The Master CourseThe lesson of the day from Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's trilogy: Dancing with Siva, Living with Siva and Merging with Siva |
Lesson 146Sloka 146 from Dancing with SivaWhat Are Saiva Siddhanta's Two Schools?There are two Saiva Siddhanta schools: pluralistic theism, in the lines of Aghorasiva and Meykandar, and Tirumular's monistic theism. While differing slightly, they share a religious heritage of belief, culture and practice. Aum.BhashyaHere we compare the monistic Siddhanta of Rishi Tirumular that this catechism embodies and the pluralistic realism expounded by Meykandar and his disciples. They share far more in common than they hold in difference. In South India, their points of agreement are summarized as guru, preceptor; Linga, holy image of Siva; sanga, fellowship of devotees; and valipadu, ritual worship. Both agree that God Siva is the efficient cause of creation, and also that His Shakti is the instrumental cause. Their differences arise around the question of material cause, the nature of the original substance, whether it is one with or apart from God. They also differ on the identity of the soul and God, evil and final dissolution. While monistic theists, Advaita Ishvaravadins, view the 2,200-year-old Tirumantiram as Siddhanta's authority, pluralists, Anekavadins, rely mainly on the 800-year-old Aghorasiva Paddhatis and Meykandar Shastras. The Tirumantiram inquires: "Who can know the greatness of our Lord? Who can measure His length and breadth? He is the mighty nameless Flame of whose unknown beginnings I venture to speak." Aum Namah Sivaya.Lesson 146 from Living with SivaMarital HarmonyOne might ask about the traditional role of the husband as guru of the wife, whether he should give in equally to her views when difficulties arise or expect most of the compromise to come from her. In the ideal of the husband's being the guru in the family, the word guru simply means teacher. So, to be a guru in the household means that he is a very religious, knowledgeable, understanding, humble husband who is kind, honest and respected in the community as an exemplar. Otherwise, the ideal of family guru does not apply, and more of a partnership arrangement between spouses is the default in today's world.People are held in bondage in many ways--physical bondage, emotional bondage, intellectual bondage. In India's Hinduism, unfortunately, as in many other societies on the Earth, disproportionate numbers of women are still not educated, while the men more often are. Therefore, the woman is held in intellectual bondage, sometimes not even being able to count to a hundred and only being able to, and expected to, gossip in the marketplace and bargain for food. Naturally she would follow the religion of her husband. Naturally she would also depend on him fully for guidance in all other matters, financial and otherwise. But times have now changed, and many Hindu women have been educated and can formulate their own opinions through the reasoning processes of their own minds, talk intelligently among themselves and arrive at pragmatic conclusions. The guru-disciple relationship does not exist in marriages of this kind. She does not need to learn anything from her husband. In most cases she has sufficient skills to be financially independent. Therefore, the relationship is not that of a guru and student, but is more like a business partnership, the fourth type of marriage. Their business is birthing children and raising them to be good citizens, maintaining a harmonious home by reconciling differences before sleep, even if they are reconciled a few hours after dawn, maintaining the family budget, paying all of the bills on time, saving for their children's higher level of education, seeing to the children's being settled in a life of their own, paying off the mortgage on the house, preparing for retirement, seeing to the spiritual upliftment of the community by contributing to the local temple society, maintaining a shrine room in their home, and hiring a local priest to perform house ceremonies and certain samskaras within the home. To fulfill all of this, a fair, professional attitude toward one another must be maintained. Professional people in large corporations do not argue endlessly before reconciliation, nor do they undermine each other, lest they soon find themselves looking for another place of employment. Divorce in this modern time is like being dismissed, fired, and then the search is on for another partner with whom the same unresolved karma will finally mature. This is because we are born with certain prarabdha karmas to be lived through, if not with one person, then with a surrogate. The way to avoid creating new kriyamana karmas is to face up to the karmas with the first spouse rather than with a second, third or fourth, which would create a kukarma, or bad karma, mess along the way to be later cleaned up, if not in this life, then hopefully in the next life. It is said that the wife should see the husband as Siva and he should see her as Shakti, which is often misconstrued as putting him in a superior position. The only up-down situation is the educated husband married to an illiterate wife, yet even here the relationship should be one of love and mutual respect. Siva and Shakti are totally and equally interrelated as far as Saiva Siddhanta philosophy is concerned, and cannot exist without one another. Therefore, is the husband Siva, and is she Shakti? It's a yes and no answer. In Saiva Siddhanta, Siva and Shakti are two aspects of a one Being, Siva being the unmanifest Absolute and Shakti being the manifest Divinity. If the wife is as capable as the husband in the external world and the intellectual world, emotional world and physical world, there is no up-down relationship between them, and they are Siva and Shakti, absolutely equal. The old system of male dominance originated in early human societies when physical strength--for war, hunting and heavy muscular effort--was a prime survival factor. It was perpetuated as the way of life in villages of preindustrial India, Europe and early America, where the man received the education and the woman, as a rule, did not. To apply this system in today's sophisticated technological societies would be to plant the seedlings of the destruction of the marriage. Sutra 146 of the Nandinatha SutrasGrowing Up In The Family OccupationSiva's followers abide by the tradition of bringing sons and daughters into the family skills, profession or business by involving them from a young age. This is family dharma, family bonding, family perpetuation. Aum.Lesson 146 from Merging with SivaHow Bhakti Is CultivatedOnce a person rises in consciousness out of the chakras below the muladhara, and the foundation of bhakti has been laid, then going into refined states of mind through meditation becomes easy. This is because devotion has removed the barriers. Those who love each other can communicate easily. The devotee who has reverence for a temple and devotion for the Gods within it can communicate easily with those Gods. Bhakti yoga is love on all levels of consciousness--physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Bhakti yoga makes us feel good. When in a state of bhakti yoga--yoked with the Divine through love--meditation is natural, and one can "soar within" with ease. There are no barriers where love is concerned. The greatest inhibiting factor in practicing bhakti yoga is the doubting, cynical, intellectual mind. Doubt and skepticism harden the heart and narrow the mind. People in this state cannot really become devotees until their heart softens and their tense intellect relaxes. They must fulfill the sadhana of reconciliation, which is to go before each person they know and worship that person as a God. This sadhana is done in meditation. The devotee has to meet each one by bringing up the person's face before him and sending kind thoughts and blessings of prana. This must be done time and time again until love comes into the heart for each of them. Only after this sadhana has been accomplished will bhakti begin to bloom in the heart. The bloom of bhakti softens the heart and relaxes the intellect. When you have the energy of bhakti, of love, flowing through your body, meditation is easy. You don't have to go through the preliminaries. You are already functioning in the higher chakras. The bhakti experience takes the pranas into the higher chakras from the lower chakras. But if you are living in the consciousness of personal, communal, national or international antagonism, entering meditation will be difficult. All the preliminaries will have to be carefully gone through--pranayama, deep concentration, the lifting of the pranas into the heart and throat chakras, etc. Then slowly the internal bhakti is complete, and the vibration of love begins to be felt. This is time-consuming. The Saiva Siddhantin finds it much easier to do this preliminary work in the temple through the externalized yoga of bhakti, rather than trying to internalize the bhakti and lift the pranas while seated in lotus position, which is time-consuming and not as enjoyable. Whereas, to lift the energies from the lower chakras to the higher chakras through performing bhakti yoga in the temple during worship is easy, natural, and considered by the Siddhantist as being a pure joy. The best way to learn bhakti yoga is to choose the finest bhaktar among your religious group and emulate him. You can read about bhakti yoga, understand it intellectually and learn what it is supposed to do for you. That is fine. But to progress on the path up the spine, it is necessary to be a part of a religious group. The group helps the individual, and the individual helps the group. There are nearly always one or two real bhaktars within every religious group. Therefore, to learn bhakti yoga, emulate one of them. This, in itself, is forgetting yourself, as you copy another person's actions and attitudes. True, the person you choose may not measure up to your standards in other areas of life. But if in approaching the Deity, he shows true humility, patience and total surrender, be like him. If you join another Hindu group, visit another temple or satsanga group, pick out a true bhaktar there and emulate him or her as well. This is the way to learn bhakti yoga. Vegetarianism is an essential for the bhakti yogi, as is proper personal, cultural conduct in all matters of society. Saivite culture and a consistent lifestyle keep the bhakti yogi always reminded of the Divine within the universe and within himself. Those who have no barriers to love find it is easy to see God in everyone. |
Click for details on Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami's next mission, so you can meet him. These daily Master Course lessons are drawn from Gurudeva's 3,000 page trilogy on Hindu philosophy, culture and metaphysics, available in the full-color volumes of Dancing, Living and Merging with Siva at our Minimela online store.
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