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That disciple is considered to be pure, capable and
eligible for receiving the Siva initiation who never feels unhappy or
annoyed, who is nonviolent, merciful, ever vigilant, egoless, wise,
devoid of jealousy, sweet-tongued, simple-hearted, soft-spoken, pious,
modest, decisive, neat and clean, humble, righteous and devoted to Siva.
Chandrajnana Agama, Kriyapada, 2.78-81. BO CJ P. 22

Monday
LESSON 29
Shaucha: Purity
Purity, shaucha, number ten of the yamas,
is the outcome of restraining ourselves in all the other nine. Purity
is the natural heritage of men and women disciplined in mind and body,
who think before they speak, speaking only that which is true, kind,
helpful and necessary. People whose thoughts are pure -- and this means
being in line with the yamas and niyamas -- and whose bodies are free from incompatible alien obstructions, are naturally happy, content and ready to perform japa. Japa yoga
lifts the spiritual energies and annihilates pride and arrogance by
awakening within the superconscious areas of the mind an
extraterrestrial intelligence, far surpassing the ordinary intellect
one would encounter in the schools and universities of the present day.
To be pure in mind means to have a bright, luminous aura filled with
the pastel hues of the primary and secondary colors under every
circumstance and life situation. Those who practice this restraint have
realized that thoughts create and manifest into situations, actual
physical happenings. Therefore, they are careful what they think and to
whom they direct their thoughts.
A clean personal environment,
wearing clean clothes, bathing often, keeping the room spotless where
you meditate, breathing clean air, letting fresh air pass through your
house, is all very important in the fulfillment of purity. Shaucha
also includes partaking of clean food, which ideally is freshly picked
food, cooked within minutes of the picking. There are creative forces,
preservation forces and forces of dissolution. The preservation force
is in the continued growing of a fruit or a leafy vegetable. It reaches
its normal size and if not picked remains on the plant and is preserved
by the life of that plant. As soon as it is picked, the force of
dissolution, mumia, sets in. Therefore, the food should be cooked and eaten as soon after picking as possible, before the mumia force gets strong. Mumia, as
it causes the breakdown of the cells, is an impure force. When we
constantly eat food that is on the breakdown, the body is sluggish, the
mind is sluggish and the tongue is loose, and we say things we don't
mean. Many unhappy, depressed situations result from people eating a
predominance of frozen foods, processed foods, canned foods,
convenience foods, which are all in the process of mumia.
Clean
clothing is very important. One feels invigorated and happy wearing
clean clothing. Even hanging clothing out in the sunlight for five
minutes a day cleanses and refreshes it. An incredible amount of body
waste is eliminated through the skin and absorbed by the clothing we
wear. It is commonly thought that clothing does not need to be cleaned
unless it has been dirtied or soiled with mud, dirt or stains. Very
little concern is given to the body odors and wastes that are exuded
through the pores, then caught and held by the fabric. Small wonder
it's so refreshing to put on clean clothing. The sun and fresh air can
eliminate much of the body waste and freshen up any garment.
Tuesday
LESSON 30
Keeping Pure Surroundings
Cleaning the house is an act of purifying one's
immediate environment. Each piece of furniture, as well as the doorways
and the walls, catches and holds the emanations of the human aura of
each individual in the home, as well as each of its visitors. This
residue must be wiped away through dusting and cleaning. This regular
attentiveness keeps each room sparkling clean and actinic. Unless this
is done, the rooms of the home become overpowering to the consciousness
of the individuals who live within them as their auras pick up the old
accumulated feelings of days gone by. Small wonder that a dirty room
can depress you, and one freshly cleaned can invigorate.
In
these years, when both mother and father work in the outside world, the
house is often simply where they sleep and eat. But if a home receives
all of the daily attentions of cleaning it sparkly bright, both
astrally and physically, it becomes a welcoming place and not an empty
shell. The devas can live within a home that is clean and well
regulated, where the routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner is upheld,
where early morning devotionals are performed and respected, a home
which the family lives together within, eats together within, talks
together within, worships together within. Such a home is the abode of
the devas. Other kinds of homes are the abodes of asuric forces and disincarnate entities bound to Earth by lower desires.
It is very important that the samskaras are performed properly within a shaucha abode, particularly the antyeshti, or
funeral, ceremonies so as to restore purity in the home after a death.
Birth and death require the family to observe a moratorium of at least
thirty-one days during which they do not enter the temple or the shrine
room. Such obligatory ritual customs are important to follow for those
wishing to restrain their desires and perfect shaucha in body, mind and speech, keeping good company, keeping the mind pure and avoiding impure thoughts.
Purity
and impurity can be discerned in the human aura. We see purity in the
brilliancy of the aura of one who is restraining and disciplining the
lower instinctive nature, as outlined in these yamas and niyamas.
His aura is bright with white rays from his soul lightening up the
various hues and colors of his moods and emotions. Impure people have
black shading in the colors of their aura as they go through their
moods and emotions. Black in the aura is from the lower worlds, the
worlds of darkness, of the tala chakras below the muladhara.
Wednesday
LESSON 31
Wholesome Company
It is unfortunate that at this time in the Kali Yuga
there are more people on the Earth in important positions who have
risen into physical birth from the Narakaloka, the world of darkness,
than have descended from the Devaloka, the world of light. Therefore,
they are strong as they band together in anger, corruption, deceit and
contempt for the Devaloka people, who live in the chakras above the muladhara. It
is important for the Devaloka people to ferret out who is good company
and who is not. They should not presume that they can effect any
sustainable changes in the Narakaloka people. And they need to know
that the asuric people, bound in anger, greed, jealousy, contempt, covetousness and lust, can make and sustain a difference within the devonic
people, bringing them down into their world, torturing and tormenting
them with their callous, cruel and insensitive feelings. To sustain shaucha, it is important to surround oneself with good, devonic
company, to have the discrimination to know one type of person from
another. Too many foolish, sensitive souls, thinking their spirituality
could lift a soul from the world of darkness, have walked in where even
the Mahadevas do not tread and the devas fear to tread, only to
find themselves caught in that very world, through the deceit and
conniving of the cleverly cunning. Let's not be foolish. Let's
discriminate between higher consciousness and lower consciousness.
Higher-consciousness people should surround themselves with
higher-consciousness people to fulfill shaucha.
Changing
to a purer life can be so simple. You don't have to give up anything.
Just learn to like things that are better. That is the spirit of
purity. When you give up something because you think you should give it
up, that creates strain. Instead, search for a better life; search for shaucha. From tamasic eating we go to rajasic eating, and because sattvic food tastes better and makes us feel better, we also leave much of the rajasic food
behind. Are not all persons on this planet driven by desire? Yes,
indeed. Then let's redirect desire and let our desires perfect us. Let
us learn to desire the more tasty, sattvic foods, the more
sublime sounds the most perfect things we can see, more than the gross,
exciting and reprehensible, the desires for which will fade away when
we attach ourselves to something better. Let our desires perfect us.
The ultra-democratic dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness we can use as a New-Age goal and pursue the happiness of
something better than what we are doing now that is bad for us. Let's
go forward with the spirit of moving onward.
A devotee told
me, "I gave up coffee because coffee is a stimulant and a depressant. I
stopped eating meat because meat is a cholesterol-creating killer and
forest decimator." Another approach would be to give up coffee because
you have found a beverage that is better. Test all beverages. Some have
found that coffee gives you indigestion and green tea helps you digest
your food, especially oily foods and foods that remain in your stomach
undigested through the night. It also tastes good. Others have found
that freshly picked, nutritious vegetables, especially when cooked
within minutes of the picking, give more life and energy than eating
dead meat that has been refrigerated or preserved. Still others have
found that if you kill an animal and eat it fresh, it has more
nutritive value than killing it, refrigerating it, preserving it, then
cooking it to death again!
Be mature about it when you give
something up. The immature spiritual person will want everyone else to
give it up, too. The spiritually mature person quietly surrenders it
because it is simply his personal choice and then goes on with his
life. The spiritually immature person will make a big issue of giving
anything up and want everyone to know about it.
Thursday
LESSON 32
Hri: Remorse And Modesty
Hri, the first of the ten niyamas, or practices, is remorse: being modest and showing shame for misdeeds, seeking the guru's grace to be released from sorrows through the understanding that he gives, based on the ancient sampradaya, doctrinal lineage, he preaches. Remorse could be the most misunderstood and difficult to practice of all of the niyamas,
because we don't have very many role models today for modesty or
remorse. In fact, the role for imitation in today's world is just the
opposite. This is reflected in television, on film, in novels,
magazines, newspapers and all other kinds of media. In today's world,
brash, presumptuous, prideful -- that's how one must be. That's the
role model we see everywhere. In today's world, arrogant -- that's how
one must be. That's the role model we see everywhere. Therefore, to be
remorseful or even to show modesty would be a sign of weakness to one's
peers, family and friends.
Modesty is portrayed in the media
as a trait of people that are gauche, inhibited, undeveloped
emotionally or not well educated. And remorse is portrayed in the world
media as a characteristic of one who "doesn't have his act together,"
is unable to rationalize away wrongdoings, or who is not clever enough
to find a scapegoat to pin the blame on. Though modesty and remorse are
the natural qualities of the soul, when the soul does exhibit these
qualities, there is a natural tendency to suppress them.
But
let's look on the brighter side. There is an old saying, "Some people
teach us what to do, and other people teach us what not to do." The
modern media, at least most of it, is teaching us what not to do. Its
behavior is based on other kinds of philosophy -- secular humanism,
materialism, existentialism, crime and punishment, terrorism -- in its
effort to report and record the stories of the day. Sometimes we can
learn quite a lot by seeing the opposite of what we want to learn. The
proud and arrogant people portrayed on TV nearly always have their
fall. This is always portrayed extremely well and is very entertaining.
In their heart of hearts, people really do not admire the prideful
person or his display of arrogance, so they take joy in seeing him get
his just due. People, in their heart of hearts, do admire the modest
person, the truthful person, the patient person, the steadfast person,
the compassionate person who shows contentment and the fullness of
well-being on his face and in his behavioral patterns.
We Hindus who understand these things know that hri, remorse, is to be practiced at every opportunity. One of the most acceptable ways to practice hri,
even in today's society, is to say in a heartfelt way, "I'm sorry."
Everyone will accept this. Even the most despicable, prideful,
arrogant, self-centered person will melt just a little under the two
magic words "I'm sorry."
When apologizing, explain to the
person you hurt or wronged how you have realized that there was a
better way and ask for his forgiveness. If the person is too proud or
arrogant to forgive, you have done your part and can go your way. The
burden of the quandary you have put him into now lies solely with him.
He will think about it, justify how and why and what he should not
forgive until the offense melts from his mind and his heart softens. It
takes as much time for a hardened heart to soften as it does for a
piece of ice to melt in a refrigerator. Even when it does, his pride
may never let him give you the satisfaction of knowing he has forgiven
you. But you can tell. Watch for softening in the eyes when you meet, a
less rigid mouth and the tendency to suppress a wholesome smile.
Friday
LESSON 33
Body Language And Conscience
There is another way to show remorse for misdeeds. That is by performing seva,
religious service, for persons you have wronged. Give them gifts, cook
them food. Some people are unreachable by words, too remote for an
apology, which might even lead to an argument, and then the wrong would
perpetuate itself. Be extra polite to such people. Hold the door open
as they walk through. Never miss an opportunity to be kind and serve.
Say kind words about them behind their back. The praise must be true
and timely. Mere flattery would be unacceptable. This kind of silent
behavior shows repentance, shows remorse, shows that you have
reconsidered your actions and found that they need improvement, and the
improvement is shown by your actions now and into the future.
Often
people think that showing shame and modesty and remorse for misdeeds is
simply hanging your head. Well, really, anyone can do this, but it's
not genuine if the head is not pulled down by the tightening of the
strings of the heart, if shame is not felt so deeply that one cannot
look another in the eye. When the hanging of the head is genuine,
everyone will know it and seek to lift you up out of the predicament.
But just to hang your head for a while and think you're going to get
away with it in today's world, no. In today's world, people are a
little too perceptive, and will not admire you, as they will suspect
pretense.
There is an analogy in the Saivite tradition that
compares the unfolding soul to wheat. When young and growing, the
stalks of wheat stand tall and proud, but when mature their heads bend
low under the weight of the grains they yield. Similarly, man is
self-assertive, arrogant and vain only in the early stages of his
spiritual growth. As he matures and yields the harvest of divine
knowledge, he too bends his head. Body language has to truly be the
language of the body. It's a dead giveaway. Body language is the
language of the mind being expressed through the body. Let there be no
doubt about this. To cry, expressing remorse -- the crying should not
be forced. Many people can cry on cue. We must not think that the soul
of the observer is not perceptive enough to know the difference between
real tears and a glandular disturbance causing watering of the eyes.
Hri is regret that one has done things against the dharma,
or against conscience. There are three kinds of conscience -- one built
on right knowledge, one built on semi-right knowledge and one built on
wrong knowledge. The soul has to work through these three gridworks
within the subconscious mind to give its message. Those who have been
raised with the idea that an injustice should be settled by giving back
another injustice might actually feel a little guilty when they fail to
do this. Those who are in a quandary of what to do, what is right and
what is wrong, remain in confusion because they have only semi-right
knowledge in their subconscious mind.
We cannot confuse guilt
and its messages with the message that comes from the soul. Guilt is
the message of the instinctive mind, the chakras below the muladhara. Many
people who live in the lower worlds of darkness feel guilty and satisfy
that guilt through retaliation. This is the eye for an eye-for-an-eye,
tooth-for-a-tooth approach. This is not right conscience; it is not the
soul speaking. This is not higher consciousness, and it is certainly
not the inner being of light looking out of the windows of the chakras above the muladhara. Why, even domesticated animals feel guilty. It is a quality of the instinctive mind.
True conscience is of the soul, an impulse rushing through a mind that has been impregnated with right knowledge, Vedic, Agamic knowledge, or the knowledge that is found in these yamas and niyamas, restraints and practices. When the true knowledge of karma is understood, reincarnation, samsara and Vedic dharma,
then true remorse is felt, which is a corrective mechanism of the soul.
This remorse immediately imprints upon the lower mind the right
knowledge of the dharma -- how, where and why the person has
strayed and the methodology of getting quickly and happily back to the
path and proceeding onward. There is no guilt felt here, but there is a
sense of spiritual responsibility, and a driving urge to bring dharma,
the sense of spiritual duty, more fully into one's life, thus filling
up the lack that the misdeeds manifested through adhering to these
twenty restraints and practices and the Vedic path of dharma, which is already known within the bedrock of right knowledge, firmly planted within the inner mind of the individual.
Saturday
LESSON 34
Compensating For Misdeeds
The soul's response to wrong action comes of its own
force, unbidden, when the person is a free soul, not bound by many
materialistic duties -- even while doing selfless service -- which can
temporarily veil and hold back the spontaneous actions of the soul if
done for the expectant praise that may follow. The held-back,
spontaneous action of the soul would, therefore, burst forth during
personal times of sadhana, meditation or temple worship. The
bursting forth would be totally unbidden, and resolutions would follow
in the wake. For those immersed in heavy prarabdha karmas, going through a period of their life cycle when difficult karmic patterns
are manifesting, it will be found that the soul's spontaneity is
triple-veiled even though the subconscious mind is impregnated with
right knowledge. To gain absolution and release, to gain peace of mind,
one should perform pilgrimage, spiritual retreat, the practice of mauna, recitation of mantras through japa, deep meditation and, best of all, the vasana daha tantra. These practices will temporarily pierce the veils of maya and let the light shine in, bringing understanding, solutions and direction for future behavior.
Having
hurt another through wrongdoing, one has to pay back in proportion to
the injury, not a rupee less and not a rupee more. The moment the
healing is complete, the scar will mysteriously vanish. This is the
law. It is a mystical law. And while there are any remaining scars,
which are memories impregnated with emotion, much work has to be done.
Each one must find a way to be nice if he has been not nice, say kind
words if previous words have been unkind, issue forth good feelings if
the feelings previously exuded were nasty, inharmonious and
unacceptable. Just as a responsible doctor or nurse must bring the
healing to culmination, so the wrongdoer must deal with his wrongdoing,
his crime against dharma, his crime against right knowledge, Vedic-Agamic precepts, his crime against the yamas and niyamas, restraints and practices, which are in themselves right knowledge -- a digest of the Vedas, we might say. He must deal with his wrongdoings, his errors, within himself until rightness, santosha, returns.
There
are no magic formulas. Each one must find his own way to heal himself
and others until the troublesome situation disappears from his own
memory. This is why the practice called vasana daha tantra, writing
down memories and burning them in a fire to release the emotion from
the deep subconscious, has proven to be a solution uncomparable to any
other. Only in this way will he know that, by whatever method he has
applied, he has healed the one he wronged. True forgiveness is the
greatest eraser, the greatest harmonizer. It is this process of
misdeeds against dharma, followed by shame and remorse, as
people interrelate with one another, that moves them forward in their
evolution toward their ultimate goal of mukti.
The
Japanese, unlike most of the rest of the world, have a great sense of
loss of face, and a Japanese businessman will resign if he has shamed
his family or his country. This is hri and is very much
ingrained in the Japanese society, which is based on Buddhist precepts.
Buddhism itself is the outgrowth into the family community from a vast
monastic order; whereas Hinduism is a conglomerate of many smaller
religions, some of which are not outgrowths of a monastic community.
Therefore, hri is an integral part of the culture of Japan.
They have maintained this and other cultural precepts, as the Buddhist
monastic orders are still influential throughout Asia.
A
materialist who loses face smiles and simply puts on another mask and
continues as if nothing had ever happened. The saying goes, "Change
your image and get on with life." No shame, repentance or
reconciliation is shown by such people, as is so often portrayed on
American television, and much worse, as it actually happens all the
time in public life.
Sunday
LESSON 35
Humility, Shame And Shyness
The Hindu monastic has special disciplines in regard
to remorse. If he doesn't, he is an impostor. If he is seen struggling
to observe it and unable to accomplish it all the time, he is still a
good monastic. If he shows no remorse, modesty or shame for misdeeds
for long periods of time, even though he continues apparently in the
performance of no misdeeds, the abbot of the monastery would know that
he is suppressing many things, living a personal life, avoiding
confrontation and obscuring that which is obvious to himself with a
smile and the words, "Yes, everything is all right with me. The
meditations are going fine. I get along beautifully with all of my
brothers." You would know that this is a "mission impossible," and that
it is time to effect certain tests to break up the nest of the
enjoyable routine and of keeping out of everybody's way, of not
participating creatively in the entire community, but just doing one's
job and keeping out of trouble. The test would bring him out in the
open, into counseling sessions, so that he himself would see that his
clever pride had led him to a spiritual standstill. A monastery is no
place to settle down and live. It is a place to be on one's toes and
advance. One must always live as if on the eve of one's departure.
Another side of hri is
being bashful, shy, unpretentious. The undeveloped person and the fully
developed, wise person may develop the same qualities of being bashful,
shy, unpretentious cautious. In the former, these qualities are the
products of ignorance produced by underexposure, and in the latter,
they are the products of the wisdom or cleverness produced by
overexposure. Genuine modesty and unpretentiousness are not what actors
on the stage would portray, they are qualities that one cannot act out,
qualities of the soul.
Shyness used to be thought of as a
feminine quality, but not anymore, since the equality of men and women
has been announced as the way that men and women should be. Both
genders should be aggressive, forceful, to meet and deal with
situations on equal terms. This is seen today in the West, in the East,
in the North and the South. This is a fachade which covers the soul,
producing stress in both men and women. A basically shy man or woman,
feeling he or she has to be aggressive, works his or her way into a
stressful condition. I long ago found that stress in itself is a
byproduct of not being secure in what one is doing. But this is the
world today, at this time in the Kali Yuga. If everything that is
happening were reasonable and could be easily understood, it certainly
wouldn't be the Kali Yuga.
If people are taught and believe
that their spiritual pursuits are foremost, then, yes, they should be
actively aggressive -- but as actively passive and modest as well,
because of their spiritual pursuits. Obviously, if they are performing sadhanas,
they will intuitively know the proper timing for each action. Remorse,
or modesty, certainly does not mean one must divorce oneself from the
ability to move the forces of the external world, or be a wimpy kind of
impotent person. It does mean that there is a way of being remorseful,
showing shame, being humble, of resolving situations when they do go
wrong so that you can truly "get on with life" and not be bound by
emotionally saturated memories of the past. Those who are bound by the
past constantly remember the past and relive the emotions connected
with it. Those who are free from the past remember the future and move
the forces of all three worlds for a better life for themselves and for
all mankind. This is the potent Vedic hri. This is true remorse, humility and modesty. This is hri, which is not a weakness but a spiritual strength. And all this is made practical and permanent by subconscious journaling, vasana daha tantra, which releases creative energy and does not inhibit it.
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