Lesson 196

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Sloka 41 from Dancing with Siva

Where Did This Universe Come from?

Supreme God Siva created the world and all things in it. He creates and sustains from moment to moment every atom of the seen physical and unseen spiritual universe. Everything is within Him. He is within everything. Aum.

Bhashya

God Siva created us. He created the earth and all things upon it, animate and inanimate. He created time and gravity, the vast spaces and the uncounted stars. He created night and day, joy and sorrow, love and hate, birth and death. He created the gross and the subtle, this world and the other worlds. There are three worlds of existence: the physical, subtle and causal, termed Bhuloka, Antarloka and Sivaloka. The Creator of all, Siva Himself is uncreated. As supreme Mahadeva, Siva wills into manifestation all souls and all form, issuing them from Himself like light from a fire or waves from an ocean. Rishis describe this perpetual process as the unfoldment of thirty-six tattvas, stages of manifestation, from the Siva tattva--Parashakti and nada--to the five elements. Creation is not the making of a separate thing, but an emanation of Himself. Lord Siva creates, constantly sustains the form of His creations and absorbs them back into Himself. The Vedas elucidate, "As a spider spins and withdraws its web, as herbs grow on the earth, as hair grows on the head and body of a person, so also from the Imperishable arises this universe." Aum Namah Sivaya.


Lesson 196 from Living with Siva

The Family Profession


Nowadays many people believe that somehow it was an accident that one was born in a family of a certain profession and that the youth deserves a so-called better profession than that of the parents. But the traditional wisdom is that a person is born into a family to fulfill the profession of that family, and ideally to stay within that family business. Being raised in the family business, the person learns from a young age, even prenatally. Going into another profession, he leaves the family dharma and goes into worldly adharma. It then takes two or three generations to establish a new family dharma in that profession.

Now, of course, if the father and mother do not have a formal profession or business when their offspring are babies, from prenatal to six, whatever they are doing is absorbed and becomes the children's habit pattern of how they should live their lives on Earth. In such conditions, the chances for the son or daughter to follow the father's or mother's footsteps in a formal profession at a later age, such as at puberty, lessens because the children have already been programmed, from ages one to six, to live from day to day without a goal, without strong material security, without a profession, as their mother and father did, as casual, temporary employees or students, often unemployed or seeking employment.

Obviously, there is no greater boon to a youth than to enter the family business or profession, that is, provided this is his inclination as well. Occasionally, however, there comes into a family a child who is to become a leader in another field, not a follower of the family profession. Perhaps he shows special aptitude as a religious leader, a swami, a community leader, a politician, a social organizer, an activist, an investigative genius, a scientist or a scholar. Such a child will identify himself at an early age and must be especially carefully nurtured, for he was born with a mission.

Then there are others who will shy away from the family profession, whatever the rationale. There are many reasons that youth reject the family profession, but the point is that it is the duty of the family to make that profession available to them, knowing this can stabilize them throughout life. Therefore, we should encourage the traditional family ideal in any case, at any age. There is great mental, emotional and physical security for the son or the daughter to follow the family vocation. Such children have observed their parents, learned from them, slowly become partners with them in life. It is not always wise to allow your children to make the decision of what they want to do, allowing them to leave the home and make a stranger wealthy in another profession because of their service to him. Lovingly encourage them to do what you do and to become an extension of yourself. The ideas of "do your own thing," "satisfy your own desires," "wander into a career," "move from one career to another midway in life" are modern adharmic concepts. It may work out, but there is a fifty percent chance of failure and crippling debt. Then, too, the family has lost a great asset. The children have lost half their family connection, as they no longer have a shared interest in what mom and dad are doing, and vice versa. And the stranger, way out there, benefits. A family should not end at the puberty of its children, who then go off into other spheres of interest. It should continue and mature into father-and-son corporations, father-and-daughter corporations, with mother and father, sons and daughters all sharing the same interests, all working to increase the family assets.

The dharma of the householder is to build up wealth and knowledge, and to pass these on to the children, generation after generation. If they are in the jewelry profession, the wealth should go to the jewelers of the next generation, not to the musicians or computer programmers. Family wealth equals community wealth. Community wealth equals national wealth. National wealth equals global abundance. Hindu elders say that by following the occupation of the father and mother one will never go hungry, even if the occupation is a meager one. This is what I learned in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, at an early age. One might not become rich, but security is virtually assured.

So, don't be afraid to bring your sons and daughters into the family business deliberately. Get them interested. Get them working with you. Your business or occupation is what feeds them. Naturally they should be interested in it. The simple answer for modern Hindu families following the traditional grihastha dharma is to form a family corporation and bring sons and daughters at an early age into what mom and dad are doing. Educate them in the family occupation from age six to thirteen and then engage them as partners all through life. What better partners could one have? Who would be more honest and loyal than your own children? Need we say more? You have caught the idea.


Sutra 196 of the Nandinatha Sutras

Forbidding Tobacco

Siva's devotees are forbidden to smoke, chew tobacco or inhale snuff. They know nicotine's deadly, addictive power and value health and longevity as primary to fulfilling good karmas and serving the community. Aum.


Lesson 196 from Merging with Siva

The Self Never Changes


When you begin to sense this changeless existence within, your intuition begins to awaken, and if you function through the use of your intuition you are able to clear many misunderstandings about the experiences of life. In this clarity, intuition is born. Right now you perhaps think you are the mind; you may feel remote from your Inner Being, but ask yourself each time you think you have found yourself, will this change? You will find that every image you hold of yourself is subject to change--even your soul, or your superconscious mind, is subject to change through evolution and, therefore, is impermanent. Only the Self, the very core, is eternally the same, eternally Real. Find your Inner Being through feeling; realize it is closer to you than your hands or feet, closer to you even than your breath. Your mind will want to leave this consciousness as soon as you attain it, but gently guide your mind back through the channel of concentration until once again you become rejuvenated, uplifted in the awareness of That which has never changed. That is your very Self, and That is God.

Jnanaguru Yogaswami said, "Search without searching." By this he meant that as long as we are searching for God in meditation, there are two--God and the seeker. He did not mean that we should stop looking for God, stop meditating or stop striving and live an ordinary life or give up sadhana. He was saying that to deepen your meditation, while seated in the lotus position, doing pranayama, to deepen this state, stop looking and begin to realize that you are That which you are looking for. As long as there is searching, Parasiva has not been found, for searching is two, and It is one. But you must keep searching until It is found. How to attain That? Satguru Yogaswami said, "Stop looking, and just be." Give up consciousness which is seeing and registering that which has been seen. Become the sound, nada, just be and merge into the Ultimate Quiet. When the disciple is on the brink of the Absolute, the timeless Parasiva, twoness disappears in the overpowering presence of Siva, and consciousness is absorbed and annihilated in His transcendental Being, which is nondifferent from the disciple's. However, if the disciple continues looking for this experience and thus, in the act of his search, solidifies himself and the sought-after experience as two different things, he becomes the obstacle and the problem to be eliminated. In the end, the Great Mystery is known as one, as two, as neither one nor two.