Date: November 4th 2008

From: Kauai_Hindu_Monastery@jnanadana.com Date: Monday, November 3, 2008


The Master Course
The lesson of the day from Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's trilogy: Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva


Lesson 205

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Lesson 205

Sloka 50 from Dancing with Siva
Should One Avoid Worldly Involvement?
The world is the bountiful creation of a benevolent God, who means for us to live positively in it, facing karma and fulfilling dharma. We must not despise or fear the world. Life is meant to be lived joyously. Aum Namah Sivaya.

Bhashya
The world is the place where our destiny is shaped, our desires fulfilled and our soul matured. In the world, we grow from ignorance into wisdom, from darkness into light and from a consciousness of death to immortality. The whole world is an ashrama in which all are doing sadhana. We must love the world, which is God's creation. Those who despise, hate and fear the world do not understand the intrinsic goodness of all. The world is a glorious place, not to be feared. It is a gracious gift from Siva Himself, a playground for His children in which to interrelate young souls with the old--the young experiencing their karma while the old hold firmly to their dharma. The young grow; the old know. Not fearing the world does not give us permission to become immersed in worldliness. To the contrary, it means remaining affectionately detached, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf, being in the world but not of it, walking in the rain without getting wet. The Vedas warn, "Behold the u
niverse in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves on earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal. Set not your heart on another's possession." Aum Namah Sivaya.


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Lesson 205 from Living with Siva
Refusing Soiled Funds
My own satguru set a noble example of living simply, overnighting only in the homes of disciples who live up to their vows, and accepting only good money. He knew that accepting bad money brings in the asuras and binds the receiver, the ashrama or institution to the external world in a web of obligations. How does one know if he has received bad money? When feelings of psychological obligation to the giver arise. This feeling does not arise after receiving good money that is given freely for God's work. Bad money is given with strings and guilt attached.

Our message to religious institutions, ashramas and colleges is: Don't take bad money. Look for good, or white, money, known in Sanskrit as shukladana. Reject bad, or black, money, called krishnadana. If you don't know where the money came from, then tactfully find out in some way. How does the donor earn his living? Did the money come from performing abortions, from gambling, accepting bribes, adharmic law practices or shady business dealings? Is it being given to ease the conscience?

Even today's election candidates examine the source of donations exceeding US$10,000--investigating how the donor lives and how the money was gotten--then either receive the gift wholeheartedly or turn it back. When the source is secret, the source of gain is suspect. When the source is freely divulged, it is freed from such apprehension. In the Devaloka, there are devas, angels, who monitor carefully, twenty-four hours a day, the sources of gain leading to wealth, because the pranic bonds are heavy for the wrongdoer and his accomplices.

Imagine, for instance, an arms dealer who buys his merchandise surreptitiously and then sells it, secretly or in a store--shotguns and pistols, machine guns, grenades and missiles, instruments of torture and death. Money from this enterprise invested in a religious institution or educational institution or anything that is doing good for people will eventually turn that institution sour, just like pouring vinegar into milk.

The spiritual leader's duty is to turn his or her back to such a panderer of bad money and show him the door, just as an honest politician would turn back election donations coming from a subversive source, gained by hurtful practices, lest he suffer the censure of his constituency at a later time, which he hopes to avoid to hold his office. A politician has to protect his reputation. The spiritual leader will intuitively refuse bad money. He doesn't need money. When money comes, he does things. If it doesn't come, he also does things, but in a different way, perhaps on a smaller scale.

In Reno, Nevada, for many years the gambling casinos gave college scholarships to students at high schools. Then there came a time of conscience among educators when they could no longer accept these scholarships earned from gambling to send children forward into higher studies. They did not feel in their heart, mind and soul that it was right. Drawing from their example, we extend the boundaries of religion to education and to the human conscience of right conduct on this Earth.

Humans haven't changed that much. Over 2,200 years ago, Saint Tiruvalluvar wrote in his Tirukural, perhaps the world's greatest ethical scripture, still sworn on in Indian courts of law in Tamil Nadu: "A fortune amassed by fraud may appear to prosper but will all too soon perish altogether. Wealth acquired without compassion and love is to be cast off, not embraced. Protecting the country by wrongly garnered wealth is like preserving water in an unbaked clay pot" (283, 755, 660).




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Sutra 205 of the Nandinatha Sutras
Total Abstinence For Some
Siva's devotees know that if, despite the help of peers or elders, alcohol becomes a spiritual obstacle or a burden to family or community, the preceptor is duty-bound to deny the privilege altogether. Aum Namah Sivaya.


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Lesson 205 from Merging with Siva
Thought and Manifestation

Thought and matter are synonymous. They have only to be seen in this way to be understood as such. From the external area of the mind, matter seems to be separate from thought. However, from the central, internal perspective of the mystic, thought, energy and matter are one. Things and forms are and have been manifestations of thought conglomerates through the ages. And, of course, as you look upon animate and inanimate matter with your own faculties, they are immediately reduced to thought. This is the way it is seen by the mystic who has attained Self Realization. He also knows thought to be of an apparent, more permanent nature than animate and inanimate objects, which appear to change rather rapidly.

Therefore, we now have the hypothesis that thought, energy and manifested form are one and the same, only seen as different by the unenlightened. Therefore, we must concur that instantaneously upon thinking about any segment of manifested form, we are simply moving individual awareness into the subtle ether of the mind where the form exists in unmanifest state. By "unmanifest," I mean not having physical size, shape and density. Therefore, if matter were not thought, how could it be reduced to thought? This then leads us to another view of form, thought and energy, and that is of the all-pervading energy, the base of all form and thought, the primal substance of the mind--internal and external manifestations of form. Were this to be removed, there would be no form, no thought--either interior or exterior. Man's individual awareness is of the nature of this all-pervading actinic energy of the universe. I say "of the nature of" because it has several other qualities as well, be
ing a bridge between the viewing of form and formlessness.

There are various strata of thought, and of these the most obvious, of course, is what normally is termed thinking. The motivation thought stratum of the astral plane, because of its being more refined in nature, therefore more permanent, precedes all externalized thinking. We are not aware of this until we begin to meditate often, having perfected concentration and meditation. However, there is yet another area of thought, which can be viewed from the fifth dimension of the mind, and here we see form in all phases of manifestation from one point in inner space and time. We can look to the future and to the past, viewing one singular object, and see a change in manifestation as new, individual frames on a motion picture film, each one being slightly different from the other. This really has to be experienced to be believed--that all phases of manifestation and all of the various and varied forms of the universe exist in the great circle of life. Therefore, we can conclude tha
t it is the point in time and space where our awareness resides that keys us in to seeing only one frame at a time on this circle of creation, preservation and dissolution of form, which leads into the creation of the same form again.

The mystic, once recognizing his particular point in time and space, can travel around this circle of life at will, his control being prior sadhana performed well during early years of unfoldment.