Lesson 253 from Living with Siva What IsDharma? One of the great joys of Hinduism is dharma. What is dharma? Dharma is to the individual what its normal development is to a seed--the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature and destiny. Dharma means merit, morality, good conduct, religious duty and the way of life of the wise person. When people fulfill their dharma, they fulfill the very purpose of their life; and when they act against their dharma, they create new karmas. Just as we are born in a physical body with a certain outward appearance, our dharma is a certain accumulated pattern. We are expected to live through this dharma during a lifetime, understanding that all persons can be in their rightful place, doing their rightful dharma at the right time. The Hindu has this understanding. Its inbred. It offers a certain contentment in knowing that there is a rightful place for each soul in this vast universe. Dharma is determined by the accumulated patterns of karma, the samskaric reactions to the experiences of karma throughout all the past lives, the sum of impressions that make up the seeds yet to be sprouted, which must be worked out through prayer, meditation, sadhana or tapas if they are not beneficial, but allowed to sprout if they are beneficial. These seeds, all collected together, make up the dharma of each individual. There are some who do not yet have a precise dharma. They have not collected up into themselves enough merit or demerit. Their options are great. They are still making--through their actions--impressions within their own minds in order to gather them together, to firm up their own mind to form a dharma, to fall into a certain kind of pattern. Dharma is the heritage of all Hindus. It is working for the divine beings in the Second World and the Gods within the Third World. Hindu Dharma is working for the Gods, as opposed to working and living for our own personal wants and needs. Performing ones dharma properly is working in harmony with the divine plan of the universe, as laid out by the Gods. Working for the Gods, being their employee, their servant or their slave, and not working for ones personal self, must be the prime occupation in life, whether the Hindu is a farmer, merchant, soldier or a king, a peasant, a sadhu or a rishi. All work done in the right consciousness, performing the right dharma, is in service of the Gods and is work of the Gods by the servants of the Gods. Working for ones religion, for the Deities and the devas, should be our occupation twenty-four hours a day, every day, during our waking hours on the physical plane and on the inner astral plane and higher mental planes at night. We should continue this work with an unbroken continuity. To better understand the vast concept of dharma, look upon it as the natural process by which the inherent perfection of the soul is unfolded and realized. An acorns natural pattern is to grow into a mighty oak, but the pattern for a rose is different. An acorn will never try to become a rose bush. Our good friend, Sita Ram Goel, once said, Now I was made to see dharma as a multidimensional movement of mans inner law of being, his psychic evolution, his spiritual growth and his spontaneous building of an outer life for himself and the community in which he lives. In contrast, by performing an incorrect or adharmic pattern in life, the soul reaps more karma and is retarded for perhaps an entire lifetime. We call it righteousness and goodness and virtue when the dharma of a particular lifetime is performed correctly. Sutra 253 of the Nandinatha Sutras Unseemly Behaviors To Avoid Sivas devotees never utter words of falsehood or contempt before their satguru. Nor do they deceive him, address him as an equal, imitate his dress or deportment or speak excessively or pridefully in his presence. Aum. Lesson 253 from Merging with Siva What Is Meditation? Many seekers work or even struggle regularly with their meditations, especially those who are just beginning, How does one know if he is really meditating or not? Thats a question that a lot of people who meditate ask themselves. When you begin to know, having left the process of thinking, you are meditating at that point. When you sit down and think, you are beginning the process of meditation. For instance, if you read a metaphysical book, a deep book, and then sit quietly, breathe and start pondering what you have been reading, well, youre not quite meditating. Youre in a state called concentration. Youre organizing the subject matter. When you begin to realize the interrelated aspects of what you have read, when you say to yourself, Thats right. Thats right, when you get these inner flashes, the process of meditation has just begun. If you sustain this intensity, insights and knowledge will come from the inside of you. You begin to connect all of the inner flashes together like a string of beads. You become just one big inner flash. You know all of these new inner things, and one insight develops into another, into another, into another. Then you move into a deeper state, called contemplation, where you feel these beautiful, blissful energies flow through the body as a result of your meditation. With disciplined control of awareness, you can go deeper and deeper into that. So, basically, meditation begins when you move out of the process of thinking. I look at the mind as a traveler looks at the world. Himalayan Academy students have traveled with me all over the world, in hundreds of cities, in dozens of countries, as weve set up ashrams here and there on our Innersearch Travel/Study programs. Together we have gone in and in and in and in amid different types of environments, but the inside is always the same wherever we are. So, look at the mind as the traveler looks at the world. Just as you travel around the world, when youre in meditation you travel in the mind. We have the big city called thought. We have another big city called emotion. Theres yet another big city called fear, and another one nearby called worry. But we are not those cities. We are just the traveler. When were in San Francisco, we are not San Francisco. When were aware of worry, we are not worry. We are just the inner traveler who has become aware of the different areas of the mind. Of course, when we are aware in the thought area, we are not meditating. Were in the intellectual area of the mind. We have to breathe more deeply, control the breath more and move awareness out of the thought area of the mind, into that next inner area, where we begin to know. Such an experience supersedes thinking, and that is when meditation starts. Im sure that you have experienced that many, many times. Many people use meditation to become quieter, relaxed, or more concentrated. For them, that is the goal, and if that is the goal, that is what is attained, and its attained quite easily. However, for the deeper philosophical student the goal is different. Its the realization of the Self in this life. Meditation is the conveyance of mans individual awareness toward that realization. Each one, according to his evolution, has his own particular goal. If he works at it, he fulfills that goal. For example, a musician playing the piano might be satisfied with being able to play simple, easy tunes to entertain himself and his friends. Yet, another musician more ambitious in the fine arts might want to play Bach and Beethoven. He would really have to work hard at it. He would have to be that much more dedicated, give up that much of his emotional life, intellectual life and put that much more time into it. So it is in meditation.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 13:02:55 +0000
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