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United your resolve, united your hearts, may your spirits be at one,
that you may long together dwell in unity and concord!
Rig Veda 10.191.4. VE, P. 253

Monday
LESSON 295
Philosophers' Magic Barge
We are told that hundreds of years ago in the city of
Madurai, known as the Athens of India for its cultural pre-eminence,
there was constructed at the Meenakshi Somasundareshvara Sivan Koyil,
within the vast temple tank, a magic boat called the Philosophers'
Barge. Rishis came from the Himalayas, pandits from all corners of India and humble bhakta siddhas from
the South to sit together and discuss life, illumination and release
from mortality. This boat's singular magic was its extraordinary
ability to expand to accommodate any number of people who conversed
with an attitude of respect and harmony. But, miraculously, it grew
smaller when discussion turned rancorous, and those who brought about
the contention suddenly found themselves in the water, swimming to
shore in embarrassment. In Siva's temple, it seems, only
nonargumentative discussion was allowed.
We have no magic
boats today, ...or perhaps we do. During a recent pilgrimage to India,
I spoke to several large groups of devotees, including hundreds of sadhus of
the Swaminarayan Fellowship, about zero tolerance for inharmonious
conditions. Everyone found the message pertinent, yet difficult to
practice, for there is no group of people on Earth for whom living in
harmony is not a challenge at one time or another. But it is true that
among my monastics we have zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions
of any kind.
Harmony is the first and foremost rule of living
in all spheres, but particularly in spiritual work, where it is an
absolute must. Striving for harmony begins within the home and radiates
out into all dimensions of life, enhancing and making joyous and
sublime each relationship for every devotee. Thus, each strives to be
considerate and kindly in thought, word and deed, to unfold the
beautiful, giving qualities of the soul, to utter only that which is
true, kind, helpful and necessary. The great Tamil saint, Tiruvalluvar,
offers the following sage advice in Tirukural verse 100: "To
utter harsh words when sweet ones would serve is like eating unripe
fruit when ripe ones are at hand." Yes, this is the ideal. I was asked
by the swamis in Gujarat, time after time, "But what if
conflict and contention do arise?" My answer was that in our fellowship
all work stops and the problem is attended to at once. It is each one's
responsibility to follow this wisdom. Nothing could be more
counterproductive and foolish than to continue work, especially
religious work, while conflict prevails, for demonic forces have been
unleashed that must be dispelled for any effort to be fruitful and long
lasting. Any breach in the angelic force field of the home, monastery
or workplace must be sealed off quickly.
Our approach is simple. We are all committed to the shared sadhana that
all difficult feelings must be resolved before sleep, lest they give
rise to mental argument, go to seed and germinate as unwanted,
troublesome vasanas, subconscious impressions, that cannot be
totally erased but only softened and neutralized through the mystic
processes of atonement. Disharmony is disruption of the harmonious pranic flow: anger, argument, back-biting, walking out of meetings, painful words and hurt feelings. The Vedas
pray, "May our minds move in accord. May our thinking be in harmony --
common the purpose and common the desire. May our prayers and worship
be alike, and may our devotional offerings be one and the same" (Rig Veda 10.191.3.
VE, P. 854). One of the principles of harmony is that the commitment to
harmony has to be greater than any commitment to any particular issue
or problem. Problems change, but the strength of harmony has to be the
ultimate priority. This is a conceptual tool to use whenever
differences arise.
Tuesday
LESSON 296
The Sadhana Of Resolution
If a disruption is not resolved before sleep, then a kukarmaphala, fruit
of wrongdoing, will be created. The hurt feelings and mental arguments
continue to fester until the matter is brought up and openly faced to
be resolved. If not resolved within 72 hours, the problem germinates,
and elders must take action under spiritual guidance to rectify the
matter. The fact that all have chosen to avoid facing the difficulty
shows that more serious remedies are required.
Resolution in all cases is accomplished through the hri prayashchitta: apology,
the showing of remorse, talking together in small groups and giving
gifts as tokens of reconciliation. Humility is the keynote. Sincere
apology is offered for participating in argument or confusion, even if
one was not necessarily to blame; the karma was there that
attracted the situation. Harmony is reinstated by honestly accepting
apologies, by forgiving and forgetting with the firm resolve to never
bring up the matter again. Zero tolerance is based on the shared
understanding that by working together on the firm foundation of love
and trust all will progress in religious service and worship. Through
these efforts, a sukarmaphala, fruit of right doing, is deliberately created. When two shishyas sit
to settle a disharmony, it is sometimes helpful for an uninvolved third
party to be present, even silently, to balance the energies.
Sadhana -- personal transformation through self-effort -- is the magic balm that soothes the nerve system, giving strength for each shishya to have forbearance with people and patience with circumstances. When sadhana
is neglected, problems close in. Families find it difficult to see eye
to eye. Hard feelings arise in even the simplest and well-intended
encounters when the individuals have become too externalized.
There is a natural harmony within our monasteries, which families seek to emulate. Rarely
is much discussion required when daily activities are being carried
out, for the lines of authority based on seniority are always clear.
This is the first boon for maintaining harmony among a group. Ours is a
traditional hierarchical system of governance, upheld within our family
and monastic communities, established when the Vedas were
created. It is a system whereby the elders, in a loving manner, guide
those younger than they. So, there is always an atmosphere of respect,
loving harmony and meeting of minds. Never is scolding heard or
feelings hurt or arguments provoked or sincere questions left
unanswered. Here "love is the sum of the law," and the heartfelt
feelings going out from the elders protect and support those who will
one day themselves be elders. We create a secure and loving society in
which intelligence overrides controversy and the only rigid rule is
wisdom. Thus the pranic magnetism of the family or monastery is maintained and kept ever building for sustainable success and spirituality.
Yes, I can tell you from experience that zero tolerance for inharmonious conditions is a workable law and sadhana that can and should be adopted by all spiritual groups and individuals. My satguru, Siva
Yogaswami, used to say, "It takes a lot of courage to be happy all the
time." Most people, it seems, would rather be miserable. Think about
it. They go through life getting their feelings hurt, resenting this or
that and hurting the feelings of others in an endless cycle of
unresolved emotion, asking a torrent of unanswerable rhetorical
questions. Take today's average family: it's a composite of troubled
individuals.
Wednesday
LESSON 297
Maintaining Magnetism
Today, more than ever, parents everywhere are
concerned about keeping the family together. I have found that the key
is to keep the pranas flowing harmoniously. A true family is a
clan of individuals who love each other, which means they are bound
together by positive pranic magnetism. When sons-in-law and daughters-in-law join the family, their pranic magnetism intermingles, and the family extends itself harmoniously, especially if the jyotisha
compatibilities are good between the bride and her husband and the
bride and her mother-in-law. This magnetism is maintained through the
principle of zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions, to keep the pranas flowing within their homes in a positive, loving way. This means that if there is a disruption of the pranas, caused
by interpersonal conflict -- argument, angry words or worse -- the
matter must be settled among those involved before they retire to
sleep, even if it means staying up all night.
What is prana? Prana is
vital energy. There are three phases of the mind: instinctive,
intellectual and superconscious. They comprise three different kinds of
prana in every human being: instinctive prana, intellectual prana and refined, superconscious prana, also known as actinic energy. Instinctive pranas digest
our food and maintain the functions of the physical body. They also
give rise to the emotions of fear, anger, jealousy and other base
instincts. The instinctive energies affect the mind, emotions and
behavior. Without well-developed intellectual pranas, the mind
is ruled by the lower nature and is easily influenced by others, often
in a negative way. This is why children must be closely watched and
guided during their formative years until their intellectual pranas develop in the form of good memory, discernment and willpower. The superconscious pranas bring
through creativity, inspiration and intuition. These are the energies
to be sought after and nurtured through various kinds of religious
devotion and sadhana.
In nearly every home, all three kinds of prana are at work. Little children are functioning mainly in the instinctive pranas. Students are in the intellectual pranas. Parents, hopefully, are functioning in the spiritual pranas, at least part of the time, drawing into the home the cosmic, actinic rays of the soul, while balancing all three forms of prana within themselves.
It is the duty of the head of the house and his wife to take charge of all the three pranas within
the home and keep them flowing harmoniously day after day after day
after day. How do they do that? By prayer and regular, early-morning
daily sadhana, bringing wisdom and other refined, actinic pranas through from the superconscious mind. When everyone is bound together with love, everything goes along fairly smoothly.
Thursday
LESSON 298
Keeping Peace With Yourself
The older children and young adults in the family must be taught that it is their responsibility, too, to see that the pranas are
all flowing nicely in the home, so the little children and babies are
protected. Young adults, having just come out of the instinctive mind
themselves, are breaking the barriers into the intellect, experiencing
these new pranas and beginning to think for themselves. This is
the time when elders can guide them into the
zero-tolerance-for-disharmonious-conditions philosophical outlook.
Youths who have accepted the concept are most respectful of loving
relationships. They tried it out and found for themselves that "Yes, we
do have control over the instinctive mind" and "No, we won't allow it
to run wild within our home, among our friends or in our associations
with the community." They will be the ones to keep the flow of pranas harmonious.
Then
the next step unfolds from within most naturally: zero tolerance for
disharmonious conditions within our own self. This brings us back to my
guru's wisdom: claim the strength to stop being miserable, to
stop tolerating turmoil inside yourself. How is this accomplished? We
have to boldly affirm, "I will not allow the instinctive mind that I
experienced as a child to control me in any way. I will not allow anger
to come up. I will not allow jealousy to dominate my thinking and make
me feel inferior or superior to someone else. I will not allow fear to
permeate my aura."
Then, each day before bedtime, settle any unresolved matters within yourself by performing the vasana daha tantra, "subconscious purification by fire." Vasanas are
sub-subconscious traits, complexes or subliminal tendencies which, as
driving forces, color and motivate one's attitudes and actions. Vasanas are conglomerates of subconscious impressions, samskaras, created through repeated or powerful experience. Daha means to burn, consume by fire, and a tantra is
a method or technique, and the method here is to write out clearly all
problems as well as emotional happenings, unhappy or happy, that are
vibrating in the subconscious, instinctive-intellectual mind. When the
eyes, through the intellectual mind or conscious mind, see the problem
written down, the emotion attached to the memory begins to diminish.
Then crumple up the paper and burn it in an ordinary fire, such as in a
fireplace, urn or garbage can, to totally release some of life's
burdens from the subconscious and dispel the suppressed emotions as the
fire consumes the paper.
This simple tantra removes the vasanas from
the memory and emotional recesses along with the emotion, resentments,
hurt feelings and misunderstandings. Soon the superconscious pranas will
begin to flow, and our natural, peaceful self emerges, and we may be
left wondering, "Why was I ever bothered about that trivial incident?"
What
happens if we don't resolve inharmonious or congested matters within
ourself before sleep? The condition will go to seed, and those vrittis, waves of the mind, which were disturbed by the experiential creation of the situation, will form a vasana
to germinate at a later time in life, perhaps many years in the future,
or even in another lifetime. This daily mental maintenance, of course,
requires discipline. It may be easier to simply drop off to sleep
feeling angry, jealous, guilty, dejected or sorry for oneself.
Yes,
zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions can be applied within
oneself as well as among a family or any group of people. This practice
can be established in one of two ways. Start with yourself and then
carry it out to others. Or start with your relationships with others,
smoothing out the pranas when they go a little crazy, and then
finally apply it to yourself when you are convinced that this is the
way life should be lived. Zero tolerance for disharmonious conditions
is clearly the only way once one fully accepts the basic principles of
the Sanatana Dharma: all-pervasive energy, cause and effect, and coming
back in a physical birth until all scores are settled.
Remember the inspiring words of the Atharva Veda,
"Let us have concord with our own people and concord with people who
are strangers to us. Ashvins, create between us and the strangers a
unity of hearts. May we unite in our midst, unite in our purposes and
not fight against the divine spirit within us" (7.52.1-2. HV, P 205).
Friday
LESSON 299
Heal All Hurts Before Sleep
When an inharmonious condition arises in a seeker's
life, it forms a deep, dark veil within his mind, inhibiting the
progressive process of seeking inwardly. Shall he store it away and
forget it, put it behind him and get on with life? That is a temporary
relief, to be sure, only temporary insofar as retaliatory karma will
come back in full force at another time as an even deeper, darker veil
that will effectually stop the seeking. Only at this second round will
the seeker, now knowing the effect of past causes, begin to perform japa, do pranayama and strenuous religious practices, such as penance and kavadi, beseeching Lord Siva to lift the veiling doom.
The
wise seeker obviously will endeavor to lift the dark veils once he
realizes they never go away but always persist when he stores problems
away. At the same time, he realizes that certain obstacles in his
progressive life pattern are beginning to show. Thus, the super-wise
seeker will not store a problem away when it arises, but handle it
adroitly and magically heal all wounds before they fester. To be super
wise on the path to enlightenment, one must have the siddhi of humility.
When an argument flares up in the home between mother and father, it affects all of the children. They feed on the ida and pingala pranas of
the mother and father. Super-wise parents heal their differences before
they sleep at night, even if they have to stay up all night to do it.
Failure to heal differences before sleep means that a first separation
has occurred.
Domestic abuse is a difficult issue, but one we
must confront openly. I urge you all to stand up and say it is no
longer acceptable for a man to abuse his wife or for either the husband
or the wife to abuse their children. This must stop. In order to heal
the differences that arise within a marriage from time to time, both
partners have to give in. The best place to do this is at the feet of
their Gods in the temple or shrine room. There is no other solution.
This is the only way. The method of giving in, yes, is to talk it over.
A major emphasis is to see the other's point of view, finding points in
the disturbance both can agree with. Agreement is the key word.
The relationship between the husband and wife, who are also a mother
and father or potential mother and father, has more lasting influence
than their opposing opinions. Some relationships are easy and some are
difficult. But resolving disagreements before nightfall is the aim.
Some couples need to work harder at it than others.
Habits are
formed through the repetition of the same events over and over again.
No matter what you have seen or heard from parents, relatives,
neighbors, friends or society itself, heal your differences before
sleep, even if it takes all night. By doing this repeatedly, a new
habit will be created. Don't go to sleep in anguish, holding on to
anger, fear, confusion or ill feelings. The inconvenience of this wise
remedy will cause each one to be careful of his or her words, thoughts
and actions.
Saturday
LESSON 300
The Many Levels of Love
Those wondering how they could ever live with zero
tolerance for all discord and disharmony need only realize that people
are naturally tolerant with those they love. The good mother tolerates
all the little problems her beloved infant brings into each day. The
loving wife tolerates the faults and actions of her husband. A true
friend tolerates another friend's foibles and even rough words. If we
learn to love, we automatically learn to have perfect tolerance for
those we love. The ancient Tirukural reminds us, "When friends do things that hurt you, attribute it to unawareness or to the privileges of friendship" (805).
Love
comes in many forms. There is physical love, magnetic attraction. This
is dualistic love, because if the other person responds, you feel very
good, and if he does not respond, you don't like him. That is not the
kind of love that is all encompassing. It is a very narrow form of
love. It broadens a little bit with emotional love, which is the second
kind of love. You love someone because he makes you happy, or you
express love to make other people happy. But if someone doesn't make
you happy or you are trying to make someone else happy and he just
won't be happy, then you don't like him anymore. That is also a
dualistic form of love. It is not all encompassing. Physical love and
emotional love are companions.
Then there is intellectual
love, which comes in and breaks it all up. In the intellect, if you
love somebody and he doesn't agree with you, then you don't like him.
That interrupts the physical love and the emotional love. Arguments
start, sarcasm begins to well up. These are all forms of partial love.
People experience this every day.
Spiritual love is the fourth
kind. Somewhat hard to come by, it is the love from the soul body.
Spiritual love transcends physical love, emotional love and mental
love. It transcends all kinds of feelings. It has a feeling of its own,
which is called bliss -- the ever-flowing energy from Siva out through
your body, the ever-flowing energy from Siva out through your mind, the
ever-flowing energy of Siva out through your emotions. Caught up in
that ever-flowing energy, you can truly say to everyone, "I love you."
And what does you mean? You means Siva, because you are
seeing Siva in each one. What are you looking at when you say that? You
are not looking at the body. You are not appreciating or depreciating
the intellect. You are not even bothered about the emotions, whether
you are liked or not liked, because you are seeing Siva emanating out
through the eyes, emanating out through the aura, emanating out through
the skin. Siva is there, and you are living with Siva.
This
great, Supreme God of all the Gods is limited in one respect: He cannot
take Himself out of you or anyone else. So mentally say, "I love you,"
then ask yourself the question, "What does you mean?" Does you mean you like the body of the person? No. Does you mean you like the emotions of the person? No. Does you mean you like the intellect of the person? No. Does you
mean you like somebody as long as they are always pleasing to you,
always agreeing with you, never upsetting you, never pulling away from
you? No. It means that you love their soul. It means that you love Siva
inside of them. The light within their eyes is Siva's light. The light
that lights up their thoughts is Siva's light, and that is what you
love. That love is all encompassing. That love is not partial love,
half love or just a little bit of love given when it pleases you. It's
not magnetic love; it's not intellectual love. You are not putting any
demands on the other person at all. You are not expecting anything
back. It is love for the sake of love.
There should be a unique English word for spiritual love, but there is not. In Sanskrit we do have a word for divine love: prema. Therefore,
we have to adjust our thinking when we say, "I love you," to this
all-encompassing, beautiful love that radiates throughout the universe
-- the perfect universe where everything is in harmony and order. And
even if it is seemingly out of harmony, you know it actually is in
harmony because you are in the state of consciousness where harmony is,
where peace is, where bliss is. Therefore, your Saiva Siddhanta
religion can work in your daily life.
Sunday
LESSON 301
The Hope of the World Is Love
Your Saiva Siddhanta religion can be lived every
minute of the day and all through the night. All you have to do is
decide whether you are going to expect anything back from anyone. All
you have to decide is what part of the person you love. If you love the
soul, you love the whole person, no matter who the person is, no matter
what he does, what he says, whether you know him or whether you don't
know him, because he is the light of Siva, the energy of Siva, the love
of Siva walking around in human form. This is the kind of love that
keeps you in harmony with everyone.
Love is expressed in so
many different ways. It is a force, a vibration that you have to work
at to keep it flowing. Everyone has human emotions, instinctive
emotions. Love controls those emotions. Love is appreciation, which can
be expressed through gratitude, kind words, and especially through kind
thoughts, because unkind thoughts create unkind words which create
unkind actions, and everything begins with a thought. Love is an inner
happiness which you want to cultivate in someone else, and if you begin
to work at cultivating an inner happiness in someone else, you will
have it yourself. If you work to cultivate an inner happiness in
yourself, it doesn't work so well. That's a selfish approach, and you
are likely to bring up instinctive emotions and memories of the past,
especially of the bad things that happened in the past. In expressing
love, one has to be very careful to know that it is a building
situation, and be very careful not to indulge in unkind words, unkind
thoughts and sarcasm. Sarcasm is the first breakdown in relationships.
Trying to change another person's character is also disastrous to a
relationship. You have to accept everybody as they are. People change
by the example of other people. Children learn first by the example
people set for them. They follow that example -- they don't learn by
mere words in the beginning -- and that carries out all through life.
Everyone admires a hero; everyone needs a role model. So if you want to
change someone else, be a role model for him. Then he will become like
you eventually, but it takes time. Be forgiving, because love is also
forgiving. And be compassionate, for love is also compassionate, along
with showing gratitude and expressing appreciation.
Love says,
"I'm sorry." Love says, "Thank you." Love is also generosity, because
whomever you love you are generous toward. You have generosity; you
give and you give and you give and you give. And according to the great
law of karma, you can't give anything away but that it will
come back to you. If you give love, it comes back to you double, and
then you don't know what to do with that, so you give that away, and
that comes back double, and again you don't know what to do with that,
so you give that and it comes back double, and your whole family begins
to flourish. The community begins to flourish.
Out of all the
philosophies, out of all the psychological maneuverings and the
psychiatric analyses, the hope of the world is love. It will be a
wonderful day when all of us see that the hope of the world is love.
You will discover ways yourself to express love. Love is decorating the
home, bringing flowers into the home, arranging flowers in the home. It
is cooking a wonderful meal and serving it properly. Love is cleaning
and tidying up the home, bringing fresh air into the home so that those
who come into the home are uplifted simply by being in the home. Love
is taking care of the shrine room, bringing fresh water, fresh flowers
and lighting incense, polishing the Deities, keeping them bright and
shiny and dressing them in new clothing so that those who see and
receive the darshana are uplifted. There are many physical ways
we can express love. Love is bringing the whole family to the temple at
auspicious times. Love is meeting with the family daily, solving all
the little problems, sharing and talking and understanding each other's
minds and where they are in their consciousness. Love is being patient
with people who have problems until the problems go away by talking
them through. Love is respecting the elders. Love is also respecting
yourself, because unless you have self-respect, unless you respect
yourself, which means having a good self image, you will find it
difficult to respect others. And unless you love and respect others,
you will definitely have a hard time living in harmony with the world
around you.
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