World Community of Indian Culture & Traditional Disciplines

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn to not judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no - it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed, he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but one season in the tree's life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are - and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life - can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall. Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.

Dharma

At the end of the great epic poem Mahabharata, which tells history of India, the emperor Yudhisthira, famous for his rectitude, goes to the top of Meru Mountain to get his final liberation. During his trip he is faithfully accompanied by a dog.

Yudhisthira, having lost his wife and children, is alone on the top. Up there Indra (king of gods and father of his brother Arjuna) appears and invite him to enter the paradise. Yudhisthira is allowed to keep his body in reward for having ruled with fairness and justice.

He is going to enter with the dog beside him, the last companion of his life, but Indra stops him and says, “leave him outside”!

Yudhisthira, after a short hesitation, politely refuses the offer. How could he ever abandon on that desolate place that little animal, which has relied on him?

His conscience doesn’t permit it. Although Indra exhorts him to leave the dog saying there is no evil in this, the emperor doesn’t feel like abandoning the animal. His decision is taken.

“I’ll be able to come only after this loyal creature, which trusts me, ends its earthly life. Now my duty is to take care of him.”

At that moment the dog turns into Dharma, the God who embodies the right direction, the law, the rectitude, the right acting (and emperor’s father).

Someone gives this interpretation: at the end of our life we need to abandon the right acting because it results from a social and not a universal law.

This could be the right perspective especially if we base on Western translations or on the interpretation of Peter Brook’s film The Mahabharata (in the last part of the film Yudhisthira’s renounce to his reward is a punishment; the emperor joins his wife and brothers and they stay in a sort of limbo waiting for their liberation).

But my interpretation is different. My hypotheses, on which we can discuss, is nearer to what I mean for the right acting.

First of all we have to take care of people and things we have been given by our Dharma (the right law). At the end of this phase, freed from ties and debts, we’ll be ready to go for our realization.

In other words: if I decided to get married and have children, before retiring into a monastic life somewhere, I have to be sure my husband or wife and my children are economically and emotionally self-sufficient.

If I’m practising meditation in the late morning and my four-year old child is hungry, hasn’t had his breakfast yet and doesn’t dare to disturb me because he’s afraid of my irritated reaction, what’s the value of my meditation?

If I’m doing japa holding mala in my right hand and the string of beads in my left hand for keeping count of prayers (hindu prayer recitation, like catholic way, uses a kind of rosary) and see someone tripping and risking to fall, what’s the value of my prayer if I don’t stretch even a hand to help him?

We could object that certain high results are possible only with constant exercise and proper techniques.

Doesn’t it make bigger an already prominent ego, especially in a society persuaded that its exigencies must be satisfied completely, immediately, easily and at any price?

Also the commitment to attend a course, like yoga, which helps us to know ourselves and get rid of afflicting problems, is shattered by a light headache, laziness and not excellent weather conditions (it’s not unusual I give lessons followed by few students because the others are discouraged by two drops of rains or a trivial reduction of temperature). Maybe who skip lessons for irrelevant reasons are those who quarrel with their family needing their help when they want to meditate …!

Well, in our society where people believe that the way to acquire realization, welfare and approach to spirituality in as easy and convenient like getting a handful of pills is very hard to understand what is right acting is (Dharma)

Many people do not have a flexible body and even though they have begun to practise yoga, they do not practise frequently.

Should this be what happens to you, I suggest you should practise very carefully, do not force yourself and keep in mind that your body needs time to become flexible again, without trauma and without you feel like unsuited.

Do not be discouraged by the fact that you move stiffly even though you get some exercise and sport, you should be aware that yoga works on your muscles and on the whole body in a very deep manner, deepest than a walk or a swim or any other physical exercise.

However, do not worry, you will get your agility very soon. Some Hatha yoga exercises and a few sessions of meditation once or twice a week and your body will gain its agility again: our body does not stop to learn even when we rest.

Yoga has a great power that works either at physical and mental level . “Hatha means strength, balance but it also expresses the human being polarity”

HA means Sun, Warmth, Earth and THA means Moon, Cold, Heaven. You surely know that the word yoga means “ to yoke”, “ to rule”, “to bind” therefore HATHA means balance and join of two opposites.

Yoga exercises have therefore the task to balance and dominate the opposing powers of our being.

It is really important to practise constantly, every day even for a few minutes only, and health and peace develop naturally. However, should it not be possible for you, do not feel guilty about this otherwise your inner peace is pointless.

I said inner peace, but do not think of yoga as a religion: this would be a wrong concept. Yoga is a path that leads to the realisation and it can be run either by believers and atheists, followers of any confession without conflicting with personal feels and believing.

Yoga is given by a Guru (master) to a disciple. Gu means darkness Ru means light: so the Guru should remove darkness and bring light in the life of a disciple.

In the ancient India, the disciple used to live very close to his Guru and serve him with devotion. By doing so the disciple absorbed guru’s knowledge becoming master himself.

The Guru as well had the duty to revert his knowledge to the disciple as to a son and to give the disciple any means to act on his own.

Disappointing are those teachers who do not revert their knowledge considering it entirely of their property. Those who do not support their pupils growth. Those who deliver the science of yoga a bit at a time. And disappointing are those pupils who stay close to their guru with the only aim to steal his knowledge, but knowledge is a matter of a mutual exchange.

To tell the truth, all of the yoga physical exercises are explained in various books and anyone can look them up, but we must say that the experience, the precise instructions to perform the exercise, the philosophy, the science of yoga are given by a guru who continuously develop his experience. It is so much important that a guru must be devoid of self-centredness and centripetal force and a disciple must be devoid of selfishness and be full of gratefulness: this is the only possible way for a transfer or you run a risk that the yoga gets dirty and sterile.

It can be said that such an ancient tradition as yoga remains an alive science when both guru and disciple behave with love and drop any attachment.

Tantra is a combination of Mantra, Yantra and Mudra. Tantra is a higher form of Sadhana and is extremely individualistic. It is quite different from a community worship. In Tantra the sadhaka needs to internalize the rituals and identify onself with the mother goddess. The Tantra shastras are known as Agamas whereas the Vedic literature is known as Nigama. Lord Shiva is known to be the foremost expounder of Tantra and he explains it to the Devi. One would find these common lines when going through the Siddhakunjika Stotram " Sri Shiva Uvacha: Shrunu Devi Pravakshami Kunjika Stotra Muttamam". The Tantra Marga teaches you Bhoga or enjoyment and search the divinity within enjoyment whereas Vedas teach you Tyaga or abandonement to achieve Godhead. For example if you love sweets, Vedas teach you to sacrifice your sweet tooth or virtually abstain from taking sweets to find God, but in case of Tantra, you would require to on keep gorging sweets till you get saturated and develop a distaste for sweets. Only when your mind has been detached for sweets, will you be prepared to follow the Tantra marga.

The Tantra Marga is divided into 2 main streams:

1. Samayachara or Dakshinachara: (The rightist mode) In this line the Devi is worshipped as Mahatripura Sundari or Lalita or Sodashi, all being the same godess. This is also known as Brahmana Tantra and is only to be practised by the Brahmanas.

2. Kaulachara or Vamachara: (The leftist mode) In this line the Devi is worshipped as Bhairavi. This type of sadhana is also known as Veera Sadhana where the Sadhaka is supposed to worship as an animal, without trying to analyze the rituals he would need to practise as prescribed. It is only in this mode of Tantric worship does one use the Pancha Makara Puja or the Puja of the 5 M's namely: Madya or Liquor, Mamsa or Meat, Matsya or Fish, Maithuna or Sex and Mudra. This stream is strictly restricted for Brahmanas. Anyone who is not a Brahmana can practise this.

Samayachara is completely Sattvika whereas Kaulachara is completely Rajasika and Tamasika.I will explain these things elaborately in my subsequent mails.

by Rahul

Transforming the soul through dance
by Rahul Acharya, Bhubaneswar

The simplest definition of dance is a rhythmical skipping and stepping, with regular turnings and movements of the limbs and body, usually to the accompaniment of music. Every living being is instinctively engaged in rhythmic movements to express its characters. For example certain birds and animals have their dances of courtship. The instinctive nature of dance can be seen in the very young, for children, even babies, move quite naturally to the rhythmic impulses they feel within themselves.

The intelligent human beings, who have been empowered to think, found that the rhythmic movements had a powerful effect on the mind and produced a supernatural feeling. From this they developed the idea of magic. When they repeated their dance, they found that they could recreate the feeling of magic power.

Dance has inculcated the sense of rhythm in all living beings. The earth moves round the sun in a rhythm, the wind blows in a rhythm, the rain showers in a rhythm, every microscopic organism also has a rhythm. In this universe everything is based on rhythm. Without rhythm time has no definition. Mathematically, rhythm is nothing but the division of time. Therefore dance is the rhythm of life and living beings, i.e. dance or impulsive movements suggest the presence of life in an object.

For ages dance has been considered as an art. It is probably the easiest of all the arts. Every person has an instinctive sense of dance. All the same it is very difficult to provide a correct definition for dance because its antiquity, vastness and multiple facets make it impossible to make a total conclusive statement.

In India, the tradition of dance is deeply rooted in religion and the dancer who undergoes deep mystical experiences, leading to a state of trance, is considered to be a perfect embodiment of what the treatises on Indian dance suggest.

Indian culture is based on spiritualism and as dance forms an integral part of Indian culture, it involves spiritual experiences thereby transforming oneself to the seventh heaven. These experiences include horripilations, incessant crying, internal vibrations etc, which suggest complete involvement of the dancer. The message conveyed through such experiences is that every object, whether animate or inanimate, is considered to be a fragment of the Supreme Being and when both the souls merge, the former attains, what in the Hindu terminology is Moksha or salvation. Hence dance is a logical way to attain salvation. The logic herein involved is that while dancing, the dancer gets transformed from the material world to a deeply spiritual world thereby communicating with celestial beings. It is exactly the same in chemical sciences where atoms migrate from the ground state to an excited state to achieve conjugation. Indian dance deals with gods and thus the dancer feels one with the gods, undergoing this process of transformation. This transformation occurs very slowly but spontaneously. As the dancer enters the platform of dance, with slow pulsating movements, the enchanting music accompanying it, shuts all communions with the outside world, thereby creating a different world altogether. Now the dancer enters a slow and smooth passage through the road to heaven, a state of bliss. On the way the dancer undergoes several mystical experiences. During this time one observes divine effulgence in the body of the dancer when the latter is undergoing such a process of transformation. Finally the dancer attains Samadhi i.e. a state in which the body metabolism stops completely but the person is still alive. Great Indian mystics have mentioned about this stage in which the soul becomes one with God. During the dance, the dancer prays to the divine spirit with the following words:

"Oh Lord! From the unreal lead me to the real,
From darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality."

This is that dance, its deepest significance is felt when it is realized that it takes place within the heart and the self. Everywhere is God. Using this context, there is complete internalization of the subject and the dancer, quite oblivious of the external surrounding, becomes one with the dance. This is the dance of enlightenment.

During this whole process of transformation that one undergoes, the dancer is changed as a person too. One becomes more disciplined, because such experiences require a long and thorough preparation with complete dedication. The person starts observing things differently. In everything one feels the presence of supernatural vibrations and sees a divine brightness everywhere. No matter what one does, the dancer is always in a state of ecstasy. This is a stage of Bhakti or complete surrender to the Supreme Being. Wherever the mind goes, there it experiences Samadhi, for it does not find an object of enjoyment. God is filling every speck of space. The whole world is clothed with the glory of god. The saint and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious, the good and the bad, the man and the animal, all are forms of god. There is no question of the mind dealing with them in an undivine way.

Here the mind too undergoes a gradual transformational process. The mind experiences Samadhi. The mind has consciousness. But it has no object. This is the condition of Samadhi that is thoughtless consciousness and objectless knowledge. Slowly objective consciousness dies when the presence of god is felt everywhere. The sense objects are transformed into the glory of divinity. Such is the transformational power of dance that it changes an ordinary mortal into a self-attained entity.

Intolerance? Racism?
Yoga teaches us tolerance and love for the whole universe.

Some months ago scientists found in their research something that left them puzzled.

They discovered that human DNA structure is less complex than they had thought and it’s very similar to animal DNA.

Upset by this discovery, which threatens human supremacy, the scientific community is frantically looking for confirmation that proves and guarantees that human beings are highly superior to the despised animals.

In addition there is another prejudice which is about to become obsolete: it has long been thought animals were created to serve and feed human beings in the same way that the universe only exists so that human race can be at the centre of it.

But earthquakes, animal disease, like the mad cow disease, or heavy downpours are enough for people to feel totally helpless and insignificant.

Man seems to exorcise his weakness pretending that his race is superior.

How many times must we bang our heads against the wall before realizing the uniqueness of life?

It’s precisely this misunderstanding of life that brings us an illusionary vision of things, divided in good things and bad things, and of our roles.

This is the root cause of intolerance and racism.

I, as a human being, belonging to the animal reign, am superior to the animal seen as an ensemble of cells apparently different from mine. Consequently I am superior to other human beings physically different from me.

Any diversity is considered an abnormal product of nature.

The lack of awareness of belonging to the whole, to the one, generates intolerance and racism.

Yoga philosophy has taught for thousands of years that any creature and thing possess three qualities called Guna: Sattva: white, elevated, spiritual, conscious; Rajas: red, active, moving, passionate and Tamas: black, solid, lethargic, static.

If we understand this concept we will be able to eliminate all racial discrimination.

If the human being dedicates himself to the elevation of his spirit he will be composed mainly of Sattva, which reinforces his spiritual side; by a certain dose of Rajas, which helps him to ascend to the spirit and by a small part of Tamas, which allows him to maintain his spiritual quest.

If a human being is more attached to the material world, the doses will be inverted.

What about this composition in animals, who, although they are our way to interface with nature, are still considered inferior?

Also animals are made of Sattva, which gives them the awareness of being an animal. They possess more Rajas if they are full of energy and more Tamas if they are very quiet, as, for example, is the sloth.

And a stone?

Stone possesses a considerable dose of Tamas, which gives it its compactness; a certain dose of Rajas because also stones are subject to changes, and a sufficient dose of Sattva, which makes it aware of being a stone and not something else.

These three qualities are also common in the plant kingdom.

To conclude, in the light of this knowledge, is there still someone who wants to continue to be racist?

Hari Om Tat Sat

by Emy Blesio