Summary
Maintain honesty, renouncing deception and wrongdoing. Act honorably even in hard times. Obey the laws of your nation and locale. Pay your taxes. Be straightforward in business. Do an honest day’s work. Do not bribe or accept bribes. Do not cheat, deceive or circumvent to achieve an end. Be frank with yourself. Face and accept your faults without blaming them on others.
Explanation
Honesty, Årjava , is the eighth yama. The most important rule of honesty is to be honest to oneself, to be able to face up to our problems and admit that we have been the creator of them. To be able to then reason them through, make soulfully honest decisions toward their solutions, is a boon, a gift from the Gods. To be honest with oneself brings peace of mind. Those who are frustrated, discontent, are now and have been dishonest with themselves. They blame others for their own faults and predicaments. They are always looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame
something on. To deceive oneself is truly the ultimate of wrongdoing. To deceive oneself is truly ignorance in its truest form. Honesty begins within one’s own heart and soul and works its way out from there into dealing with other people. Polonius wisely said in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “This above all: to your own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, you cannot then be false to any man.”
The adage, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say” should be heard again and again by the youth, middleaged and elderly alike. Sir Walter Scott once said, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Mark Twain observed, “The advantage of telling the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you said.” Another philosopher, wise in human nature,noted, “You can watch a thief, but you cannot watch a liar.” To be deceptive and not straightforward is thieving time from those you are deceiving. They are giving you their heart and mind, and you are twisting their thoughts to your own selfish ends, endeavoring to play them out, to take what they have, in favors or in kind, for your personal gain.
Deception is the cruelest of acts. A deceptive person is an insidious disease to society. Many parents, we are told, teach their children to be deceptive and cunning in order to get on in the world. They are not building good citizens. They are creating potential criminals who will eventually, if they perfect the art, ravage humankind. To be straightforward is the solution, no matter how difficult it is. To show remorse, be modest and show shame for misdeeds is the way to win back the faith, though maybe not the total trust, and a smidgen of respect from those who have discovered and exposed your deception. Årjava is straightness with neighbours, family and with your government. You pay your taxes. You observe the laws. You don’t fudge, bribe, cheat, steal or participate in fraud and other forms of manipulation.
Bribery corrupts the giver, the taker and the nation. It would be better not to have, not to do, and to live the simple life, if bribery were the alternative. To participate in bribery is to go into a deceptive, illegal partnership between the briber and the bribed. If and when discovered, embarrassment no end would fall on both parties involved in the crime, and even if not discovered, someone knows, someone is watching, your own conscience is watching. There is no law in any legal code of any government that says bribery is acceptable.
There are those who feel it is sufficient to be honest and straightforward with their friends and family, but feel justified to be dishonest with business associates, corporations, governments and strangers. These are the most despicable people. Obviously they have no knowledge of the laws of karma and no desire to obtain a better, or even a similar, birth. They may experience several abortions before obtaining a new physical body and then be an unwanted child. They may suffer child abuse, neglect, beatings, perhaps even be killed at a young age. These two-faced persons—honest to immediate friends and relatives, but dishonest and deceptive
and involved in wrongdoings with business associates and in public life—deserve the punishment that only the lords of karma are able to deal out. These persons are training their sons and daughters to be like themselves and pull down humanity rather than uplift mankind.
Honesty in Monastic Life
We can say that sâdhakas, yogîs and swâmîs upholding their vows are the prism of honesty. The rays of their auras radiate out through all areas of life. They are the protectors, the stabilizers, the uplifters, the consolers, the sympathizers. They have the solution to all human problems and all human ills, or they know where to find those solutions, to whom to go or what scripture to read. To be a sâdhaka, yogî or swâmî, honesty is the primal qualification, yes, primal qualification— honesty, ârjava. No satguru would accept a monastic candidate who persists in patterns of deception, wrongdoing and outright lies and who shows no shame for misdeeds.
Human relations, especially the guru-disciple relationship, derive their strength from trust, which each shares and expresses. The breaking of the yama of ârjava is the severing of that trust, which thereby provokes the destruction or demise of the relationship. When the relationship falls into distrust, suspicion, anger, hate, confusion and retaliation, this gives birth to argument.
Countries that have weak leadership and unstable governments that allow wrongdoing to become a way of life, deception to be the way of thinking, are participating in dividing the masses in this very way. People begin to distrust one another. Because they are involved in wrongdoing, they suspect others of being involved in wrongdoings. People become angry because they are involved in wrongdoing. And finally the country fails and goes into war or succumbs to innumerable internal problems. We see this happening all over the world. A strong democratic country is constantly showing up politicians who take bribes and presidents who are involved in deception and wrongdoing, who set a poor example for the masses as to how things should be. Higher-consciousness governments are able to maintain their economy and feed their people. Lower-consciousness governments are not.
Even large, successful corporate monopolies deem honesty as the first necessary qualification for an employee. When his deception and wrongdoing are discovered, he is irrevocably terminated. There are many religious organizations today that have deceptive, dishonest people within them who connive wrongdoings, and these religious groups are failing and reaping the rewards of failing through loss and confusion. It is up to the heads of those organizations to weed out the deceptive, corruptive, virus-like persons to maintain the spirituality and fulfill the original intent of the founders.
Årjava could well be interpreted as simplicity, as many commentators have done. It is easier to remember the truth than remember lies—white lies, gray lies or black lies. It is easier to be straightforward than conniving and deceptive, dishonest. A simple life is an honest life. An honest life is a simple life. When our wants which produce our needs are simple, there is no need to be deceptive or participate in wrongdoing. It’s as simple as that. Årjava means not complicating things, not ramifying concerns and anxieties. This is to say, when a situation occurs, handle the situation within the situation itself. Don’t use the emotion involved in the situation to motivate or manipulate for personal gain in another situation. Don’t owe people favors, and don’t allow people to owe you favors. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, and do deliver what you promise. This is the Sanâtana Dharma way. If the neo-Indian religion is teaching differently, pay no attention. It is all political, and it has no kinship to dharma.
Bless and Love. Om Shanti.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
How to Lead a Spiritual Life ? Seventh Principle of Yamas : Compassion - Dayâ
Summary
Practice compassion, conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings. See God everywhere. Be kind to people, animals, plants and the Earth itself. Forgive those who apologize and show true remorse. Foster sympathy for others’ needs and suffering. Honor and assist those who are weak, impoverished, aged or in pain. Oppose family abuse and other cruelties.
Explanation
Daya, compassion, is the seventh yama. Sometimes it is ki nd to be cruel, and at other times it is cruel to be ki nd. This statement has come forward from religion to religion, generation to generation. Compassion tempers all decisions, gives clemency, absolution, forgiveness as a boon even for the most heinous misdeeds. This is a quality built on steadfastness. Dayâ comes from deep sâdhana, prolonged santosha, contentment, scriptural study and listening to the wise. It is the outgrowth of the unfolded soul, the maturing of higher consciousness. A compassionate person transcends even forgiveness by caring for the suffering of the person he has forgiven. The compassionate person is like a God. He is the boon-giver. Boons, which are gifts from the Gods, come unexpectedly, unasked-for. And so it is with the grace of a compassionate person.
A devotee asked, “What should we think about those who are cruel toward creatures, who casually kill flies and step on cockroaches?” Compassion is defined as conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings. A compassionate person would tell a plant verbally if he was going to pick from it, intuiting that the plant has feelings of its own. A compassionate person would seek to keep pests away rather than killing them. A callous person would tear the plant up by its roots. A cruel person would, as a child, pull one wing off a fly and, unless corrected, mature this cruelty on through life until he maimed a fellow human. Compassion is just the opposite to all this.
When we find callous, cruel and insensitive people in our midst, we should not take them into our inner circles,but make them feel they must improve before admittance onto the spiritual path. Compassion is the outgrowth of being forgiving. It is the outgrowth of truthfulness, and of noninjury. It is a product of asteya, of brahmacharya and of kshamâ. It is, in fact, higher consciousness, based in the visuddha chakra of divine love.
One can’t command compassion. Before compassion comes love. Compassion is the outgrowth of love. Love is the outgrowth of understanding. Understanding is the outgrowth of reason. One must have sufficient memory to remember the various points of reason and enough willpower to follow them through to be able to psychically look into the core of existence to gain the reverence for all life, all living organisms, animate or inanimate.Compassion is a very advanced spiritual quality. When you see it exhibited in someone, you know he is very advanced spiritually—probably an old soul. It really can’t be taught. Dayâ goes with ânanda. Compassion and bliss are a one big package.
What is the difference between ahiμsâ and dayâ, compassion, one might ask? There is a distinct difference. Not harming others by thought, word or deed is a cardinal law of Hinduism and cannot be avoided, discarded, ignored or replaced by the more subtle concept of compassion. Ahimsâ, among the yamas and niyamas, could be considered the only explicit commandment Hinduism gives. Compassion comes from the heart, comes spontaneously. It is a total flow of spiritual, material, intellectual giving, coming unbidden to the receiver.
Compassion by no means is foolishness or pretense. It is an overflowing of soulfulness. It is an outpouring of spiritual energy that comes through the person despite his thoughts or his personal feelings or his reason or good judgment. The person experiencing compassion is often turned around emotionally and mentally as he is giving this clemency, this boon of absolution, despite his own instinctive or intellectual inclinations. This is a spiritual outpouring through a person. Rishi Tirumular used the word arul for this yama. Arul means grace in the ancient Tamil language.
A devotee once e-mailed me, saying, “Recently I was going through some suffering and had bad thoughts and bad feelings for those who caused that suffering. Now that I’m feeling better, can I erase those bad thoughts and feelings?” Thoughts and bad feelings you have sent into the future are bound to come back to you. But, yes, you can mitigate and change that karma by being extra-special nice to those who abused you, hurt you or caused you to have bad thoughts and feelings against them. Being extra-special nice means accepting them for who they are. Don’t have critical thoughts or try to change them. Have compassion. They are who they are, and only they can change themselves. Be extra-special nice. Go out of your way to say good words, give a gift and have good feelings toward them.
Bless Love and Peace. Om Shanti.
Practice compassion, conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings. See God everywhere. Be kind to people, animals, plants and the Earth itself. Forgive those who apologize and show true remorse. Foster sympathy for others’ needs and suffering. Honor and assist those who are weak, impoverished, aged or in pain. Oppose family abuse and other cruelties.
Explanation
Daya, compassion, is the seventh yama. Sometimes it is ki nd to be cruel, and at other times it is cruel to be ki nd. This statement has come forward from religion to religion, generation to generation. Compassion tempers all decisions, gives clemency, absolution, forgiveness as a boon even for the most heinous misdeeds. This is a quality built on steadfastness. Dayâ comes from deep sâdhana, prolonged santosha, contentment, scriptural study and listening to the wise. It is the outgrowth of the unfolded soul, the maturing of higher consciousness. A compassionate person transcends even forgiveness by caring for the suffering of the person he has forgiven. The compassionate person is like a God. He is the boon-giver. Boons, which are gifts from the Gods, come unexpectedly, unasked-for. And so it is with the grace of a compassionate person.
A devotee asked, “What should we think about those who are cruel toward creatures, who casually kill flies and step on cockroaches?” Compassion is defined as conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings. A compassionate person would tell a plant verbally if he was going to pick from it, intuiting that the plant has feelings of its own. A compassionate person would seek to keep pests away rather than killing them. A callous person would tear the plant up by its roots. A cruel person would, as a child, pull one wing off a fly and, unless corrected, mature this cruelty on through life until he maimed a fellow human. Compassion is just the opposite to all this.
When we find callous, cruel and insensitive people in our midst, we should not take them into our inner circles,but make them feel they must improve before admittance onto the spiritual path. Compassion is the outgrowth of being forgiving. It is the outgrowth of truthfulness, and of noninjury. It is a product of asteya, of brahmacharya and of kshamâ. It is, in fact, higher consciousness, based in the visuddha chakra of divine love.
One can’t command compassion. Before compassion comes love. Compassion is the outgrowth of love. Love is the outgrowth of understanding. Understanding is the outgrowth of reason. One must have sufficient memory to remember the various points of reason and enough willpower to follow them through to be able to psychically look into the core of existence to gain the reverence for all life, all living organisms, animate or inanimate.Compassion is a very advanced spiritual quality. When you see it exhibited in someone, you know he is very advanced spiritually—probably an old soul. It really can’t be taught. Dayâ goes with ânanda. Compassion and bliss are a one big package.
What is the difference between ahiμsâ and dayâ, compassion, one might ask? There is a distinct difference. Not harming others by thought, word or deed is a cardinal law of Hinduism and cannot be avoided, discarded, ignored or replaced by the more subtle concept of compassion. Ahimsâ, among the yamas and niyamas, could be considered the only explicit commandment Hinduism gives. Compassion comes from the heart, comes spontaneously. It is a total flow of spiritual, material, intellectual giving, coming unbidden to the receiver.
Compassion by no means is foolishness or pretense. It is an overflowing of soulfulness. It is an outpouring of spiritual energy that comes through the person despite his thoughts or his personal feelings or his reason or good judgment. The person experiencing compassion is often turned around emotionally and mentally as he is giving this clemency, this boon of absolution, despite his own instinctive or intellectual inclinations. This is a spiritual outpouring through a person. Rishi Tirumular used the word arul for this yama. Arul means grace in the ancient Tamil language.
A devotee once e-mailed me, saying, “Recently I was going through some suffering and had bad thoughts and bad feelings for those who caused that suffering. Now that I’m feeling better, can I erase those bad thoughts and feelings?” Thoughts and bad feelings you have sent into the future are bound to come back to you. But, yes, you can mitigate and change that karma by being extra-special nice to those who abused you, hurt you or caused you to have bad thoughts and feelings against them. Being extra-special nice means accepting them for who they are. Don’t have critical thoughts or try to change them. Have compassion. They are who they are, and only they can change themselves. Be extra-special nice. Go out of your way to say good words, give a gift and have good feelings toward them.
Bless Love and Peace. Om Shanti.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
How to Lead a Spiritual Life ? Sixth Principle of Yamas : Steadfastness - Dhriti
Summary
Foster steadfastness, overcoming non perseverance, fear, indecision and changeableness. Achieve your goals with a prayer, purpose, plan, persistence and push. Be firm in your decisions. Avoid sloth and procrastination. Develop willpower, courage and industriousness. Overcome obstacles. Never carp or complain. Do not let opposition or fear of failure result in changing strategies.
Explanation
Steadfastness , dhriti , is the sixth yama . To be steadfast, you have to use your willpower. Willpower is developed easily in a person who has an adequate memory and good reasoning faculties. To be steadfast as we go through life, we must have a purpose, a plan, persistence and push. Then nothing is impossible within the circumference of our prârabdha karmas.
It is impossible to be steadfast if we are not obeying the other restraints that the ®ishis of the Himalayas laid down for us as the fruits of their wisdom. All of these restraints build character, and dh®iti, steadfastness, rests on the foundation of good character. Character—the ability to “act with care”—is built slowly, over time, with the help of relatives, preceptors and good-hearted friends. Observe those who are steadfast. You will learn from them. Observe those who are not, and they, too, will teach you. They will teach what you should not do. To be indecisive and changeable is not how we should be on the path to enlightenment, nor to be
successful in any other pursuit. Nonperseverance and fear must be overcome, and much effort is required to accomplish this. Daily sâdhana, preferably under a guru’s guidance, is suggested here to develop a spiritual will and intellect.
In the Íândilya Upanishad, dh®iti has been described as preserving firmness of mind during the period of gain or loss of relatives. This implies that during times of sorrow, difficult karmas, loss and temptation, when in mental pain and anguish, feeling alone and neglected, we can persevere, be decisive and bring forth the dh®iti strength within us and thus prevail. One translator of the Varuha Upanishad used the word courage to translate dh®iti. Courageous and
fearless people who are just and honest prevail over all karmas— benevolent, terrible and confused. This virtue is much like the monk’s vow of humility, part of which is enduring
hardship with equanimity, ease of mind, which means not panicking. The Tirukural reminds us, “It is the nature of asceticism to patiently endure hardship and to not harm living creatures” (261). And we can say that dh®iti itself is a “hardship”—a ship that can endure and persevere on its course even when tossed about on the waves of a turbulent sea.
Some might wonder why it is good to passively endure hardship. To persevere through hardship one must understand, as all Hindus do, that any hardship coming to us we ourselves participated in setting into motion in the past. To endure hardship and rise above it in consciousness is to overcome that karma forever. To resent hardship, to fight it, is to have it return later at a most inconvenient time.
An essential part of steadfastness is overcoming changeableness. Changeableness means indecision, not being decisive, changing one’s mind after making a deliberate, positive decision. Changing one’s mind can be a positive thing, but making a firm, well-considered decision and not following it through would gain one the reputation of not being dependable, even of being weak-minded. No one wants a reputation like this.
How can we discriminate between this and the strength of a person who changes his or her mind in wisdom because of changes of circumstance? A person who is changeable is fickle and unsure of himself, changing without purpose or reason. Dh®iti, steadfastness, describes the mind that is willing to change for mature reasons based on new information but holds steady to its determinations through thick and thin in the absence of such good reasons. Its decisions are based on wise discrimination. A person who is patient and truthful, who would not harm others by thought, word or deed and who is compassionate and honest has the strong nature of one who is firm in dh®iti, steadfastness. He is the prevailer over obstacles. One firm in dh®iti can be leaned upon by others, depended upon. He is charitable, has faith in God, Gods and guru, worships daily and manifests in his life a spiritual will and intellect. In relaxed moments he experiences santosha, contentment, not being preoccupied by feelings of responsibility, duty or things left undone.
The spiritual path is a long, enduring process. It does not reach fruition in a year or two years. The spiritual path brings lots of ups and downs, and the greatest challenges will come to the greatest souls. With this in mind, it becomes clear that steadiness and perseverance are absolutely essential on the spiritual path.
Bless and Love. Om Shanti.
Foster steadfastness, overcoming non perseverance, fear, indecision and changeableness. Achieve your goals with a prayer, purpose, plan, persistence and push. Be firm in your decisions. Avoid sloth and procrastination. Develop willpower, courage and industriousness. Overcome obstacles. Never carp or complain. Do not let opposition or fear of failure result in changing strategies.
Explanation
Steadfastness , dhriti , is the sixth yama . To be steadfast, you have to use your willpower. Willpower is developed easily in a person who has an adequate memory and good reasoning faculties. To be steadfast as we go through life, we must have a purpose, a plan, persistence and push. Then nothing is impossible within the circumference of our prârabdha karmas.
It is impossible to be steadfast if we are not obeying the other restraints that the ®ishis of the Himalayas laid down for us as the fruits of their wisdom. All of these restraints build character, and dh®iti, steadfastness, rests on the foundation of good character. Character—the ability to “act with care”—is built slowly, over time, with the help of relatives, preceptors and good-hearted friends. Observe those who are steadfast. You will learn from them. Observe those who are not, and they, too, will teach you. They will teach what you should not do. To be indecisive and changeable is not how we should be on the path to enlightenment, nor to be
successful in any other pursuit. Nonperseverance and fear must be overcome, and much effort is required to accomplish this. Daily sâdhana, preferably under a guru’s guidance, is suggested here to develop a spiritual will and intellect.
In the Íândilya Upanishad, dh®iti has been described as preserving firmness of mind during the period of gain or loss of relatives. This implies that during times of sorrow, difficult karmas, loss and temptation, when in mental pain and anguish, feeling alone and neglected, we can persevere, be decisive and bring forth the dh®iti strength within us and thus prevail. One translator of the Varuha Upanishad used the word courage to translate dh®iti. Courageous and
fearless people who are just and honest prevail over all karmas— benevolent, terrible and confused. This virtue is much like the monk’s vow of humility, part of which is enduring
hardship with equanimity, ease of mind, which means not panicking. The Tirukural reminds us, “It is the nature of asceticism to patiently endure hardship and to not harm living creatures” (261). And we can say that dh®iti itself is a “hardship”—a ship that can endure and persevere on its course even when tossed about on the waves of a turbulent sea.
Some might wonder why it is good to passively endure hardship. To persevere through hardship one must understand, as all Hindus do, that any hardship coming to us we ourselves participated in setting into motion in the past. To endure hardship and rise above it in consciousness is to overcome that karma forever. To resent hardship, to fight it, is to have it return later at a most inconvenient time.
An essential part of steadfastness is overcoming changeableness. Changeableness means indecision, not being decisive, changing one’s mind after making a deliberate, positive decision. Changing one’s mind can be a positive thing, but making a firm, well-considered decision and not following it through would gain one the reputation of not being dependable, even of being weak-minded. No one wants a reputation like this.
How can we discriminate between this and the strength of a person who changes his or her mind in wisdom because of changes of circumstance? A person who is changeable is fickle and unsure of himself, changing without purpose or reason. Dh®iti, steadfastness, describes the mind that is willing to change for mature reasons based on new information but holds steady to its determinations through thick and thin in the absence of such good reasons. Its decisions are based on wise discrimination. A person who is patient and truthful, who would not harm others by thought, word or deed and who is compassionate and honest has the strong nature of one who is firm in dh®iti, steadfastness. He is the prevailer over obstacles. One firm in dh®iti can be leaned upon by others, depended upon. He is charitable, has faith in God, Gods and guru, worships daily and manifests in his life a spiritual will and intellect. In relaxed moments he experiences santosha, contentment, not being preoccupied by feelings of responsibility, duty or things left undone.
The spiritual path is a long, enduring process. It does not reach fruition in a year or two years. The spiritual path brings lots of ups and downs, and the greatest challenges will come to the greatest souls. With this in mind, it becomes clear that steadiness and perseverance are absolutely essential on the spiritual path.
Bless and Love. Om Shanti.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
How to Lead a Spiritual Life ? Fifth Principle of Yamas : Kshama - Patience
Summary
Exercise patience, restraining intolerance with people and impatience with circumstances. Be agreeable. Let others behave according to their nature, without adjusting to you. Don’t argue, dominate conversations or interrupt others. Don’t be in a hurry. Be patient with children and the elderly. Minimize stress by keeping worries at bay. Remain poised in good times and bad.
Explanation
Patience, or kshama, the fifth yama , is as essential to the spiritual path as the spiritual path is to itself. Impatience is a si gn of desi rous ness to fulfill unfulfilled desires, having no time for any interruptions or delays from anything that seems irrelevant to what one really wants to accomplish.
We must restrain our desires by regulating our life with daily worship and meditation. Daily worship and meditation are difficult to accomplish without a break in continuity. However, impatience and frustration come automatically in continuity, day after day, often at the same time—being impatient before breakfast because it is not served on time, feeling intolerant and abusive with children because they are not behaving as adults, and on and on. Everything has its timing and its regularity in life. Focusing on living in the eternity of the moment overcomes impatience. It produces the feeling that one has nothing to do, no future to work toward and no past to rely on. This excellent spiritual practice can be performed now and again during the day
by anyone.
Patience is having the power of acceptance, accepting people, accepting events as they are happening. One of the great spiritual powers that people can have is to accept things as they are. That forestalls impatience and intolerance. Acceptance is developed in a person by understanding the law of karma and in seeing God Íiva and His work everywhere, accepting the perfection of the timing of the creation, preservation and absorption of the entire, universe.Acceptance does not mean being resigned to one’s situation and avoiding challenges. We know that we ourselves created our own situation, our own challenges, in a former time by sending forth our energies, thoughts, words and deeds. As these energies, on their cycle-back, manifest through people, happenings and circumstances, we must patiently deal with the situation, not fight it or try to avoid it or be discouraged because of it. This is kshamâ in the raw. This is pure kshamâ. Patience cannot be acquired in depth in any other way. This is why meditation upon the truths of the Sanâtana Dharma is so important.
It is also extremely important to maintain patience with oneself—especially with oneself. Many people are masters of the façade of being patient with others but take their frustrations out on themselves. This can be corrected and must be corrected for spiritual unfoldment to continue through an unbroken routine of daily worship and meditation and a yearly routine of attending festivals and of pilgrimage, tîrthayatra.
Most people today are intolerant with one another and impatient with their circumstances. This breeds an irreverent attitude. Nothing is sacred to them, nothing holy. But through daily exercising anger, malice and the other lower emotions, they do, without knowing, invoke the demonic forces of the Narakaloka. Then they must suffer the backlash: have nightmares, confusions, separations and even perform heinous acts. Let all people of the world restrain themselves and be patient through the practice of daily worship and meditation, which retroactively invokes the divine forces from the Devaloka. May a great peace pervade the planet as the well-earned result of these practices.
The next time you find yourself becoming impatient, just stop for a moment and remember that you are on the upward path, now facing a rare opportunity to take one more step upward by overcoming these feelings, putting all that you have previously learned into practice. One does not progress on the spiritual path by words, ideas or unused knowledge. Memorized precepts, slokas, all the shoulds and should-nots, are good, but unless used they will not propel you one inch further than you already are. It is putting what you have learned into practice in these moments of experiencing impatience and controlling it through command of your spiritual will, that moves you forward. These steps forward can never be retracted. When a test comes, prevail.
Sâdhakas and sannyâsins must be perfect in kshamâ, forbearing with people and patient under all circumstances, as they have harnessed their karmas of this life and the lives before, compressed them to be experienced in this one lifetime. There is no cause for them, if they are to succeed, to harbor intolerance or experience any kind of impatience with people or circumstances. Their instinctive, intellectual nature should be caught up in daily devotion, unreserved worship, meditation and deep self-inquiry. Therefore, the practice, niyama, that mitigates intolerance is devotion, Isvarapûjana, cultivating devotion through daily worship and meditation.
Bless and Love. Om Shanti.
Exercise patience, restraining intolerance with people and impatience with circumstances. Be agreeable. Let others behave according to their nature, without adjusting to you. Don’t argue, dominate conversations or interrupt others. Don’t be in a hurry. Be patient with children and the elderly. Minimize stress by keeping worries at bay. Remain poised in good times and bad.
Explanation
Patience, or kshama, the fifth yama , is as essential to the spiritual path as the spiritual path is to itself. Impatience is a si gn of desi rous ness to fulfill unfulfilled desires, having no time for any interruptions or delays from anything that seems irrelevant to what one really wants to accomplish.
We must restrain our desires by regulating our life with daily worship and meditation. Daily worship and meditation are difficult to accomplish without a break in continuity. However, impatience and frustration come automatically in continuity, day after day, often at the same time—being impatient before breakfast because it is not served on time, feeling intolerant and abusive with children because they are not behaving as adults, and on and on. Everything has its timing and its regularity in life. Focusing on living in the eternity of the moment overcomes impatience. It produces the feeling that one has nothing to do, no future to work toward and no past to rely on. This excellent spiritual practice can be performed now and again during the day
by anyone.
Patience is having the power of acceptance, accepting people, accepting events as they are happening. One of the great spiritual powers that people can have is to accept things as they are. That forestalls impatience and intolerance. Acceptance is developed in a person by understanding the law of karma and in seeing God Íiva and His work everywhere, accepting the perfection of the timing of the creation, preservation and absorption of the entire, universe.Acceptance does not mean being resigned to one’s situation and avoiding challenges. We know that we ourselves created our own situation, our own challenges, in a former time by sending forth our energies, thoughts, words and deeds. As these energies, on their cycle-back, manifest through people, happenings and circumstances, we must patiently deal with the situation, not fight it or try to avoid it or be discouraged because of it. This is kshamâ in the raw. This is pure kshamâ. Patience cannot be acquired in depth in any other way. This is why meditation upon the truths of the Sanâtana Dharma is so important.
It is also extremely important to maintain patience with oneself—especially with oneself. Many people are masters of the façade of being patient with others but take their frustrations out on themselves. This can be corrected and must be corrected for spiritual unfoldment to continue through an unbroken routine of daily worship and meditation and a yearly routine of attending festivals and of pilgrimage, tîrthayatra.
Most people today are intolerant with one another and impatient with their circumstances. This breeds an irreverent attitude. Nothing is sacred to them, nothing holy. But through daily exercising anger, malice and the other lower emotions, they do, without knowing, invoke the demonic forces of the Narakaloka. Then they must suffer the backlash: have nightmares, confusions, separations and even perform heinous acts. Let all people of the world restrain themselves and be patient through the practice of daily worship and meditation, which retroactively invokes the divine forces from the Devaloka. May a great peace pervade the planet as the well-earned result of these practices.
The next time you find yourself becoming impatient, just stop for a moment and remember that you are on the upward path, now facing a rare opportunity to take one more step upward by overcoming these feelings, putting all that you have previously learned into practice. One does not progress on the spiritual path by words, ideas or unused knowledge. Memorized precepts, slokas, all the shoulds and should-nots, are good, but unless used they will not propel you one inch further than you already are. It is putting what you have learned into practice in these moments of experiencing impatience and controlling it through command of your spiritual will, that moves you forward. These steps forward can never be retracted. When a test comes, prevail.
Sâdhakas and sannyâsins must be perfect in kshamâ, forbearing with people and patient under all circumstances, as they have harnessed their karmas of this life and the lives before, compressed them to be experienced in this one lifetime. There is no cause for them, if they are to succeed, to harbor intolerance or experience any kind of impatience with people or circumstances. Their instinctive, intellectual nature should be caught up in daily devotion, unreserved worship, meditation and deep self-inquiry. Therefore, the practice, niyama, that mitigates intolerance is devotion, Isvarapûjana, cultivating devotion through daily worship and meditation.
Bless and Love. Om Shanti.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tirumurai Maanadu 16 to 18 December 2011.
THIRUMURAI CONFERENCE 2011 & THIRUMANTIRAM BOOK LAUNCH
BY SRI MAHA MARIAMMAN TEMPLE DEVASTHANAM KUALA LUMPUR with Thava Thiru Kumaraswami Thambiraan Swamigal ( Dharmapura Aathenam, India ) Thava Thiru Balayogi Swamigal ( Thirumurugan Thiruvaaku Thirupeedam, P.J ) Special Guest : Honorable Datuk G. Palanivel, Minister at Prime Minister’s Department
Religious Speech by World class speakers from India
Thirumurai Katcheri by World class Othuvars(singers) from India
DONT MISS!!!!!
DATE: 16th December 2011@ 4pm to 9pm
17th & 18th December 2011@ 9am to 9pm
VENUE: BANGUNAN MARIAMMAN
JALAN TUN H.S.LEE, KUALA LUMPUR.
Thirumurais, the compilation of hymns by Saiva saints. They are valuable sacred treasures to the Tamilians in the world of Saivism that praises Lord Siva and the meanings of Saiva Siddhanta in a melodious language.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRUMANTIRAM BOOK LAUNCH
Recipient of the First Book Tan Sri Dato G. Harinarayanan .Thirumantiram by Thirumular is the 10th Thirumurai, considered as the Tamil agama; book of Tantra, Mantra, Yantra and Yoga, of prayer and philosophy at once. It is the only authentic work in Tamil on Yoga-Kundalini. It expounds the teachings of Agamas as old as the Vedas. It proclaims the oneness of Godhead and the means by man - Jiva merging in Siva, the Soul in the Oversoul, all in Nine Tantras with 3000 verses in this work...excellent masterpiece.
DON’T MISS THIS HISTORIC EVENT...!!!
COME WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
FREE ENTRANCE.
Bless and Love. Om Shanti
Monday, December 12, 2011
How to Lead a Spiritual Life ? Forth Principle of Yamas : Divine Conduct - Brahmacharya:
Controlling lust by remaining celibate when single, leading to faithfulness in marriage.
Summary
Practice divine conduct, controlling lust by remaining celibate when single and faithful in marriage.Before marriage, use vital energies in study, and after marriage in creating family success.Don’t waste the sacred force by promiscuity in thought, word or deed. Be restrained with the opposite sex. Seek holy company.Dress and speak modestly. Shun pornography, sexual humor and violence.
Explanation
Brahmacharya, sexual purity, is a very important restraint among the ancient Saivite ethical principles known as yamas and niyamas, because it sets the pattern for one’s entire life. Following this principle, the vital energies are used before marriage in study rather than in sexual fantasy, e-pornography, masturbation, necking, petting or sexual intercourse. After marriage, the vital energies are concentrated on business, livelihood, fulfilling one’s duties, serving the community, improving oneself and one’s family, and performing sâdhana. For those who do not believe in God, Gods, guru or the path to enlightenment,this is a difficult restraint to fulfill, and such people tend to be promiscuous when single and therefore unfaithful in marriage.
The rewards for maintaining this restraint are many. Those who practice brahmacharya before marriage and apply its principles throughout married life are free from encumbrances—mentally, emotionally and physically. They get a good start on life, have long-lasting, mature family relationships, and their children are emotionally sound, mentally firm and physically strong.
Those who are promiscuous and unreligious are susceptible to impulses of anger, have undefined fears, experience jealousy and the other instinctive emotions. The doors of the higher world are open to them, but the doors of the lower world are also open. Even the virgin brahmachârî who believes firmly in God, Gods, guru and the path to enlightenment and has a strict family must be watched and carefully guided to maintain his brahmacharya. Without this careful attention, the virginity may easily be lost.Brahmacharya for the monastic means complete sexual abstinence and is, of course, an understood requirement to maintain this position in life. This applies as well to any single individual who has taken the celibacy vow, known as brahmacharya vrata. If brahmacharya is compromised by the brahmachârî, he must face the consequences and reaffirm his original intent.Having lost faith in himself because of breaking his vrata, his self-confidence must be rebuilt. It should be perfectly clear that it is totally unacceptable for men or women who have taken up the celibate monastic life to live a double standard and surround themselves with those of the opposite sex—be they fellow âßramites, personal aides, secretaries or close devotees—or with their former family. Nowadays there are pseudo-sannyâsins who are married and call themselves swâmîs, but, if pressed, they might admit that they are simply yoga teachers dressed in orange robes, bearing the title “swâmî” to attract the attention of the uninformed public for commercial reasons.
There is great power in the practice of brahmacharya, literally “Godly conduct.” Containing the sacred fluids within the body builds up a bank account through the years that makes the realization of God on the path to enlightenment a reality within the life of the individual who is single. When brahmacharya is broken through sexual intercourse, this power goes away. It just goes away.
Brahmacharya in Family Life
The observance of brahmacharya is perhaps the most essential aspect of a sound, spiritual culture. This is why in Saivism boys and girls are taught the importance of remaining celibate until they are married. This creates healthy individuals, physically, emotionally and spiritually, generation after generation. There is a mystical reason. In virgin boys and girls, the psychic nâ∂îs, the astral nerve currents that extend out into and through their aura, have small hooks at the end. When a boy and girl marry, the hooks straighten out and the nâ∂îs are tied one to another, and they actually grow together. If the first sexual experience is premarital and virginity is broken, the hooks at the end of the nadis also straighten out, but there is nothing to grow onto if the partners do not marry. Then, when either partner marries someone else, the relationship is never as close as when a virgin boy and girl marry, because their nadis don’t grow together in the same way. In cases such as this, they feel the need for intellectual stimuli and emotional stimuli to keep the marriage going.
Youth ask, “How should we regard members of the opposite sex?” Do not look at members of the opposite sex with any idea of sex or lust in mind. Do not indulge in admiring those of the opposite sex, or seeing one as more beautiful than another. Boys must foster the inner attitude that all young women are their sisters and all older women are their mother. Girls must foster the inner attitude that all young men are their brothers and all older men are their father. Do not attend movies that depict the base instincts of humans, nor read books or magazines of this nature. Above all, avoid pornography on the Internet, on TV and in any other media.
To be successful in brahmacharya, one naturally wants to avoid arousing the sex instincts. This is done by understanding and avoiding the eight successive phases: fantasy, glorification, flirtation, lustful glances, secret love talk, amorous longing, rendezvous and finally intercourse. Be very careful to mix only with good company—those who think and speak in a cultured way—so that the mind and emotions are not led astray and vital energies needed for study used up. Get plenty of physical exercise. This is very important, because exercise sublimates your instinctive drives and directs excess energy and the flow of blood into all parts of the body. Brahmacharya means sexual continence, as was observed by Mahatma Gandhi in his later years and by other great souls throughout life. There is another form of sexual purity, though not truly brahmacharya, followed by faithful family people who have a normal sex life while raising a family. They are working toward the stage when they will take their
brahmacharya vrata after sixty years of age. Thereafter they would live together as brother and sister, sleeping in separate bedrooms. During their married life, they control the forces of lust and regulate instinctive energies and thus prepare to take that vrata. But if they are unfaithful, flirtatious and loose in their thinking through life, they will not be inclined to take the vrata in later life.
Faithfulness in marriage means fidelity and much more. It includes mental faithfulness, non-flirtatiousness and modesty toward the opposite sex. A married man, for instance, should not hire a secretary who is more magnetic or more beautiful than his wife. Metaphysically, in the perfect family relationship, man and wife are, in a sense, creating a one nervous system for their joint spiritual progress, and all of their nadis are growing together over the years. If they break that faithfulness, they break the psychic, soul connections that are developing for their personal inner achievements. If one or the other of the partners does have an affair, this creates a psychic tug and pull on the nerve system of both spouses that will continue until the affair ends and long afterwards. Therefore, the principle of the containment of the sexual force and mental and emotional impulses is the spirit of brahmacharya, both for the single and married person
Rules for Serious People
For virtuous individuals who marry, their experiences with their partner are, again, free from lustful fantasies; and emotional involvement is only with their spouse. Yes, a normal sex life should be had between husband and wife, and no one else should be included in either one’s mind or emotions. Never hugging, touching another’s spouse or exciting the emotions; always dressing modestly, not in a sexually arousing way; not viewing sexually oriented or pornographic videos; not telling dirty jokes—all of these simple customs are traditional ways of upholding sexual purity. The yama of brahmacharya works in concert with asteya, nonstealing. Stealing or coveting another’s spouse, even mentally, creates a force that, once generated, is difficult to stop. In this day and age, when promiscuity is a way of life, there is great strength in married couples’ understanding and applying the principles of sexual purity. If they obey these principles and are on the path of enlightenment, they will again become celibate later in life, as they were when they were young. These principles persist through life, and when their children are raised and the forces naturally become quiet, around age sixty, husband and wife take the brahmacharya vrata, live in separate rooms and prepare themselves for greater spiritual experiences. Married persons uphold sexual purity by observing the eightfold celibacy toward everyone but their spouse. These are ideals for serious, spiritual people. For those who have nothing to do with spirituality, these laws are meaningless. We are assuming a situation of a couple where everything they do and all that happens in their life is oriented toward spiritual life and spiritual goals and, therefore, these principles do apply. For sexual purity, individuals must believe firmly in the path to enlightenment. They must have faith in higher powers than themselves. Without this, sexual purity is nearly impossible.
One of the fastest ways to destroy the stability of families and societies is through promiscuity, mental and/or physical, and the best way to maintain stability is through self-control. The world today has become increasingly unstable because of the mental, physical, emotional license that people have given to themselves. The generation that follows an era of promiscuity has a dearth of examples to follow and are even more unstable than their parents were when they began their promiscuous living. Stability for human society is based on morality, and morality is based on harnessing and controlling sexuality. The principles of brahmacharya should be learned well before puberty, so that the sexual feelings the young person then begins to experience are free of mental fantasies and emotional involvement. Once established in a young person, this control is expected to be carried out all through life. When a virgin boy and girl marry, they transfer the love they have for their parents to one another. The boy’s attachment to his mother is transferred to his wife, and the girl’s attachment to her father is transferred to her husband. She now becomes the mother. He now becomes the father. This does not mean they love their parents any less. This is why the parents have to be in good shape, to create the next generation of stable families. This is their dharmic duty. If they don’t do it, they create all kinds of uncomely karmas for themselves to be faced at a later time.
Om Shanti. Bless and Love.
Summary
Practice divine conduct, controlling lust by remaining celibate when single and faithful in marriage.Before marriage, use vital energies in study, and after marriage in creating family success.Don’t waste the sacred force by promiscuity in thought, word or deed. Be restrained with the opposite sex. Seek holy company.Dress and speak modestly. Shun pornography, sexual humor and violence.
Explanation
Brahmacharya, sexual purity, is a very important restraint among the ancient Saivite ethical principles known as yamas and niyamas, because it sets the pattern for one’s entire life. Following this principle, the vital energies are used before marriage in study rather than in sexual fantasy, e-pornography, masturbation, necking, petting or sexual intercourse. After marriage, the vital energies are concentrated on business, livelihood, fulfilling one’s duties, serving the community, improving oneself and one’s family, and performing sâdhana. For those who do not believe in God, Gods, guru or the path to enlightenment,this is a difficult restraint to fulfill, and such people tend to be promiscuous when single and therefore unfaithful in marriage.
The rewards for maintaining this restraint are many. Those who practice brahmacharya before marriage and apply its principles throughout married life are free from encumbrances—mentally, emotionally and physically. They get a good start on life, have long-lasting, mature family relationships, and their children are emotionally sound, mentally firm and physically strong.
Those who are promiscuous and unreligious are susceptible to impulses of anger, have undefined fears, experience jealousy and the other instinctive emotions. The doors of the higher world are open to them, but the doors of the lower world are also open. Even the virgin brahmachârî who believes firmly in God, Gods, guru and the path to enlightenment and has a strict family must be watched and carefully guided to maintain his brahmacharya. Without this careful attention, the virginity may easily be lost.Brahmacharya for the monastic means complete sexual abstinence and is, of course, an understood requirement to maintain this position in life. This applies as well to any single individual who has taken the celibacy vow, known as brahmacharya vrata. If brahmacharya is compromised by the brahmachârî, he must face the consequences and reaffirm his original intent.Having lost faith in himself because of breaking his vrata, his self-confidence must be rebuilt. It should be perfectly clear that it is totally unacceptable for men or women who have taken up the celibate monastic life to live a double standard and surround themselves with those of the opposite sex—be they fellow âßramites, personal aides, secretaries or close devotees—or with their former family. Nowadays there are pseudo-sannyâsins who are married and call themselves swâmîs, but, if pressed, they might admit that they are simply yoga teachers dressed in orange robes, bearing the title “swâmî” to attract the attention of the uninformed public for commercial reasons.
There is great power in the practice of brahmacharya, literally “Godly conduct.” Containing the sacred fluids within the body builds up a bank account through the years that makes the realization of God on the path to enlightenment a reality within the life of the individual who is single. When brahmacharya is broken through sexual intercourse, this power goes away. It just goes away.
Brahmacharya in Family Life
The observance of brahmacharya is perhaps the most essential aspect of a sound, spiritual culture. This is why in Saivism boys and girls are taught the importance of remaining celibate until they are married. This creates healthy individuals, physically, emotionally and spiritually, generation after generation. There is a mystical reason. In virgin boys and girls, the psychic nâ∂îs, the astral nerve currents that extend out into and through their aura, have small hooks at the end. When a boy and girl marry, the hooks straighten out and the nâ∂îs are tied one to another, and they actually grow together. If the first sexual experience is premarital and virginity is broken, the hooks at the end of the nadis also straighten out, but there is nothing to grow onto if the partners do not marry. Then, when either partner marries someone else, the relationship is never as close as when a virgin boy and girl marry, because their nadis don’t grow together in the same way. In cases such as this, they feel the need for intellectual stimuli and emotional stimuli to keep the marriage going.
Youth ask, “How should we regard members of the opposite sex?” Do not look at members of the opposite sex with any idea of sex or lust in mind. Do not indulge in admiring those of the opposite sex, or seeing one as more beautiful than another. Boys must foster the inner attitude that all young women are their sisters and all older women are their mother. Girls must foster the inner attitude that all young men are their brothers and all older men are their father. Do not attend movies that depict the base instincts of humans, nor read books or magazines of this nature. Above all, avoid pornography on the Internet, on TV and in any other media.
To be successful in brahmacharya, one naturally wants to avoid arousing the sex instincts. This is done by understanding and avoiding the eight successive phases: fantasy, glorification, flirtation, lustful glances, secret love talk, amorous longing, rendezvous and finally intercourse. Be very careful to mix only with good company—those who think and speak in a cultured way—so that the mind and emotions are not led astray and vital energies needed for study used up. Get plenty of physical exercise. This is very important, because exercise sublimates your instinctive drives and directs excess energy and the flow of blood into all parts of the body. Brahmacharya means sexual continence, as was observed by Mahatma Gandhi in his later years and by other great souls throughout life. There is another form of sexual purity, though not truly brahmacharya, followed by faithful family people who have a normal sex life while raising a family. They are working toward the stage when they will take their
brahmacharya vrata after sixty years of age. Thereafter they would live together as brother and sister, sleeping in separate bedrooms. During their married life, they control the forces of lust and regulate instinctive energies and thus prepare to take that vrata. But if they are unfaithful, flirtatious and loose in their thinking through life, they will not be inclined to take the vrata in later life.
Faithfulness in marriage means fidelity and much more. It includes mental faithfulness, non-flirtatiousness and modesty toward the opposite sex. A married man, for instance, should not hire a secretary who is more magnetic or more beautiful than his wife. Metaphysically, in the perfect family relationship, man and wife are, in a sense, creating a one nervous system for their joint spiritual progress, and all of their nadis are growing together over the years. If they break that faithfulness, they break the psychic, soul connections that are developing for their personal inner achievements. If one or the other of the partners does have an affair, this creates a psychic tug and pull on the nerve system of both spouses that will continue until the affair ends and long afterwards. Therefore, the principle of the containment of the sexual force and mental and emotional impulses is the spirit of brahmacharya, both for the single and married person
Rules for Serious People
For virtuous individuals who marry, their experiences with their partner are, again, free from lustful fantasies; and emotional involvement is only with their spouse. Yes, a normal sex life should be had between husband and wife, and no one else should be included in either one’s mind or emotions. Never hugging, touching another’s spouse or exciting the emotions; always dressing modestly, not in a sexually arousing way; not viewing sexually oriented or pornographic videos; not telling dirty jokes—all of these simple customs are traditional ways of upholding sexual purity. The yama of brahmacharya works in concert with asteya, nonstealing. Stealing or coveting another’s spouse, even mentally, creates a force that, once generated, is difficult to stop. In this day and age, when promiscuity is a way of life, there is great strength in married couples’ understanding and applying the principles of sexual purity. If they obey these principles and are on the path of enlightenment, they will again become celibate later in life, as they were when they were young. These principles persist through life, and when their children are raised and the forces naturally become quiet, around age sixty, husband and wife take the brahmacharya vrata, live in separate rooms and prepare themselves for greater spiritual experiences. Married persons uphold sexual purity by observing the eightfold celibacy toward everyone but their spouse. These are ideals for serious, spiritual people. For those who have nothing to do with spirituality, these laws are meaningless. We are assuming a situation of a couple where everything they do and all that happens in their life is oriented toward spiritual life and spiritual goals and, therefore, these principles do apply. For sexual purity, individuals must believe firmly in the path to enlightenment. They must have faith in higher powers than themselves. Without this, sexual purity is nearly impossible.
One of the fastest ways to destroy the stability of families and societies is through promiscuity, mental and/or physical, and the best way to maintain stability is through self-control. The world today has become increasingly unstable because of the mental, physical, emotional license that people have given to themselves. The generation that follows an era of promiscuity has a dearth of examples to follow and are even more unstable than their parents were when they began their promiscuous living. Stability for human society is based on morality, and morality is based on harnessing and controlling sexuality. The principles of brahmacharya should be learned well before puberty, so that the sexual feelings the young person then begins to experience are free of mental fantasies and emotional involvement. Once established in a young person, this control is expected to be carried out all through life. When a virgin boy and girl marry, they transfer the love they have for their parents to one another. The boy’s attachment to his mother is transferred to his wife, and the girl’s attachment to her father is transferred to her husband. She now becomes the mother. He now becomes the father. This does not mean they love their parents any less. This is why the parents have to be in good shape, to create the next generation of stable families. This is their dharmic duty. If they don’t do it, they create all kinds of uncomely karmas for themselves to be faced at a later time.
Om Shanti. Bless and Love.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
SURASAMHARAM FESTIVAL IN BATU CAVE TEMPLE 11 December. 2011
HISTORICAL EVENT IN BATU CAVES, SRI SUBRAMANIAR SWAMY TEMPLE.
ALL DEVOTEES ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO WITNESS THE 1ST SURASAMHARAM EVENT IN THIS TEMPLE.
DATE : 11-12-2011-SUNDAY
TIME : 5.OO ONWARDS
The festival takes place at the foot of 140 ft. Lord Murugan Statue.
The battle depicted with huge images of demons appear before Lord Muruga on their chariot and Lord Muruga encounter them and destroy one by one by using HIS VEL.
The festival ends with divine marriage (THIRUKALYANAM) between Lord Muruga and Valli, Theivanai on the same day .
All devotees, are requested to be present with your family and friends to celebrate this festival and get the blessings of Lord Muruga.
Note: Holy Prasatham and light refreshment will be served at the end of the Holy Wedding.
ALL DEVOTEES ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO WITNESS THE 1ST SURASAMHARAM EVENT IN THIS TEMPLE.
DATE : 11-12-2011-SUNDAY
TIME : 5.OO ONWARDS
The festival takes place at the foot of 140 ft. Lord Murugan Statue.
The battle depicted with huge images of demons appear before Lord Muruga on their chariot and Lord Muruga encounter them and destroy one by one by using HIS VEL.
The festival ends with divine marriage (THIRUKALYANAM) between Lord Muruga and Valli, Theivanai on the same day .
All devotees, are requested to be present with your family and friends to celebrate this festival and get the blessings of Lord Muruga.
Note: Holy Prasatham and light refreshment will be served at the end of the Holy Wedding.
Friday, December 9, 2011
How to Lead a Spiritual Life ? Third Principle of Yamas : Asteya - Nonstealing
Summary:
Uphold the virtue of nonstealing, neither thieving, coveting nor failing to repay debt.
Control your desires and live within your means.Do not use borrowed resources for unintended purposes or keep them past due.Do not gamble or defraud others. Do not renege on promises.Do not use others’ names, words, resources or rights without permission and acknowledgement.
Explanation:
Asteya is the third yama, neither stealing,nor coveting nor entering into debt.We all know what stealing is .But now let’s define covetousness .It could well be defined as owning something mentally and emotionally but not actually owning it physically.This is not good. It puts a hidden psychological strain on all parties concerned and brings up the lower emotions from the tala chakras. It must be avoided at all cost.Coveting is desiring things that are not your own. Coveting leads to jealousy, and it leads to stealing. The first impulse toward stealing is coveting, wanting.If you can control the impulse to covet, then you will not steal.Coveting is mental stealing.
Of course, stealing must never ever happen. Even a penny, a peso, a rupee, a lira or a yen should not be misappropriated or stolen. Defaulting on debts is also a form of stealing. But avoiding debt in principle does not mean that one cannot buy things on credit or through other contractual arrangements. It does mean that payments must be made at the expected time, that credit be given in trust and be eliminated when the time has expired,that contracts be honored to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. Running one’s affairs on other peoples’ money must be restrained. To control this is the sâdhana of asteya. Brahmachârîs and sannyâsins, of course, must scrupulously obey these restraints relating to debt, stealing and covetousness. These are certainly not in their code of living.
To perfect asteya, we must practice dâna, charity, the third niyama; we must take the dâsama bhâga vrata, promising to tithe, pay dasamamsha, to our favorite religious organization and, on top of that, give creatively, without thought of reward. Stealing is selfishness. Giving is unselfishness. Any lapse of asteya is corrected by dâna.
It is important to realize that one cannot simply obey the yamas without actively practicing the niyamas. To restrain one’s current tendencies successfully, each must be replaced by a positive observance. For each of the yamas, there is a positive replacement of doing something else. The niyamas must totally overshadow the qualities controlled by the yamas for the perfect person to emerge. It is also important to remember that doing what should not be done—and not doing what should be done—does have its consequences. These can be many, depending upon the evolution of the soul of each individual; but all such acts bring about the lowering of consciousness into the instinctive nature, and inevitable suffering is the result. Each Hindu guru has his own ways of mitigating the negative karmas that result as a consequence of not living up to the high ideals of these precepts. But the world is also a guru, in a sense, and its devotees learn by their own mistakes, often repeating the same lessons many, many times.
Debt, Gambling and Grief
I was asked,“Is borrowing money to finance one’s business in accord with the yama of nonstealing? When can you use other peoples’ money and when should you not?” When the creditors start calling you for their money back, sending demand notices indicating that they only extended you thirty days’, sixty days’ or ninety days’ credit, then if you fail to pay, or pay only a quarter or half of it just to keep them at arm’s length because you still need their money to keep doing what you are doing, this is a violation of this yama.
There are several kinds of debt that are disallowed by this yama. One is spending beyond your means and accumulating bills you can’t pay. We are reminded of Tirukural verse 478 which says that the way to avoid poverty is to spend within your means: “A small income is no cause for failure, provided expenditures do not exceed it.” We can see that false wealth, or the mere appearance of wealth, is using other peoples’ money, either against their will or by paying a premium price for it.Many people justify stealing by saying that life is unfair and therefore it’s OK to take from the rich. They feel it’s ok to steal from a rich corporation, for example: “They will never miss it, and we need it more.” Financial speculation can easily slide into unfair maneuvering, where a person is actually stealing from a small or large company, thereby making it fail. The credibility of the person will go down, and businesses will beware of this speculative investor who would bring a company to ruin to fatten his own pockets. Entering into debt is a modern convenience and a modern temptation. But this convenience must be honored within the time allotted. If you are paying a higher interest rate because of late or partial payments, you have abused your credit and your creditors.
At the Global Forum for Human Survival in 1990 in Moscow, the participants began worrying about the kids, the next generation. “What are they going to think of us?” they asked. Is it fair to fulfill a need now, spoil the environment and hand the bill over to the next generation? No, it is not. This is another form of stealing. We can’t say, “We have to have chlorofluorocarbons now, and the next generation has to face the consequences.” The yamas and niyamas are thus not just a personal matter but also a national, communal and global matter. Yes, this takes asteya and all the restraints and observances to another dimension.
Om Shanti. Bless and Love.
Uphold the virtue of nonstealing, neither thieving, coveting nor failing to repay debt.
Control your desires and live within your means.Do not use borrowed resources for unintended purposes or keep them past due.Do not gamble or defraud others. Do not renege on promises.Do not use others’ names, words, resources or rights without permission and acknowledgement.
Explanation:
Asteya is the third yama, neither stealing,nor coveting nor entering into debt.We all know what stealing is .But now let’s define covetousness .It could well be defined as owning something mentally and emotionally but not actually owning it physically.This is not good. It puts a hidden psychological strain on all parties concerned and brings up the lower emotions from the tala chakras. It must be avoided at all cost.Coveting is desiring things that are not your own. Coveting leads to jealousy, and it leads to stealing. The first impulse toward stealing is coveting, wanting.If you can control the impulse to covet, then you will not steal.Coveting is mental stealing.
Of course, stealing must never ever happen. Even a penny, a peso, a rupee, a lira or a yen should not be misappropriated or stolen. Defaulting on debts is also a form of stealing. But avoiding debt in principle does not mean that one cannot buy things on credit or through other contractual arrangements. It does mean that payments must be made at the expected time, that credit be given in trust and be eliminated when the time has expired,that contracts be honored to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. Running one’s affairs on other peoples’ money must be restrained. To control this is the sâdhana of asteya. Brahmachârîs and sannyâsins, of course, must scrupulously obey these restraints relating to debt, stealing and covetousness. These are certainly not in their code of living.
To perfect asteya, we must practice dâna, charity, the third niyama; we must take the dâsama bhâga vrata, promising to tithe, pay dasamamsha, to our favorite religious organization and, on top of that, give creatively, without thought of reward. Stealing is selfishness. Giving is unselfishness. Any lapse of asteya is corrected by dâna.
It is important to realize that one cannot simply obey the yamas without actively practicing the niyamas. To restrain one’s current tendencies successfully, each must be replaced by a positive observance. For each of the yamas, there is a positive replacement of doing something else. The niyamas must totally overshadow the qualities controlled by the yamas for the perfect person to emerge. It is also important to remember that doing what should not be done—and not doing what should be done—does have its consequences. These can be many, depending upon the evolution of the soul of each individual; but all such acts bring about the lowering of consciousness into the instinctive nature, and inevitable suffering is the result. Each Hindu guru has his own ways of mitigating the negative karmas that result as a consequence of not living up to the high ideals of these precepts. But the world is also a guru, in a sense, and its devotees learn by their own mistakes, often repeating the same lessons many, many times.
Debt, Gambling and Grief
I was asked,“Is borrowing money to finance one’s business in accord with the yama of nonstealing? When can you use other peoples’ money and when should you not?” When the creditors start calling you for their money back, sending demand notices indicating that they only extended you thirty days’, sixty days’ or ninety days’ credit, then if you fail to pay, or pay only a quarter or half of it just to keep them at arm’s length because you still need their money to keep doing what you are doing, this is a violation of this yama.
There are several kinds of debt that are disallowed by this yama. One is spending beyond your means and accumulating bills you can’t pay. We are reminded of Tirukural verse 478 which says that the way to avoid poverty is to spend within your means: “A small income is no cause for failure, provided expenditures do not exceed it.” We can see that false wealth, or the mere appearance of wealth, is using other peoples’ money, either against their will or by paying a premium price for it.Many people justify stealing by saying that life is unfair and therefore it’s OK to take from the rich. They feel it’s ok to steal from a rich corporation, for example: “They will never miss it, and we need it more.” Financial speculation can easily slide into unfair maneuvering, where a person is actually stealing from a small or large company, thereby making it fail. The credibility of the person will go down, and businesses will beware of this speculative investor who would bring a company to ruin to fatten his own pockets. Entering into debt is a modern convenience and a modern temptation. But this convenience must be honored within the time allotted. If you are paying a higher interest rate because of late or partial payments, you have abused your credit and your creditors.
At the Global Forum for Human Survival in 1990 in Moscow, the participants began worrying about the kids, the next generation. “What are they going to think of us?” they asked. Is it fair to fulfill a need now, spoil the environment and hand the bill over to the next generation? No, it is not. This is another form of stealing. We can’t say, “We have to have chlorofluorocarbons now, and the next generation has to face the consequences.” The yamas and niyamas are thus not just a personal matter but also a national, communal and global matter. Yes, this takes asteya and all the restraints and observances to another dimension.
Om Shanti. Bless and Love.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Second Principle of Yamas : Satya - Truthfulness
Summary :
Adhere to truthfulness, refraining from lying and betraying promises. Speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary. Knowing that deception creates distance, don’t keep secrets from family or loved ones. Be fair, accurate and frank in discussions, a stranger to deceit. Admit your failings. Do not engage in slander, gossip or backbiting. Do not bear false witness against another.
Explanation :
Satya, truthfulness , is the second yama.It seems that little children are naturally truthful, open and honest. Their lives are uncomplicated, and they have no secrets. National studies show that children, even at an early age, learn to lie from their parents. They are taught to keep family secrets, whom to like, whom to dislike, whom to hate and whom to love, right within the home itself. Their minds become complicated and their judgments of what to say and what not to say are often influenced by the possibility of a punishment, perhaps a beating. Therefore, to fully encompass satya and incorporate it in one’s life as a teenager or an adult, it is quite necessary to dredge the subconscious mind and in some cases reject much of what mother or father, relatives and elders had placed into it at an early age. Only by rejecting the apparent opposites, likes and dislikes, hates and loves, can true truthfulness, which is a quality
of the soul, burst forth again and be there in full force as it is within an innocent child. A child practices truthfulness without wisdom. Wisdom, which is the timely application of knowledge, guides truthfulness for the adult. To attain wisdom, the adult must be conversant with the soul nature.
What is it that keeps us from practicing truthfulness? Fear, mainly. Fear of discovery, fear of punishment or loss of status. This is the most honest untruthfulness. The next layer of untruthfulness would be the mischievous person willing to take a chance of not being caught and deliberately inventing stories about another, deliberately lying when the truth would do just as well. The third and worst layer is calculated deception and breaking of promises.
Satya is a restraint, and as one of the ten restraints it ranks in importance as number two. When we restrain our tendencies to deceive, to lie and break promises, our external life is uncomplicated, as is our subconscious mind. Honesty is the foundation of truth. It is ecologically, psychologically purifying. However, many people are not truthful with themselves, to themselves, let alone to others. And the calculated, subconscious built-in program of these clever, cunning, two faced individuals keeps them in the inner worlds of darkness. To emerge from those worlds, the practice of truthfulness, satya, is in itself a healing and purifying sâdhana.
What is breaking a promise? Breaking a promise is, for example, when someone confides in you, asks you to keep it to yourself and not to tell anyone, and then you tell. You have betrayed your promise. Confidences must be kept at all costs in the practice of satya.
There are certainly times when withholding the truth is permitted. The Tirukural, Weaver’s Wisdom, explains that “Even falsehood is of the nature of truth if it renders good results, free from fault” (292). An astrologer, for instance, while reviewing a chart would refrain from telling of a heartbreak that might come to a person at a certain time in his life.
This is wisdom. In fact, astrologers are admonished by their gurus to hold back information that might be harmful or deeply discouraging. A doctor might not tell his patient that he will die in three days when he sees the vital signs weakening. Instead, he may encourage positive thinking, give hope, knowing that life is eternal and that to invoke fear might create depression and hopelessness in the mind of the ill person.
When pure truthfulness would injure or cause harm, then the first yama, ahimsâ, would come into effect. You would not want to harm that person, even with the truth. But we must not look at this verse from the Tirukural as giving permission for deception. The spirit of the verse is wisdom, good judgment, not the subterfuge of telling someone you are going to Mumbai when your actual destination is Kalikot. That is not truthful. It would be much better to avoid answering the question at all in some way if one wanted to conceal the destination of his journey. This would be wisdom. You would not complicate your own subconscious mind by telling an untruth, nor be labeled deceptive in the mind of the informed person when he eventually discovers the actual truth.
Honesty with Your Guru
Some people use the excuse of truthfulness to nag their spouse about what they don’t like about him or her, or to gossip about other people’s flaws. This is not the spirit of satya. We do not want to expose others’ faults. Such confrontations could become argumentative and combative.
No one knows one’s faults better than oneself. But fear and weakness often prevail, while motivation and a clear plan to correct the situation are absent. Therefore, to give a clear
plan, a positive outlook, a new way of thinking, diverts the attention of the individual and allows internal healing to take place. This is wisdom. This is ahimsâ, noninjury. This
is satya, truthfulness. The wise devotee is careful to never insult or humiliate others, even under the pretext of telling the truth, which is an excuse that people sometimes use to
tell others what they don’t like about them. Wise devotees realize that there is good and bad in everyone. There are emotional ups and downs, mental elations and depressions, encouragements and discouragements. Let’s focus on the positive. This is ahiμsâ and satya working together.
The brahmachârî and the sannyâsin must be absolutely truthful with their satguru. They must be absolutely diplomatic, wise and always accentuate the good qualities within the sannyâsin and brahmachârî communities. The guru has the right to discuss, rebuke or discipline the uncomely
qualities in raising up the brahmachârî and sannyâsin. Only he has this right, because it was given to him by the brahmachârîs and sannyâsins when they took him as their satguru. This means that brahmachârîs and sannyâsins cannot discipline one another, psychoanalyze and correct in the
name of truthfulness, without violation of the number one yama—ahiμsâ, noninjury.
Mothers and fathers have rights with their own children, as do gurus with their ßishyas. These rights are limited according to wisdom. They are not all-inclusive and should not inhibit free will and well-rounded growth within an individual. This is why a guru is looked upon as the mother and father by the mother and father and by the disciple who is sent to the guru’s âßrama to study and learn. It is the guru’s responsibility to mold the aspirant into a solid member
of the monastic community, just as it is the mother’s and father’s duty to mold the youth to be a responsible, looked up- to member of the family community. This is how society progresses.
The practice, niyama, to strengthen one’s satya qualities is tapas, austerity—performing sâdhana, penance, tapas and sacrifice. If you find you have not been truthful, if you
have betrayed promises, then put yourself under the tapas sâdhana. Perform a lengthy penance. Atone, repent, perform austerities. You will soon find that being truthful is much easier than what tapas and austerities will make you go through if you fail to restrain yourself.
Truthfulness is the fullness of truth. Truth itself is fullness. May fullness prevail, truth prevail, and the spirit of satya and ahiμsâ permeate humanity.
Om Shanti
Adhere to truthfulness, refraining from lying and betraying promises. Speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary. Knowing that deception creates distance, don’t keep secrets from family or loved ones. Be fair, accurate and frank in discussions, a stranger to deceit. Admit your failings. Do not engage in slander, gossip or backbiting. Do not bear false witness against another.
Explanation :
Satya, truthfulness , is the second yama.It seems that little children are naturally truthful, open and honest. Their lives are uncomplicated, and they have no secrets. National studies show that children, even at an early age, learn to lie from their parents. They are taught to keep family secrets, whom to like, whom to dislike, whom to hate and whom to love, right within the home itself. Their minds become complicated and their judgments of what to say and what not to say are often influenced by the possibility of a punishment, perhaps a beating. Therefore, to fully encompass satya and incorporate it in one’s life as a teenager or an adult, it is quite necessary to dredge the subconscious mind and in some cases reject much of what mother or father, relatives and elders had placed into it at an early age. Only by rejecting the apparent opposites, likes and dislikes, hates and loves, can true truthfulness, which is a quality
of the soul, burst forth again and be there in full force as it is within an innocent child. A child practices truthfulness without wisdom. Wisdom, which is the timely application of knowledge, guides truthfulness for the adult. To attain wisdom, the adult must be conversant with the soul nature.
What is it that keeps us from practicing truthfulness? Fear, mainly. Fear of discovery, fear of punishment or loss of status. This is the most honest untruthfulness. The next layer of untruthfulness would be the mischievous person willing to take a chance of not being caught and deliberately inventing stories about another, deliberately lying when the truth would do just as well. The third and worst layer is calculated deception and breaking of promises.
Satya is a restraint, and as one of the ten restraints it ranks in importance as number two. When we restrain our tendencies to deceive, to lie and break promises, our external life is uncomplicated, as is our subconscious mind. Honesty is the foundation of truth. It is ecologically, psychologically purifying. However, many people are not truthful with themselves, to themselves, let alone to others. And the calculated, subconscious built-in program of these clever, cunning, two faced individuals keeps them in the inner worlds of darkness. To emerge from those worlds, the practice of truthfulness, satya, is in itself a healing and purifying sâdhana.
What is breaking a promise? Breaking a promise is, for example, when someone confides in you, asks you to keep it to yourself and not to tell anyone, and then you tell. You have betrayed your promise. Confidences must be kept at all costs in the practice of satya.
There are certainly times when withholding the truth is permitted. The Tirukural, Weaver’s Wisdom, explains that “Even falsehood is of the nature of truth if it renders good results, free from fault” (292). An astrologer, for instance, while reviewing a chart would refrain from telling of a heartbreak that might come to a person at a certain time in his life.
This is wisdom. In fact, astrologers are admonished by their gurus to hold back information that might be harmful or deeply discouraging. A doctor might not tell his patient that he will die in three days when he sees the vital signs weakening. Instead, he may encourage positive thinking, give hope, knowing that life is eternal and that to invoke fear might create depression and hopelessness in the mind of the ill person.
When pure truthfulness would injure or cause harm, then the first yama, ahimsâ, would come into effect. You would not want to harm that person, even with the truth. But we must not look at this verse from the Tirukural as giving permission for deception. The spirit of the verse is wisdom, good judgment, not the subterfuge of telling someone you are going to Mumbai when your actual destination is Kalikot. That is not truthful. It would be much better to avoid answering the question at all in some way if one wanted to conceal the destination of his journey. This would be wisdom. You would not complicate your own subconscious mind by telling an untruth, nor be labeled deceptive in the mind of the informed person when he eventually discovers the actual truth.
Honesty with Your Guru
Some people use the excuse of truthfulness to nag their spouse about what they don’t like about him or her, or to gossip about other people’s flaws. This is not the spirit of satya. We do not want to expose others’ faults. Such confrontations could become argumentative and combative.
No one knows one’s faults better than oneself. But fear and weakness often prevail, while motivation and a clear plan to correct the situation are absent. Therefore, to give a clear
plan, a positive outlook, a new way of thinking, diverts the attention of the individual and allows internal healing to take place. This is wisdom. This is ahimsâ, noninjury. This
is satya, truthfulness. The wise devotee is careful to never insult or humiliate others, even under the pretext of telling the truth, which is an excuse that people sometimes use to
tell others what they don’t like about them. Wise devotees realize that there is good and bad in everyone. There are emotional ups and downs, mental elations and depressions, encouragements and discouragements. Let’s focus on the positive. This is ahiμsâ and satya working together.
The brahmachârî and the sannyâsin must be absolutely truthful with their satguru. They must be absolutely diplomatic, wise and always accentuate the good qualities within the sannyâsin and brahmachârî communities. The guru has the right to discuss, rebuke or discipline the uncomely
qualities in raising up the brahmachârî and sannyâsin. Only he has this right, because it was given to him by the brahmachârîs and sannyâsins when they took him as their satguru. This means that brahmachârîs and sannyâsins cannot discipline one another, psychoanalyze and correct in the
name of truthfulness, without violation of the number one yama—ahiμsâ, noninjury.
Mothers and fathers have rights with their own children, as do gurus with their ßishyas. These rights are limited according to wisdom. They are not all-inclusive and should not inhibit free will and well-rounded growth within an individual. This is why a guru is looked upon as the mother and father by the mother and father and by the disciple who is sent to the guru’s âßrama to study and learn. It is the guru’s responsibility to mold the aspirant into a solid member
of the monastic community, just as it is the mother’s and father’s duty to mold the youth to be a responsible, looked up- to member of the family community. This is how society progresses.
The practice, niyama, to strengthen one’s satya qualities is tapas, austerity—performing sâdhana, penance, tapas and sacrifice. If you find you have not been truthful, if you
have betrayed promises, then put yourself under the tapas sâdhana. Perform a lengthy penance. Atone, repent, perform austerities. You will soon find that being truthful is much easier than what tapas and austerities will make you go through if you fail to restrain yourself.
Truthfulness is the fullness of truth. Truth itself is fullness. May fullness prevail, truth prevail, and the spirit of satya and ahiμsâ permeate humanity.
Om Shanti
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
First Principle of Yamas : Ahimsa - Noninjury
By Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami:Yoga's Forgotten Foundation
Summary :
Practice noninjury, not harming others by thought, word or deed, even in your dreams. Live a kindly life, revering all beings as expressions of the One Divine energy. Let go of fear and insecurity, the sources of abuse. Knowing that harm caused to others unfailingly returns to oneself, live peacefully with God’s creation. Never be a source of dread, pain or injury.
Follow a vegetarian diet.
Explanation :
To practice ahimsa ,one has to practice santosha,contentment.The sadhana is to seek joy and serenity in life, remaining content with what one has, knows, is doing and those with whom he associates. Bear your karma cheerfully. Live within your situation contentedly. Ahimsa , or injury, and the desire to harm, comes from discontent. The Rishis who revealed the principles of dharma or divine law in Hindu scripture knew full well the potential for human suffering and the path which could avert it. To them a one spiritual power flowed in and through all things in this universe, animate and inanimate, conferring existence by its presence. To them life was a coherent process leading all souls without exception to enlightenment, and no violence could be carried to the higher reaches of that ascent. These Rishis were mystics whose revelation disclosed a cosmos in which all beings exist in interlaced dependence. The whole is contained in the part, and the part in the whole. Based on this cognition, they taught a philosophy of nondifference of self and other, asserting that in the final analysis we are not separate from the world and its manifest forms, nor from the Divine which shines forth in all things, all beings, all peoples. From this understanding of oneness arose the philosophical basis for the practice of noninjury and Hinduism’s ancient commitment to it. We all know that Hindus, who are one-sixth of the human race today, believe in the existence of God everywhere, as an all pervasive, self-effulgent energy and consciousness. This basic belief creates the attitude of sublime tolerance and acceptance toward others. Even tolerance is insufficient to describe the compassion and reverence the Hindu holds for the intrinsic sacredness within all things. Therefore, the actions of all Hindus are rendered benign, or ahimsa . One would not want to hurt something which one revered. On the other hand, when the fundamentalists of any religion teach an unrelenting duality based on good and evil, man and nature or God and Devil, this creates friends and enemies. This belief is a sacrilege to Hindus, because they know that the attitudes which are the by-product are totally dualistic, and for good to triumph over that which is alien or evil, it must kill out that which is considered to be evil. The Hindu looks at nothing as intrinsically evil. To him the ground is sacred. The sky is sacred. The sun is sacred. His wife is a Goddess. Her husband is a God. Their children are devas. Their home is a shrine. Life is a pilgrimage to mukti, or liberation from rebirth, which once attained is the end to reincarnation in a physical body. When on a holy pilgrimage, one would not want to hurt anyone along the way, knowing full well the experiences on this path are of one’s own creation, though maybe acted out through others.
Noninjury for Renunciates
Ahimsa is the first and foremost virtue, presiding over truthfulness, nonstealing, sexual purity, patience, steadfastness, compassion, honesty and moderate appetite. The brahmachârî and sannyâsin must take ahiμsâ, noninjury, one step further. He has mutated himself, escalated himself, by stopping the abilities of being able to harm another by thought, word or deed, physically, mentally or emotionally. The one step further is that he must not harm his own self
with his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own actions toward his own body, toward his own emotions, toward his own mind. This is very important to remember. And here, at this juncture, ahiμsâ has a tie with satya, truthfulness. The sannyâsin must be totally truthful to himself, to his guru, to the Gods and to Lord Íiva, who resides within him every minute of every hour of every day. But for him to truly know this and express it through his life and be a living religious example of the Sanâtana Dharma, all tendencies toward himsa, injuriousness, must always be definitely harnessed in chains of steel. The mystical reason is this. Because of the brahmachârî’s or sannyâsin’s spiritual power, he really has more ability to hurt someone than he or that person may know, and therefore his observance of noninjury is even more vital. Yes, this is true. A brahmachârî or sannyâsin who does not live the highest level of ahiμsâ is not
a brahmachârî. Words are expressions of thoughts, thoughts created from prâ∫a. Words coupled with thoughts backed up by the transmuted prânas, or the accumulated bank account of energies held back within the brahmachârî and the sannyâsin, become powerful thoughts, and when expressed
through words go deep into the mind, creating impressions, samskaras, that last a long time, maybe forever. It is truly unfortunate if a brahmachârî or sannyâsin loses control of himself and betrays ahimsâ by becoming himsâ, an injurious person—unfortunate for those involved, but more unfortunate for himself. When we hurt another, we scar the inside of ourself; we clone the image. The scar would never leave the sannyâsin until it left the person that he hurt. This is because the prâ∫as, the transmuted energies, give so much force to the thought. Thus the words penetrate to the very core of the being. Therefore, angry people should get married and should not practice brahmacharya.
Om Shanti.
Summary :
Practice noninjury, not harming others by thought, word or deed, even in your dreams. Live a kindly life, revering all beings as expressions of the One Divine energy. Let go of fear and insecurity, the sources of abuse. Knowing that harm caused to others unfailingly returns to oneself, live peacefully with God’s creation. Never be a source of dread, pain or injury.
Follow a vegetarian diet.
Explanation :
To practice ahimsa ,one has to practice santosha,contentment.The sadhana is to seek joy and serenity in life, remaining content with what one has, knows, is doing and those with whom he associates. Bear your karma cheerfully. Live within your situation contentedly. Ahimsa , or injury, and the desire to harm, comes from discontent. The Rishis who revealed the principles of dharma or divine law in Hindu scripture knew full well the potential for human suffering and the path which could avert it. To them a one spiritual power flowed in and through all things in this universe, animate and inanimate, conferring existence by its presence. To them life was a coherent process leading all souls without exception to enlightenment, and no violence could be carried to the higher reaches of that ascent. These Rishis were mystics whose revelation disclosed a cosmos in which all beings exist in interlaced dependence. The whole is contained in the part, and the part in the whole. Based on this cognition, they taught a philosophy of nondifference of self and other, asserting that in the final analysis we are not separate from the world and its manifest forms, nor from the Divine which shines forth in all things, all beings, all peoples. From this understanding of oneness arose the philosophical basis for the practice of noninjury and Hinduism’s ancient commitment to it. We all know that Hindus, who are one-sixth of the human race today, believe in the existence of God everywhere, as an all pervasive, self-effulgent energy and consciousness. This basic belief creates the attitude of sublime tolerance and acceptance toward others. Even tolerance is insufficient to describe the compassion and reverence the Hindu holds for the intrinsic sacredness within all things. Therefore, the actions of all Hindus are rendered benign, or ahimsa . One would not want to hurt something which one revered. On the other hand, when the fundamentalists of any religion teach an unrelenting duality based on good and evil, man and nature or God and Devil, this creates friends and enemies. This belief is a sacrilege to Hindus, because they know that the attitudes which are the by-product are totally dualistic, and for good to triumph over that which is alien or evil, it must kill out that which is considered to be evil. The Hindu looks at nothing as intrinsically evil. To him the ground is sacred. The sky is sacred. The sun is sacred. His wife is a Goddess. Her husband is a God. Their children are devas. Their home is a shrine. Life is a pilgrimage to mukti, or liberation from rebirth, which once attained is the end to reincarnation in a physical body. When on a holy pilgrimage, one would not want to hurt anyone along the way, knowing full well the experiences on this path are of one’s own creation, though maybe acted out through others.
Noninjury for Renunciates
Ahimsa is the first and foremost virtue, presiding over truthfulness, nonstealing, sexual purity, patience, steadfastness, compassion, honesty and moderate appetite. The brahmachârî and sannyâsin must take ahiμsâ, noninjury, one step further. He has mutated himself, escalated himself, by stopping the abilities of being able to harm another by thought, word or deed, physically, mentally or emotionally. The one step further is that he must not harm his own self
with his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own actions toward his own body, toward his own emotions, toward his own mind. This is very important to remember. And here, at this juncture, ahiμsâ has a tie with satya, truthfulness. The sannyâsin must be totally truthful to himself, to his guru, to the Gods and to Lord Íiva, who resides within him every minute of every hour of every day. But for him to truly know this and express it through his life and be a living religious example of the Sanâtana Dharma, all tendencies toward himsa, injuriousness, must always be definitely harnessed in chains of steel. The mystical reason is this. Because of the brahmachârî’s or sannyâsin’s spiritual power, he really has more ability to hurt someone than he or that person may know, and therefore his observance of noninjury is even more vital. Yes, this is true. A brahmachârî or sannyâsin who does not live the highest level of ahiμsâ is not
a brahmachârî. Words are expressions of thoughts, thoughts created from prâ∫a. Words coupled with thoughts backed up by the transmuted prânas, or the accumulated bank account of energies held back within the brahmachârî and the sannyâsin, become powerful thoughts, and when expressed
through words go deep into the mind, creating impressions, samskaras, that last a long time, maybe forever. It is truly unfortunate if a brahmachârî or sannyâsin loses control of himself and betrays ahimsâ by becoming himsâ, an injurious person—unfortunate for those involved, but more unfortunate for himself. When we hurt another, we scar the inside of ourself; we clone the image. The scar would never leave the sannyâsin until it left the person that he hurt. This is because the prâ∫as, the transmuted energies, give so much force to the thought. Thus the words penetrate to the very core of the being. Therefore, angry people should get married and should not practice brahmacharya.
Om Shanti.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Free Math Magic Workshop - December 6, 2011 . 7 pm to 10.30 pm
A SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH
PROF DOSS ON 'MAGIC MATHS' WILL BE ON AIR IN
RADIO MINNAL FM ON 5th DEC 2011 @ 10.15 PM
AND
ASTRO VIZHUTHUGAL ON 2ND DEC 2011 @ 9.30AM
AND A REPEAT AT 10.30PM.
You and your family are cordially invited to attend this FREE PROGRAM, to be conducted by Proff. Doss
Note: Please bring along a notebook, pen or pencil. You will be required to do some practical works.
DONT MISS!!!!!!
OUR CHILDREN MUST BE MADE TO LOVE MATHEMATICS,
SO THAT THEY CAN BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT,
CREATIVE AND PRODUCTIVE.
Magic Maths Workshop in Kuala Lumpur
December 6, 2011
Venue : Kala Mandabam , Scott Road , KL
Time : 7 pm to 10.30 pm.
Magic Maths Workshop in Ipoh
17th & 18th Dec
(Mr Sivaraj; HP#: 019-5778369 Mrs Thilaga; HP#: 019-5737100)
email: thila7609@gmail.com
Organised by
BELL CLUB -KUALA LUMPUR
ARTHA NYANA CONCEPT BUILDERS,
AKSHAYA SRI SAI DHYANA SABAI
(SHIRDI SAI CENTRE),
KELAB BELL BELIA TAMIL, KUALA LUMPUR,
LEMBAH PANTAI HYO AND
PUSAT TUISYEN SERI ILHAM.
More info please contact
Mr. Aravinthan 016-6120587 or 012-3915643 Mr.Sornam 016-6590709
Mr. L.Ganesh 016-2230905 Mr. Murthi 016-6837696
OUR EMAIL: naalvar_team@yahoo.com
PROF DOSS ON 'MAGIC MATHS' WILL BE ON AIR IN
RADIO MINNAL FM ON 5th DEC 2011 @ 10.15 PM
AND
ASTRO VIZHUTHUGAL ON 2ND DEC 2011 @ 9.30AM
AND A REPEAT AT 10.30PM.
You and your family are cordially invited to attend this FREE PROGRAM, to be conducted by Proff. Doss
Note: Please bring along a notebook, pen or pencil. You will be required to do some practical works.
DONT MISS!!!!!!
OUR CHILDREN MUST BE MADE TO LOVE MATHEMATICS,
SO THAT THEY CAN BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT,
CREATIVE AND PRODUCTIVE.
Magic Maths Workshop in Kuala Lumpur
December 6, 2011
Venue : Kala Mandabam , Scott Road , KL
Time : 7 pm to 10.30 pm.
Magic Maths Workshop in Ipoh
17th & 18th Dec
(Mr Sivaraj; HP#: 019-5778369 Mrs Thilaga; HP#: 019-5737100)
email: thila7609@gmail.com
Organised by
BELL CLUB -KUALA LUMPUR
ARTHA NYANA CONCEPT BUILDERS,
AKSHAYA SRI SAI DHYANA SABAI
(SHIRDI SAI CENTRE),
KELAB BELL BELIA TAMIL, KUALA LUMPUR,
LEMBAH PANTAI HYO AND
PUSAT TUISYEN SERI ILHAM.
More info please contact
Mr. Aravinthan 016-6120587 or 012-3915643 Mr.Sornam 016-6590709
Mr. L.Ganesh 016-2230905 Mr. Murthi 016-6837696
OUR EMAIL: naalvar_team@yahoo.com
Friday, December 2, 2011
KL Tamil Toastmaster Meeting- December 4, 2011. 3.30pm.
Vanakam and Namaste to all Great Atma,
Count on your blessings.
Be thankful on your blessings.
Your presence in this world is itself a great blessings.
Have a blessed day to all of You.
Remember You are a blessing to this world.
Bless bless bless All and the World.
Om Shanti.
Join us and together we can make Tamil a powerful communication tool.
Date : December 4, 2011
Time : 3.30 pm
Venue : 25-1 Citras Hall, Jalan Thamby Abdullah 1 , off Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Brickfields KL
Contact : Please call or sms to book a place .
Contact persons : 0162325664
Email : artha.dharma@gmail.com
http://www.toastmasters.org/
Please forward to all your friends.
Nandri . Nandri. Nandri.
--
Anbe Sivam
Om Shanti
Artha Dharma Concept Builders
Life Long Learning Center
Taman Damai Utama
Puchong 47180
Selangor
Email : artha.dharma@gmail.com
Website: http://groups.google.com/group/arthadharma
Face book : www.facebook.com/artha.dharma
Blog : www.arthadharma.blogspot.com
Religious Education : www.gurudeva.org
Hinduism Today Magazine : www.hinduismtoday.com
Free Healing : www.prana-violet-healing.com
Count on your blessings.
Be thankful on your blessings.
Your presence in this world is itself a great blessings.
Have a blessed day to all of You.
Remember You are a blessing to this world.
Bless bless bless All and the World.
Om Shanti.
Join us and together we can make Tamil a powerful communication tool.
Date : December 4, 2011
Time : 3.30 pm
Venue : 25-1 Citras Hall, Jalan Thamby Abdullah 1 , off Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Brickfields KL
Contact : Please call or sms to book a place .
Contact persons : 0162325664
Email : artha.dharma@gmail.com
http://www.toastmasters.org/
Please forward to all your friends.
Nandri . Nandri. Nandri.
--
Anbe Sivam
Om Shanti
Artha Dharma Concept Builders
Life Long Learning Center
Taman Damai Utama
Puchong 47180
Selangor
Email : artha.dharma@gmail.com
Website: http://groups.google.com/group/arthadharma
Face book : www.facebook.com/artha.dharma
Blog : www.arthadharma.blogspot.com
Religious Education : www.gurudeva.org
Hinduism Today Magazine : www.hinduismtoday.com
Free Healing : www.prana-violet-healing.com
10 Tips for Public Speaking.
Feeling some nervousness before giving a speech is natural and even beneficial, but too much nervousness can be detrimental. Here are some
proven tips on how to control your butterflies and give better presentations:
1.Know your material. Pick a topic you are interested in. Know more
about it than you include in your speech. Use humor, personal stories and conversational language – that way you won’t easily forget what to say.
2.Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all equipment you plan on using. Revise as necessary. Work to control filler words; Practice, pause and breathe. Practice with a timer and allow time for the unexpected.
3.Know the audience. Greet some of the audience members as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to strangers.
4.Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.
5.Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. It buys you time and calms your nerves. Pause, smile and count to three before saying anything. ("One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. Pause. Begin.) Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm.
6.Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and confident. Visualize the audience clapping – it will boost your confidence.
7.Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They’re rooting for you.
8.Don’t apologize for any nervousness or problem – the audience probably never noticed it.
9.Concentrate on the message – not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience.
10.Gain experience. Mainly, your speech should represent you — as an authority and as a person. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking. A Toastmasters club can provide the experience you need in a safe and friendly environment.
proven tips on how to control your butterflies and give better presentations:
1.Know your material. Pick a topic you are interested in. Know more
about it than you include in your speech. Use humor, personal stories and conversational language – that way you won’t easily forget what to say.
2.Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all equipment you plan on using. Revise as necessary. Work to control filler words; Practice, pause and breathe. Practice with a timer and allow time for the unexpected.
3.Know the audience. Greet some of the audience members as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to strangers.
4.Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.
5.Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. It buys you time and calms your nerves. Pause, smile and count to three before saying anything. ("One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. Pause. Begin.) Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm.
6.Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and confident. Visualize the audience clapping – it will boost your confidence.
7.Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They’re rooting for you.
8.Don’t apologize for any nervousness or problem – the audience probably never noticed it.
9.Concentrate on the message – not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience.
10.Gain experience. Mainly, your speech should represent you — as an authority and as a person. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking. A Toastmasters club can provide the experience you need in a safe and friendly environment.
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