February 1988
Jayanthi Message From Gurudeva
Subramuniyaswami, Sivaya
H.H.
An inspired talk given by
Gurudeva, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, at the Saiva Siddhanta Church Concord
Mission, Concord, California, on December 23, 1987.
We are now
entering our 43rd year of service as a guru. The Hindu guru is a spiritual
mother and father to the devotee. The mother and father are the first
guru. The spiritual guru is the second. Together, the three of them do a
good job in raising the children. Now, more than ever before, parents are
sending their young men to the monasteries of the Church for two years of
religious training, discipline and service.
Without the discipline
of yoga and a concentrated religious training, it is easy for the child,
when he leaves his mother's and father's side and enters worldly life, to
avoid many things; for most people go through life on the "avoidance
path." We human beings can distract ourselves in so many ways. We are the
only creatures on this earth that spend multi-billions of dollars a year
to distract ourselves and to avoid facing up to our karmas-good, bad and
mixed. It is the guru's job to see that his devotees do not avoid the
karmas that are meant to be lived through and understood in this
incarnation. The guru has his job to do, and he knows full well exactly
what it is. The parents have their job to do as well. And they know what
that is. They work together to produce a happy, healthy next generation of
honorable religious citizens.
All our devotees have to improve and
improve and improve and improve. That is why they perform daily sadhana so
regularly. When children are with their parents they are helped to mature
their intellect, their physical body and their emotional nature. Having
accomplished this, the parents then present their beloved child to the
family guru. Then it is his duty to bring forth the child's spiritual
life, to awaken a deeper love for God Siva.
When we truly love God
Siva, nothing is impossible. Love gives energy; love gives life; love
gives the power of understanding and forgiveness; love gives one a new
start in life; love gives willpower. With love in the will, one can go
through the things that have to be gone through in a lifetime. We should
not avoid experiences and store any kind of karmas away for another life
by distracting ourselves in the external world.
Who is driving us
onward? It is Lord Siva himself. Lord Siva comes to us in many forms. He
comes as a Siva Lingam; He comes in your form, and your mother's form, and
your father's form, and your teacher's form and in the form of the temple
priest. He comes to us in many forms and through them is always driving us
forward on the spiritual path.
Once you come, through birth, into
your mother's and father's home, you can't get rid of them, can you?
There's nothing you can do. You can run away from home; but they are still
with you mentally and emotionally. Once you take a guru into your life,
you can't get rid of him either. Most gurus have psychic powers; they can
follow you wherever you are. They can be many places at a single point in
time. This is the mystical life of a Hindu guru. It is the guru's duty to
take away the external ego and bring you closer and closer to God
Siva.
When you are close to Lord Siva, he talks to you in the
silence of your mind. This is why the yogis know Lord Siva best, because
they know the silence. The voice of God is silence. The Siva Lingam
represents timelessness, formlessness, spacelessness - complete silence.
How do the other Gods talk to you? Through the voice of your own
conscience-they talk to you through the voice of your own conscience. Many
cannot listen to silence even for a few seconds before they become
distracted. Still others do not listen to their own conscience, they can
avoid that, too. But they cannot avoid their mother and father. They are
always there in their life, even when deceased. They cannot avoid their
guru once he has come into their life. He's always there, watching. He
knows all the different areas and layers of their karma.
We do not
want young members of Saiva Siddhanta Church to drift away into the abyss
of modern-day society. You don't want that. I don't want that. We don't
want members of Saiva Siddhanta Church to create additional confusing
karmas in this life, karma they can avoid creating. We're not here to make
new karmic patterns; we're here to heal up the old ones. Modern-day
society has been created by the other religions, not Saivism, not
Hinduism. And much of it is the dross of the non-religious people of this
world. To send our Saivite children out into the modern world before they
are completely prepared is unwise. This is why the far-seeing Saivite
parents are sending their young men to the monastery for two years for
discipline, service and religious training before they continue into
higher education and later, perhaps, enter family life. Many of these
parents have been careful through the years to refrain from living a
double standard in their own homes. It is difficult for children to grow
up seeing their parents behave one way in the temple or before the swamis
and another way in their own home. The home must be Saivite through and
through for the well-adjusted Saivite child to emerge.
Article
copyright Himalayan Academy.
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