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All set for the kindling of the sacred fire, we hymn
you, O Lord, with our verses, invoking your powerful grace. In your
praise, O Lord, who reach highest heaven, we compose our song, eager to
obtain your treasure divine!
Rig Veda 5.13.1-2. VE, P. 853

Monday
LESSON 316
The Boon of Prayer Writing
Shortly after the Kadavul Nataraja Deity arrived from
India at Kauai Aadheenam, our monastery-temple complex on the Garden
Island of Kauai, we received the wonderful boon of communicating with
the inner worlds through written prayers. With this six-foot-tall
bronze image of the Lord of Dance came tens of thousands of devas.
It was revealed to us that these devonic helpers, though unseen to the
physical eyes, are skilled in the art of fulfilling prayers. We were
delighted to know that written prayers could be offered into their
hands through the sacred fire that burns perpetually at Lord Nataraja's
holy feet. In those early days of the beginning of the first Siva
temple in the United States, we felt blessed that this magical boon had
come to us. Written prayers were offered up through the sacred temple
fire and soon answered. The faith began to build among the devotees.
The temple yantra was now fully activated.
But there
was a problem. Sometimes, in devotees' emotional fervor, prayers were
hastily scribbled out and could not be easily read. Seekers assumed
that their requests and pleas for help or solace would be known by the
Gods and devas who know them personally, and therefore they
were not careful enough in composing their prayers, some even
forgetting to sign their name or note the date. We soon learned that if
prayers were not answered, it might be simply due to incompleteness or
illegibility. We also became aware that sufficient explanation must be
given for the inner-plane helpers to provide adequate assistance.
Here
is why absolute clarity is necessary in each written prayer. The astral
image of each prayer that arrives in the Second World, or astral plane,
is an exact duplicate of its physical-plane counterpart, but not quite
as clear -- more like a carbon copy. So if the physical-plane original
is not clear, its astral counterpart will be even less clear. It will
be blurred, like trying to read a letter without one's eyeglasses. Even
the astral counterparts of typewritten documents prepared in small type
are difficult to read in the inner worlds, we were told.
To solve the problem of illegibility, the devas themselves gave a new script, which came through from the inner sky in Paris in the early '70s. The devas
called this script Tyeif. It is designed to look like bamboo leaves,
arranged in an intricate pattern to form 135 characters or "images,"
the first twenty-six of which correspond to the English alphabet. Here
is the word Tyeif written in the devas' script: tyeif
Writing
and delivering prayers to the Devaloka through the sacred fire is an
ancient Natha Sampradaya practice. Today this method of communication
is still employed in Shinto and Taoist temples in Japan, China,
Singapore, Malaysia and other areas of Southeast Asia. The prayers are
written down and placed in the temple fire. As the paper burns, the
astral double of the prayer appears in the Devaloka. The prayer is then
read by the devas, who proceed to carry out the devotee's requests. These temple devas are fully dedicated to assist all who come through the temple doors with their emotional, mental and physical problems.
It was made very clear to me, however, that prayers may only be sent to the Devaloka in a sanctified havana kunda where special arrangements have been made with the devas.
Tuesday
LESSON 317
Tantras of Communication
In our own Kailasa Parampara, there is a similar but
uniquely different example of direct communion between the inner worlds
and the outer. My guru's guru's guru's guru, known as the Rishi
from the Himalayas, sat for meditation in a tea shop in Bangalore,
South India, for seven years, never speaking a word or moving a muscle.
Devotees flocked to this extraordinary sage, and with them came the
normal quota of problems, questions, prayers and needs. Though they
only spoke these needs in their own private thoughts, they were
mystified by the way that answers came floating down on twisted-up
slips of paper, from an unseen source above the rishi's head.
Devotees would open up these messages to find the exact answers to
their unspoken questions. Our prayers burned in the sacred fire are
going in the opposite direction, and the answers are coming in more
subtle, indirect ways that become obvious as satisfaction is
experienced.
The knowledge of reincarnation, astral travel,
channeling messages from the departed, auras and oh-so-many other
psychic mysteries of the soul are an intrinsic part of the Western
world in this age of communication, just as these phenomena have been
an acknowledged part of life in the East since the dawn of mankind.
Communicating with the Gods and their devas, invoking, courting and keeping happy angels and devas in home shrines has been at the core of nearly every religion in the world ever since religions have existed.
Methods of communication with one's guardian devas,
their friends and associates and the Gods they so faithfully serve are
many: the Ouija board, automatic writing, materialization seances,
swinging pendulums, extracting knowledge from crystals, sending letters
and gifts through sacred temple fires, clairvoyance, clairaudience,
early-morning dreams, messages and predictions from entranced mediums,
the readings of subtle signs, interpreting the sounds of lizards and
crows, visiting psychic mentors, fortunetellers, palmists, astrologers,
priests and shamans, exorcism, revelation of knowledge from deep
meditation, and more. All of these are tantras of communication. A tantra is a method, preceded by learning, which often requires an initiation, but not always.
It
is no accident that you and I are together and you are reading this
book and have gotten this far. A great thought form and several devas
accompany this book which you are now holding. They have guided you to
it and are now with you, their inner mind and your inner mind
communicating as you continue to read. This highly charged book is
itself a doorway into the inner planes. Put it under your pillow when
you sleep at night. Study it through the day and absorb the inner
knowledge.
Wednesday
LESSON 318
How Prayers Are Answered
The Gods, their devas and your own guardian devas
are ever ready to respond to requests for help and guidance. You may
well ask, "How are prayers answered?" It is well known that religious
people have guardian devas, or angels, helping them through
their Earthly experience. Established families who have kept the
continuity of togetherness generation after generation court the same devonic
beings century after century in their home shrines. In our
technological age it is difficult to maintain this kind of togetherness
or to attend properly to the home shrine. Therefore, other means of
communication with the devonic guardians must be used.
Those who worship in Siva temples slowly gain acceptance into the devonic realms of the Gods, and one or two of the uncountable numbers of devonic
intelligences often return with the devotee to his home. When this
happens, the home immediately has within it the feeling of fullness. It
is these guardian devas who are the first to receive the
devotee's written prayers when they are transferred to the Devaloka
through the sacred fire. They read each prayer carefully. If they
cannot immediately respond, the prayer is given to a waiting dispatcher
along with some personal advice about the individual or the family from
their guardian deva. The dispatcher carries the prayer, along with the guardian deva's advice, to the group of devonic helpers who can best fulfill the request.
There are many groups of devas who sit in sangam
circles, communicating with one another through thought transference.
When they receive a prayer, read and understand it, through the power
of consensus their group mind begins the process of fulfillment. After
the prayer has been read and understood by each one present, it enters
their inner minds. When this happens, the solution, karmically proper, is revealed to all. One or several of the devas
is then seen to vanish from the group, on their way through inner space
to execute the request. Because Earth time and astral time are
different, the entire process takes about three Earth days from the
time the prayer is offered until the time that it is fulfilled.
These sangams of devas
configure themselves in circles of six, twelve, twenty-four and
thirty-six. They dispatch many kinds of requests, some business, some
health, some personal, some creative, some marital, some mental and
others emotional. There is a sangam circle of devas for literally every department of life. These sangams
service the needs of devotees in many temples and shrines in China,
Japan, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, India, Africa, North America, Europe and
other areas of our planet.
Before the Gods and devas
can respond to your request, they must examine a time line extending
ninety-nine years into the past and ninety-nine years into the future.
Then they divide the possible decisions into nine groups to choose
their course of helpfulness to your karmic pattern. Their duty is not to alter time or experience or to manipulate karmas, but to assist you in going through your natural karmas and to mitigate, nullify and soften the effects of karmas
of the past that touch you in the present, whether they be good, mixed
or bad. Therefore, it is important to delineate your state of mind as
you write your prayer.
The devas surrounding all Natha temples and shrines respond best to written requests. The Gods and devas do not normally read your thoughts -- only the thoughts directed to them -- and they never interfere in the natural karmas
of individuals who come into these places of worship. Hindus often say,
"God knows my need. He will fulfill it." This is generally true for
those who have sufficient mental prowess and intensity of thought, the
inner fire burning in the manipura chakra, in the heart chakra
and in the head. But in our day-to-day states of consciousness, it is
most fruitful to clearly and precisely let our thoughts be known
through the written word. This is the great boon the Natha temples have
to offer -- the direct, intricately concise, two-way communication
between this and the higher inner world.
Thursday
LESSON 319
Messages to Loved Ones
You may be wondering if you can send written prayers
in Tyeif to loved ones who have passed on to the inner world. The
answer is, yes, you can. Your guardian deva will hand the
prayer to the loved ones, relatives or close friends. They can be
communicated with. Through such prayers, many devotees who are feeling
badly about their behavioral patterns toward a departed member of their
family apologize for misdemeanors performed during their relative's
Earthly life. They make the apology by writing a letter in the magical
Tyeif script. It is received by a guardian deva and promptly
delivered. Everything happens quite efficiently and rapidly in the
inner world. In Japan and elsewhere in Asia not only are letters sent
to the departed, but many gifts as well are placed in the sacred fire
-- gifts such as automobiles made of cardboard, money, food and more.
The cardboard car and other items, when burned, will reappear in the
astral world.
Those who have recently given up their physical
bodies are easy to reach, because more often than not they are still
close to Earth consciousness and enjoy receiving communication from
loved ones in the form of written prayers. Souls who are well settled
in the inner world but who are nearly ready to reincarnate are also
easy to contact in this way. Souls who have attained mukti,
freedom from rebirth, but who are not yet ready to enter into higher
planes where they will no longer be involved with or communicate with
those in Earth consciousness -- because they have not yet finished
helping their devotees to attain their highest potential in this
lifetime -- will also receive friendly messages from their loved ones
on Earth. Many chelas communicate with their departed gurus in this way.
There is a vast inner network of devonic helpers, ever working, never sleeping. They are nourished on the pranas
of the most refined morsels of Siva consciousness. They never take time
out even to eat a meal. There is a continuity of consciousness in the
Devaloka that we do not experience in our earthly bodies. It is in the
world of the Gods and their devas that the mass consciousness is guided through its evolution -- the evolution of the maya
of the constant, interlaced action of creation, preservation and
dissolution. This mighty group of soldiers of the within, preceptors of
dharma, lords of karma, is ever active, available and ready to serve those who seek.
Sending
prayers into the inner world through the sacred fire is simply a means
of communicating with those powerful beings who do not possess a
physical body. Using the Tyeif script is as simple as writing then
mailing a letter, sending an e-mail or a fax. Through this means, you
can even communicate in Tyeif with someone living in a physical body in
a far-off place. They will receive your message from a dispatcher at
night when they are out of the physical body during sleep and conscious
on the astral plane. This is truly a magical way of reaching into the
inner world and contacting friends and relatives asleep at night in a
far-off place.
You are also an inner soul and can be seen by the devas in their world. They see you in your soul body. Psychic persons living in physical bodies can often see the devas.
Friday
LESSON 320
The Dharma Of Prayer
You may ask if the devas perform only good for us, and if they test us or punish us. All devas are under one of the Gods. When you write prayers to Lord Ganesha, some of His devas
go to work in finding a solution for you. It is the same for Lord
Murugan. Lord Siva is creator, preserver and destroyer of all that
exists, but He also has tens of hundreds of thousands of devas who serve His devotees. All Siva temples are ahimsa, benign. The temple devas
who answer prayers are those who represent only two of Siva's powers:
that of creation and that of preservation. The innocent requests, void
of malice toward others, are considered benign and acceptable. No
request is fulfilled for a bad thing to happen -- the death of an
enemy, the failure of one person so that another can succeed, the
displacement of a neighbor, the fall of business competitors, the
injury of those who have injured us, the death of an infidel, equal
retaliation for hurts received (the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth
philosophy). Any such retaliatory, hurtful, himsa request is automatically placed into another sacred homa fire in the inner world by the first deva who reads it and sent back to the sender in tongues of fire to his heart to stimulate the fire of tapas, to soften his heart and to lift this young soul into higher consciousness, out from the asuric
realms in which he lives. No, the Siva temple's sacred fires can never
be used for black magic, gray magic or the manipulation of other lives
for the personal benefit of one's own. Hurtfulness, himsa, is to be avoided, lest it stimulate the fires of tapas within the himsa advocate and begin a process of purification that one might not be quite ready for.
There is no need to fear tapas,
though it can be painful to see the malice wished on another come back
to oneself. This is Siva's mode of dissolution, a grace that burns away
ill will and brings about a softening of the heart. It is one's own
malice that must be faced and overcome and destroyed. When tapas
begins, it will burn off the accumulated dross from the wrongdoings of
many past lives and eventually lift the soul to higher consciousness.
This is why we call higher consciousness "Siva consciousness." But tapas is a painful process, one to be avoided by not wishing harm on another through the sacred fire.
You can gently purify yourself, while avoiding the burning fire of tapas, by following the disciplines of Saivite religious life and sadhana such as the yamas and niyamas, the pancha nitya karmas, scriptural study and other personal disciplines given by the Kailasa Parampara satgurus. These keep the fires of tapas only warm, not burning hot, and accomplish the same purpose over a prolonged period of time.
Saturday
LESSON 321
The Bamboo Tyeif Font
Several years ago we created a Tyeif font for the
computer, to make it easy to write legible prayers in Tyeif. On our
website, at www.HimalayanAcademy.comlws/, you can download the font and
also find out more about writing prayers. It is good for your powers of
concentration to learn to read the Tyeif script, but if you are using a
computer, this is not really necessary, unless you want to write Tyeif
by hand, which many do. The easiest way to compose your prayer on a
computer is to type in an English font, such as Geneva, and then select
the text and change it to the Tyeif font. Prayers written in Tyeif have
built-in confidentiality. You might leave a prayer to the devas on your desk. As few people read the Tyeif script readily, confidentiality is ensured.
Should
you be traveling and not have your computer with you, you can always
write your prayers in Tyeif the old-fashioned way, by hand. It is
artistic to use a soft flow pen, and even more artistic to use a
Japanese ink brush. If you want to be really modern, use a black,
sharp-pointed pen. The Tyeif script looks good coming from whatever
plume you choose. Many devotees enjoy writing Tyeif by hand in vertical
columns from top to bottom. When writing by hand, this is quite
acceptable. Always use black ink, never colors. Black translates to
white or gray in the inner world, where the prayer appears reversed.
The paper that is white becomes black, and the letters that are black
become white. It is only by two or three devas holding it and putting their pranas
into it that the prayer again becomes black on white as it appeared
when it was sent. They do this only when they want to keep the document
to study it. Many prayers are so simple that they can be easily
memorized as they appear on the black background in white ink, and it
is not worthwhile energizing them into a durable form.
If you
use colored paper and colored ink in writing your prayers, your words
could be unreadable, even using the Tyeif script. Colored paper appears
dark purplish-blue in the inner world, somewhat like the ashes of
burned paper, still intact, but barely legible, ready to disintegrate
at the first touch. Therefore, just sit down and write your prayer in
Tyeif with a black pen on white paper.
Typed documents -- on
one side of the page only -- are acceptable and easily read in the
inner world, as long as the size of the type is not too small.
Typewritten prayers (again, on one side of the page) in English or any
language are also acceptable to the devas, as are hand-printed
prayers that are written with well-rounded, clearly formed letters. Be
sure to sign the prayer and also include the date.
The writing
of prayers can be done in several ways. Each devotee can write his or
her own prayer about personal questions, needs or problems. One can
pray for another person, for a group of people, or for a situation to
clear up within a group or community, even for solutions to national or
world problems. Every prayer received is answered in some way, however
mysterious. Not one is neglected, ever.
The Gods and devas look very carefully into the karma
of the devotee before taking any action. Because of this, it is always
best to describe two or more alternatives that you would be satisfied
with in each prayer, rather than insisting on only one solution. This
is because your first preference may not be possible in your karmic
pattern or, without your knowing, it may actually be the worst possible
thing that could happen to you. In this case, your prayer would be
answered with a non-answer. Therefore, it is wise to suggest two or
more alternatives when making a request. For example, in seeking help
in finding employment, you might suggest three places you would be
content at, indicating first choice, second and third.
Sunday
LESSON 322
Guidelines For Prayers
We are reminded not to ask for services that the devas would normally provide, such as "Please help me," or "Please bless me, devas." These services are automatically performed by the guardian devas of each devout individual without asking. When not responding to requests, the devonic sangams send their pranas, with thoughts of help and healing, through the guardian devas of the devotee. They literally flood the guardian devas with pranas
to be used by them to glorify the home and protect their wards in daily
life in the physical world. This is a service given without asking. It
refers to the flow of pranic energy to the devotee, as opposed
to getting permission. To receive such blessings for yourself and to
receive blessings to start a project are two different things.
Devonic helpers often do know what a devotee needs, but they are admonished by the dharmic
law that requires that they must be asked before steps toward
fulfillment can be taken. They are controlled by the worthy law of
noninterference in the lives of those who do not pray. Prayer simply
means politely asking. This ancient law is: "The devotee must first
take one step toward the guru. Then the guru will take nine steps toward the devotee." Many guardian devas connected to the sangam groups of devas are inner-plane gurus of karma, and when asked they will fulfill their nine steps quite willingly and abundantly.
Clarity is essential for the devas
to fulfill the petitions to the lasting satisfaction of each devotee.
For complex issues, the explanations may need to be lengthy. Names and
addresses of the various parties involved should be included. Along
with your prayers, you can send typed documents, copies of contracts,
etc., to clarify the subject. In this way you can make sure that the
Gods and their devas are aware of the details of your prayer and understand your need fully.
Mail
or fax your prayers to a temple that knows how to handle prayers
through its sacred fire. At our temples we regularly receive and accept
prayers for the sacred fire from members of the Hindu religion, for
they have Hindu guardian devas who are prepared to help with their needs. Non-Hindus have guardian devas of other traditions and are not encouraged to write prayers to the Hindu devas.
Prayers for the sacred fire can be sent to Saiva Siddhanta Church,
Kadavul Hindu Temple, 107 Kaholalele Road, Kapaa, Hawaii, 96746-9304
USA. Write "prayer" on the outside of the envelope. All prayers are
absolutely confidential, never read by the temple priests. It is
traditional to give a gift of gratitude if a prayer is answered to your
satisfaction, but not before. If you feel inclined to send a love
offering with your prayers, for previous prayers answered, be sure to
keep it outside the sealed envelope containing your prayers, as that
will be placed into the sacred fire unopened.
One word of caution: it would be weakening to depend entirely on the inner-world devas
to do everything for you. There are many, many things that you can do
yourself to overcome difficulties and carve a positive future. They
say, "When the will rises and commands, even the Gods are willing to
obey." You have to use your willpower first, and try your very best to
do the very best that you can. Then you get all the devonic help
available. Don't just send in prayers and say, "Live my life for me,
inner-world beings. I am not going to do anything. I will just sit
back, put my feet up and let you do everything for me." It does not
work that way.
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