'GURU DAKSHINA MURTHY'.

Dakshinamurthy is an aspect of Shiva as a guru (teacher) of all types of knowledge and bestower of jnana. This aspect of Shiva is his personification as the supreme or the ultimate awareness, understanding and knowledge. This form represents Shiva in his aspect as a teacher of yoga, music, and wisdom, and giving exposition on the shastras. He is worshipped as the god of wisdom, complete and rewarding meditation.

The Story of Silence

One story is that he sat with four disciples in front of him. They were all learned people; they had read all the Vedas and Upanishads and heard all that was to be heard, but they still couldn’t realize the truth. So they came to Dakshinamurthy and requested him to explain the highest Brahman (the unmanifested God). He just sat there in silence. After a while they got up, bowed down and said, “Swamiji, we have understood.” And they went away, because only in silence can God be explained.

■ Om – is considered the Divine Itself as sound. ■ Na – is a syllable that denotes an attitude of negation. ■ Mah – is related to the sense of posssesion. ■ Shi – is a grammatical root that denotes the auspicious and properous. ■ Va – symbolizes an expansive movement. ■ Ya – is a highly distinctive Sanskrit letter found as the root in the center of the heart and it is the symbol of pure love, of the experience of communion with Divinity and with the Lord in the depths of the heart.

Om Namah Shivaya

“The mantra “Om Namah Shivaya” means literally “Reverences before Lord Shiva”.

In the mystical aspect of this mantra, we become aware of a deep secret meaning embedded in the grammatical roots of every letter and every syllable that composes it.

■ Om – is considered the Divine Itself as sound.
■ Na – is a syllable that denotes an attitude of negation.
■ Mah – is related to the sense of posssesion.
■ Shi – is a grammatical root that denotes the auspicious and properous.
■ Va – symbolizes an expansive movement.
■ Ya – is a highly distinctive Sanskrit letter found as the root in the center of the heart and it is the symbol of pure love, of the experience of communion with Divinity and with the Lord in the depths of the heart.

The mantra Om Namah Shivaya, will be much more effective, at any level, if we understand that through the recitation of Om, we are invoking the Divine. With “reverences”, namah, we are renouncing the sense of possession in our hearts in order to allow the ascension of our soul to levels of exaltation. And finally, with shivaya we invoke expansion into new spaces and dimensions, until communion with God is attained.

The chanting of the mantra can open us to the Divine, since mantra recitation can seize, captivate and reclaim the wandering mind, time and again, not allowing it to be diverted and drawn away from the meditative state.

Repeating a mantra with devotion and purity can profoundly influence both the one who repeats as well as the one who listens, creating harmony and balance and producing an expansion at the level of consciousness.

A mantra is a door towards reality; it is a mystic phenomenon capable of unifying the consciousness and invoking that which the mantra refers to. It is an instrument that stimulates internalization, a vibration capable of opening us to the Whole and a vehicle towards Totality.”

*POINTS TO PONDER*

Keep the ‘I am’ in the focus of awareness, remember that you ‘are’, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost, only its limitations are lost. It is transfigured and becomes the real Self, the ‘sadguru’, the eternal friend and guide. To go deeper, meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then recur more often, become regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered.

~NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - 'SELF-REALIZATION' - 'SAHAJA-SAMADHI' and 'LIBERATION-IN-LIFE' are nothing but constant 'SELF-ABIDANCE' - SWAATHMAARAAMAN

As one continues to abide as the Self, the experience 'I am the Supreme Spirit' grows and becomes natural: the restlessness of the mind and the thought of the world in due course become extinct.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

*POINTS TO PONDER* - Beyond 'BEING' and 'BECOMING'; there is 'TRANSCENDENTAL-SAHAJA-SAMADHI' (Peace-Inherent) - SWAATHMAARAAMAN

Give up all questions except one ‘who am I?’ After all the only fact you are sure of is that you ‘are’. The ‘I am’ is certain, the ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

~NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ.

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - Sri 'Ramana Maharshi'

Is there any moment when Self is not? It is not new. Be as you are. What is new cannot be permanent. What is real must always exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

'DAKSHINA'= JNANA ( SELF-AWARENESS ) and 'AMURTHI'= FORMLESS; Thus 'DAKSHINAMURTHI' represents the formless and nameless 'SELF' ( TRUTH-BEING-EXISTENCE-CONSCIOUSNESS and BLISS ) - SWAATHMAARAAMAN

Dakshinamurti

“What does he teach? Look at his hand gesture. That shows what he teaches. His index finger, the one we use to point at others, represents the ahankara, the ego. The other three fingers represent your body, deha, mind, antahkarana and sense organs, prana. They also may be seen as the three bodies, sariras, the gross, subtle, and causal. This is what the jiva mistakes himself to be. The angustha, the thumb, represents the Lord, the purusa. It is away from the rest of the fingers of the hand, yet at the same time, the fingers have no strength without it. In this gesture, mudra, in Dakshinamurti's right hand, the thumb joins the other fingers to form a circle, teaching that the jiva, who takes himself to be the body, mind and senses, is the whole. The circular hand gesture visually states the entire upadesa, teaching: 'Tat Tvam Asi', “You are That.” Just as a circle has no beginning or end, you are the whole. That is the final word about you. Nobody can improve upon that vision; no culture can improve upon it. Even in heaven, it cannot be improved upon, for the whole includes heaven. Therefore, you have the final word here, because you are everything. It is better that you know it. That teaching is contained in the Veda, represented by the palm leaves in the left hand of Dakshinamurti. And to understand this, you require a mind that has assimilated certain values and attitudes and has developed a capacity to think in a proper and sustained way. This can be acquired by various spiritual disciplines represented here by a japa-mala, The fact that the Lord himself is a teacher, a guru, means that any teacher is looked upon as a source of knowledge. And the teacher himself should look upon Isvara, the Lord, as the source of knowledge. Since the Lord himself is a teacher, the first guru, there is a tradition of teaching, so there is no individual ego involved in teaching.

Dakshinamurti is seated upon a bull, which stands for tamas, the quality of maya that accounts for ignorance. This is the entire creative power of the world and Dakshinamurti controls this maya; Then, there are bound to be obstacles in your pursuit of this knowledge. Dakshinamurti controls all possible obstacles. Underneath his foot, under his control, is a fellow called Apasmara—the one who throws obstacles in your life. This tells us that although there will be obstacles, with the grace of the Lord, you can keep them under check and not allow them to overpower you. There is no obstacle-free life, but obstacles need not really throw you off course; you keep them under control.

Thus, the whole form of Dakshinamurti invokes the Lord who is the source of all knowledge, the source of everything, the one who is the whole, and who teaches you that you are the whole. He is Dakshinamurti, the one who is in the form of a teacher, guru-murti. We invoke his blessing so that all of you discover that source in yourself. If this self-discovery is your pursuit, your whole life becomes worthwhile. This project of self-discovery should be the project of everyone. That is the Vedic vision of human destiny.”