TWO VIEWS ON CREATION

What Are the Two Views on Creation?

Monistic theists believe that Siva creates the cosmos as an emanation of Himself. He is His creation. Pluralistic theists hold that Siva molds eternally existing matter to fashion the cosmos and is thus not His creation.

Pluralistic Siddhantins hold that God, souls and world--Pati, pashu and pasha--are three eternally coexistent realities. By creation, this school understands that Siva fashions existing matter, maya, into various forms. In other words, God, like a potter, is the efficient cause of the cosmos. But He is not the material cause, the "clay" from which the cosmos is formed.

Pluralists hold that any reason for the creation of pasha--anava, karma and maya--whether it be a divine desire, a demonstration of glory or merely a playful sport, makes the Creator less than perfect. Therefore, pasha could never have been created.

Monistic Siddhantins totally reject the potter analogy. They teach that God is simultaneously the efficient, instrumental and material cause. Siva is constantly emanating creation from Himself. His act of manifestation may be likened to heat issuing from a fire, a mountain from the earth or waves from the ocean. The heat is the fire, the mountain is the earth, the waves are not different from the ocean.

The Vedas proclaim, "In That all this unites; from That all issues forth. He, omnipresent, is the warp and woof of all created things."

Commitment To Harmony

Traditionally, every Hindu family should have a family kulaguru, a preceptor who knows the flow of karma within all the family connections and the birth dharma of the family itself. To be without a kulaguru is likened to a child being without its parents. One of the greatest disruptive forces in a marriage is the amateur psychiatrist or psychologist practicing on his or her spouse. This tactic for solving problems is totally unacceptable.

Such efforts, however well-intended, to straighten out a spouse through subconscious analysis are antagonizing, disruptive and hurtful emotionally and mentally. All these psychiatric games are based on the principle, "Something is wrong with you, and I'm going to straighten it out. Come to me. I have all the solutions."

Saivism is different. It is based on the principle that you are perfect. The only problem is that you don't know it. Let's talk ourselves into our own perfection through reading scripture, praying, doing Sivathondu together, doing japa together, to lift our consciousness into the perfection that is always there.

If your spouse is trying to hurt you, protect yourself in the Sanatana Dharma as your first line of defense. Recognizing that this is your karma, fulfill your dharma fully, be it stri dharma or purusha dharma, the best you understand it.

The Vedas assure us that truth always wins over evil (Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.6). It is the wife's duty to uplift the husband, the husband's duty to uplift the wife. A husband bent on hurting his wife could not outlast--his hurtfulness could not survive--the wife's chanting "Aum, Aum, Aum" all day long and placing spiritual vibrations into his food. In this way, good overcomes evil, ahimsa overcomes himsa, dharma overcomes adharma.

This is why we are born on this planet, to evolve through such challenges. We are here for no other reason. But should the husband ever become physically violent, the wife should take the children and run to safety. She should stay in a safe place until he has undergone counseling, made amends to her and to the congregation, asked the family guru to prescribe a penance and fully performed that penance.

When families who are trying to meditate and unfold spiritually go through times of internal or external violence they should not practice raja yoga or other forms of meditation. This will only aggravate and worsen the situation. Yoga practices are not for them. What they should do is Sivathondu, or karma yoga, bhakti yoga and simple japa yoga. That is all.

If a disharmonious situation comes up between husband and wife, they must resolve it before they go to bed, even if they must stay up all night into the light of day. Sleep puts the problem to rest over a period of two or three nights, and it will eventually fade into the memory patterns of forgetfulness over a longer period of time. Having sex does not solve the problem. It puts the problem into seed, into the memory patterns of current forgetfulness, and these will definitely materialize at another time. Sex and sleep are not solutions to marital disputes. One is immediate postponement and the other is a slower postponement. To resolve a conflict between husband and wife, lest it affect the lives of the children by being postponed into forgetfulness, it must be done before sleep. There is no other way. This is the way husbands and wives catalyze their spiritual unfoldment on the path and develop themselves. Another reason sex is not a solution to disharmony is that babies that are conceived in a union that is supposed to settle a squabble are more often than not invoked from the Narakaloka. Such children might harass the family for the rest of their lives.

Unconditional Surrender

What do we mean by internalizing worship? In external worship we are trying to see God and communicate with God with our two eyes and our physical nerve system. We enjoy His darshan and feel His shakti.

In deep meditation, the external worship is deliberately internalized, and we are trying to see God with our third eye and feel God's all-pervasiveness through our psychic nerve system. Externalizing bhakti is really much easier than internalizing it. But once the externalized bhakti is perfected, it will be easy and natural to internalize bhakti right along. When this is accomplished, the most rigorous hurdles and time-consuming practices of yoga, which often lead the person onto anava marga, will have been side-stepped.

To internalize worship, after the puja is over, sit before the Deity and draw into yourself all the pranas you feel around your body. Then draw those energies up the spine into the head. This is done with the mind and with the breath. It is very easy to do. It is especially easy when one is at the end of a major karmic cycle. The bhakti of uncompromising surrender, prapatti, to the God during a temple puja awakens the amrita. The amrita is the sweet essence from the sahasrara chakra. It is the binding yoke to the Divine. Bind yourself in the lotus posture after temple worship and simply internalize all the feeling that you had for the God during the worship. That's all there is to it. The yogi yoked within enjoys the amrita that flows from the cranium throughout his body. Devotees who want to awaken the higher chakras and sustain that awakening on the safe path will throw themselves into becoming uncompromising bhaktars. Then all the Gods of all three worlds will open their hearts and shower their blessings upon them.

Go on a pilgrimage once a year, read scriptures daily, perform puja daily, go to the temple at least once a week, if not more often--fulfill these disciplines, known as the pancha nitya karmas. This is the basic Saiva Siddhanta sadhana. But on another level, one will not be able to fulfill the pancha nitya karmas if he or she is not fulfilling the yamas and the niyamas, for these are the character-builders. We must possess a good character to be successful in bhakti yoga.

Therefore, begin at the beginning. Right thought produces right speech, which produces right action. Right thought is produced through the knowledge of dharma, karma, samsara and the all-pervasiveness of God. This knowledge correctly understood disallows the devotee from having wrong thoughts. He simply has right thought, and of course, right speech and action follow naturally.

Saiva Siddhanta extols the guru and says that when the student is ready, one will appear. The guru will always restate the dharma to a devotee who is having problems with bhakti yoga practices. He will always direct the mind to the beginning teachings, for it would be obvious that the student does not understand one or more of them. If the devotee is not following the pancha nitya karmas or the yamas and niyamas, it is obvious that purified knowledge of these four areas--dharma, karma, samsara and Sivaness--needs to be strengthened.

Individual practices to advance spiritual unfoldment include prostrating before God, Gods and guru, full body, face down, arms and hands outstretched, and in that act, total giving up, giving up, giving up, giving up. In Sanskrit it is called pranipata, "falling down in obeisance."

What are these devoted ones giving up? By this act they are giving the lower energies to the higher energies. It is a merger, a blending. When one is performing this traditional devotional act, awakening true prapatti, it is easy to see the lower energies from the base of the spine, the muladhara chakra, rising, rising, rising up the spine through all six chakras above it and out through the top of the head.

It is transmuting, changing the form of, the base energies which breed conflict and resistance, "mine and yours" and "you and me," division, insecurity and separateness, into the spiritual energies of "us and we," amalgamation, security, togetherness. Once the giving up of the lower is total--body and face on the ground, hands outstretched before the image of God, Gods or guru--those energies are surrendered into the higher chakras within the devotee, and it is a blissful moment, into the consciousness of "us and ours," "we and oneness," and inseparable love, thus claiming their individuality, not as a separate thing, but as a shared oneness with all.

Thereafter, these devoted ones, having been transformed, are able to uplift others, to harmonize forces around them that they work with day after day after day, year after year after year. This total surrender, prapatti, is the meaning of Siddhanta. This is the true meaning of Vedanta.

The combination of both, and the pure practice of prapatti, as just described, brings out from within the deeper meanings of Vedanta, the Vedic philosophy, without having to depend on the path of words, lectures and debates.

WHAT IS "NATHA SAMPRADAYA ?"

What Is Hinduism's Natha Sampradaya?

The Natha Sampradaya, "the masters' way," is the mystical fountainhead of Saivism. The divine message of the eternal truths and how to succeed on the path to enlightenment are locked within the Natha tradition.

Natha means "lord or adept," and sampradaya refers to a living theological tradition. The roots of this venerable heritage stretch back beyond recorded history, when awakened Natha mystics worshiped the Lord of lords, Siva, and in yogic contemplation experienced their identity in Him.

The Natha Sampradaya has revealed the search for the innermost divine Self, balanced by temple worship, fueled by kundalini yoga, charted by monistic theism, illumined by a potent guru-shishya system, guided by soul-stirring scriptures and awakened by sadhana and tapas. Thus has it given mankind the mechanics for moving forward in evolution.

Today two main Natha streams are well known: the Nandinatha Sampradaya, made famous by Maharishi Nandinatha (ca 250bce), and the Adinatha Sampradaya, carried forth by Siddha Yogi Gorakshanatha (ca 900). Yea, there is infinitely more to know of the mysterious Nathas. The Tirumantiram states, "My peerless satguru, Nandinatha, of Saivam honored high, showed us a holy path for soul's redemption. It is Siva's divine path, San Marga, for all the world to tread and forever be free."

Verbal abuse becomes a way of life. The youngsters come and go unchaperoned. Nobody knows what anybody else is doing. Girls are getting pregnant out of wedlock. Boys are swearing, getting involved in gangs and experimenting with drugs. That is the hotel lobby home of a definitely dysfunctional family, a discouraged family. No wonder that in discouraged families teens want to leave home as quickly as possible--as soon they're able to get a job and rent an apartment.

That is not quality living, is it? Sorry to say, but most dual-professionals' homes, where husband and wife both have high-paying jobs, are more like a hotel lobby with a snack bar than like a home with a hearth, which is home with a heart. Think about your home. Is the guest God? Is your house a home? What kind of astral vibration does it actually have? Be honest with yourself. Evaluate! The astral pranas or energies radiating out from the hotel lobby kind of home make the occupants frustrated people.

They make people around them uncomfortable, because they live in an uncomfortable place. Yes, the pranas that emanate from an empty house make one an empty person. All Hindus in the world should reverse this situation for a stable, well-adjusted community for the new and coming generations of Hindus in the West, as well as in the East. This is the next step which those of the diaspora have to heartfully take.

It is only intelligence that can reverse a negative situation and turn it into a positive, encouraging situation. It is important for the mother to be mother, and for the father to allow her to be mother, so that together they can nurture the astral atmosphere within the house and make it vibrate with spiritual energies into a real home.

To make the house into a home is the next step. You will know if it is a home when you want to hurry back to it. You won't want to stay away too long, and you will find it difficult to leave. That's because you enjoy the vibration that you have created from your soul body. And your focus for whatever you are doing will be exquisite. It won't get divided. It is a slow process for a mother and a father to turn a house into a home. They have to be spiritually present in the home.

The auras of the mother and father and each of the children have to permeate the walls of the house. The Gods and guardian devas and ancestors have to be worshiped and invoked in the home. That turns a house into a really pranically viable home, building up the vibration so that you never want to leave.

Surrender Is The Way Out

The yoga marga must come naturally out of intense bhakti and internalized worship. The intensity of bhakti is developed on the kriya marga. The final remains of the ego are pulverized on the charya marga, where Sivathondu, selfless service, is performed unrelentingly with no thought of reward, but a hope that the punya, merit, will be beneficial in the long run.

The anava marga is easy to leave through total surrender to God, Gods and guru, along with seva, service to religious institutions. Surrender, prapatti, is the key. All the religions' teachings teach surrender to the divine forces. Great suffering, the psychic surgery kind of suffering, great repentance, is experienced in the overlapping of the charya marga with the anava marga.

The beginning knowledge of Hindu temple worship, scripture, being dragged into it by some aggressive teacher, later a desire for reconciliation--all this leads to penance, prayashchitta, followed by serious sadhana. It is not without a great ordeal and effort, soul-searching and decision-making that one marga bends into the other or bows before the other before it releases the consciousness to go on.

One marga must really bend before the other before one can be released. Before entering another marga, it is a matter of giving up, which is painful, most especially for the anava marga people, for whom suffering is no stranger. How can someone on the anava marga be convinced that there is a better way to live, think and act? The word here is pursuit. We are talking about pursuit.

Anava people are always pursuing something, the fulfillment comes on the anava marga, and there is fulfillment, but in a never-stopping pursuit of fulfillment. As soon as we stop the pursuit of fulfillment, we become unhappy, empty, feel unfulfilled and, I might even say, at times depressed.

The anava marga is the I-ness, me-ness, mine-ness; me, my, I. "I want, I give, I get, I collect." I, me and mine are the key words here. The true anava margi is the owner, the getter, the consumer, not always the producer, vulnerable to the emotions of fear, who uses jealousy as an asset to obtain.

Anger is the motivating power to fulfill desire, by stimulating fear in others. He is a master of deceit. The true anava margi, perfected in the art, has at beck and call the eighty-four wiles of the lower emotions. Why would someone begin to feel the need to change to a nicer way of life?

The word why is the important word here. They are questioning, they are asking, they are intuiting another way of life. They have observed, obviously, others living a fuller life, fulfilled by the fulfillments of their pursuits, having left the anava marga. Anava margis have become aware of the existence of the charya margis and maybe a kriya margi or two.

It is the very force of the desire of pursuit that leads the purusha, the soul, to the charya marga into Saiva Siddhanta. I see the whole thing like a tunnel--the karma marga, the maya marga, the anava marga, the charya marga, the kriya marga, yoga marga--which the soul matures through as a child matures from a child to an adult.

The problem is that it takes a little doing to define the pursuit. Therefore, the entrance of this tunnel, to be a good anava margi, is kind of crowded, and this is where the problem lies. To truly get on the anava marga, to define the ego's identity, one must have the goal of pursuit.

There are two margas before the anava marga begins, within the realm of deep ignorance. Here reside the masses who live in confusion, the professional consumers who know the generosity of society, who will never in this lifetime manifest a desire, a goal, a thought for the future worthy enough to be accepted on the anava marga. They are the slaves of the anava margis, those whom, as slaves, they manipulate without conscience.

HOW DO MONOISM AND DUALISM DIFFER ?

How Do Monism and Dualism Differ?

To most monists God is immanent, temporal, becoming. He is creation itself, material cause, but not efficient cause. To most dualists, God is transcendent, eternal, Creator--efficient cause but not material cause.

To explain creation, philosophers speak of three kinds of causes: efficient, instrumental and material. These are likened to a potter's molding a pot from clay.

The potter, who makes the process happen, is the efficient cause.

The wheel he uses to spin and mold the pot is the instrumental cause, thought of as God's power, or shakti.

The clay is the material cause.

Theistic dualists believe in God as Lord and Creator, but He remains ever separate from man and the world and is not the material cause.

Among the notable dualists have been Kapila, Madhva, Meykandar, Chaitanya, Aristotle, Augustine, Kant and virtually all Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians. The most prevalent monism is pantheism, "all is God," and its views do not permit of a God who is Lord and Creator. He is immanent, temporal--material cause but not efficient cause. History's pantheists include Shankara, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Plotinus, the Stoics, Spinoza and Ashvaghosha.

The Vedas proclaim, "As a thousand sparks from a fire well blazing spring forth, each one like the rest, so from the Imperishable all kinds of beings come forth, my dear, and to Him return."

Mysticism In the Home

The Saivite Hindu lifestyle is very special, very binding, strengthened by: the pancha nitya karmas; the Monday family home evening and the daily family meetings; the knowing that each child is and has been totally a part of the family, maybe for hundreds of years; the knowing that there is karma to be worked out within the family--feelings of happiness, unhappiness and misunderstandings, all to be resolved; and the knowing that there is a purpose for them all being together and that they may all be together until mukti, liberation from the cycle of rebirth. All this and more distinguishes the Saivite family from all other families on the planet. It is on the astral plane, the inner world of this world, that twenty-four-hour life takes place. Beings there do not have to sleep.

The positive activity of the astral world within the house or the apartment transforms it into a home, or if negative into a hotel room. To stabilize this astral activity and make sure it is positive, the home puja is performed by every Saivite family daily. Scriptures are read, the yamas and niyamas are fulfilled and all difficulties, large and small, are resolved before sleep. Divine ancestral devas are coaxed to live in the home, as well as devas from nearby temples where the family frequently worships.

This magic makes the home into a spiritual abode, not unlike a temple itself. Children are always treated with great respect and awe in a true Saivite home, for one does not always know who these young ones were in past lives.

They may be incarnations of a grandmother, grandfather, aunt or uncle, dearly beloved mother, sister, brother, respected father, distant related yogi or rishi. Who are they? What is their destiny to fulfill in this life? The answers lie in the voice of the universe, the mystical Saivite astrological system laid down by the rishis of yore.

The family's astrologer carefully explains the nature of each child, and how it will develop, flourish and unfold year after year. This gives the parents knowledge and hope, courage and understanding, tolerance and forgiveness, and all the other fine qualities that all Saivites want to cultivate within themselves.

In raising the children and simultaneously realizing that each is a part of Siva's well-ordered universe and has entered the family with his or her own prarabdha karmas to be lived out, the parents are neither excited nor dismayed when the predicted characteristics begin to manifest within the child. Yes, the Saivite home is a factory, an intricate mechanism manufacturing spiritual unfoldment for every member of the family.

Inspiring Belonging And Dignity

Siva's followers encourage and inspire children so they always feel they belong and are significant. If upsets occur, parents use loving, positive strategies such as time-out, logical consequences and denial of privileges.

Foundations for Fruitful Yoga

Many Hindu teachers in the West teach purely advaitic meditation, with no theism or religious practice, but most who have come to the West from India were raised in Hindu homes. They have within them a firm religious, cultural foundation for yoga.

Many do not pass the religious culture on to their Western devotees, however.

In an orthodox Hindu community they would most likely teach in a more traditional way. Advaita philosophy is appealing to the Westerner. It does not require a change in lifestyle. The nondual, advaita-based meditations do bring the devotees out of the conscious mind, but more often than not lead them into the subconscious.

It is here, within the subconscious, that unresolved problems with family and one's own personal ego begin to appear. Without a proper religious-cultural background and traditional Hindu belief system, these problems are difficult to handle. This turmoil is certainly not the purpose of advaitic meditations, but it is a by-product.

The wise guru trains his devotees in traditional Hindu culture and values and teaches the beginning yogas, as well as temple protocol, music, the arts and dance. All these should be mastered to build a proper subconscious foundation within the mind. Karma yoga and bhakti yoga are the necessary prelude to the higher philosophies and practices.

Group meditation is all right, as the group can really help the individual, as does the individual help the group. Intense meditation awakens the samskaras, the impressions of the past, and intensifies the prarabdha karmas, bringing them into manifestation before their time. It has a greenhouse effect.

No one should perform intensive meditation alone until he or she can serve selflessly and accept praise and blame and criticism without complaint or resentment, but with a sweet smile. Only when a devotee has reached this stage is he or she firmly on the kriya marga, which will lead quite naturally to the yoga marga.

Then, finally, raja yoga and other kinds of more refined, intensive sadhanas can safely be performed. These will clean up the karmas of the past without mental pain, once the proper foundation has been set within the mind and character of the devotee. The progressive sadhanas of karma yoga, bhakti yoga and then raja yoga are like clearing a path of its stones. First you remove the big stones. Then you walk back along the path. You still see big stones, but they are half the size as the first ones that were removed, and you remove these as well. Then you walk back along the path and remove more stones that stand out as large, and on and on until the path is clear.

It is a refinement process. The seeker on the path has to be soft, pliable, easy to get along with, as well as firm-minded. Therefore, bhakti, which is love in action, is a necessary prerequisite to success on the San Marga, the straight path to God, toward merger with Siva. All kinds of yogic techniques can be practiced, but they hold no fruitful rewards for those who are not firm-minded and not strong in the essential virtues. The prideful, antagonistic and difficult-to-get-along-with people must soften their hearts. This is done through bhakti and karma yoga. These practices alone will free the devotee from the anava marga--the path of building up and keeping the personal ego strong.

The anava marga is a difficult path to leave for the San Marga, but the results on the San Marga are so much more rewarding in the long run. It is often postulated by certain Indian schools of thought that once you reach a certain stage, bhakti should be set aside because it is dual by nature. But a devotee arriving into a high state of consciousness does not give up his love for God and the Gods. His devotion does not stop; rather it becomes more intense.

He does not stop eating, relating to family, friends and other devotees. These are all dual things, too. Yes, it is true that some teachers preach this doctrine. But to avoid the charya marga, having perhaps never been on it, and say, "I am on a greater and much higher one; I don't have to do that" is another philosophy, not ours.

In Saiva Siddhanta, the margas are progressive stages of character building. They are a foundation for good character, which is built on bhakti. Proper habit patterns created through the daily sadhanas of karma yoga and bhakti yoga lay this foundation within the mind, body and emotions. In case a devotee fails in pursuit of the higher yogas, he will always have his success on the charya marga to rely upon.

For someone to say, "I now intellectually understand the Vedas and do not need to express love and devotion" is sad indeed. One who had really realized the truths of the Vedas would never say this.

DO SAIVITES WORSHIP ONLY IN TEMPLES

One can worship God anywhere and be in contact with the inner worlds--in the temple, in the home shrine and in the yogi's contemplation. However, in the holy Siva temple the three worlds most perfectly commune.

In the shrine room gather messengers of the Mahadeva being worshiped to hear the prayers of the devotee and carry them to their Master. The Gods can be worshiped anywhere when the proper sankalpa, preparation, has been performed.

God's presence is everywhere, through everything, in everything, for Siva is the creator of all things, the manifestor of time, form and the space between forms. Siva is worshiped in the mind, in the heart, through the throat, in the head of the yogi locked in yoga. So great is the power of worship, communion and communication with the centillion devas, that when a little bell is rung, a flame appears in the lamp, the vermilion spot is placed, the flower appears and is offered, God Siva and the Gods are invoked. Contemplating the aftermath of puja or abhisheka, we feel the sannidhya or divine presence of Parashakti, tender motherly love, permeating to the outer walls around the temple. The Vedas proclaim, "Assemble all, with prayer to the Lord of Heaven, He is the One, the all-pervading, the guest of men. He, the ancient of days, abides in the present. Him, the One, the many follow on their path."

When you control your emotions, you are bringing through your spiritual being. It is only your spiritual being, your soul in action, bringing through the spirit, or bringing through God, that can control the mind. When you are living in an emotional state, you are only experiencing the mind temporarily out of control. And like anything that gains its own momentum, even if you do not control it, it will subside automatically after a period of time until it builds up again.

This is all caused by subtle transgressions of natural laws of the mind, in this life and in previous lives. There are many subtle laws. For instance, if you are planning to do something for someone and then you decide for some reason that you won't, all of the spiritual power that you had previously brought through from your spiritual being will be coagulated and blocked by your hesitation. Then tomorrow will not be as good as today was. It will be worse. To keep your spirit flowing, always allow yourself to be in the line of understanding. In other words, do not allow misunderstanding to arise in your mind.

Should misunderstanding arise, sit down, be quiet and do not get up until you understand the problem. You might have to sit for an hour. Instinctively your animal nature will not allow you to do that, but if you use willpower and persist, tomorrow will be a perfect day. Now, this is easy to talk about, and also easy to understand, but it takes a very discerning mind, utilizing the power of discrimination, to master these laws of the mind. Train your mind to awaken the spiritual being. This is as difficult to do as it is to train a person to dance or to swim, or to accomplish any athletic feat requiring a highly trained body. You have to always be the master, and be attentive to your goals in life.

What is your goal in this life?

Is your goal to sit and wallow in the emotions? Is it to memorize a lot of things that different people have said so you can quote from them? Or is your goal in life to find first your Infinite Being within yourself? If you could only once gain just a glimmer of your true Being--the spiritual Being flowing through the mind which you always thought was you. Instead, you have things that you have to do that you haven't done, things that you will do, and things that you will not do, things that you haven't made up your mind to do as yet and things you thought you would like to do but decided you wouldn't do.

All of this is going on as a process within yourself, and it keeps you nicely confused. A confused mind creates the form to which you give a name, and you become Mr. or Mrs. Somebody from Somewhere. You go along like that for years and years until all of a sudden you drop dead and give up the physical body. Then what happens? What happens to this mind that is so concerned about "What will my friends think?"

All of these various concepts that make up your personality, when you lay down your physical body and die, just what happens to them? Are you ready for that experience of death? You should always be ready, especially nowadays when the opportunities are so great. Always be ready, spiritually ready. Are you spiritually ready? Have you done your duty to your family? Have you done your duty to your temple? Have you done your duty to yourself? Or do you shirk some of your responsibilities?

It's not up to your swami to know all those things about you. Somebody once said, "Well, Gurudeva just knows everything about me." What good does that do? It's up to you to take a running total on yourself, daily, through feeling. You can't do it through thought; you'll get all mixed up. Are you ready to become a spirit, a spiritual being, an illumined mind, at the moment of death? Or at the moment of death are you ready to become a completely confused, congested mass of gaseous matter, which is what a confused mind looks like? These are vital religious questions that the individual must face and find the answers to.

The Written Marriage Covenant

Siva's followers compose a written promise to one another before marriage, defining the duties, responsibilities and expectations of their life together. At key junctures in life, they rewrite this vital agreement.

Torn Between Past and Future

What is the instant? That is what we have to discover through a moment of concentration. What is the moment? We all know what the past is--many people live in the past, over and over again, and they never catch up with the present. Other people live in the future--but of course when they do, they are really only living in the past, too, and they never find the present either. Just as an example, how many times have you gone to the temple without being fully there?

Part of you was there, part of you was living in the past, part of you was trying to live in the future; and there you were, emoting over the things that happened that should never have happened, and fearful of things that might happen in the future, which probably won't happen unless you continue being fearful of their happening until you create them!

Do you know that the ability to live right now, in the instant, is a spiritual power, reflecting the awakening of the soul and requiring a subconscious control of the mind? Your soul is never bothered with the things that disturb the rest of the mind! The mind lives in the past, and the mind tries to live in the future.

But when you quiet your mind, you live in the present. You are living within your soul, or the higher state of your mind which is undisturbed by the things of time. Also, when you live in the present, you eliminate fears, worries and doubts. Of course, you might feel a little out of place for a while, as if you weren't anybody, if for years and years you have been accustomed to making fears, worries and doubts your cherished possessions--more important to you than anything. There are people who just wouldn't know who they were if you took away from them their fears, worries and doubts. But if you want to be somebody, something, a state of being, you want to live in the eternal now.

There is a simple formula for attaining the eternal now. If you can remember it, you can center yourself within yourself very quickly and experience living right this instant.

Imagine yourself now, worried, bothered and disturbed, and in the midst of your disturbance say to yourself, "I am all right, right now. Just this instant, I am all right." What a shock to the disturbed part of your mind! It will not only be shocked, it will be shattered out of its disturbance when you declare the truth that you are all right in the eternal now.

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.