pastimes there is, carrying the mind further and further away from the true Self. I think you will all agree that our values, the values found in the holy Vedas, Tirukural and other sacred scriptures, are rarely found on television. Instead, TV, at this time in our history, gives our children a brutal, romantic and unbalanced view of life which distorts in their minds how life really is. These are very serious issues.

It is the mother who protects her children from negative influences, guiding their young minds into positive channels of expression. Take the case of a farmer who raises livestock, who milks cows and goats. He works hard. He gets up early and takes care of his animals. He cannot succeed if he is also working part-time in the grocery store downtown. Those animals need attention. There is no sensible man who would run a farm, with cows and goats and chickens, and not be there to take care of them, because those animals need a lot of help. He stays there and takes care of his business. He is a farmer and that is his duty, and he knows it.

Well, what's more important than the child? He needs twenty-four-hour-a-day care. He is learning to walk, to speak, to learn, to think. He falls down and needs consoling. He catches the flu and needs to be nursed back to health. It is the mother's duty to provide that care. No one else is going to do it for her. No one else can do it for her.

She brought that soul into a physical body, and she must prepare that child for a positive and rewarding life. If the farmer neglects his animals, he creates a serious karma. The animals suffer. The farm suffers. The community suffers when the farm fails, and the man himself suffers. There is a grave karma, too, for the woman who neglects her stri dharma, who goes out into the world and does not nurture the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of her children.

She knows this within herself, but she may be influenced by ill-advised people, or by a mass movement that tells her that she has only one life to live and that she cannot find fulfillment in the home, but must express herself, venture out, seek her own path, her own fortune. You have all heard these ideas. I tell you that they are wrong. They spell the disillusionment of the mother who heeds them, then the disintegration of the family that is sacrificed by her absence. Finally, they result in her own unhappiness as she despairs at the loss suffered by her family and herself.

The Strength Of The Extended Family

Siva's followers know the most stable societies are based on the extended family. They often merge individuals with families and families with families in one home or complex, for economy, sharing and religiousness.

How the Gods Work with Man

The Gods do not treat everyone alike. The attitude that all souls are equal and subject to equal standards of right and wrong behavior is not an Eastern understanding. Nor is it the way the Gods view the souls of men. There are younger souls and older souls, just as there are children and adults. They live worlds apart in the same world.

Souls living side by side may actually be hundreds of lives apart in their spiritual maturation, one just learning what the other learned many lives ago. The Gods discern the depth of the soul, and when they are approached they see the devotee not only as he is but as he was and will be. They help the devotee in understanding within the sphere of intelligence which they command. Often one God will primarily direct one specialized mind stratum. He will come to know the problems and nuances indigenous to that mind region.

Thus, the same misdeed performed by three souls of different ages under similar circumstances is viewed as three different misdeeds by the Gods. An older soul is more aware, more able to control himself and therefore more responsible for his actions. He should have known better and finds that his transgression brings painful retribution. Another less mature soul is still learning control of the emotions that provoked his misdeed, and he is sharply scolded.

Still another soul, so young that awareness has not yet fathomed the laws of karma, of action and reaction, and who remains unawakened to the emotional mastery the situation demanded, is lightly reprimanded, if at all. The Gods in their superconscious judgment of human deeds and misdeeds are infinitely fair and discerning. Their judgments are totally unlike the notion of a God in heaven who arbitrarily saves or condemns.

In Hinduism all men are destined to attain liberation. Not a single soul will suffer for eternity. Therefore, the Gods in their deliberations are not making what we would consider personal judgments.

Their decrees are merely carrying out the natural law of evolution. They are always directing the soul toward the Absolute, and even their apparent punishments are not punishments but correction and discipline that will bring the soul closer to its true nature. Now, of course human law is not like this, especially today, but in civilizations past and in the great religious Hindu empires of India, there were such equitable courts of law, with enlightened men of justice, that sentences and punishments were meted out upon careful scrutiny of the individual, his particular dharma and the duties and expectations it bound him to uphold.

It is through the sanction of the Gods that the Hindu undertakes the practice of yoga--that orthodox and strictly Hindu science of meditation that leads to merger of the many with the one. Yoga is the culmination of years of religious and devotional service and can only be successful with the support of the Gods who are the sentries guarding the gates of the various strata of consciousness.

This sanction, once obtained, can and does allow the kundalini force within the core of the spine to safely rise and merge with the Supreme that all Hindus know is the Absolute--timeless, causeless and spaceless. But first much work has to be done.

DO SMRITI AND SACRED LITERATURE DIFFER ?

Hindu sacred literature is a treasury of hymns, legend, mythology, philosophy, science and ethics. From among this vast body of writings, each lineage recognizes a select portion as its secondary scripture, called smriti.

While the Vedas and Agamas are shared as part of every Hindu's primary scripture, shruti, each sect and lineage defines its own unique set of smriti. The sacred literature, punya shastra, from which smriti is drawn consists of writings, both ancient and modern, in many languages. Especially central are the ancient Sanskritic texts, such as the Itihasas, Puranas and Dharma Shastras, which are widely termed the classical smriti.

In reality, while many revere these as smriti, others regard them only as sacred literature. Smriti means "that which is remembered" and is known as "the tradition," for it derives from human insight and experience and preserves the course of culture. While shruti comes from God and is eternal and universal, the ever-growing smriti canon is written by man. Hinduism's sacred literature is the touchstone of theater and dance, music, song and pageantry, yoga and sadhana, metaphysics and ethics, exquisite art and hallowed sciences.

The Vedas inquire, "In whom are set firm the firstborn seers, the hymns, the songs and the sacrificial formulas, in whom is established the single seer--tell me of that support--who may He be?" Aum Namah Sivaya.

The Psychic Force Field

We learn so many important things from the mother. This learning is not just from the things she explains to us, but from the way she lives her life. If she is patient, we learn patience. If she is angry and unhappy, then we learn to be angry and unhappy. How wonderful it is for a mother to be in the home and give her children the great gifts of life by her example. She can teach them so many things, bring them into profound understandings about the world around them and offer them basic values and points of view that will sustain them throughout their life.

Her gift of love is directly to the child, but indirectly it is a gift to all of humanity, isn't it? A child does not learn much from the father until he is older, perhaps eight or nine, or ten years of age. We have a book in our library which describes a plan made by the Christians to destroy Hinduism in Sri Lanka and India.

One of their major tactics is to get the Hindu women out of their homes and working in the world. They knew that the spiritual force within the home is created by the unworldly woman. They knew that a secure woman makes for a secure home and family, a secure husband and a secure religion. They knew that the Hindu woman is the key to the perpetuation of Hinduism, as long as she is in the home. If the woman is in the home, if she is happy and content and the children are nurtured and raised properly, then the astral beings around the home will be devonic, friendly and beneficial. But if she is out of the home and the husband is out of the home, the protective force-field around the home disintegrates, allowing all kinds of astral asuric beings to enter.

Such a neglected home becomes inhabited by base, asuric beings on the lower astral plane. You cannot see these beings, but they are there, and you can sense their presence. Things just don't feel right in a home inhabited by negative forces. You have the desire to leave such a home as soon as you enter it. The children absorb these vibrations, these feelings. Children are open and psychically sensitive to such influences, with little means of self-protection. They will become disturbed, and no one will know the reason why. They will be crying and even screaming. They will be constantly disobedient.

Why should they become disobedient? Because there is no positive, protective force field of religion established and upheld by the mother. This leaves the inner force field vulnerable to negative and confusing forces of all kinds, especially in modern, overpopulated cities where destructive psychic influences are so strong. These negative vibrations are penetrating the inner atmosphere of the home, and the children are psychic enough to pick them up and suffer.

The Husband's Dharma

Each of Siva's married men followers strives to fulfill male dharma, safeguarding the integrity of society and the family through protecting and providing abundantly for his beloved wife, children and parents.

The Centrality Of the Temple

Like the Hindu religion itself, the Hindu temple is able to absorb and encompass everyone. It never says you must worship in this way, or you must be silent because there is a ceremony in progress. It accepts all, rejects none. It encourages all to come to God and does not legislate a single form of devotion. Hindus always want to live near a temple, so they can frequent it regularly.

People arbitrate their difficulties in the vicinity of the temple. The Hindu people treat the temple very seriously and also very casually. It's a formal-informal affair. Between pujas some may sit and talk and chat while others are worshiping. You might even find two people having a dispute in the temple, and the Deity is the arbitrator of their quarrel, giving clarity of mind on both sides. Each Hindu temple throughout the world has its own rules on how to proceed and what to do within it.

In some temples, in fact most temples in South India, all the men are required to take off their shirts and enter bare-chested. However, if you are in a business suit in the South Indian temple in New York, that's all right. You are not required to take off your shirt. Every temple has its own rules, so you have to observe what everybody else is doing the first time you go. Hinduism is the most dynamic religion on the planet, the most comprehensive and comprehending.

The Hindu is completely filled with his religion all of the time. It is a religion of love. The common bonds uniting all Hindus into a singular spiritual body are the laws of karma and dharma, the belief in reincarnation, all-pervasive Divinity, the ageless traditions and our Gods. Our religion is a religion of closeness, one to another, because of the common bond of loving the same Gods.

All Hindu people are a one family, for we cannot separate one God too far from another. Each in is heavenly realm is also of a one family, a divine hierarchy which governs and has governed the Hindu religion from time immemorial, and will govern Sanatana Dharma on into the infinite. Hinduism was never created, never founded as a religion. Therefore, it can never end.

Until the Persians attached the name Hindu to those people living east of the river Indus, and the name Hinduism later evolved to describe their religious practices, this ancient faith bore a different title--the Sanatana Dharma, the Eternal Truth.

The understanding was that within every man the germ or cell of his total affinity with God exists as the perennial inspiration of his spiritual quest and wellspring of all revelation. This enduring sense of an ever-present Truth that is God within man is the essence of the Sanatana Dharma.

Such an inherent reality wells up lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, unfolding the innate perfection of the soul as man comes more fully into the awakened state of seeing his total and complete oneness with God.

WHAT ARE THE MANY HINDU PHILOSOPHIES ?

From time immemorial, India's sages and philosophers have pondered the nature of reality. Out of their speculations have blossomed hundreds of schools of thought, all evolving from the rich soil of village Hinduism.

At one end of Hinduism's complex spectrum is monism, advaita, which perceives a unity of God, soul and world, as in Shankara's acosmic pantheism and Kashmir Saiva monism. At the other end is dualism, dvaita--exemplified by Madhva and the early Pashupatas--which teaches two or more separate realities.

In between are views describing reality as one and yet not one, dvaita-advaita, such as Ramanuja's Vaishnava Vedanta and Shrikantha's Saiva Vishishtadvaita. Hindu philosophy consists of many schools of Vedic and Agamic thought, including the six classical darshanas--Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta.

Each theology expresses the quest for God and is influenced by the myth, mystery and cultural syncretism of contemporary, tribal, shamanic Hinduism alive in every village in every age. India also produced views, called nastika, that reject the Vedas and are thus not part of Hinduism, such as Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Charvaka materialistic atheism. The Vedas state, "Theologians ask: What is the cause? Is it Brahma? Whence are we born? Whereby do we live? And on what are we established?"

The Ideals Of Marriage

Marriage is an institution, a business, a spiritual partnership, a furtherance of humanity and a contract--a three-level contract involving body, mind and emotion. Marriage is a necessary commitment not only for the continuation of the human race but also for the furtherance of each individual soul's spiritual unfoldment. The interaction on all levels between the couple, and later their children, molds the good, bad and confused karmas into new dimensions. Saivite marriages involve not only the bride and groom but also their parents, their priest, guru, astrologer, relatives on both sides and the entire community.

The feeling of responsibility to the community is ever present. The community's feeling of responsibility to make each of its marriages work out well is also always present.

Why are Saivite marriages different from other kinds of marriages? It is because of the ever-abiding belief in the ever-present oneness of God Siva within each one. God Siva is within you, and you are within God Siva. God Siva is the Life of our lives. This and more the Saivite saints sang. To forget that Siva is within the wife, to forget that Siva is within the husband is to forget Saivism itself. This basic Saivite belief lays the psychological foundation for the husband to see the wife as a Goddess and the wife to see the husband as a God. All other behavior comes out of this belief. Belief creates attitudes, and attitudes create actions.

The knowing that each one has come into life to work out certain karmas they brought with them in this birth, and that karmas are generally worked out through other people, gives a challenge and a goal--to resolve these karmas and receive the reward of mukti, freedom from rebirth. Because of this belief, this understanding, the husband and wife blend their energies more constructively. Their attitudes are naturally more generous, forgiving and understanding, their actions and interactions more harmonious and mutually supportive.

A woman gives her prana, spiritual energy, to her husband, making him strong. Children give their prana to their parents, because to them the parents are Siva-Shakti, the first guru. The wife, always attending to her husband's needs, sets the pattern for the children. By focusing her energies within her family, she builds up a great spiritual vibration in the home.

In fulfilling his purusha dharma, the husband gives his prana, love and loyalty to his family, and he benefits the community through his service. He never, ever raises his voice in the home; nor does he show anger in any way. He is the model for the entire family.

When his sons come of age, they join their pranas with his, and as a result, the family, the community and the country flourish. Believing in reincarnation, the parents know that their relatives--and they themselves--will be born back into their family again and again to work out their unfinished karmas. A Saivite home is a karmic factory, a recycling of souls, a mill that grinds exceedingly fine the seed karmas of this and past lives. Siva's followers direct children through affirmations, meaningful chores and rules that are clear and understood, teaching that mistakes are opportunities to learn, and focusing on solutions instead of punishment.

Softening of The Heart

The yoga of pure devotion is found at the beginning, the middle and the end of the path. Merging with Siva is more and more a deeply felt experiential reality when the soul gives of itself to Siva inwardly and outwardly in unabashed devotion.

Prapatti truly is the key that unlocks the love needed as merger increases as the years pass by and, as Satguru Yogaswami said, "Love pours forth to melt the very stones." Bhakti yoga is not an intellectual study. It is a practice. It is also not an emotional experience. It is a devotional experience.

There is a difference, which we will come to understand. Bhakti yoga is not a cure-all, nor a means to fast enlightenment. Rather, it is the foundation for enlightenment. It is not a technique. Nor is it a magic mantra. It is a way of life.

The transformation that comes from living in the state of bhakti yoga is the softening of the heart. External worship, bhakti yoga, is taught first on the spiritual path because it produces a softened, mellow heart. It is to waste the guru's time to give training in meditation and contemplation before the heart has been softened through bhakti yoga. The patient guru will wait until this has happened within the devotee.

Otherwise, any accomplishment attained through intense raja yoga practices will not be sustained. And the problems that arise within the devotee's subconscious mind--should he be taught raja yoga before the proper preparation has been mastered--will go back on the guru. The guru will then have to act as the psychiatrist to solve the problems arising from the forced awakening. Whereas a mature bhaktar takes such problems, or negative karmas, which are sometimes aroused as a result of deep meditation, to the temple Deities, placing them at their feet to be dissolved.

This will not happen for the devotee who has not experienced living in the state of bhakti yoga, because the relationship has not yet been established between himself and the Gods. Therefore, the wise guru starts his devotee at the beginning of the path, not in the middle. The path begins with charya, getting to know the Gods and developing a relationship with them through service. Charya is karma yoga. Then kriya is experienced. Kriya is bhakti yoga.

Once bhakti yoga has melted the heart, then the deep yoga concepts and meditation techniques of raja yoga may be practiced. They are to be understood within the internal mind, not just memorized. The wise guru will never teach deep meditation techniques to angry, jealous, fearful devotees. Such devotees should first learn to serve selflessly, by performing karma yoga projects in the ashram, and then perform simple bhakti yoga until all anger has melted into love. The inner knowing that "All is Siva's will" is one of the first benefits of bhakti yoga.

Only through true bhakti can the yogi achieve and maintain the inner state of Satchidananda. It is only the true bhaktar who can sustain living with God and the Gods unreservedly and begin to internalize his devotion into deeper meditations. One cannot internalize devotion until it has been truly externalized. Here is an example to explain the process of the internalization of devotion.

A devotee resents something said to him by another devotee and flares up in anger. The two devotees part, but the anger remains in the form of burning resentment. The emotion of anger has been internalized, but may later be unleashed on someone else.