Lesson 201
Are you on a different lesson? Enter the number, click "Get My Lesson":
Sloka 46 from Dancing with Siva
Are Souls and World Essentially Good?
The intrinsic and real nature of all beings is their soul, which is goodness. The world, too, is God's flawless creation. All is in perfect balance. There are changes, and they may appear evil, but there is no intrinsic evil. Aum.
Bhashya
The soul radiates love, is a child of God going through its evolutionary process of growing up into the image and likeness of the Lord. Goodness and mercy, compassion and caring are the intrinsic, inherent or indwelling nature of the soul. Wisdom and pure knowledge, happiness and joy are the intrinsic nature of the soul. Can we believe the soul is anything but goodness itself, purity and all the refined qualities found within superconsciousness? When God is everywhere, how can there be a place for evil? The soul is constantly one with God in its ever-present Satchidananda state at every point in its evolution. How, then, arises the concept of evil and suffering? Anava, karma and maya, the play toys of the soul, are the source of this seeming suffering. Like a child, we play with the toys of anava in the playground of maya, fall and are bruised by karma, then run to our loving Lord for solace and release into spiritual maturity. The Vedas pointedly state, "As the sun, the eye of the whole world, is not sullied by the external faults of the eyes, so the one inner soul of all things is not sullied by the sorrow in the world, being external to it." Aum Namah Sivaya.
Lesson 201 from Living with Siva
Advice for Abused Youth
We want to talk to the next generation that's coming up. Fourteen-year-olds, eighteen-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, stand on your own two feet! Make your decisions according to dharma. What is the book of dharma? Weaver's Wisdom, the famous Tirukural. It gives you all the tools you need to live a very good life. If your parents are verbally abusing you, don't let their words affect you. Try to have compassion by appreciating what led them to the point where they could say these cruel things to you; but realize that they can offer you nothing but more abuse, because they are in the process of cursing themselves. The message is to "stand on your own two feet, take your life in your own hands, claim your independence," once you realize that life at home is not going to get any better.
In certain shops in Asian cities, parents can buy bamboo switches, belts and other instruments of torture made just for punishing kids. Few realize that their mean words can cause just as much hurt, if not more. Parents have developed long lists of words used to demean and belittle. It has become an unspoken rulebook of how to bring their child down to feeling like he's a big nothing, willing to do anything you say, because he inwardly begs: "Don't hurt me anymore. Don't hit me with your words. Don't hurt me with your long silences and by turning your head away from me. Don't hurt me that way anymore. I'll do anything. I'll get a dumb job and work at it fourteen hours a day to give you some money, to pay you for not hurting me anymore." That's what we have in the Hindu community around the world. And that's what we don't want to have in the Hindu community around the world.
What can a child of eight, ten or twelve do who is being verbally and physically beaten at home and in school? Nothing. It's a sad situation. I've received lists of abuses from children of that age, just exactly what their mothers have said and what their fathers have said. It's a tremendous pain in their mind. We've given young people the prayashchitta, the remedy, of putting a flower in front of their parents' picture for thirty-one days. Most can't do it. They just can't do it. We ask them to say each day, "I forgive you for playing my karma back to me," but they just can't do it. The hate, the mistrust, the disappointment, the hurt, is so great, they've been put down so low, that they just cannot do it.
My counsel to Hindu families is: Stop the physical abuse. Stop the verbal abuse. Stop the war in the home. Use positive discipline. Praise your children. Discover the good things that they do and tell them how well they have done. Celebrate their Divinity. Enjoy them and enjoy good times with them. This is the family tradition and the ideal of Sanatana Dharma, the Hindu Dharma of the past, before the Church of England reigned over India for 150 years and changed education to their way of thinking, making beating a must in schools and homes in accordance with the many biblical verses that highly recommend "not to spare the rod," and the theological rationale to "beat the devil out of them." Hindus of today's world have begun working together to stop the abuse, passing and enforcing laws to bring us back to the true meaning of discipline, which is to teach, train and patiently guide. We must remember that ahimsa, nonhurting, physically, mentally or emotionally, is the bedrock of Sanatana Dharma.
My advice to verbally abusive parents: stop tearing them down by telling them they're stupid, that they're too small, too fat, too lazy, too ugly or too naughty. If you constantly tell a child he is naughty, he will become naughtier. If you constantly tell a child he's nice, he will be nicer. It just works like that. All the psychiatrists agree with this approach, to be sure, as do mothers and fathers who really love their children and take an interest in their children.
Sutra 201 of the Nandinatha Sutras
Moderation With Alcohol
All strong and intoxicating distilled alcohols are forbidden to Siva's devotees. They may moderately partake of the family of wines and beers, including honey mead, for these are wholesome when properly enjoyed. Aum.
Lesson 201 from Merging with Siva
Subsuperconscious Breakthroughs
A devotee who can command his mind to be instantly creative, and be consistently successful, has acquired a conscious control of the use of the subsuperconscious state of mind. This is because the subconscious mind--made of odic force, a sticky-like substance that absorbs impressions, holds impressions and files them (not always, however, in an organized way)--has been understood, dissolved and brought in line with the cosmic forces through living a religious life. In this pure condition, the devotee's attempts to direct his own mental forces are quite naturally successful. Unobstructed, the superconscious forces flow into the life of the devotee, and creativity is in abundance. Once the first breakthrough has been made, we find that these brilliant rays from the cosmic mind--which we also call Satchidananda, the mind of God Siva, the Gods and your immortal soul--penetrate the sticky-like substance of the subconscious, reorganizing and purifying it. The next time you feel physically, mentally or emotionally fatigued, use your willpower to command access to the cosmic energies that exist deep inside of you. Do not allow the body or mind to fall into lethargic, depressed states. Feel the life forces stirring, flowing out to invigorate every cell of your being.
When you can see a white light aglow in your head in a darkened room, or even see a flash of it, or hear the inner, high-pitched sound, "eee," humming in your inner ear, then you know that you are consciously functioning in the subsuperconscious state of mind. Devotees who have had their first flash of white light in their head or heard the constant high-pitched "eee" in their inner ear have awakened the process of the subsuperconscious state of mind, and it works quite automatically after that. All they have to do is to learn how to consciously use their subsuperconscious transcendental powers. All this will naturally occur through their continued sadhana.
The first breakthrough of the clear white light is subsuperconsciousness. The odic force fields of darkness which are seen within oneself are created by beliefs that conflict with the Sanatana Dharma, resentment and past conflicting karma. These are built up through the centuries of man's intermingling within his own species. This inner darkness or odic force has created man's subconscious mind, and conscious mind, the way he knows it today. Every devotee is inwardly desirous of breaking through the barriers of this inner darkness, realizing the discontent caused by the influx and outflow of connecting odic forces, not only between himself and family, friends and relations, but also in his association with the world at large.