A Path of Love

We have been walking through the path of the many Saiva saints on our garden temple lands. Together we have looked back through history and seen real people living real lives, doing pragmatic things, sometimes foolish things, some even hurtful. There were workers among them, royalty, housewives, yogis, businessmen, a spiritual community divided by caste but with one thing only in common. They all loved Siva. That is their heritage. That is their message: that there is hope for all of us on this path to Siva, hope of attaining His grace. These men and women will be remembered as they were for thousands of years. On this path, you don't have to be a great rishior a highly trained yogi. You don't have to be a great philosopher. You don't have to know Sanskrit. Just love God, which is the Life of the life within everyone. And to realize that God is the Light of the light within everyone, you have to be very simple, very uncomplicated, so that obvious realization can manifest through your conscious mind, through your subconscious mind, through your superconscious mind.

It's very simple: the energy within our body is the same energy that pervades the universe, and it's all emanating right out of Lord Siva. It's very simple: the light that lights our thoughts, that light doesn't care -- it has no preferences -- whether it's a good thought or not a good thought. That light is illuminating every thought. Take away the thoughts, and you realize that you are just light.

The path of Saiva Siddhanta, as you all know, is a very simple path. It's the path of love, a path of devotion, which makes you want to be self-disciplined, because to maintain a feeling of love all the time, you have to be self-disciplined. You don't discipline yourself to attain the feeling of love. You attain the feeling of love and then you want to discipline yourself because you love the discipline, because it brings more love.

The path of Saiva Siddhanta is worshiping God on the outside and realizing God on the inside, and when the two come together -- transformation! That means that you're different than you were. You have different desires. You have different motivations, different goals in life, because you've been transformed. You look at your previous life and you say, "That's another person." Why? Because, you have found something real on the inside of you. Thoughts on the inside of you -- they're not real, they're always changing. Feelings on the inside of you -- they're not real, they're always changing. Siva on the inside of you is right there -- never changes. Those of you who hear the nada, it's the same inner sound, morning, noon and night, 365 days a year. The light that lights your thoughts, 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day, is the same. It lights up your dreams also. And the energy of your body -- all coming from Siva.

Siva is so close to you. The Nayanars, the saints of Tamil Saivism, teach us a great lesson. They did so much wrong, but they survived with just the love of Siva and maintained that love without anything getting in the way of it. Of course, if you love Siva, obviously you have to love everyone else. Love brings forgiveness. Love brings understanding. Love brings feeling.

All Saivites of the world love Siva. They all love each other, and they love the Vaishnavites, the Shaktas, the Smartas, the tribal Hindus and everyone in the world, because Siva's energy is working through everyone in the entire world -- plants, trees, animals, fish, birds. It's so simple. The object of the lesson is to make yourself a very simple, uncomplicated person.

 Aum Namah Sivaya.

[Extracted from Merging with Siva, Sivadarsanam Katham - How to realize God]

Preparations For True Yoga

We must live in the now to follow the path to enlightenment. In the lower realms of the mind, where time and space seem very real, we are worried about the past or concerned about the future. These two intermingle and limit conscious awareness. Living in the past or the future obstructs us in this way: the past, by reliving old experiences - mainly the negative ones, for they are vividly remembered -- clouds our vision of the future. Living in the future over-activates the intellect, the emotion and the desires. The future is little more than another form of mental fantasy. Past and future are equally unreal and a hindrance to spiritual unfolding. A person functioning in the now is in control of his own mind. He is naturally happier, more successful. He is performing every task with his fullest attention, and the rewards are to be seen equally in the quality of his work and the radiance of his face. He cannot be bored with anything he does, however simple or mundane. Everything is interesting, challenging, fulfilling. A person living fully in the now is a content person.

To attain even the permission to perform yoga one must have the grace of Lord Ganesha and the grace of Lord Murugan. Lord Murugan is the God of the kundalini, of the advanced yogic practices. Unfolding all happens within the kundalini and the chakras within our subtle bodies. Once a profound relationship is developed with Lord Murugan, then, with the guru's permission and guidance, true yoga may commence. Otherwise, no matter how long one sits in meditation, no matter how hard one tries, it is just sitting, it is just trying. There is no fire there, no shakti, no power, no change. It is the Gods who control the fire and at this stage help the devotee immensely, bringing him closer and closer to the supreme God, Siva. Quite often the yogi in his deep internalized state may see in vision the feet or form of God Siva before he begins to blend into the mind of God Siva, called Satchidananda. It is God and Gods in form, that help us to find the formless God.

[Extracted from: Merging with Siva, Sivadarsanam Katham- How to realize God]