The Two Goals of Spiritual Evolution

Our goals are:

1. To give you a better quality life.

2. To make you a teacher to share with others what you have learned.

Shift your focus from yourself to others, sharing what you have. Spiritual evolution starts happening only then. The idea makes sense, because your environment will start supporting you, sharing love with you. Your life becomes that much easier and enjoyable.

We connect you to the cosmic power to give the first experience of expanded awareness in the shortest time possible. The power unfolds your new life if you live with ethical values like sharing and love. Rid of the stresses, you will enjoy an improved quality of life.

As an example of what can happen, look at your own body. Billions of separate cells in you surrender parts of egos to create you, a better life form than the cells. In the same way, billions of us can join in love and sharing to become divine.

Guruji
22 September 2010

Chakra: Sharing as the Magic Link Between Bondage and Freedom

 

An age-old paradigm of circles of people sharing with love as spirituality.

Over time, physical bonding tends to frustrate freedom. When people feel frustrated, they resort to telling lies to preserve their bond. But telling lies reduces self-worth. Whenever the ego-self of a person is hurt, anger results. Anger comes from having to conform to others’ values, helplessness, and limiting freedom. Suppressed anger leads to neurotic diseases. So the highest value is freedom. But love does make life enjoyable and worth living. So a commitment to bondage of love is equally valuable.

Hunger and sex are both basic, powerful drives. One is to preserve the body and the other the race. They are both alike; both seek variety. They are nature’s plan to preserve life, which is very precious and rare in this vast cosmos. Nature has been trying to evolve the hard-won life over millions of years.

We go through the sequence: friendship–love–sex–marriage–children. The weak link here is that the attraction of sex decreases with familiarity, and novelty brings excitement. If love is based on attraction of sex alone, love also goes out of the window when the attraction is gone in a lifelong relationship. People then continue to live as strangers under the same roof. When the wife is pregnant or nursing, she cannot engage in conjugal activities. Men want it, but they can’t get it. During that time, they tend to have extra-marital relationships. To prevent damage to their ego if they tell the truth, they tell lies. But this phase can’t last long. The crisis eventually comes, with ugly anger leading to divorce. Divorce is damaging to the parents, damaging to the children. Most marriages are crashing on the sexual-attraction-based marriages. Mass media is focused on variety in food and sexual attractions, because corporate companies make money using them.

Can we prevent this? Should bonding really restrict freedom to have friends outside marriage? Where and how do we draw the line between bondage and freedom? Can we create a bond that promotes freedom? What is the magic link which converts bondage to freedom?

How can bondage convert to freedom? This is a billion-dollar question, the marital problem in a nutshell. Because this question remains unresolved by present marriage contracts, 70% of marriages are getting broken in the West. In the East, it is less on the surface of it, but really deep down, there is fear and enmity between partners in marriage in about the same percentage.

We need a new paradigm. The paradigm is to see and promote affection in everyone, and sharing as an expression of love to all, so that marriage is not between a human pair, but to a divine pair which pervades all. Sex is love for the human couple; sharing is love for the divine pair.

Chakra: a divine circle of friends.
It comes really from ancient wisdom called Śrīvidyā. It smoothens the rough and murky waters of togetherness by bringing the divine as a partner into the marital bond. It gives the personal and public bonds the freedom to express their own sacred spaces to the partners equally. It is like two tall trees growing together, but not in the shadow of each other. Read on, for a typical scenario.

Sharing is the magic link which converts freedom to make mistakes with the bond of love. After all, learning is not possible without making mistakes. Freedom means merging with all, God-like, a divine love with everyone. Love is a bond, but it is also the means to merge two into one. It remains weak, since it unites only two people. Sharing is an expression of love to all, being in love with all. It is a very powerful concept. When the focus shifts from self to sharing, we will love all, and the result is that we are loved by all. Who can hate one who gives love? Giving love returns love, with a bonus, gratitude. Loving sharing is the transformational link between bonding and freedom.

How can gratitude become effective? Suppose I gift an article worth 1000 to a person earning 500. The value perceived by that person is very high, 200%. If I give the same 1000 to one who earns 100,000 every month, the satisfaction level is hardly 1%. We can’t give to rich people and earn gratitude from them; they only expect more. Service given to the needy is much more potent. It is powerful.

This is why serving food, giving education, and shelter building become such powerful transformers. The paradigm is: surrender a little of the ego-self for a common good.

Couples in a Chakra love all people as so many expressions of divinity. Sharing what they have binds them with all. It incorporates the idea that everyone is God or Goddess. It accepts human flaws as a part of learning in the divine plan. All expressions of love are only towards God or Goddess.

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Here is a typical scenario for entering a Chakra.
It is based on excellent traditions of ancient wisdom called Śrīvidyā, Grace of Learning embedded in a Śrīcakra.

C is the couple who want to enter a Chakra of devotees.
They go to a Priestess P.
They carry a pair of auspicious Chakras and two garlands each.

1. P: So you have come to enter a Chakra of devotees.
   C: Yes.

2. P: Will you accept that all people are temples of Śiva or Śakti?
   C: Yes.

3. P: Will you permit your partner to visit or enter other temples?
   C: Yes.

4. P: Will you share food, education, and your abundance with others in need?
   C: Yes.

5. P: Will you tie the Śrīcakra as a symbol of Divine Chakra to your partner?
   C: Yes.

6. P: Now please garland each other.
   C: They garland each other.

7. P: Now tie the Śrīcakra to your partner around the neck.
   C: Bride first ties Śrīcakra to the Groom; then he ties it to her next.

8. P: This couple is now in the Chakra. All of you here bless them now with a hug.
   All people shower flowers on the couple and hug them, one by one.

9. P: It is time for fun! Enjoy tasty food, divine music, and dance, pray.

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Guruji
Thousand Liṅgams
Mahā Śivarātri, Feb 12, 2010

Self-Directed Learning and Knowledge Received from Devī

Engaging in self-directed learning is where we are ultimately to go with our sādhana—not hanging on to the guru for every direction for several years. It’s not limited to chanting; most of what Aiya has learned has come from burying his nose in hundreds of books.

Years after being separated from his guru, Aiya returned to Devipuram and, while there, performed a Mahā Ṣoḍaśī homam and Mahā Pratyaṅgirā homam. Afterward, Guruji said to him that he was so happy to see all the knowledge that Aiya had received directly from the Devī herself. He didn’t mean the Mother appeared before Aiya, sat him down, and taught him different homams; he meant the Devī had revealed her grace to him through his efforts to independently learn about her.

Past lives

Finding Guruji: Aiya’s Entry into Śrīvidyā

(from "The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York"):

After several years searching for Śrīvidyā upāsakās and asking for initiation, Aiya finally found Guruji.

A professor of nuclear physics at the time, Guruji had a reputation for both spiritual precocity and unconventional thinking.

Aiya recalls one of their first exchanges that took place at a gathering where Guruji and a small group of students were discussing religion and philosophy. Guruji was speaking about the ways certain mantras were taught only to men, off limits to women, a fact that had long bothered Aiya. Not able to contain himself, Aiya chimed in that these practices made no sense, since women were largely responsible for the existence and intelligence of their children. Women brought men into the world, raised them, and formed them as human beings. At this, Guruji stood up, walked over to Aiya, and hugged him, saying, “I’m so glad to know somebody who thinks like me.”

Later, intending to ask him for initiation and afraid he would be turned down once again, Aiya asked Balu to accompany him to Guruji’s house for moral support.

Guruji answered the door when they arrived and led them directly to his shrine room. He seemed to know, according to Aiya, why they had come. Once in the shrine room, Aiya asked Guruji if he would initiate him into Śrīvidyā, and Guruji, without skipping a beat, said, “Of course.” Immediately feeling guilty, thinking Guruji must have assumed he was a brāhmaṇa, Aiya blurted out, “But I’m not a brāhmaṇa!” Aiya recalls Guruji adamantly responding, “What difference does that make?” Guruji asked his wife to bring him the pañcāṅgam, a book he consulted to determine auspicious times and dates for events such as initiation. On second thought, Guruji said he would just go and ask Her.

As Aiya was thinking to himself, “Ask Her? Who is he talking about?” Guruji went into meditation. During his two- to three-minute silence, Aiya remembers thinking, “Oh God, I’ve come this far and now I’m going to be refused by the Devī herself!” When Guruji emerged from his meditation, he told Aiya that he would come to his house in two weeks to initiate both him and Amma into Śrīvidyā. When the time came, Guruji initiated the two of them with the entire gamut—all sixteen mantras.

One of the most enduring effects of Aiya’s initiation experience, aside from his long-awaited access to Śrīvidyā’s “secrets,” is a product of his guru dīkṣā. Normally guru dīkṣā involves a tangible gift given to the guru by the new initiate—an article of clothing, a fruit, a flower, or some other token of appreciation—in exchange for the guru’s care and guidance. Instead, Aiya recalls Guruji explicitly instructing him, “I want you to promise me something. Whatever knowledge I give you, whatever experiences you get, whatever happiness or joy you get out of it, share it with everyone.”

Just six months after initiation, Aiya, his wife, and their young daughter emigrated to the United States, commissioned with blessings from Guruji to spread the secret teachings of Śrīvidyā. Aiya, conveniently armed with the personality of a maverick, one for whom elitism is particularly irksome, began teaching students from all walks of life. His eventual establishment of an elaborate, ritual-centered temple emerged as part of a natural progression. From this point in Aiya’s life, obstacles were less daunting and openings plentiful.

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The Guru Who Hides His Miracles

(from "The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York"):

One of the ways Aiya deflects the Guru-wonderworker limelight is to extol the powerful capabilities of his own guru, Guruji. I have heard Aiya on a number of occasions remark that Guruji, who appears to have accumulated extraordinary siddhis through his extensive Śrī Vidyā practice, has no need for the elaborate rituals Aiya promotes and performs. Guruji’s powers are such, according to Aiya, that “all he has to do is touch you” for your desires to be realized.

The only time Aiya asked me to turn off the tape recorder during an interview session was when he described in detail one of the more spectacular feats he witnessed Guruji perform. Guruji himself does not want people to know the extent of his abilities, and Aiya is trying to be a good disciple. Spending most of his time and energy developing programs for women and low-income housing in Āndhra Pradesh, South India, Guruji, like Aiya, downplays his role as a guru-wonderworker.

But people, Aiya included, do talk freely about the “lesser” miracles Guruji performs. Barbara, a devotee in her late thirties with wavy graying hair and vivid green eyes, told me of such an instance.

During the 1999 Guru-pūrṇimā in late July, an annual festival for honoring one’s guru and guru lineage, Guruji and his wife were in the United States and came to Rush for the festivities. They arrived ceremoniously in a devotee’s van and were greeted by a large group who waited, barefoot, on the parking lot in front of the temple. Barbara was among them:

“So I was out here with this whole crowd of people and standing on this pavement, lifting one foot at a time, trying to cool them off because it was terribly hot. And he comes up in the van and gets out, and it feels like the pavement got cold, or like it cooled down and was tolerable. And I turned to the lady next to me and—she said it first, she said, ‘Is it my imagination, or did the ground just cool?’ I said, ‘It’s not your imagination, because I was about to ask you.’”

Barbara then described how she met Guruji face to face that evening. He had just finished a talk and was handing out CDs of his temple in Āndhra Pradesh. Devotees lined up to receive the CD and to receive his blessings by touching his feet.

Barbara:
That’s the time when my eyes were getting bad, really bad. And my doctor told me he couldn’t operate on them. I had had both retinas reattached, then slowly got cataracts over the years. And then they accelerated within a six-month period. It just got worse and worse.

I went up [to Guruji] and thought, “Somebody who could step on that hot pavement and make it cool has got to have something. Something different.” Like I told you before, I just wanted one of those kind of miracle things.

And I touched his feet and felt this kind of energy going through them, and I looked up at his face and his eyes were blue. I mean blue, blue like yours are. But I knew they weren’t. There was this kind of glow to them.

And I said, “Could you heal me?” And he put his thumbs over my eyes. I didn’t even tell him what was wrong. He just put his thumbs on my eyelids and said something, I don’t know what it was... and he touched my head and then he said, “You’re cured.”

And I thought, “Oh cool.” [Barbara chuckles.] And he gave me a CD, and I almost said, “I don’t have a computer,” and handed it back to give to someone else, but I still have it. And then I went outside and said, “Hey, I got cured!”

Corinne:
And could you see as soon as he’d done that?

Barbara:
No, I couldn’t. But the thing was, a couple days later I went to see my doctor and he said, “I don’t see the uveitis. It’s not active.” I asked if I could have the operation, and he said, “Yes, as long as the disease remains inactive.”

So I told him about the guru. And Dr. Chawla usually laughs at whatever I come up with, but he sat and intently listened.

Barbara explained that after the disease was in remission long enough, she was able to have surgery that completely restored her sight. She owes her ability to see to Guruji’s touch.

Against the Gatekeeping of the Mother

Guruji, Guru Garu, Aiya

(from "The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York"):

When I asked Aiya if any of these people were upset at him for printing Śrī Vidyā rituals in Tamil script, he insisted that they were not at all. The one exception was an ochre-robed sannyāsī whom he met later in Madras. Aiya recalls their conversation:

Aiya:
He said to me, “You should never have written this book in Tamil.”
I asked him, “Sir, with all due respect, why not?”
He said, “If people are interested in it they must study Sanskrit.”

Then I told him, “Sir, with all due respect again, you know that Sanskrit is usually only taught to the brāhmaṇa children. And the brāhmaṇa children who grow up will not teach Sanskrit to anybody else. Are you telling me that the Mother is not to be accessible to other people, but exclusively to the brāhmaṇa community?”

He looked at me and wouldn’t answer yes or no. Then I knew that he was still holding onto the notion that the brāhmaṇas were superior and that it should not go to anybody else.

He said, “I don’t care about this, but you should not have written it in Tamil.”

I said, “I beg to differ with you. Because I have written the book, and the reason I have written is that at least five hundred people, to my knowledge, have now been given access to this and are doing the pūjā in their house.”

[He responded,] “How do you know they are doing it right?”

Then I said, “Can I ask you a question? How do I know that you are doing the pūjā right?”

Corinne:
That was very brazen of you.

Aiya:
Right. But my Guruji, he was sitting right next to me. And he always told me, “If you find that somebody is denying knowledge to really interested seekers, you have to stand up. Because for too long this has been going on.”

Aiya went on to assert to the sannyāsī that only the Mother can determine whether or not someone is doing pūjā correctly; it is not for us to judge. Aiya also told him about the promise he gave his guru upon initiation—that he share the vidyā with anyone who wanted to learn. He reasoned, “I don’t think you or anybody else, even the Śaṅkarācārya, has any right to deny me that.”

Apparently the sannyāsī was unmoved, not persuaded by Aiya’s appeal to his Guru, or even the Goddess herself. The fact that Aiya ultimately did not have to heed the sannyāsī’s opinion is, as he sees it, the marvel of his tradition:

“And thank God Hinduism is not organized. If there were a head or any such thing I’d have to listen to him. There’s no such thing. So I told [the sannyāsī], ‘With all due respect, you do what is right and I will do what I think is right. And I will leave everything to my Guru. If there is any mistake, let him tell me to stop and I will stop.’ And Guruji looked at me and sweetly smiled and said, ‘You carry on.’”

[Aiya laughs heartily]