Astral magnetism

The force of kundalini flows as a river through men and women. Sexual intercourse gives that river an outlet, creates a channel, a psychic-astral tube between their muladhara chakras. After the first intercourse, awareness is turned outward into the external world and the man or woman is more vulnerable to the forces of desire. The ramification of the intellect can now be experienced more than ever before. If the force is contained within the marriage covenant, with blessings from the Devaloka and Sivaloka, rays similar to the astral tube established between the couple are established between each of them through the higher chakras with the Mahadevas and their devas. A holy state of matrimony has been entered into.

Dancing with Siva, Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism states: "When a young virgin man and woman marry and share physical intimacy with each other, their union is very strong and their marriage stable. This is due to the subtle, psychic forces of the human nerve system. Their psychic forces, or nadis, grow together, and they form a one body and a one mind. This is the truest marriage and the strongest, seldom ending in separation or divorce. Conversely, if the man or woman has had intercourse before the marriage, the emotional/psychic closeness of the marriage will suffer, and this in proportion to the extent of promiscuity."

The higher rays and lower astral-psychic tubes that are created between husband and wife can contain the forces of desire within them. They also control the instinctive curiosities of the intellect, allowing its full power to manifest and create a productive and abundant life for the family which has continuity and consistency. A life of dharma can be lived.

The release of the sacred seed into the woman during sexual intercourse establishes, through the first chakra, a connecting psychic astral tube which can be clearly seen on the astral plane. It is through this psychic tube that desires, feelings and even telepathic messages can be passed from one to another. This connecting tube is generally about six inches in diameter.

Nowadays, because of promiscuity, masses of people are connected one to another in this way. A great bed of astral matter envelops them as they go from one partner to another. This causes the forces of intense fear to persist. From an inner perspective, their soul bodies are obscured by this astral matter, and it is most difficult for those living in the Devaloka to contact anyone on the Earth plane who is thus involved. Such individuals must fend for themselves, with little or no protection from the Devaloka or the Sivaloka, as do the animals, who do not have benefit of the intellect to guide their actions.

Any two people touching in other ways--kissing, embracing--also establishes a temporary connecting link of astral matter which penetrates their auras and completely covers their forms. This is sometimes called the great magnetism, for it appears in the Second World as a psychic mass connecting the two of them as wide as the length of their bodies. This astral matter is created from the diverse expulsion of emotional energies, blending their auras together. The psychic connection is magnetic enough to repeatedly pull them back together or cause emotional pain if they are separated. But unless the encounter is repeated, the astral matter will wear away in three or four days, a month at the most. In this way, touching or caressing someone causes an abundant release of magnetic force to occur.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_66.shtml

Does hell really exist? Is there a Satan?

There is no eternal hell, nor is there a Satan. However, there are hellish states of mind and woeful births for those who think and act wrongfully--temporary tormenting conditions that lift the fiery forces within. Aum.

Hell, termed Naraka, is the lower astral realm of the seven chakras below the muladhara. It is a place of fire and heat, anguish and dismay, of confusion, despair and depression. Here anger, jealousy, argument, mental conflict and tormenting moods plague the mind. Access to hell is brought about by our own thoughts, words, deeds and emotions--suppressed, antagonistic feelings that court demons and their aggressive forces. Hell is not eternal. Nor is there a Satan who tempts man and opposes God's power, though there are devilish beings called asuras, immature souls caught in the abyss of deception and hurtfulness. We do not have to die to suffer the Naraka regions, for hellish states of mind are also experienced in the physical world. If we do die in a hellish state of consciousness--burdened by unresolved hatred, remorse, resentment, fear and distorted patterns of thought--we arrive in Naraka fully equipped to join others in this temporary astral purgatory. The Vedas say, "Sunless and demonic, verily, are those worlds, and enveloped in blinding darkness, to which all those people who are enemies of their own souls go after death." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_363.shtml

How can a benevolent God permit evil?

Ultimately, there is no good or bad. God did not create evil as a force distinct from good. He granted to souls the loving edicts of dharma and experiential choices from very subtle to most crude, thus to learn and evolve. Aum.

From the pinnacle of consciousness, one sees the harmony of life. Similarly, from a mountaintop, we see the natural role of a raging ocean and the steep cliffs below--they are beautiful. From the bottom of the mountain, the ocean can appear ominous and the cliffs treacherous. When through meditation, we view the universe from the inside out, we see that there is not one thing out of place or wrong. This releases the human concepts of right and wrong, good and bad. Our benevolent Lord created everything in perfect balance. Good or evil, kindness or hurtfulness return to us as the result, the fruit, of our own actions of the past. The four dharmas are God's wisdom lighting our path. That which is known as evil arises from the instinctive-intellectual nature, which the Lord created as dimensions of experience to strengthen our soul and further its spiritual evolution. Let us be compassionate, for truly there is no intrinsic evil. The Vedas admonish, "Being overcome by the fruits of his action, he enters a good or an evil womb, so that his course is downward or upward, and he wanders around, overcome by the pairs of opposites." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_359.shtml

Why do some souls act in evil ways?

People act in evil ways who have lost touch with their soul nature and live totally in the outer, instinctive mind. What the ignorant see as evil, the enlightened see as the actions of low-minded and immature individuals. Aum.

Evil is often looked upon as a force against God. But the Hindu knows that all forces are God's forces, even the waywardness of adharma. This is sometimes difficult to understand when we see the pains and problems caused by men against men. Looking deeper, we see that what is called evil has its own mysterious purpose in life. Yes, bad things do happen. Still, the wise never blame God, for they know these to be the return of man's self-created karmas, difficult but necessary experiences for his spiritual evolution. Whenever we are injured or hurt, we understand that our suffering is but the fulfillment of a karma we once initiated, for which our injurer is but the instrument who, when his karma cycles around, will be the injured. Those who perform seemingly evil deeds are not yet in touch with the ever-present God consciousness of their immortal soul. The Vedas rightly admonish, "Borne along and defiled by the stream of qualities, unsteady, wavering, bewildered, full of desire, distracted, one goes on into the state of self-conceit. In thinking, 'This is I' and 'That is mine' one binds himself with himself, as does a bird with a snare." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_357.shtml

Desire, death and rebirth

Where are we born after we die? How do we become born again? You are born again in the same way you died. After some time, the astral body cannot stay on the astral plane anymore, because the seeds of pranic motion have to be expressed on the physical plane again due to one's activity on the astral plane. A new physical birth is entered. Generally, this happens through a newborn child's body, but a more advanced soul who has his spiritual body well developed can pick up a body which is fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old and go right along in life from that point.

In what country do you become born? It all depends upon what country you were thinking about before and when you died. If you had a desire to go to Canada, most likely you will be born in Canada next time around. If you had been thinking about going to South America a year or two before you passed away, you would be reincarnated in South America, because that was your destination. If you were very much attached to your own particular family and you did not want to leave them, you would be born back in that immediate family again, because your desire is there. The astral body is the body of desire.

Students probing the mysteries of reincarnation often ask, "If reincarnation is true, why can't I remember my past lives?" They might just as well ask another question: "Why do we not remember everything in detail in this life?" The memory capabilities, unless highly trained, are not that strong, especially after having endured the process of creating a new body through another family and establishing new memory patterns. However, there are people who do recall their past lives, in the very same way that they remember what they did yesterday. Former-life memory is that clear and vivid to them.

However, it is neither necessary nor advisable to pursue events, identities or relationships that may have existed in previous lives. After all, it is all now. We don't think it important to remember details of our childhood years, to wallow in happy or unhappy nostalgia. Why pursue the remembered residue of what has already come and gone? Now is the only time, and for the spiritual seeker, past life analysis or conjecture is an unnecessary waste of useful time and energy. The present now is the sum of all prior thens. Be now. Be the being of yourself this very moment, and that will be the truest fulfillment of all past actions.

The validity of reincarnation and its attendant philosophy are difficult to prove, and yet science is on the threshold of discovering this universal mechanism. Science cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence, the testimony of thousands of level-headed people who claim to remember other lives or who have actually died and then returned to life, and the impressive literature spanning Hindu, Tibetan, Buddhist and Egyptian civilizations. Thus, the pursuit of various theories continues in an effort to bring theory into established law according to the reason and intellectual facilities of man. Those living in the heart chakra, anahata, are able to cognize and know deeply the governing mechanism of rebirth from their own awakening.

There are at least three basic theories or schools of thought related to reincarnation. At first they may seem to conflict or contradict one another, but further elucidation indicates that they are all correct. They are just different aspects of a complex mechanism.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_345.shtml

How does one best prepare for death?

Blessed with the knowledge of impending transition, we settle affairs and take refuge in japa, worship, scripture and yoga--seeking the highest realizations as we consciously, joyously release the world. Aum Namah Sivaya.

Before dying, Hindus diligently fulfill obligations, make amends and resolve differences by forgiving themselves and others, lest unresolved karmas bear fruit in future births. That done, we turn to God through meditation, surrender and scriptural study. As a conscious death is our ideal, we avoid drugs, artificial life-extension and suicide. Suicide only postpones and intensifies the karma one seeks escape from, requiring several lives to return to the evolutionary point that existed at the moment of suicide. In cases of terminal illness, under strict community regulation, tradition does allow prayopavesha, self-willed religious death by fasting. When nearing transition, if hospitalized, we return home to be among loved ones. In the final hours of life, we seek the Self God within and focus on our mantra as kindred keep prayerful vigil. At death, we leave the body through the crown chakra, entering the clear white light and beyond in quest of videhamukti. The Vedas affirm, "When a person comes to weakness, be it through old age or disease, he frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, a fig or a berry releases itself from its stalk." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_345.shtml

The Transition Called Death

Death--what is it? The dropping off of the physical body is the time when all of the karma-making actions go back to seed in the muladhara chakra, into the memory patterns. All of our actions, reactions and the things we have set in motion in the pranic patterns in this life form the tendencies of our nature in our next incarnation. The tendencies of our nature in the present incarnation are the ways in which awareness flows through the ida, pingala and sushumna currents.

These tendencies of man's nature also are recorded under the astrological signs in which he is born. Man comes through an astrological conglomeration of signs, or an astrological chart, according to his actions and reactions and what he set in motion in the seed-karma patterns of his past life. So, we are always the sum total, a collection, of all the karmic experiences, a totality of all the seed patterns that have happened to us, or that we have caused to happen, through the many, many lives. We are now a sum total, and we are always a continuing sum total.

A past life is not really so many years ago. That is not the way to look at it. It is now. Each life is within or inside the other. They exist as karmic seeds that appear in the pranic force fields in our life now and, like seeds, when watered they grow into plants. These seeds are nourished by prana. When we die, or when we discard the physical body, that is the end of a chapter of experience. Then we pick up a new physical body. This begins a new chapter that is always referring back to the last chapter for direction. These are tendencies.

This is the entire story of what happens after we die. We simply step out of the physical body and are in our astral body, going on in the mind as usual. The awareness does not stop simply because the physical body falls away. The ida force becomes more refined, the pingala force becomes more refined, the sushumna force is there like it always was, but all are in another body that was inside the physical body during life on Earth.

One great peculiarity about man is that he individually feels that he is never going to die and goes on through life planning and building as though he were going to live forever and ever. The fear of death is a natural instinctive reflex. We encounter it sometimes daily, once a month, or at least once a year when we come face to face with the possibility of obliteration of our personality and of leaving the conscious mind. The fear of change or fear of the unknown is an ominous element in the destiny of a human being. The study and comprehension of the laws of reincarnation can alleviate this fear and bring an enlightened vision of the cosmic rhythms of life and death. It is a simple process, no more fantastic, shall we say, than other growth problems we experience daily. A flower grows, blossoms and withers. The seed falls to the ground, is buried in the earth, sprouts and grows into a plant and a flower.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_344.shtml

What is the process of reincarnation?

Reincarnation, punarjanma, is the natural process of birth, death and rebirth. At death we drop off the physical body and continue evolving in the inner worlds in our subtle bodies, until we again enter into birth. Aum.

Through the ages, reincarnation has been the great consoling element within Hinduism, eliminating the fear of death, explaining why one person is born a genius and another an idiot. We are not the body in which we live but the immortal soul which inhabits many bodies in its evolutionary journey through samsara. After death, we continue to exist in unseen worlds, enjoying or suffering the harvest of earthly deeds until it comes time for yet another physical birth. Because certain karmas can be resolved only in the physical world, we must enter another physical body to continue our evolution. After soaring into the causal plane, we enter a new womb. Subsequently the old manomaya kosha is slowly sloughed off and a new one created. The actions set in motion in previous lives form the tendencies and conditions of the next. Reincarnation ceases when karma is resolved, God is realized and moksha attained. The Vedas say, "After death, the soul goes to the next world bearing in mind the subtle impressions of its deeds, and after reaping their harvest returns again to this world of action. Thus, he who has desires continues subject to rebirth." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_343.shtml

Is there good karma and bad karma?

In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion. Aum.

Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving actions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness produces sweet fruits, called punya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called papa. 

As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adharmic actions impede our progress. The divine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual unfoldment. 

Performing daily sadhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others' needs--these evoke the higher energies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the creation of troublesome new karmas. The Vedas explain, "According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action." Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_342.shtml

Proper guidance

When people do not have a guide, they wander around bumping into each other. They can't see the consequences of their actions. They perform good, bad and mixed actions and don't keep on the right track and therefore end up wandering around in circles. They don't listen to their mothers. They don't listen to their fathers. They don't listen to their spiritual guides. They don't listen to their local religious mentors. But they do listen to the hottest rock star, to their drug dealer and their gang leader. Some have to listen to their AIDS or cancer counselor and make plans for an early departure. So, they can listen. Yes, listening is still functional. Am I communicating? Are we communicating?

Unfortunately, many children are raised by their parents these days to not listen to anyone. "Don't ask me. Make up your own mind," they are told, "I just want you to be happy." Children are raised to be confused. They are raised to be loners in a complicated world. They are raised to be lower-consciousness people. And in many schools they are raised to become educated criminals. Let's get back to the basics of raising children properly, giving them proper guidance. It is the dharma of the parents to raise their children properly, as it is the duty of the satguru to see that they do it.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_327.shtml

Choosing your mental diet

Have you ever given thought to the diet of your mind? Of course, our physical diet and our emotional diet are also diets of the mind, because they affect our consciousness. But let's now consider the intellectual processes. How much information, how many facts is it necessary and healthy for us to ingest in a single day? It's a good idea for a devotee to budget his reading, to choose and discriminate what he wants to make a part of himself through the process of mental digestion. We have to discriminate to the nth degree whether or not we will have the time and the capacity to digest everything that we desire to place in our minds. For instance, quickly reading an article in a newspaper might stir your mind and emotions. If it is not properly digested, it could conceivably upset your whole day. In the realm of intellect, the commonsense rule "Don't eat when you are already full" also applies.

You may read a book of philosophy, and if you have time to digest it, well and good, but many people don't and suffer from philosophical indigestion. They have read so many things and only digested a small part of what has passed through the window of the mind. Then again, it is one thing to digest something, and it is still another to assimilate it and make it a part of you, for when it becomes fully a part of you, you have a hunger and room for something more.

Many people come to lectures and then tune themselves out and simply benefit from the vibration created by the teacher and others in the room. They tune themselves out so that what is said is not absorbed consciously, but rather subconsciously. This is a good method for those who are still digesting material received from previous lectures. Another practice that makes for a very good mental indigestion pill is that of opening a spiritual book and allowing your eye to fall upon a random sentence on the page. Often you will find it will accent ideas that you are currently concerned with.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_73.shtml

What Is the Consequence of Sinful Acts?

When we do not think, speak and act virtuously, we create negative karmas and bring suffering upon ourselves and others. We suffer when we act instinctively and intellectually without superconscious guidance. Aum.

We are happy, serene and stable when we follow good conduct, when we listen to our conscience, the knowing voice of the soul. The superconscious mind, the mind of our soul, knows and inspires good conduct, out of which comes a refined, sustainable culture. Wrongdoing and vice lead us away from God, deep into the darkness of doubt, despair and self-condemnation. This brings the asuras around us. We are out of harmony with ourselves and our family and must seek companionship elsewhere, amongst those who are also crude, unmindful, greedy and lacking in self-control. In this bad company, burdensome new karma is created, as good conduct cannot be followed. This papa accumulates, blinding us to the religious life we once lived. Penance and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God and the Gods are the only release for the unvirtuous, those who conduct themselves poorly. Fortunately, our Gods are compassionate and love their devotees. The ancient Vedas elucidate, "The mind is said to be twofold: the pure and also the impure; impure by union with desire--pure when from desire completely free!" Aum Namah Sivaya.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_364.shtml

The right conditions for meditation

We now come to the practical aspects of meditation. In the beginning, it is best to find a suitable room that is dedicated solely to meditation. If you were a carpenter, you would get a shop for that purpose. You have a room for eating, a room for sleeping. Now you need a separate room just for the purpose of meditation. When you find it, wash the walls and ceiling, wash the windows. Prepare a small altar if you like, bringing together the elements of earth, air, fire and water. Establish a time for your meditations and meet those times strictly. There will be days when you just don't feel like meditating. Good. Those are often the best days, the times when we make strong inner strides. The finest times to meditate are six in the morning, twelve noon, six in the evening, and twelve midnight. All four of these times could be used, or just choose one. The period of meditation should be from ten minutes to one-half hour to begin with.

By sitting up straight, with the spine erect, we transmute the energies of the physical body. Posture is important, especially as meditation deepens and lengthens. With the spine erect and the head balanced at the top of the spine, the life force is quickened and intensified as energies flood freely through the nerve system. In a position such as this, we cannot become worried, fretful, depressed or sleepy during our meditation. But if we slump the shoulders forward, we short-circuit the life energies. In a position such as this, it is easy to become depressed, to have mental arguments with oneself or another, or to experience unhappiness. So, learn to sit dynamically, relaxed and yet poised. The full-lotus position, with the right foot resting on the left thigh and the left foot above, resting on the right thigh, is the most stable posture to assume, hands resting in the lap, right hand on top, with both thumbs touching.

The first observation you may have when thus seated for meditation is that thoughts are racing through the mind substance. You may become aware of many, many thoughts. Also the breath may be irregular. Therefore, the next step is to transmute the energies from the intellectual area of the mind through proper breathing, in just the same way that proper attitude, preparation and posture transmuted the physical-instinctive energies. Through regulation of the breath, thoughts are stilled and awareness moves into an area of the mind which does not think, but conceives and intuits.

There are vast and powerful systems of breathing that can stimulate the mind, sometimes to excess. Deep meditation requires only that the breath be systematically slowed or lengthened. This happens naturally as we go within, but can be encouraged by a method of breathing called kalibasa in Shum, my language of meditation. During kalibasa, the breath is counted, nine counts as we inhale, hold one count, nine counts as we exhale, hold one count. The length of the beats, or the rhythm of the breath, will slow as the meditation is sustained, until we are counting to the beat of the heart, hridaya spanda pranayama. This exercise allows awareness to flow into an area of the mind that is intensely alive, peaceful, blissful and conceives the totality of a concept rather than thinking out the various parts.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_96.shtml

Emotional Maturity

What is emotional maturity? It certainly is not to be equated with physical age. I know people who are well past middle life and are not yet emotionally mature. Even if the physical body is totally mature, the intellect, as well as the emotional unit, can remain childish and unstable. The mind may have been educated to the nth degree, and yet such a scholar remains vulnerable to depression and discouragement. The very first step toward emotional mastery is recognition coupled with admission that in some areas we are not yet perfect. Only through open admission can we devote ourselves to the sadhana that will balance and lessen the forces, allowing us to strive within ourselves to secure ourselves within ourselves. An emotionally mature man or woman is totally secure within and prepared to tap the greater realms of spiritual being.

We make very little progress when we strive to conquer these baser instincts in a good mood. However, vast strides are possible when we are miserable and work with ourselves to replace our misery with joy and understanding. Therefore, if you are ever disappointed or discouraged, count it a blessing, for you then have the opportunity to conquer the instinctive nature and really stabilize yourself dynamically on the spiritual path.

Often we are disappointed not only with ourselves and our circumstances but with other people as well. We can oversee this and other instinctive responses, such as mental criticism or jealousy, by looking at everyone and saying to ourselves, "I like you. I send you blessings." We cannot be discouraged or disappointed or jealous when we look our fellow man in the eye and say and simultaneously feel and believe through every atom of our being, "I like you. I send you blessings." Impossible! Love overcomes all instinctive barriers between people.

There may be certain people or a certain person to whom you can say, "I like you," but for whom this is hard to believe in your heart. If you look deeper into them, you may find they are emotionally immature, a 12-year-old emotional body walking around in a 35-year-old physical body. Are you going to dislike a person for that? No, of course not. You are going to understand him or her. I've seen people with 22-year-old bodies with the wisdom of an 80-year old and the emotional stability of a 40-year old. I've seen people walking around in a 60-year-old body with a 12-year-old emotional body. By learning to understand, we cease to be a personality leaning upon our fellow man and falling into disappointment when he lets us down. No, we must lean on no one but ourselves, our own spine, and not be the reactionary victims of the ups and downs of the world around us or the people around us. Then we will gain our freedom from the instinctive forces we were born into and attain sufficient emotional maturity to love and bless the world no matter what our circumstances may be.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_66.shtml

In the early stages of meditation

In the early stages of meditation, it's very difficult to sit without moving, because that has not been part of our lifestyle. The subconscious mind has never been programmed to contentedly sit quietly. We didn't see our families doing that. Perhaps we haven't seen anybody doing that. No example has been set. Therefore, we have to be patient with ourselves and not sit for too long in the beginning. Start by sitting for ten minutes without moving. In a few weeks extend it to twenty minutes, then a half hour. Thus we avoid being fanatical and allow the subconscious to make its necessary adjustments.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_94.shtml

Even the greatest souls have had confusions, disappointments, losses

...you must remember that even the greatest souls have had nightmares, confusions, heartbreaks, disappointments, losses, desires that have been unfulfilled and experiences that they have not been able to cognize. And then they have come to a point in their lives when their inner being started pushing forward to the conscious plane. In other words, they have had just about all the experience necessary to graduate out of the instinctive-intellectual world, or consciousness.

The great, intuitive superconscious nature begins pushing forward to the conscious plane, stirring up within the subconscious the remnants of the past. As those remnants come up, they have to be faced and cognized through meditation, thus creating the foundation for understanding the basic laws and principles of life. Then comes the dawn of the clear white light.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_94.shtml

Affirmation Is a Power

The power of affirmation changes and remolds the putty-like substance that makes up the subconscious areas of the mind. For years we have repeated sayings and statements, attached meaning to them in our thoughts and through listening to ourselves speak. This has helped form our life as we know it today, for the subconscious brings into manifestation the impressions we put into it. Therefore, to change the subconscious pattern and increase the spinning velocity of it, we must remold with new ideas and new concepts its magnetic forces. This can be done through the power of affirmation.

Affirmation, when used in wisdom for spiritual reasons, is a power, and should be understood through meditation. Before beginning to work with an affirmation, we must understand completely from within what we are doing, being sure that when our subconscious has been remolded we can take the added responsibilities, the new adventures and challenges that will manifest as a result of breaking out of one force field and entering into another. Only when we face and accept fully the new effects of our effort should we proceed with an affirmation. First we must understand the nature of this power.

An affirmation is a series of positive words repeated time and time again in line with a visual concept. Such a statement can be repeated mentally or, preferably, verbally. Words in themselves, without a pictorial understanding, make a very poor affirmation. To choose the affirmation best suited to our needs, first we must realize what we do not want, and then we must take steps to change it, in the very same way we would discriminate in giving away or throwing away our possessions in order to purchase new ones. Whether one is dealing with home and possessions, thoughts and concepts, self-created inhibitions, or blocks and barriers of the subconscious, the principle is basically the same. If one feels, "I can't," he cannot. If he is always criticizing himself and lamenting over what he cannot do, then he has to reverse this pattern and change the flow of magnetic mental force, enliven its intensity by saying orally and feeling through all the pores of his body, "I can. I will. I am able to accomplish what I plan."

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_71.shtml

Young and old souls, and psychedelic experiences

There are young souls in this world, and there are old souls. The young soul shows you how you can't do something. The old soul shows you how you can. But a young soul can evolve in this very life in the same way that a weak, skinny man can go to a gym and become a husky bundle of muscle.

Spiritual unfoldment and the growth and development of the subtle nerve system are the same thing. Most of us are familiar with the structure of the body's muscles, but how many of you are familiar with your nerve fibers? The life force flows through you along these nerve channels in a degree directly proportionate to the condition of your mind. We call this actinic force or cosmic force. This actinic force flowing out into the muscle and skin structure produces prana, or magnetism. The magnetic force in nature we call odic force. Have you ever had somebody suddenly call you up and say, "Come on, let's go to a party," when you feel tired and lacking in energy, and suddenly your nervous system floods a new force through you, rejuvenating your magnetic response? This is an involuntary response, a subsuperconscious release of actinic force.

The nervous system in a young soul is, shall we say, immature. The many, many incarnational experiences of the old soul have instilled in the subtle nervous system a strength of fiber, a spiritual maturation. Therefore, the older soul entering into meditation can sustain the force and unfoldment that one meditation carries over into another. This process is a steady building, an opening up, until finally, in a contemplative moment of cosmic consciousness, one opens to Self Realization, beyond the experience of the mind, and is able to sustain it because the nerve structure is very powerful.

So, this is the unfortunate aspect of psychedelic experience as I see it. It is especially damaging to the young soul and leads the older soul off track. If the individual taking LSD or some other psychotropic drug is an old soul, it has perhaps awakened him so that he is able to face the new situation of his consciousness with intelligence. But the reaction inhibits further spiritual unfoldments because lower chakras are wrenched open, causing severe mood swings. In the case of the young soul, he has not yet developed the nerve fiber to adjust to the awakening, to the intensity of the psychedelic experience, and his mind very often "turns off."

I have interviewed seekers who have had a few psychedelic experiences and have come through them more vibrant, more alive, and more ready to face the challenges of a new world. I have met others who only stand and look at you blankly, who have lost their desire, even their self-respect. They have lost, shall we say, the structure through which their mind force previously flowed, and it has not been replaced.

What happens to a Hindu yogi when he enters a superconscious state of bliss in which his mind opens up, turns to light, and he sees the world revolving below the state of his suspended consciousness? He has arrived at this state through many years of practice in concentration, meditation and contemplation, many years of building strong nerve fiber. But in a momentary high on LSD or any other powerful psychedelic, such as mushrooms, peyote, ecstasy or DMT, the nerve structure is strained, in a sense which we can best describe as abnormal, to allow the individual to reach this exalted consciousness. Coming out of it, the result is often a kind of shock in which the person has a great difficulty in readjusting to any kind of normal routine. Because these drugs are illegal, the consciousness of fear also has been awakened within the seeker. Fear is the first step down into the lower worlds of darkness. The next is anger.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_79.shtml

Psychedelic experiences and yoga

Chemical Consciousness

In the early '60s I became conscious that more and more of the people who came to me for counseling wanted to talk over aspects of their experience in higher states of the mind, states of the mind that had been opened through psychedelic experience. Their interest was in relating these experiences to yoga and the consciousness attained through meditation. These people were highly enthusiastic about their new world, for it seemed like sort of a canned meditation, something they could get very quickly without entering into the sometimes tedious yoga training that may take years to open the individual to the within of himself. People all over the nation now are becoming awakened to the world within.

Around the same time, we had a seminar in San Diego attended by many seekers and LSD users. It seemed to us that the LSD people are almost like a new race, a race of people that have been reborn in bodies that already existed. Those who use psychedelics are different in many respects from those who have had no psychedelic experience. Their feelings are different. Their relationships are different. They are closer to some people, but at the same time they have created a gap between themselves and society. It is a gap of loneliness, because the breach between the inner consciousness and the external world has become so great that they have only themselves to depend upon. The degree of success of this dependence is another story, which brings us into the subject of yoga. We cannot say that the psychedelic experience in itself is either good or bad. It is enough to say that it is an experience that has occurred to thousands of people.

These ideas I am sharing with you are not so much for the psychedelic people as for those who have not had the psychedelic experience. I do not encourage you to go through it. Rather, I would encourage you to continue with the slower process of yoga. But I want to awaken you to the fact that there is this new group of people living with us. Their approach to life is entirely different from the one which you may have. Their perception generally is entirely different. Some of these people can look into your mind and even read your thoughts. Those who have not had psychedelic experiences will have to learn to adjust to the psychedelic consciousness. Likewise, those who use these drugs, if they ever stop, will have to learn to adjust their thinking again to the normal conscious-plane way of doing things.

I believe that the gap which has been created between "turned on people" and "turned off people" can best be bridged through meditation, gaining control of the mind so that the individual can become master of himself. When you become master of yourself, you truly stand alone in completeness, not in loneliness. In doing so, you are able to bring forth knowledge and wisdom from yourself through the process of meditation, through being able to sit down and think through a problem, ultimately seeing it in full, superconscious perspective and bring forth an answer, a workable answer filled with life. Meditation is a dynamic process. It is much more than just sitting around and waiting. It creates a highly individualistic type of mind.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_78.shtml

Living Two-Thirds Within

Living two-thirds within oneself and one-third in the external world--how do we do it? As soon as we live within ourselves, we become conscious of all of our various secret thoughts, all of our various emotions, that we would just as soon be without. Therefore, we distract ourselves and endeavor to live two-thirds in the external world and only one-third within ourselves. As aspirants on the path, you have to live your life two-thirds within yourself. When you are conscious of the thoughts that you don't want to think, the emotions that you don't want to feel, go deep within where they don't exist. Take awareness to the central source of energy, right within the spine itself. Feel that energy flowing through the body, moving the muscles, enlivening the cells. Then you are two-thirds within yourself, and the world looks bright and cheery all the time; the sun is always shining. Immediately, when we begin to identify totally with our thoughts as being reality, then we begin to make mistakes. We're living two-thirds in the external world.

How to strike the balance? Regulate the breath throughout the day. Keep the spine always straight. Always sit up straight. As soon as the spine is bent, awareness is externalized. We're living two-thirds in the external area of the mind and only one-third in. As soon as the spine is straight, our awareness is internalized. We're living two-thirds within and only one-third out.

What's the biggest barrier? Fear. Afraid of our secret thoughts. Afraid of our secret feelings. What's the biggest escape from fear? Go to the center, where energy exists, the energy that moves the life through the body. The simplest way is move your spine back and forth. Feel the power that moves that spine. Feel the power that moves that spine back and forth. Feel that energy going out through the physical body. Open your eyes and look at the world again, and you'll see it bright and shiny. You're two-thirds in and one-third out in awareness. You're balanced.

"Be renewed by a change of your mind." Be renewed by releasing awareness from one area of the vast universe of the mind, drawing it back into its source and, releasing it again, sending it to another of the vast areas of the mind.

-Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/daily_lesson_html/lesson_32.shtml