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The Master Course • Level One • Book One

Professional Teacher’s Guide

First Edition

Copyright

by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Íaivite Hindu Religion, The Master Course, Level One, is a seven-book children’s course. Books Oneto Four contain some illustrations and text from Íaiva Neri, a course prepared by the EducationalPublications Department of the Government of Sri Lanka and copyrighted in 1979 by the Gov-ernment of Sri Lanka. Material from Íaiva Neri is used with the permission of His Excellency, theHonorable Ananda W.P. Guruge, Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the United States.

Sri Lanka Course Book Subcommittee: Mr. N. Shanmugaratnam, Mrs. Parashakti Sundaralingam,Mr. S. Velauthapillai, Mrs. Palam Lakshmanan, Dr. V. Ramakrishnan, Mr. S. Murugavel. Writers:Mrs. Puvaneshvari Arunasalam, Mrs. Manonmani Naganathan, Mrs. Paramesvari Alagaratnam,Mrs. Pathma Somakanthan, Mr. K.C. Shanmugam, Mr. K. Kuruswamy. Artists: Mr. K. Rajaratnam,T. Sriskandaraja, Mr. Asaipillai Gnanasekaram, Mr. Janarthanan Rathnasapapaty, Mrs. Parame-svari Alagaratnam. Editor: Mr. V. Vellipuram.

Original English material by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Translations in Hindi have beenexpertly provided by: Vedic University of America (USA), Dr. Seshagiri Rao (USA), Dr. Shanta Sri-vastava (Canada), Pa∫∂ita Tirthadeva Peruman (Fiji). Translations in Tamil ably assisted by TiruRamesh Sivanathan (Malaysia), Tiru Appasamy Kuppusamy (Malaysia) and Tiru A. Rammohan(USA).

All illustrations and text not drawn from the Sri Lanka course are copyright 1995 by Satguru SivayaSubramuniyaswami. All rights are reserved. This book may be used to share the Hindu Dharmawith others on the spiritual path, but reprinted in quantities over fifty only with the prior writ-ten consent of the publisher. Translations are available in several other languages including San-sk®it, Malay, French, French Creole and German. For any major printing, please write to the pub-lisher. Designed, typeset and illustrated by the swâmîs of the Íaiva Siddhånta Yoga Order and pub-lished by Himalayan Academy, 107 Kaholalele Road, Kapaa, Hawaii, 96746-9304 USA.

Published byHimalayan AcademyIndia • USA PRINTED IN USA

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 95-078249

isbn 0-945497-54-7

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Welcome to the Book One School Guide. This guide was produced forthe professional school teacher, as well as for individuals involvedin education programs within Hindu organizations and individualswho are conducting their own Saivite Hindu Religion course in theircommunity. Additionally, it can effectively be used by parents teach-ing their children at home. The guide itself is written at a level of lan-guage that even teenage youth can digest and use as their guide forclasses. It has been Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami’s observationfrom many decades of teaching Saivite Hinduism that the best wayfor a person to deeply learn their religion is to begin teaching—in-cluding talking and writing about—what they have learned. And ofcourse, this is the challenge of all educating: how to get children ex-cited, thinking, talking, self-creating in the subject.

This School Guide is a work in progress. It is the fruit of manyyears of teaching Saivite Hinduism to children by many people—including professional Saivite teachers and the Saiva swamis in themonastic order of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. We are con-tinually looking for feedback and suggestions of how to make thisSchool Guide better and as useful as possible. Any and all suggestionsare welcomed and encouraged.

The School Guide is set up on a lesson format, called the lessonguide. The lessons correspond to the pages of Book One. But we alsocombined lessons that logically belong together, such as the entirestory on Semmana Selvi (which takes up ten pages of Book One) orthe lessons on the sacred cow and the temple elephant. There are 33lesson guides all total here. Each one is two pages long, and addi-tional pages can be added. Each lesson guide is clearly labeled at thetop of both of its pages. And, in most cases, all of the illustrationsfrom the Book One pages appear in the “Visual Interpretation” il-lustration box. So it is very easy to reference this guide to Book One.

Each lesson guide is written as a reference for the teacher. Oftenit is written largely as if we were talking directly to the children. Atother times, it is speaking, again in simple language, right to theteacher, giving special instructions or helpful hints or specific pointsto emphasize. In other words, the guide itself is in largely simple lan-guage, and is making a painstaking attempt to step down the lessonto the level of the 6 to 8-year old child. It is written to the child’spoint of view. It is written as a sentence-by-sentence reference guidefor the teacher. However, and we make this point strongly: this guideis not supposed to be read to the class. There is the temptation tostand in front of a class and just read the text of this guide. This is notthe intention of this guide. The only section that is specifically meantto be read to the class is the section called “Story Reading.” Theteacher does read “Story Reading” to the class. In addition, there areoccasional sentences, or paragraphs, in each lesson that may (orshould) be used verbatim, because they were specifically written asa very good way to present an idea to a young child.

The major intention is for the teacher to creatively study and ex-pand upon this School Guide so that an inspiring, animated presen-tation with the children takes place. This means at least two hours ofpreparation must go into a one-hour class. Again, we have taken greatpains to provide the teacher with a step-by-step discussion of the les-son topic, and with the language and concepts necessary to present

it, as well as an assortment of analogies and illustrative descriptionsthat make presenting complex spiritual ideas to children much easi-er. In fact, the teacher will probably find there is so much includedin each lesson guide that it cannot all be used, unless the class is verylong or divided up into several days over a given period.

On occasion we used words such as realization or enlightenmentthat the teacher needs to give creative thought to in order to explain.We didn’t attempt to step down every word we used, though we didmuch of the time. It is up to the teacher to creatively explain theseconcepts, and there are many helpful aids in this guide, as well asthe references in Dancing with Siva. Study out how we approachedthis guide. For instance, enlightenment directly relates to “seeinglight—the spiritual light of Siva” inside the mind in meditation. Itis actually much more than this, but the idea of bright light in themind is a good beginning place to start explaining this to children.This opens the door to use “light” imagery, to make some kind oflight demonstration.

Each lesson guide is divided into a number of sections. But notevery lesson has all the sections. A brief description of the sectionsis as follows: Lesson Focus: a brief statement on what is being cov-ered in the lesson. The teacher must cover what is in the lesson focus.Key Presentations: the main guide for presenting the topic. The un-derlined sections quickly identify the key ideas, but the whole sectionshould be presented. Often there are analogies and lots of metaphorsbuilt into this section. Analogies & Illustrations: very specific imagerythat teaches the concept by comparing it to a situation the childrencan “do,” “picture”or “sense” in their minds. Visual Interpretation:quick pointers to unusual features of the illustration that are partof the overall presentation. Often there is information here that ap-pears nowhere else in the lesson. Story Reading: a short story to beread dramatically by the teacher. Each story involves an 8 or 9-yearold in a different country, and the story directly relates to the les-son. The story reading is a must. Background: a brief historical dis-cussion primarily for the teacher’s benefit. Connections: ways thatthe current lesson relates to other lessons in Book One—it threadslessons together for the children. Citizenship: hints on how a partic-ular lesson creates a better citizen in the nation this course is beingtaught. Wrong Thinking: a correction to very specific misinformationor disinformation concerning Saivite Hinduism. An important sec-tion. Homework: small assignments for home, often involving an ex-perience. Many lessons do not have a homework assignment, but theteacher can create their own if they wish. Activities: experientialgames designed to demonstrate the lesson dramatically. Each one ofthese activities is custom-created for these lessons. The activity is oneof the central focuses of the class.

One thing not to do in this class. Please do not use any of the pu-ranic stories or the popular epics (Mahabharata, etc.) This guideprovides everything you need. Stick to this guide. And use Dancingwith Siva as a further reference. There is also a very good list of sup-plementary reading materials in Book One.

IntroductionThis detailed lesson guide has been prepared at the request of teachers of Saivite Hindu Religion.

It is meant as a series of suggestions for each class from which the teacher can develop his or her own presentations.

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LESSON FOCUSThis simple statement is very important inSaivite Hinduism. It is important to everySaivite. No one outgrows worship. For ayoung child, worship is the first experienceof their closeness to Siva, Murugan andGanesha. The main focus of this lesson isto explain what worship is. Second, is to ex-plain when and where we worship.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWorship means to love God. It means tothink of God. It is awe and wonder. Thislove is our most powerful emotion. It iscalled devotion. It makes us feel good andpure. It is a love that goes to Siva. He canfeel it. We feel this love mainly in our chestarea, which is why it is said love is from theheart. When we worship, our love of Godis strongest. It takes the place of all otherfeelings. We don’t feel angry or jealous ortired or worried. We feel great joy.

Our worship brings us close to God. Itworks automatically. God loves us too. Hislove is for every person and animal and forthe whole world. He does not worship us.Worship is love to God or a God muchmore spiritual than we are. The only personwe worship is the Sat Guru. It is impor-tant to make this clear.

Worship has color. If we could see the col-or of worship, it would look light blue.When we worship this color surrounds uslike a big egg or cocoon that stretches outfarther than our outstretched hands. It is abeautiful color, soft and pure and makes usfeel good to people and animals.

To Saivites, there are many locales of wor-ship. Ultimately, Siva is everything, every-where. But there are special places wherethe worship contact between God anddevotee is deepest. The most importantplaces of worship are our home shrine andthe Saivite temples of Siva, Murugan andGanesha. These holy locations naturallybring forth our worship devotion. We al-ways behave at our spiritual best in these lo-cations. We also worship at Saivite ashramshrines, Saivite guru samadhi shrines, andany nature locale—river, lake, mountain—sacred to Siva, Ganesha or Murugan.

Times of worship: the early morning beforethe sun rises is the most common time forthe daily worship period. Families worship

together in the home shrine. Monks livingin ashram monasteries worship together inthe ashram shrine. Then the day begins. Of-ten people on their way to school or workwill briefly stop outside a favorite templeand worship. It used to be that Fridayevening was the customary time for thefamily to attend their favorite temple. Butthat is changing to the weekend.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. The simplest analogy of worship is achild’s love for his or her mother. Love ofGod is like the total, surrendering love of achild to mother. Mother is the supremecomforter in the child’s universe. There isnothing a child can do, that the mother isnot there as a source of love, comfort andkind direction. But much higher thanmother is God. If a child can love God withthe same love he or she feels for their moth-er, that is worship. Imagine how it feels

when you are in a large store and becomeseparated from your mother’s hand. Shedisappears into a large crowd. Suddenly youare alone and lost. Strangers surround you.You look around in fear. And call out inpanic. There is only one thought in yourmind, and one emotion, finding mother.Worship is such a state of single thoughtand emotion.

2. Doing a good deed for someone alsostimulates devotional love. We feel selflessand good. This same devotion from a gooddeed, when expressed to God, is worship.For instance, let’s say a young child pickedsome flowers for another child who is sick,and is at home in bed all alone. For thefriend there is a very special joy in choos-ing the flowers and then giving them to an-other to bring cheer. This same special joy isexperienced in worship.

3. Worship is also like the awe of watching

Book 1, Lesson 1VISUALINTERPRETATION

Most often we worship at thetemple. Depicted here is alarge, ornate temple gatethrough which the children areabout to pass. Like a gate into alarge mansion, the temple gate(called a gopuram) takes thedevotee from the outsideworld into the inside realm ofthe temple. Our worship ofSiva begins the moment we seeany part of the temple. We seethe temple gate or main sanc-tum tower rising into the sky.We worship Siva. In manycountries the temple may nothave a a gate or tower. But youstill worship at the sight of thetemple building. This applieseven if you are not entering thetemple, but just passing by it.

The children are worshippingby doing the namaskar saluta-tion over their head. This signi-fies the higher spiritual con-sciousness of the head region.It says the children are enteringa state of worship for the high-est Being. When you are ridinga bike or driving a car, wherethe hands are occupied, it iscustomary to briefly touch theright hand to the heart area.

As hungry children here below sit round about their mother, even so all beings expectantly sit round the agnihotra [temple fire pit].—SAMA VEDA

We worship.

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Book 1, Lesson 1

the night sky. We look out into this im-mense stretch of stars and space and arestruck with wonder. Billions of galaxies,stars and the solar system planets circleoverhead. Shooting stars streak across thesky. It fills us with wonder and makes usfeel both large and small at the same time.This wonder is worship. It is the wonder ofstanding in the presence of God.

STORY READINGThree children once lived in a kingdom inIndia. There were wide rivers with shipsand mountains often covered in clouds.There were towns and farming fields. Everytown had a big Siva temple at its center. Itstower reached into the blue sky. The threechildren were best friends in a town in themountains. They played with goats andclimbed trees and threw rocks in lakes andbuilt dams like the beavers. Everyday theywalked on the road that passed the tall andthick walls of the stone temple. It was madeof a pinkish red granite. They were on theirway to study arithmetic and writing in theforest. Two of the friends always paused atthe gateway of the temple. It was huge andthey were so small. But it was comforting,like a castle of God. They peered into theshadows, into the inner courtyard and in towhere the image of Siva stood, all aglowwith flickering lamps. They didn’t step inthrough the gate, but just stood outside.Their hands were held together at theirchest and their eyes widened. Little crystalsin the stone caught the sun and glistenedlike diamonds. A shadow of a large cloudmoved over the inner temple courtyard,creating a sense of motion to the Sivashrine. The boys leaned in through thedoor to see better. Suddenly, the two friendsfelt a warm breeze wrap around them. Butthere was no wind blowing. Everything wasstill. No leaves moving. Their clothes did-n’t move. But the boys felt a force pushingon them, coming from the shrine, out to-ward them. It was gentle and almost likesunlight. They both felt it, and they lookeddown at their chest, where this blessingfrom Siva was tingling their skin. Then theylooked at each other and laughed, for theyfelt very happy, more happy than whenthey were eating as many sweet balls as theycould stuff in their mouths.

The third friend didn’t pause in front ofthe temple gate each day. He didn’t wor-ship. He felt no love at the temple. It waslike God was very far away, and the imageof Siva in the temple was just stone. He

thought the temple was empty, and he did-n’t believe in the power of God. His heartwas a little hard and his mind was a littlecold. He had his two friends. But he wassomehow lonely. Everyday his friendsstopped at the temple. They always seemedto get a little brighter, like their cheeks hadbeen rubbed with winter’s snow. And theywere smart. They understood the teachermore often than he did. Now, as his friendswere laughing with such delight, he becamecurious. He walked over to the tall templegate. And he suddenly felt a great feeling oflove come into his chest. It made him feelso happy. It felt like Siva was right in frontof him. From then on, he worshiped everyday with his two friends.

WRONG THINKINGWhen we worship in a shrine or temple, weare not worshipping the stone or metal im-age of Siva or the Gods. That is wrongthinking. Saivite Hindus do not worshipstatues, even the statues enshrined in tem-ples. If we are not worshiping the image,then what is it we are projecting our loveand devotion to? We are worshipping theSoul Being that uses the image. Siva usesthe image to send light and blessings andcommunications to the devotees. The im-age in the temple, therefore, is a tool. It isan instrument of the Gods. Here is an easyway to explain this to youngsters. The stoneimage is like a television set. When wewatch TV we do not watch the televisionset itself. That would be like watching apiece of furniture. But we do watch the pic-tures on the TV screen that are being elec-tronically sent from long distances away.The TV is a tool, an instrument. In thesame way, we don’t worship the temple im-age, but we do worship the God who sendsenergy from the worlds of light through thetemple image to us.

CONNECTIONSThis lesson will connect with many in thefuture weeks and months. Since much ofBook I covers the Deities we worship anda number of devotional practices it is im-portant for the teacher to occasionally re-view this lesson.

HOMEWORKHave the children practice watching theirTV at home. First they watch the TV set,while it is off, as a piece of furniture. Theyjust see the TV unit. This is like worship-ing the temple image itself. Then they turn

on the TV and just look at it like a piece offurniture, like it was a book shelf. They ig-nore the shows on the screen. Again, this islike worshiping the stone or metal image inthe temple. This is unnatural and wrong.Then the children watch the TV shows onscreen as is normally done. You are notnormally aware of the TV set itself. This isthe correct understanding and practice ofworship.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Color in the drawing of the childrenand temple. While the children are col-oring have them try to feel love of God.They should color around the childrenwith the color of light blue. That iswhat worship love looks like.

2. Have the children stand up and holdtheir hands in the namaskar greetingslightly above their heads. With eyesclosed and breathing deeply and slow-ly they feel worship to God insidethemselves. Their clasped hands abovetheir head shows they are worshipingsomebody much higher than them-selves. Repeat this several times. Askthe children to tell what they felt whenthey did this.

3. Ask the children to briskly rub theirhands together for a minute or so. Thiscreates warmth by friction. Then theytouch their right palm to their left armand feel the warm glow from theirpalm. This is like the feeling of love. Itis warm and healing.

4. Bring several large flashlights. Care-fully cover them with a blue plastic ma-terial so blue light shines out. Darkenthe room with the flashlights on. Ex-plain that our worship love shines outfrom us like this light. Pass the lightsaround so everybody can hold themand see the blue light coming fromthem.

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LESSON FOCUSThe temple bell represents several themesfor the young worshipper. First, it is oftena prominent feature of the temple architec-ture. Second, it is a source of beautiful andpowerful sound. Third, it sets the timing ofworship.

KEY PRESENTATIONSJust as there are many sizes of houses, thereare many sizes of temples. Big, medium andsmall. The large and medium size templeshave special rooms or even tall towers fortheir large bells. Small temples may have asmall hung bell or use hand bells. This iscommon in north India. But they all havebells. No temple is without bells of somekind. Anywhere a young Saiva Hindu maytravel in the world, the temple they visitwill have bells.

Often today the sound of the bells areplayed on speakers. This is a little sad.Recorded sound is not the same as real castmetal bells. And it means no one, not evenlittle children, can actually ring the bells.One of the pleasures of going to the tem-ple for a young boy or girl is to pull andhang on the big ropes to ring the bells. InSri Lanka many large temples have tall tow-ers for their bells. They are hung way at thetop. People from a long ways away can hearthem and see them moving back and forth.The sound of the bells ringing tells us thatworship is starting at the temple. Thesound of the bells can travel very far. Any-one that hears them, whether it be in theearly morning, afternoon, or evening, willknow it is time for puja. They will turntheir attention to the temple. They mayworship and offer a prayer. They may pauseand think of Siva for a few minutes.

Bells are rung during the performance ofthe puja. The priests ring the bells as theywave incense and arati lights before the de-ity. When the main arati is offered to thedeity, many or all of the bells in the templeare rung together. This marks the highpoint of the ceremony.

Some bells cast in India’s ancient historyare so large you can actually stand up inthem. On occasion bells are carved entire-ly of stone, rather than metal. Many smalltemples have a large metal ring with nu-merous small bells attached. This ring of

bells is hung on the inside of the templenear the main sanctum. When the ring isshaken, all the bells wondrously sound to-gether.

Hand bells come in many sizes, from solarge it takes two hands to lift them to tinybells that can be rung with two fingers. Inthe island of Bali, the Hindu priests use tinybells that they ring during ceremonies withlots of intricate hand gestures. Hand bellsare used in the home shrine. Often childrenwill wake up at the sound of the morningpuja bell being rung in their home shrine.

The sound of bells is especially lovely anduniquely powerful. Bells create a uniquesound called chiming. Chiming bells soundnaturally good to us, like listening to rush-ing water or singing birds. The bell tonesare full, far-reaching, angelic, joyful. It is aspiritual sound. It inspires. The ringing

bells say that God is present. Chiming bellshelp children tune in to worship. They gen-erate a vibration that is carried as wavesthrough the air. The sound surrounds theyoungster’s body. It even goes inside theirbody, vibrating the organs and cells. This iseasily felt along the spine of the back andneck.

Bell chiming also makes changes in thesubtle atmosphere. The bell sound not onlyvibrates the air, but vibrates the astral at-mosphere at the same time. The ringingbell causes the astral air to become clearer,less foggy. As a result the astral world devapeople can see the physical world peoplemore clearly to help them. The bells can beheard in the heaven world.

ANALOGIES &


This is a temple tower as foundin Sri Lanka. It is a commonarchitectural design feature oftemples in Sri Lanka, or oftemples built by Sri Lankans inother countries. In India, thisstyle is not common. But it isnow becoming more widelyspread in countries whereHinduism is fairly new.

Because it is high in the air,its sound can travel a longways. People can also see itfrom distances. It becomes fa-miliar to the townspeople. It isa landmark of security andwell-being in God Siva.

For children, the opportuni-ty to pull and ride on the bellropes is a daily delight. Boysand girls are often lifted off theground as the weight of theswinging bell takes the ropeup. The youth become part ofthe temple experience as theyring the bell. They know it ispart of the temple ceremony.They know people listen for it,even time their day around it.To have a real temple bell,rather than a recorded bell ona speaker system is far moredesirable.

Here is the temple bell.

All this universe is inthe glory of god, of Siva, the God of love. The heads and faces of men are Hisown, and He is in the hearts of all.—YAJUR VEDA

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ILLUSTRATIONS1. Hearing the temple bell, which alertsand reminds us that puja is about to begin,is like our alarm clock that we all use athome to wake up by. We set the clock to thedesired time to wake up. We fall asleep as-sured that the clock will noisily buzz towake us up for a new day. The temple bellalways is rung at the same times of day. Itis the temple’s alarm clock. When we hearthe temple bell we are “woke up” from ourusual daily activities and remember to turnour minds and worship to Siva, Muruganand Ganesha.

2. To children, smaller bells often seem totalk. It is like they have voices, or like thedeva angels talking through the bells. As thebell is ringing, a child can hear a messagebeing said, some guidance to be good or tohelp someone, or to learn something newor to see life in a different way. So everytime they hear a bell, it is like the deva an-gels speaking to them.

3. Often bell handles will be decorated withimages of the faces or figures of Gods or theanimal symbols of Gods. This is another re-minder that the bell serves as a direct con-nection to the world of Siva, Murugan andGanesha.

STORY READINGAnanda was an 8-year-old boy with darkblack hair and brown eyes that squinted be-cause he often stared into the white hotflames of a fire. This was not a cooking firelike his mother used at home. Anandathought of the delicious smell of the cheeseand garden pea curry his mom was cookingfor lunch that day. It would taste so good,he thought. He had picked the peas him-self that morning. His brown eyes looked atthe orange and white wall of fire he wastending now. It was for melting metal.Ananda was in his father’s metalsmithshop. It was huge, with several fire furnaces,lots of heavy black tools and neat stacks ofmetal like copper and tin. It was the largestmetal shop in the city. His family was inChina, where a large temple to God Sivawas being built. His father was in charge ofall the metal work. Today they were finish-ing a huge metal bell. It was as big as twofarm carts stacked on each other. All theboys in the shop could easily fit inside. Itwould weigh as much as an elephant. Thepouring of the bell had been two days ago.

It had taken all day since early in the morn-ing and went late into the night. The hotfires and bubbling metal had shot orangelight into the sleeping neighborhood. Attimes Ananda just wanted to lay down andsleep. But he was brave and strong. Thistemple bell was important. It was for Siva.Its booming sound would be heard allacross the city, and even out to an island inthe nearby bay. Not even in India did theyhave a bell like this. Ananda’s job was tokeep tending the bees wax that went insidethe mold of thick clay. He did his job with-out complaining. And he sang Siva songs ashe worked. He ate his meals on the run,chewing on a chapati, and some honey androasted peanuts for energy. His mom hadthought of that.

Ananda’s father was over at the great bellmold. He directed workers who took downtall bamboo ladders. Today the mold wouldbe carefully chipped away. The bell, calledSiva’s Voice, would be seen for the firsttime. There was a lot of excitement. Crowdsof Hindus and Chinese Buddhists wereoutside. Slowly the mold was broken away.The golden brownish bell began to showthrough. It glowed as if it had its own light.It was perfectly smooth. Ananda ran hishand down the metal sides. It was likesmooth ice. Finally, after several hours, thebell was free. It was magnificent. Everybodywas silent. A great feeling of awe came overeveryone. Even the crowds outside fell qui-et. Ananda’s father came up to the bell witha small hammer. It would be the first strike.The first sound from the bell. His fatherswung the hammer and it struck. Instant-ly, the bell gave off a wondrous chorus ofsound. It was like musical thunder in slowmotion. All the other metal in the shop vi-brated. All the people could not help butsmile at the beautiful sound. The one strikelasted for ten minutes, then died away.Ananda sat down as he heard it. To him, itwas the voice of Siva.

CITIZENSHIPJust as we as Saivite Hindus enjoy and lookforward to the sound of chiming bells com-ing from our temples, we also respect theringing bells of Christian churches, thebeating of drums of Buddhist temples andthe prayer call from Muslim mosques. Itwould be wrong for a Hindu citizen of acountry to try and discourage another re-ligion’s daily calls to worship and prayer.

CONNECTIONSBells are a standard feature of temples,home shrines and festivals, all discussed inBook 1 lessons. They can also be used at thebeginning of a yoga meditation period tohelp create a pure atmosphere. The mak-ing of bells is also an art. It is a skilled craft.As well as sounding pleasant, bells are oftenquite beautiful to look at. It is good to ap-preciate the people who make the bells, es-pecially if they are handmade. Bells athome should be polished often. Theyshould shine with brightness. If a bell hasbeen in the family for a long time, it shouldbe treated as very special.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring in several sets of hand bells.Set them in a line. Have the childrenform a circle around the bells, all sit-ting. Call up a child at random andhave them go to the center and ringone of the bells of their choice in arhythmic pattern. The other childrenclose their eyes, listen to the bell, andthen try to sing the same note and pat-tern as the bell. Make this a fast game.As soon as the bells is rung and chil-dren start to sing, call up the next childto ring the bell.

2. Direct several of the children to ringthe bells together. The other childrengo outside, listening for the bells at adistance. They continue to go furtherway until they can barely hear the bells.They sit and just listen for the bells fora few minutes.

3. Make a circle of the children. Theyare the outside of a bell, the bell rim.Make a smaller circle of children on theinside. They are the bell knocker. Theinside bell knockers move to one sideof the bell rim circle. When they getreal close to the bell-rim children onone side of the circle they sing out“ding” like a booming bell. When thebell knockers get to the other side ofthe bell rim circle, they sing out “dong.”The bell knockers go back and forth.

Book 1, Lesson 2

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LESSON FOCUSWe go to the temple because it is a nice feel-ing to be near God. The temple is a sacred,holy, magical place, very different from anyother place.

KEY PRESENTATIONS1) We go to the temple because it is so hap-py and joyous to be near God. Most chil-dren will not expect much of an explana-tion—content that because their parentsthink it is important to go to the temple isreason enough. But some children will ben-efit—not to mention be really interestedin—some useful and imaginative explana-tions of why going to the temple is impor-tant and such a joy. Of course there aremany ways to describe the spiritual beautyand power of the temple experience, so feelfree to share the feelings with them that im-pressed you as you grew up. They carry aspecial strength.

Before going too deep into the impor-tance of going to the temple to be near toand enjoying being in God’s home, remindchildren that actually God is in all things,lives everywhere and can be felt every-where, not only in the temple. You shouldalways keep repeating this idea that God isall-pervasive throughout the lessons as it isthe foundation of many important princi-ples, especially ahimsa (nonviolence) andcompassion. Then explain that it is easiestto feel God’s presence at the temple. Andeveryone loves to feel the presence of God.The feeling of God is of love and joy. Thefeeling of God at the temple is wonderful.Go ahead and be exclamatory like this. Letthem have the highest expectation of thetemple. Say sometimes the temple makes usfeel like a bird soaring high in the sky, free.Sometimes it fills us with the warmth ofbright sunshine. Sometimes it is like a soft,cool, nice wind. Sometimes it makes us feellike we are diving in a high mountain lakeon a hot summer day. Sometimes it has atotally magical feeling like the first time wesee snowflakes falling from the sky. Some-times being in a Hindu temple is like likegoing deep-sea diving, diving into anotherworld, so different, silent, deep, mysteriousand filled with amazing colors and beauty.And sometimes it makes us feel like we areflying in outer space, weightless, amongbright stars and galaxies and waving to allof them. And sometimes it is like being ata birthday party with lots of sharing, love,laughter and joy. But always it makes us just

feel happier inside. Like God was inside ofus suddenly, smiling, and we had to smiletoo because His smile was so strong.

So, for the Lesson “Let us Go to the Tem-ple,” we have put some images in theirminds of why going there can be so specialand looked forward to.

Now for a little deeper discussion. Whatmakes the temple so special and why do wesay it is easiest to feel God at the templethan at other places? This will be gone intomuch more in later lessons but we want tomake some simple explanations in the be-ginning too. Compare the temple to a tele-phone booth, a divine telephone booth.The priest calls up God using Sanskritmantras like God’s telephone number.Children will enjoy that visual image andit also gives a nice simple picture of whatthe priest is doing. Children are often un-sure of what the priest does and this canlead to criticizing what he does because it isnot understood. So comparing his chantingin Sanskrit to an operator calling God on a

divine telephone line gives children some-thing concrete to use to understand whatthe priest is doing.Minor point #1: God does not live only inthe temple. Because a connection with Godis made so often at this one spot, a feelinggets created, a Godly feeling, that isstronger than at other places. Tell themevery time a puja is done and God is con-tacted or a devotee contacts God throughheartfelt prayer or bhajan, some of thisbhakti/shakti is left at the spot. After manyyears, the spot, or the temple, has a big in-visible balloon of God’s energy and feel-ings. So when anybody comes, they firstcan feel the big spongy balloon of God en-ergy that has built up.

God does not live only in the temple.Every soul in the universe has a private, 24-hour cellular phone service with God. (Youshould explain what wireless mobile cellu-


1. Gopuram, a temple entrancetower. It usually has many carv-ings on it. It is high so devoteescan see it from a distance andthink of God even if they arenot going to the temple whenthey see it.2. Offerings in baskets. We al-ways bring a gift to the Deity atthe temple when we go. It is justlike taking a present when wevisit someone we love. The giftto the Deity can be as simple asa flower or as much as a bigbasket of fruit and flowers, co-conuts, incense sticks and cam-phor on special occasions. Usu-ally, the priest will return somefruit and flowers blessed at thepuja that we can take homewith us as prasadam.3. Washing feet first in the tem-ple tank. Most temples have ei-ther a tank or a water faucetoutside where you take off yourshoes and wash your feet beforeentering the temple. This prac-tice shows respect for how sa-cred the temple is.4. Knocking forehead. It is anancient custom to knock one’stemples on either side of theforehead, especially when en-tering a Ganesha temple.

For you is my offering, to you I will pray, to you who are worthy of homage and worship. You, O’God are a spring in the desert for the man who is thirsty for you, O’ Everliving.—RIG VEDA

Let us go tothe temple.

7

lar phones are to the children if they don’tknow.) Our cellular phone connection toGod is in our heart and we can reach Godanytime 24 hours a day. This cellular phoneimage is important because we want chil-dren to always feel God is always withthem, even when they are not at the temple.“Most easily felt at the temple, not only feltthere. For older children, you might addmore subtly by explaining how private mo-bile cellular phones are not as reliable as anestablished telephone booth with perma-nent wiring etc. The temple is permanent,and very reliable. With cellular phones, ifyou go into a tunnel, they don’t work. Youcan say how a tunnel is similar to when weget mad and dark and have a hard timecontacting God at these times, but if wewent to a temple it would still be easy. Andsometimes with cellular phones, the batter-ies go dead, which you can compare towhen we are tired, and don’t have enoughenergy to call God. But temples always haveenergy so we can go there to be with God.So that is why God really likes temples, be-cause they are very dependable—like a veryfancy telephone service center where theyhave the best professional operators—thepriests—placing long-distance calls to Godfor you.Minor point #2: God’s energy is at thetemple even at times pujas are not hap-pening. Although we have called the priestan operator who calls God, we do not wantto say that God is not at the temple at allunless a priest is there to call Him. You canalso compare the temple to a reservoir, a bigdam of water. Use one by name from yourarea or country and say how a temple canbe compared to a reservoir. Just as a reser-voir stores up water, so do temples store upGod’s energy. This reservoir image is valu-able so children know that the temple hasthe sacredness of God all the time, not justduring puja times.

Also we should encourage bathing anddressing nicely to go to the temple. Nowa-days Hindus go to temples dressed very ca-sually, even in logo tee-shirts and shorts.They treat the temple like an ordinary placeand they lower the feeling of the placewhen they dress like this. If we go to thetemple unbathed, wearing tee-shirts andsportswear, etc. we are not treating it spe-cial. But if we bathe first and dress nicely—men in a kurta shirt and women in a sarior punjabi outfit wearing flowers in theirhair—this shows a lot of respect for thetemple as God’s home, and it makes the

temple feel really nice because everyone islooking so nice. Give some examples ofhow we can treat the temple like a specialplace: walking around the temple at leastone time before entering, placing our shoesneatly, bringing an offering, flowers, etc.not talking loudly or joking, not runningaround, etc.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. One of the most beautiful images of atemple that can be created in a child’s mindis that of a bubble. Tell that if they could seea temple with their third eye—and maybesome of them can and have seen this—theywould see a beautiful big bubble surround-ing the temple. This is the bubble that iscreated by all the times the Deity comesand all the love and joy that the devoteesbring each time they come and all the lightthat comes from the temple devas—soulslike us, who are usually between births,who are helping and serving at temples andlive in the invisible atmosphere. So tellthem each time they go to the temple notonly are they entering a physical place butthey are going inside a bubble, like into an-other world, into another dimension. Thisbubble is very real and forms the astral pro-tective sheath of a temple.2. A second beautiful image that helps un-fold the magic of a temple for a young per-son is telling them that Hindu temples havea ray of light that goes through this bubbleand into the earth. This ray of light is cos-mic force from the Deity’s shakti which ismagnetized by the temple—like lightning isattracted by a lightning rod—and then goesdown into the earth. Those rays of light ac-tually bring peace to a whole community.

STORY READINGHere is a beautiful story to tell. In the 1970’sin New York City, a Hindu man had anamazing dream. He was flying over NewYork City. Many, many Hindus who movedfrom India to the US were living in NewYork City but they had no temple. As hewas flying, he was looking down and thenhe saw an old Christian steeple, a pointedtower that Christian churches usually have.All of a sudden, he went down and straightinto the steeple and down inside the Chris-tian church. When he was inside, it was allempty except that Ganesha was there sit-ting up in front looking at Him with a

smile. Then he woke up and called a friendwho was in India and told him the dream.The friend knew that this was an importantdream and flew to New York and the twomen drove around that part of the city andactually found the old Christian church hesaw in the dream. It was for sale. Very soonthey bought it and tore it down and built abeautiful big Hindu temple there for LordGanesha.

HOMEWORKTell them that the next time they go to atemple, to try to feel at exactly what pointthey enter the temple shakti bubble. Evenif they don’t feel it, just trying to feel is fun.

WRONG THINKING1. It is ok for Hindu temples to be un-clean, run-down and unlandscaped. No.This is not OK. We all know both templesthat are cared for and others that are notnicely cared for. Tell them that the templeshould be the most beautiful place, nicerthan a fancy hotel, and that if it is outsidein a forest or by a lake, still, it should still bebeautifully surrounded with flowers andplants. There is no excuse for not doingthis.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. We are going to make a temple. Havethe class, except for 6 of them, form threecircles, one inside the other. Put four stu-dents in the very middle—three surround-ing a fourth. The very middle one is LordGanesha. The three surrounding Him areGanesh’s spiritual energy. Then tell the fifthextra person that he (or she) is the pujariand should be positioned between the mostouter and middle circle. The 6th extra per-son is a temple devotee and starts by stand-ing outside all three circles. Ask all to Aumvery softly. This is the sacred feeling of thetemple. The outer circle is the temple wall.Have the devotee-student walk throughouter circle, the temple wall. He is now in-side the temple. Then have the pujari chantAum Ganesha three times. As he or shedoes, students forming the middle circleand inner circle create openings in theirlines so that the devotee can look intowhere Ganesha and His shakti is and Gane-sha looks out to the devotee. Then the threestudents, Ganesha’s shakti, rush out throughthe two gaps in the circles and go around thedevotee auming, blessing her or him. Theidea here is to show that the temple is notjust physical, but is a way to open windows tothe inner world where Siva, Murugan, Gane-sha and other Mahadevas live.

Book 1, Lesson 3

8

LESSON FOCUSThe main focus of this lesson is that Gane-sha protects dharma. Dharma is a giantword that means many, many things—likespiritual conduct, duty, truth, inner laws—but the most useful definition at this agelevel is: “Dharma is the path to God.” Gane-sha keeps this path, the dharma, open andclear so there is always a clear path to God.Because Ganesha loves dharma so much,He is even sometimes called the Guardianof Dharma, among his many, many othernames.

KEY PRESENTATIONS1). Lord Ganesha, who He is. Ganesha is anamazing God who lives in the Third World,a real world of light where all the Gods havebodies made out of light. That is what thebodies of the Gods are like, very bright,light, and shining, but still looking like us.Tell the children to think of all the sunshinefrom the sun and moon and putting it in-side one person and all the love of allmothers and fathers on the earth and allthe intelligence of all the wise people on theearth and putting all that into that sameperson. And then add super all-knowingintelligence like a cosmic computer mighthave. That is like Ganesha and also like theother Gods too.

But Ganesha is a very special God. Hehas an elephant head. Isn’t that amazing?We don’t know any humans with an ele-phant head, (or elephants with humanheads!) but this God really has one. Gane-sha decided He would give Himself a sec-ond form—a form with the head of an ele-phant. One main reason He did this is sothat when humans saw Him in visions anddreams they would know it was Ganeshaimmediately. Because Ganesha wants us tobe able to know who He is easily and quick-ly—and Siva told Him to love, communi-cate and stay close to humans on earth—Ganesha took this form.

Another reason He took the form withan elephant head is because He is the greatGodfriend of all the animals, fish, trees andflowers, etc. on the earth. He loves animalsand flowers and fish and birds just as muchas humans and took the form with an ani-mal head, so animals would feel as close toHim just as humans do. And He chose ananimal that everyone loves, an elephant.Also, everyone respects an elephant becausethey are so strong and also very smart. SoGanesha is a God for humans and animals

too.Ganesha can appear, in dreams and vi-

sions, either with His human-like face orwith His elephant head. Usually His ele-phant head. But whichever head He ap-pears with, He always has the same human-like eyes. They are soft beautiful browneyes—full of love, tenderness and intelli-gence.

Of course, small children have no realreason to question that a God would havean elephant head, but as they get older, theymight hear people say who don’t believe inthe Gods things like, “Oh, Ganesha is justan abstract symbol of wisdom, not a realBeing.” Or they might hear teasing com-ments from non-Hindus such as, “Youdon’t really believe in a God who has anelephant head, do you!” So it is good nowto assure them that Ganesha is real so thatlater questions and teasing will not affectthem.

Defining dharma. We need to give thechildren a very simple definition of dharma

that will serve as the main foundation onwhich they build a deeper understandingsthey get older. “Dharma is good conduct,doing what is right, like obeying our par-ents.” Impress the children with the factthat even the sun and moon and stars ob-serve dharma. Tell them that the sun alwayscomes up in the morning because it is thesun’s dharma. Imagine if the sun decided tosleep late and not come up and it juststayed dark until the sun decided to risesometime in the afternoon. Aren’t we gladthe sun follows dharma, good conduct, andcomes up on time each day? Think how un-happy all the vegetable plants would bewho need the sunshine to grow if the sundidn’t do its dharma and come up eachmorning.

Then tell them to visualize a long, beau-tiful road that had a magical golden glowand wound through valleys, throughforests, over rivers and mountains and up


1. Noose. He uses this imple-ment (which is actually a powerof His mind) to pull positiveconditions/situations/opportu-nities/events/lessons/people intoour path that will help us growspiritually.2. Goad. He pushes negative con-ditions/forces/events and peopleaway with this implement (whichis, again, a power of His mind)that will slow down or stop ourspiritual growth are not necessaryfor us to experience.3. Modaka ball. This is a verysweet sugary pastry goodie thatrepresents the idea that Ganeshais full of sweetness.4. Mushika, Ganesha’s Mouse.All the Gods have an animal orbird to travel on. Ganesha rideson a mouse. An elephant on apoor little mouse! Actually,though Ganesha is big, He does-n’t weigh anything. In the Sivalo-ka, the world of the Gods, peopleand things are weightless. Ganeshachose a mouse because mice canget into very hard-to-get-to spots.Ganesha is like that because Hetoo is extremely able and agile ingetting into every little detail andcorner of our minds and karma tobetter help us in our lives.

Worship Him with love-offerings of jackfruit, hoppers, bananas and mango fruits and thus miti-gate the burden of deeds.—SAINT AUVAIYAR

Lord Ganesha protects dharma.

9

into the sky, up through the clouds to theThird World where Lord Siva lives. Thispath is dharma. When we tell the truth, anddo things that our parents tell us to do andare nice to people, and say nice things toother people, then we stay on this happypath of dharma and reach God. When wetell lies, and do things that our parents tellus not to do and say things that make oth-er people unhappy, then we go off thisbeautiful path called dharma and get lostuntil we get sad enough and come back andget on the path again.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. To help the children understand how biga mind Ganesha has, tell them to visualize acomputer that is 100 kilometers wide andso high it touches the clouds. Think howmuch information can be in that computer.Now tell them Ganesha’s mind/memory iseven greater than this, and faster. He has in-stant access to all knowledge about our pastlives and the way we feel and think, ourhopes and fears, even at this very moment.But computers of course have no soul andare not intelligent. They just store informa-tion, tons of it and process it. Ganesha hasinformation but He is also immensely wiseand intelligent. The point here is that theanalogy of the computer is useful only tohelp children visualize how much informa-tion and knowledge Ganesha has immedi-ate access to all the time.2. To better appreciate how bright and joy-ous He is, tell the children to visualize a suninside Ganesha. See Ganesha as sort of see-through and all this brilliant sunlight com-ing out of Him in all directions is pure love.Remind them how big the sun is and howbright it is. Tell them that just as the phys-ical sun cannot stop shining, Ganesha cannever stop sending love out from Himself.There is no way He can stop waves of loveflowing out of Him to all beings, humansand other creatures, in the whole universe.Isn’t that fantastic? Then tell them that thisfeeling of a sun inside oneself will happento them one day too as they grow spiritu-ally and their soul body grows and burnsaway dark karmas, like the sun burns awaythe fog in the morning.

STORY READINGIn the middle of the black night when therewas no moon the volcano came to life. The

top of the volcano exploded with orangeand yellow streamers of flame and big hotrocks and hot mud shot high into thenight. It was volcano fireworks. It lit up thewhole island of Bali, home of the BalineseHindus. Bali is a small island with steepcliffs on most sides, off the coast of the bigisland of Java in Indonesia. Lovely stonetemples built with tall pagoda-like towerslie all over this jungle island that the peo-ple call the meeting ground of the Gods.The main Siva temple, a huge area of mul-tiple temples, large courtyards on terraces,and steep stairs was on the mountain slopeof the volcano itself. This volcano was sa-cred to Siva. And it was still alive, eruptingevery one hundred years or so.

The roar of the volcano woke up Dhar-ma instantly. All the houses in Bali werebuilt of wood and bamboo and were openair—very few walls so the cooling breezescould blow through. Dharma jumped upfrom his grass mat on the floor and saw thevolcano shooting up a giant fountain of fireand smoke. A huge river of red lava wasflowing down the north side of the volcano.Dharma was 9-years old with a thick bodyand long black hair. He knew he had to getup to the great Siva temple and help protectit or save the sacred items. He had just wok-en up from a dream, a bright, rainbowdream. In the dream Lord Ganesha ap-peared, like a beautiful, pinkish elephantface on a big TV, and told Dharma that hisdharma right now was to run up to the Sivatemple and rescue the sacred Bell of Dhar-ma. Then, the blast of the volcano wokehim. He knew he had to the good thingright now, the right thing to do in this goodmoment. It was a good moment because itwas a time of need, and of testing. He likedbeing helpful and following the way ofgood conduct. That was Dharma’s thinkingof the way of dharma. He thought to him-self, “I can’t be afraid. I have the strength ofGanesha, the Lord of dharma, in my mindand muscles.” He was already dressed in awhite and yellow wrap-around verthi. Sohe quickly jumped through the house en-trance, paused briefly before small, blackstone Ganesha and ran for the road that ledto the Siva temple up on the fiery volcano.He ran up the road as fast as he could,breathing hard. He found the steps, so verysteep, that led up the volcano to the grandtemple. He could feel the heat, and a blackrain was falling on him. It was black ashfrom the eruption. His chest hurt from

running and climbing, but he kept going.Lord Ganesha was giving him strength. Hereached the first stone courtyard of thehuge temple. It was all lit up with orangelight and covered by black ash, but the lavaflow was turning to the right. There wereother people up there too. Many werepriests. He followed one priest up moresteps into a small stone shrine. Here waskept the Bell of Dharma. It sat on a deepred cushion with gold tassels. The bell it-self had a long gold handle carved into animage of lightening. The bell was beautifulbronze and made a sound like rolling thun-der. This bell started all the grand cere-monies. It could not be lost to the lava.Dharma took the bell carefully with bothhands. It was heavy. He wrapped it in athick white cotton cloth. Then he headedhome, his dharma mission done.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring a very lightweight, big plasticbeach ball to class. (Blow it up at class.)It should be at least two feet wide, verylight. bigger is fine. The ball is going torepresent dharma, “acting in truthful,good ways.” Have all the students forma big loose circle (single file is not nec-essary) and put one student in themiddle, sitting down quietly, who isGanesha. Tell them to throw the ball inthe air and everyone tries to keepbouncing it back into the air, not let-ting it hit the ground. If it does, itmeans that dharma stopped. No oneperson is blamed but someone, any-one, quickly takes the ball and handsit to Ganesha and says, “Ganesha,please forgive us for letting dharmafall.” Ganesha smiles, hugs the ball,aums three times and says, “Let dhar-ma bounce high again!” and throws itback into the air for the group to keepup in the air as long as they can.

Book 1, Lesson 4

10

LESSON FOCUSThe main focus of this lesson is to tell thechildren that by going to, and/or praying toGanesha first before starting anything new,our trip or project or event will be blessedand it will happen more smoothly than ifwe did not go and get Ganesha’s blessings. Italso introduces the biggest festival for Gane-sha, Ganesha Chaturthi, His birthday.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWe take all new new things we plan to do toLord Ganesha to bless them and help makethem successful.

We go to Lord Ganesha first before start-ing something new because this wonderfulGod has special powers to clear the path ofour projects of various obstacles. He can seewith His powerful mind by looking into thepatterns of the future. This does not meanthat just by praying to Him that automati-cally there will be no problems that arise ina project we have. We still all have our ownkarma to experience, both positive and neg-ative. Ganesha does not ignore or erase this,nor does our prayer erase it. So the bestteaching to the children will be that by pray-ing to Ganesha for the success of an event,we assure that it will be more smooth, moresuccessful than if we had not gone to Gane-sha at all. But we don’t want to tell thechildren that just by going to Ganesha andasking His blessings that a project will bewithout challenges. That is not true. LordGanesha loves it when we use all our ownGod-given divine will power, intelligenceand creativity to make our own projectssuccessful. Then He is very happy to assist.

But why do we pray to Lord Ganeshafirst, and why not Lord Murugan or evenLord Siva? The reason is that Lord Siva ap-pointed Lord Ganesha the Gatekeeper. Thisis a very nice name for Ganesha, the Gate-keeper—one of His hundreds of names, bythe way—and it means that He stands at agate (not an actual gate, that is just an imageto understand) between the inner worldsand outer world, our Bhuloka world and theinner world of the Devaloka. This makesHim close to us, just like a gatekeeper is closeto visitors of a palace. A gatekeeper is thefirst one you see and the first one you wouldtell what you need or who you want to see.

But Ganesha is more than just a gate-keeper of a palace, the inner worlds. He isalso like a king in many ways too, evensometimes called Ganapati, Lord of theGanas. He is the inspirational guide for somany devas of many inner realms. Millions

of devas of all shades of spiritual capacityhelp Him. Ganesha can, for example, evensend messages to raincloud devas and askthem not to rain at a certain spot on a cer-tain day if one’s karma is really good and aperson has prayed for sunshine. Or He canask the raincloud devas to rain for a farmerwho prays to Ganesha for rain for his veg-etable plants that need water. The rainclouddeva, the farmer and Ganesha are all mys-tically one in this magical process.

Ganesha Chaturthi is the biggest festivalfor Lord Ganesha. It is like the birthday ofLord Ganesha, the time when we celebrateHis creation by God Siva. Now the creationof Ganesha by God Siva would have beenvery long ago, far beyond any time framethe young children can imagine. It is so longago, it was before the Earth and our moonand our stars were created. Since Ganeshais so close to us, helping us with many ofour interests and goals in life, GaneshaChaturthi is one of the best times to offerour love and thankfulness to Him. This fes-

tival is celebrated at His temples all over theworld by Hindus all over the world. This is aworld-wide festival. It is a very fun festivalfor children. There is usually plenty of goodsweets and birthday cakes to eat. There aremore birthday cakes for Ganesha than anyother person on Earth.

Minor point #1: Give Ganesha as much ad-vance notice as possible. Say a child wasgoing to start a new little flower garden inthe back yard. Then it is good to say a prayerto Lord Ganesha at least three days before.This gives Ganesha time to make adjust-ments that will help remove obstacles in thefuture success of the garden.

Minor point #2: No project or plan is toosmall to pray to Ganesh first for. Somechildren always say “Om Ganesha” beforethey go anywhere on their bicycle—just thesame as their parents do when they get in acar and say “Om Ganesha” before they drive

VISUALINTERPRETATION

It is traditional to offer fruits andflowers to all the Gods, so in thisrespect, Ganesha is like the oth-er Gods who enjoy fruits andflowers too. But Ganesha, evenmore than the other Gods, likesto be offered sweets—pastriesand candies and cakes etc.

The round modaka ball, (seen inthe picture in Ganesha’s handand in the plate in from of him)which can be made many ways,is one of his favorites. You cantell the children one of the rea-sons Lord Ganesha likes to be of-fered sweets, is that He knowsthat all that is offered to Him isblessed and then offered back tothe devotees.

Notice that the men and boys areon the right, the women andgirls on the left. Lesson 46 dis-cusses this.

Here the priests are using theirhands in special mudra “seal” po-sitions to channel spiritual ener-gy into the kumbha pot. The potcontains water. Water absorbsspiritual energy. Then the wateris poured over the Ganesha im-age in the background.

If you worship the elephant-faced Vinayaka, your life will expand bountifully. —SAINT AUVAIYAR

We worship Lord Ganesha first.He likes fruits, flowers andsweet cakes.We celebrate GaneshaChaturthi at the temple.

Book 1, Lesson 5 & 45

11

anywhere. This is asking Ganesha to makethe trip safe so neither does the child fall offthe bike, nor does the child bump intosomeone and hurt someone else.Minor point #3: If a project, plan or tripworked out really well, we should thankGanesha afterwards. Lord Ganesha andHis helper devas are just like us in the sensethat they too like to be thanked. So it is nicewhen we have first prayed to Ganesha forblessings and our project, plan or trip thenworked out really well, that we thank Gane-sha for this. This can be done by a visit tothe temple with a little offering, or a prayerbefore we go to bed in our home shrineroom or a letter/note burned in a templehoma fire. Being thankful is part of Hinduculture.Minor point #3: Ganesha does not help

negative prayers. If Ganesha gets a prayerfrom someone who asks Ganesha to hurtsomebody else that this person is mad at,Ganesha does not respond. Ganesha re-sponds only to prayers that are positive,thought up with a feeling of love, helpful-ness, joy or sincere need.

STORY READINGThis is the real-life story of a Hindu girlwho lived in Hawaii and had a vision ofGanesha. She was living with her parentsand brother in a very simple, tiny woodenhouse perched high up on a lush greenmountainside that sloped down to the Pa-cific ocean which was so big it looked justlike an upside down sky. Looking out fromher porch, the view of the emerald-greenand sapphire-blue ocean was so beautiful,she felt like she was in heaven. She felt like aprincess looking out from her “palace.” Thiswas a coffee farming region. Her nearestneighbor was was very far away. It was very,very peaceful and very quiet. Her father wasa hard-working farmer.

When the school bus dropped her off ata spot on the highway, she would hike upthe mountain on a bumpy dirt road to herhouse about half a mile. Then after she lefther books at the house, she would hike evenfurther up the slope to a bamboo grovewhere a swami had blessed a spot for a tem-ple to be built. She had asked him if shecould do a little daily puja every day to helpbless the spot until the images of theDeities arrived from India to help keep thevibration sacred. So each day, she wouldpick flowers and get a little fruit like pa-payas or bananas that grew around herhouse and walk up and did a little arati at

a rock the swami said was where the Deitieswould be put. She kept a little camphor, in-cense and an arati lamp at the site. She wasall alone and never missed doing this, noteven once for six months. Many times itwould rain very hard in the afternoons.Still she hiked up and did the puja, alwayssmiling. She loved Ganesha. Her puja al-ways felt magical.

Then one day something amazing hap-pened. (Years later, she told the story tosome children who were wondering if theGods were really real. It was recorded. Theseare her words.) “It all started with a funnyfeeling that something really unusual wasgoing to happen. I was on the telephone andwas telling one of my friends that some-thing unusual was going to happen. Just asI was saying that the electricity went off. SoI got king of excited and thought thatmaybe that was what was going to happen.It was just after dark. Later I found out thatthe two murthis of Ganesha and Muruganhad arrived at the dock on our island justthat afternoon. I was in the kitchen helpingmy mom. We had candles. It was dark. Andup there in the mountains where we live itsget really pitch black at night. Then all of asudden, I just had this feeling come overme. You know, where you almost get chillswhen you know something is going to hap-pen. I looked up. I wasn’t looking with mytwo eyes, but it would seem like I was. I waslooking with my third eye. I just startedtalking and saying what I saw. First it wasjust a little tiny light as big around as twofingers put together. It was blue and it hadwhite on the outside of it. I thought I won-der what that is. I kept talking to my momand as I telling her what I was seeing. Shewas right next to me. She kept saying,“Where? Where?” She couldn’t see it. I keptdescribing every detail. My family got realworried. The ball kept getting bigger and itwas coming from the direction down to-ward the ocean toward where the murthisarrived at our island’s little seaport that day.I found this out later. It was coming straightfor the bamboo forest. I remember veryclearly that I wasn’t using my two physicaleyes because I remember being able to al-most see the trees and things but at thesame time there was this ball of light, a bub-ble. As the bubble got closer, I could see twosomethings inside of it, two figures. As theygot closer and closer I saw Ganesha was onthe left. Murugan was on the right. Thething I remember the most about it was thespecialness of the feeling of what they were

enclosed in. It was almost as if it was a timecapsule from outer space. Ganesha had ona white cloth tied in the front at waist leveland they both had on a lot of flower gar-lands, really lots, like about ten, with reallyincredibly beautiful flowers. Murugan waswearing orange, and really tall and justbeautiful and smiling. He had his peacock.It was walking on the left hand side. I re-member that they were walking inside thisball of light. Their feet were moving butthey weren’t touching any surface. They hadanklets around their feet with flowers. Theyjust smiled at me. And I’m looking at themand I’m going, “Oh my God, I can’t believethis is happening. Then it started to passover our house and right up toward thebamboo and disappeared from my sight. Ihad a real strong feeling that they had cometo bless me for the pujas that I had done. Ifelt really privileged. I did this for sixmonths and never missed one day. A cou-ple times when I was up there I saw Gane-sha, just His eyes, smiling at me”

WRONG THINKINGGanesha will remove all obstacles if wepray to Him first. No. The Gods are not likepuppets who do everything we tell them.Neither do they have us and human eventson strings that they just pull according towhat they want. Each human being has toexperience his or her karma. The Gods helpus in that experience, softening difficult kar-mas and making positive ones brighter. Butthe key is that they help us help ourselves.That way we grow, get stronger. Our soulgrows.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Tell the students beforehand to bringflowers, some little sweet and a piece offruit to class. Choose one of the students tobe Ganesha. a boy or a girl. Have Ganeshasit down with legs crossed and smiling. Ifyou have a ganesha mask, which is quitecommon temple item for dramas, bringthat, too, and the student can be wearingthe mask. Then everyone comes up and of-fers fruit, flowers and sweets to Ganesha asthe rest sing “Ganesha Saranam” or anysimple Ganesha song they know. The fruitand sweets are put in front of Ganesha. Letthe students put the flowers all over Gane-sha, decorating Him nicely. this will, ofcourse, be very funny for most and causea lot of laughter. this is fine. Then Gane-sha eats a sweet and a bite of a fruit. Hewaves His hand over all the offerings andsays, “Thank you for your love offerings.Here, now you enjoy too.” And Ganeshahands out a piece of fruit and sweet to all.


12

LESSON FOCUSThe idea of a supreme God, what it meansto be supreme. The course’s first introduc-tion to “Aum Namah Sivaya,” the most im-portant and powerful spiritual saying inSaivite Hinduism.

KEY PRESENTATIONSAll the children in the class know fromtheir own experience that there are many,many people in the world. They see hun-dreds of people every day. Sometimes whenthey go to festivals or sports events or con-certs they see thousands of people. On tele-vision they can see millions of people.There seems to be no end to the amount ofpeople on Earth, over 5 billion now. Chil-dren are also aware that a few people arevery important in the world. They help andguide and protect large groups of people.They could be spiritual leaders or govern-ment leaders. These leaders are smart andskilled. They want to improve. They knowhow to lead. They know how to get thingsdone. They are supreme. They are abovethe people who have a duty in society tofollow. They lead the people who followthem. This could be in a country or a reli-gion that exists in many countries. But onEarth, there is no one supreme leader.There is no leader that is above all the rest.Never in history has there been a one hu-man supreme leader.

Now, just as there are so many types of an-imals and insects, and so many millions ofpeople on Earth, there are many millionsand millions of people who have bodies oflight and live in worlds of light. There areso many that we could not begin to countthem. We call them devas (angels) andGods. These devas and Gods have manypowers. They help and guide everybody onEarth and on many other planets too. Thedevas or angels are obedient to the Gods orLords. They follow the leadership of theGods. The Gods are very spiritual people oflight. Their bodies give off light like a verybright rainbow. They are so smart theyknow all knowledge and even our future.There are many Gods. Lord Murugan andLord Ganesha are Gods. But there is onlyone supreme God. There is one Lord who isthe highest, the first God. He is the bright-est, the most powerful, with the greatestmind. He is Siva. He is God. Siva is thesupreme person. His mind is everywhere.His love is everywhere. His power is every-where. Siva’s light completely goes through

everybody on Earth. He is the supremeleader of earth and all worlds and all peo-ple. He leads by love and wisdom.

Siva’s name is very powerful. It means per-fect goodness. It is always favorable. Sivameans that which is always good for us.Siva is the beauty of a sunrise across themountains. Siva is the power to push ourplanet Earth around the sun. Often, duringthe day we want to talk to God Siva. Wewant to call His name. It makes us feel goodto say His name, which is also His power.The best way to say God’s name is to say,“Aum Namah Sivaya.” This means, “Adora-tion to Siva.”“Aum” is the sound of the uni-verse. Adoration is our highest love forGod. If we see something good or beauti-ful—a mother and child, a gift to a beggar,a man petting a dog, moonlight on apond—we can say “Aum Namah Sivaya.”Or if we want to change something frombad and ugly into goodness, we can say“Aum Namah Sivaya” and know their liveswill change in the future.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. Supreme generally means something orsomebody that is over others by virtue ofpower, position or ability. For instance, Mt.Everest is the supreme mountain on Earthbecause it is the tallest. It is higher than allother mountain peaks on Earth. Whenstanding on the peak of Mt. Everest, and ifthere was a clear view, you could look downon the all the other mountains and valleysand glaciers and see everything aboutthem. Because we are higher we have moreknowledge. We see more. We know more.We can do more. If we are on a lowermountain and are looking up at Mt. Everestwe cannot see everything about the Everestpeak. Our knowledge is limited. Thesupreme does have mystery about it.

2. There are many Gods. But there is onlyone Supreme God. This is like the British


This is a picture of Siva that iscommonly seen. There aremany symbols in it. Lord Siva isseated in meditation in the Hi-malayan mountains of northIndia, His traditional earthlyhome. Siva’s spiritual light is in-side the Himalayas. Sometimeswe can see Him through therock and snow of the moun-tains. Siva is in meditation. Heis one with everything andeverybody. He knows all knowl-edge of the past and future. Outof his meditation Siva createsall worlds and all people fromHis own mind. We see that byhis Third Eye symbol.The river Ganga pours fromSiva’s hair. This means Siva isthe creator of the entirety ofEarth’s environment. Siva madeour planet with oceans, rivers,lakes and all the mountains,plains, deserts and coasts.The trident of Siva tells us Hehas three supreme powers. Hehas supreme Will, supremeKnowledge, supreme Energy.Siva is Lord of the entire uni-verse.

The Supreme God is Lord Siva.We say “Aum Namah Sivaya.”

The mystic expression “Namah Sivaya” is the sacred name of Lord Siva, and conveys in the sa-cred path souls which are full of devotion and do utter it with a melting heart.—TIRUMURAI

13

Book 1, Lesson 6

system of government. There are manyministers, but there is only one Prime Min-ister. He or she is the supreme minister, theone with the most ability, power and com-mand.

3. When we say “Aum Namah Sivaya” toourselves it is often to make us feel betterif we have been hurt. Someone said some-thing that hurt our feelings. Called us aname. Or if mom got mad at us because wedidn’t eat a certain vegetable. Or if wesprained an ankle. At these times of sad-ness, Siva’s name can make us feel better. Itis like an ointment that makes the pain goaway. It is like aspirin that relieves theheadache. So we say “Aum Namah Sivaya”and start to quickly feel better.

STORY READINGThe ocean waves came crashing against thedark rocks. Spray jetted up like water foun-tains. The blue and silver water rolled upinto long waves. Foam bubbled at the top.With a great roar the waves hit the wetrocks. Every day and every night as themoon drifted overhead the waves hitagainst the rocks. It never ended. A littleboy loved to watch the waves. His homewas on the coast of South Africa. He livednear a beach that had lots of huge rocks.They looked like shipwrecks. Seaweed hungfrom them. Seals played around them.Starfish clung to them. The beach was theboy’s private place. He came nearly everyday. Even when grey clouds covered the skyand sheets of rain poured he came to watchthe sea waves, to watch the life of the sea.His family was Hindu. They had a nicestore that sold grocery items for the coasttown. But they didn’t sell any meat or fishor fowl or eggs. They were devotees of GodSiva. The boy had been taught that Siva wasalive in all creatures. To even take an egg toeat was wrong. He liked those ideas. At thebeach, she knew all the crabs and mollusksand starfish and tide pool fish. They werehis friends. The tide came in, and the wa-ter flowed around his feet. And he watchedall the tide pool creatures sway with the sil-very rush of the water. Then, he wouldmove on to the rugged brown and greyrocks. He had a secret passage that tookhim up through one rock that was like ahouse. It had little rooms in it made by thewaves constant crashing. If the waves weresmall, he sat in one of these rooms, look-ing out. It was evening. The sun’s fire wasdripping into the ocean. Clouds driven bywind had the sun’s sunset fire painted on

them. And the waves were mirrors. As thewaves hit, hid rock house shook. His bodytrembled. To him, this was the living pow-er of Siva. Every few minutes another waverolled in, rising like a horse and kicking atthe rock. The rock thumped like a drum.He thought this is how Siva is supreme. Heis the waves traveling through all creation.His power never ends. He is the ocean oflife. And with the rhythm and sound of thewaves, he would start saying softly to her-self, “Aum Namah Sivaya.” Each time a waverushed toward him he said Siva’s name. Hefelt as if part of him became the waves andocean. He felt part of Siva.

BACKGROUNDMany non-Hindus have interpreted Hinduprimary scripture—the Vedas—as invokingmany Gods, but not recognizing a singlesupreme Deity. This is called polytheism.And even today, Hinduism is often present-ed by non-Hindu educators and texts as be-ing polytheistic. This interpretation was be-gun by Christian clergy and researchers toshow that Christianity was superior to Hin-duism because it had a one God. Histori-cally and psychologically, this was a pur-poseful distortion to help the Christianconversion campaigns. In reality, the Vedasclearly and repeatedly describe a oneSupreme Being who creates and guides allGods, devas and people, whose energiesand mind wholly are the universe.

CONNECTIONSCompare Siva to Ganesha. Lord Ganesha isnot the supreme God. Lord Ganesha is oneof many Gods who have special powers andduties. Ganesha looks to Siva as the ulti-mate God.

HOMEWORKAsk the children to think of God Siva eachnight before they go to bed and fall asleep.They should see Siva in all the stars in thenight sky. If there was one brightest starthat suddenly lit up so bright it filled theentire night sky, that would be Siva. Thatwould be the supreme star. Its light is thepower behind all the other stars. Have thechildren think of this as they fall asleep.

WRONG THINKINGMany Hindus think of Siva as the destroyer,following a wrong notion that Brahma isthe creator, Vishnu the preserver and Sivathe destroyer. This would mean there arethree co-equal supreme Gods—a verywrong and unenlightened understanding.

God Siva is the Supreme Being, the FirstSoul who is the creator, preserver and de-stroyer of all existence. Destroyer is not thebest word for understanding this process. Itis more like changer, for one thing ischanged into another thing. For example,water is changed into snow. Ice is changedback into water. Also things are changedinto more fundamental forms. For exam-ple, a dead leaf breaks down into soil.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring a strong flashlight. Arrange fora large box, big enough for one, two ormore children to fit under, to be at theclassroom. It must be totally opaque tolight. Place it with the bottom side up,and the top side open to the ground sothe children can go under the edge andbe inside the box. Cover it with a thickdark cloth that drapes down and overthe floor around the box. But leave onesmall area on the edge of the top sideopen. In this area, take a small nail orthick needle and make a pin-size hole.Cover the hole tightly so no light getsinside. One, two or more childrencrawl under the box. Turn out all thelights in the classroom. It should bepitch dark for the children inside. Theystart to chant Aum Namah Sivaya, andafter a short while the other childrenquickly remove the covering of the pinhole while shining a bright flashlightinto the hole. The incoming light to thechildren in the box represents Siva asthe supreme God in the universe asthey chant Aum Namah Sivaya. Thechildren take turns under the box.

2. Split the class into four groups. Oneof the groups is the Supreme God Siva.The other three groups are Gods. TheSupreme God group thinks up some-thing for the other Gods group to dothat is good and helpful, like helpingpoor people get better homes. They tellthat to the other Gods groups. TheGods groups then think what they cando to accomplish that helpful task. Asthe other Gods groups are thinkingand planning, the Supreme God groupmove around in a circle saying Aum.They are maintaining the power of theuniverse.

14

LESSON FOCUSThe focus of this lesson is very, very sim-ple—we want to impress on the childrenthat more than any other idea or feelingthey should hold of Siva, it is that He is purelove and happiness.

KEY PRESENTATIONSLove and happiness are the two mostsought after feelings in our world. If a per-son has love in their heart and is happy thatperson is considered very fortunate by all.Many people feel that love and happinessare something outside of them. Love andhappiness can be gained by having a lot ofmoney, a big house, very expensive cars andclothes and perhaps even power over otherpeople. That is what many people thinkmakes them happy. Many people think thatlove is a feeling other people should give tothem. They think that to give love to some-one else depends on how they are treatingus. If they are mean to us, or don’t give uswhat we want, then we don’t love them any-more. So most people go through life withlove and happiness as kind of thin cloudsthey are trying to grab hold of, but theirhands just go right through.

Now, actually the children all have a verydeep ocean-like feeling of love and happi-ness and joy and bliss already inside ofthem. Love and happiness are already thereinside of them as a part of their soul, as apart of their divine nature. The childrendon’t need to have the latest popular toy tobe happy. The children don’t need every-body to like them and do them favors to feelpure love. Happiness and love are within us.They are as real a part of our mind asthoughts. All we do is move our mind intothe “happy” land of the mind. We send ourthoughts, like bubbles, to the “happy” land.And in doing this the children are actuallyworking with the very fabric of conscious-ness itself. They are moving their con-sciousness—this is like a personal ball ofmind—out of a sad area into another area, ahappy area. If the children were to contin-ue moving their personal ball of mind intodeeper and deeper, and more intense layersof happiness, they would come right intothe very Mind of Siva. Riding their person-al ball of mind—their consciousness—thechildren would bump right into the verysource of love and happiness: God Siva.

God Siva is the source of love and happi-ness. He is the Supreme Soul. The very pow-ers of love and happiness are ever-streaming

out of Siva. Siva means “auspicious” or”“ever good” and the purest love and happi-ness is always radiating from that perfectgoodness. The soul is made of light. It is akind of light that we do not see in our phys-ical world. This light is so pure, so power-ful that a giant star far bigger than our suncould be made from one very tiny, tiny flashof this light. It is like white diamonds andred rubies and green emeralds and blue sap-phires turned to light that is stronger thanour hardest steel on Earth. This is the lightof our soul body and of the Siva SupremeSoul. If we were to barely touch that lightwith our fingertips, we would instantly befilled with an indescribable love and happi-ness. The intensity of love and happiness wewould feel coming from God Siva would beso great that the children could not sit still.They would literally have to get up andjump for joy. They would be filled with thevery energy of love and happiness.

When we even think about God Siva—just have the children begin to think about

Siva— they will automatically begin to feela warm love and happiness. It is automatic.In the shrine room at their home, this feel-ing is even stronger. At the Siva temple, it isvery strong. When we sit in personal yogameditation, it is even stronger. When we sitin front of a satguru—who personally expe-riences the full power of Siva’s love and hap-piness—then it is extremely strong.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONSAsk the children to remember the happiestmoment of their life. Then tell them to mul-tiply that a trillion times. Siva is even hap-pier than that all the time. Amazing isn’t it!

Have the class visualize a tidal wave. First,make sure everyone knows what a tidalwave is—a huge wave on the ocean createdby an earthquake or volcanic eruption un-


1. Big ears. Yes, very big ears. Askthe children what ears are for. Yes,listening. Ganesha has big earsbecause He is the very best listen-er. He never get tired of hearingall your worries, problems, hopesand dreams. Talk to Him often.2. Ganesha is often shown in pic-tures with a big round belly. Hisbig belly tells us that in a magicalway the whole world is insideHim. Or, you could say it anoth-er way—He is inside the wholephysical world. Have the childrenvisualize both the round earth in-side his stomach and have themvisualize the planet earth andGanesha inside it. In both images,you can impress on the childrenhow close He is to us, not “way faraway somewhere.”3. Mango and banana. Nevermiss the opportunity to repeathow much Ganesha likes sweetcandy-like fruits. If He likes fruitsand sweets, children figure He isat least a little like them!4. Good to just remind the chil-dren that this is a drawing, anartist’s drawing of Ganesha. Weare not a comic book religion andthe Gods do not look like everyartist’s painting. Pictures just helpus a little visualize the Gods.

There is no difference between devotion and perfect knowledge. A person who is engrossed in devotionenjoys perpetual happiness.—SIVA PURANA

Ganesha says “Lord Siva islove and happiness.”

15

der the ocean. Make it about a mile high.Then say it’s coming toward the coastline ofwhatever country the children in the classlive. A mile high means that no matter howfar inland they live its going to reach them!Now, tell them to turn the tidal wave intopure love and happiness. It is sparkling en-ergy, twinkling lights, like the electric lights atDiwali time. It is all colors of the rainbow.There are magical fish jumping on the top ofthe wave and thousands of beautiful little be-ings of light dancing inside the wave. Let thechildren describe this visualization fromtheir imagination. If this doesn’t work well,don’t worry, just go ahead with the image.Let the wave finally reach land and startflooding the first towns. People who were notnice, started to say nice things. Storekeeperswho would never give anything away forfree, gave away things to the hungry.

STORY READINGNamaste! My name is Shantini. I am 9-years-old and I live in Nadi, Fiji. For thoseof you who are reading this story of mineand have never heard of Fiji, don’t feel bad.I don’t know a lot of places where otherHindu children like me live. So we are both“in the same boat.” But just so you know,Fiji is a little island/country in the SouthPacific and is a beautiful place to live—ex-cept for one day last month. I’ tell you whathappened.

I was at my bus stop waiting for theschool bus and some girls who were notHindus were giggling. Then I heard themsay something about “God with an ele-phant head” and they looked over at meand laughed even harder. I knew they weremaking fun of Ganesha, making fun of myreligion and laughing at me for being aHindu. I had just read the lesson the daybefore that says, “Ganesha says God Siva islove and happiness,” and then this! Just theopposite of love and happiness. I felt likeasking Siva why, if He is love and happinessand He lives inside everyone, why are somepeople so unloving and try to make othersunhappy. How could this be in Siva’s uni-verse? I was also mad, angry, and part of mewanted to say something just to “get back atthem.” Anyway, I went to school that dayand felt rotten all day and came home andwent to my room and sat in front of mypicture of Siva and asked Him to help mefigure all this out. I was sitting there look-ing at His picture and thinking about thosegirls giggling at me and how awful it made

me feel, when the most amazing, incredi-ble thing happened. A giant wave of lovecame right into my body—flooded me, to-tally, head to toe. My anger washed away.It’s hard to explain if it’s never happened toyou. But I suddenly felt like loving every-body, not even like I had a choice, more likeI was just love itself and it is was comingup from inside me like a fountain, geyser orvolcano and just pouring out of me andmaking what felt like a sparkling bubblearound me a little bit like that shower ofsparkling energy in Star Trek when theysay, “Beam me up Scottie.”

Anyway, there I was sitting in my roomand I had turned into love. If you asked memy name at that moment, I would say“Love.” If you don’t believe me, I don’tblame you, it sounds really weird. But youshould believe me because it really hap-pened.

As I as sitting there, I thought of thosegirls. I now had zero hate for them. In fact,I felt sorry for them. Really sorry. Can youbelieve it? I could see that the unkind waythey treated me—and probably others—actually blinded them to the core of them-selves, love, Siva. This sounds pretty com-plicated, but when it happened it was sosimple, so clear. I could just see that theywere sort of blind, almost like crippled peo-ple. And I could “see.” I felt sorry for them.

I continued to sit there feeling this total-ly absolutely amazing giant bubbling feel-ing of love thrilling me for about twentyminutes. It then became less strong but thefeeling stayed in my body for several days.

The next morning at the bus stop I sawthe girls again. As I approached them, theystarted to giggle. I walked up to and said“Good morning” and smiled a smile aboutas big and happy and full of warmth as thesun. They said, “Good Morning” real soft-ly back to me and started to talk aboutsomething else.

Now I didn’t become a saint or anythingand I didn’t even tell me Mom about thisright away it was so incredible. I don’t evenknow if this story has a clear lesson be-cause the problems that we children havewith other children are different for eachof us and and things still happen to me thatcan get me annoyed or kind of down. Butwhat I can tell you for sure is that love andhappiness are very, very real things, the coreof life, the center of me and you, God Siva.I know that now for sure. So when I get un-happy about anything, I always think back

on that day and some of that feeling of to-tal infinite love lifts me up. I know it is Siva.One day I hope you have an experience likeI had. It can happen anywhere to anyone,anytime.

WRONG THINKINGSiva is married. No, Gods are not marriedlike humans. Sometimes they are shownwith wives and husbands. These consortsrepresent their various powers and abilities.

Siva is a man. No, God Siva is not a man.Nor a woman. God has a soul body, thefirst, most magnificent soul body—totallyperfect, beautiful. The soul body is not maleor female, though it looks like a nice blendof both. The soul body is made of light andnaturally they have no digestive and repro-ductive organs like we have who have phys-ical bodies for life in the first world. Our soulbody is also sexless, like Siva’s, neither malenor female. This is an important point to tellthe children.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Tell the students to all think ofsomething that they have done wrong,or an action that someone else hasdone wrong or some action that theyjust think up. (Examples are: refusingto eat some food at a meal that theydidn’t like, crying about having to gosomewhere that they didn’t want to go,complaining that they didn’t have a toythat a friend has.) Then select someoneto be Siva, who sits in lotus positionand smiles. Any kind of costumery tomake Siva look more like Siva is good.then have each student go up to Siva,sit in front and relate out loud to Sivasome action that was not very nice todo and then ask for Siva to forgivethem. To each, Siva smiles and says,“Thank you for telling me this. I knowyou will now act better. Because my na-ture is love and happiness, I am neversad and always full of love. I love youand send you my happiness now andalways.” The fun for the children isthinking up, relating from personal ex-perience and hearing other’s actionsthey think would make Siva unhappyand unloving and then seeing how Sivaremains pure love and happiness nomatter what He hears.

Book 1, Lesson 7

16

LESSON FOCUSThe festival is a time of celebrating God’spresence in our lives. For children it is atime of spiritual joy and fun activities thatpromote their spiritual growth.

KEY PRESENTATIONSIn Saivite Hinduism there are many festi-vals that are celebrated throughout theyear. Festivals are a community event ofcreating spiritual awareness and gratitudeamong many people. A Saivite Hindu fes-tival can be celebrated by millions of peopleall over the world at the same time. Wor-shipers of Siva in Toronto, Canada are join-ing worshipers of Siva in Duesseldorf, Ger-many and Chidambaram, India. Each tem-ple in every village, town or city holds itsfestival in its own way. Each year the Saivitecitizens look forward to and help with thesegreat festivals. Festivals are celebrated bypeople who believe the same way. They allbelieve in Siva as the supreme God. They allbelieve that Siva is present everywhere.They all believe that all people will knowSiva in oneness. Festivals bring people to-gether who want to grow spiritually. It isalso a time of fun, of games, gift-giving andgood food, of music and dancing and dra-ma. Fireworks are shot off. New friends aremade. Old relatives are visited. Swamis andyogis and elders give spiritual instruction.Therefore festivals are very unique events.Another word for festival is holiday. Theyare holy days. Often, they are national hol-idays. Children are out of school. Adults areoff from work. Everybody is happy. Every-body is thankful. Everybody is hopeful forthe future. Everybody wants the blessingsof the Deity and the deva angels.

The festival takes place inside and out-side the temple. Often it goes for a greatdistance away from the temple. Parades godown streets. Lines of booths sell food andtrinkets. Conferences and performancesmay be held in indoor halls. So the festivalspreads out. But the center of the festival isthe temple. The highlight of the festival isthe grand puja finale.

In each season Saivite Hinduism has afestival, or often two. This means every fewmonths there is a holiday celebration. Be-cause so many millions of people are cele-brating these festivals, God Siva and theLords Murugan and Ganesha can give lotsof help to all those people at the same time.Because everybody is being kind and gen-erous and more spiritual, they becomemore aware of Siva. They feel a new love in

their hearts. New ideas come that may leadto success. They want to help others. Theyare creating good karma. The festival cre-ates a mood of openness: “God is helpingme. How can I help God?” people askthemselves. The temples and ashrams,which need money to keep going, receivemany donations. Everybody gives howmuch they can afford. The gift of the peas-ant farmer is as valuable as the gift of themillionaire doctor. During festivals, home-less and poor people are fed and givenclothing. This is a time when Saivite Hin-dus take care of the unfortunate. This alsoinspires us to regularly provide for the poorand homeless. Siva may inspire us to vol-unteer to work for a religious or social ser-vice that provides meals and shelter forhomeless folk.

Almost everyone helps in the festivalpreparations. The wives and mothers arecooking for great feasts. They are decorat-ing. They are making garlands. Often thechildren help with this. The men may go tothe temple and help clean, or they may

build stalls and stages. They may makearrangements with town officials for use ofroads and park land. They may inviteswamis to give talks. There is always lots todo for the festival.

Often festivals are the best time that wesee cousins or friends that we have not seenfor a long while. It is an occasion of greet-ing and friendship. As Hindus we have aspecial way of greeting each other. It is aspiritual greeting. In fact the way that wegreet our fellow people is the same way thatwe worship Ganesha, Murugann and GodSiva. We place our hands with the palms to-gether and the right thumb over the leftthumb. The fingertips are pointing up tothe sky. This means we are seeing that thesoul in front of us—either a soul in a phys-ical body or a God soul—is in truth onewith the Supreme Spirit. We salute with ourhands the Siva Perfection that is in every-one. This is called the namaskara saluta-

Book 1, Lesson 8 & 55VISUALINTERPRETATION

Small versions of the templedeities, called parade deities, arebeing carried around the tem-ple. The parade deities are tem-porarily charged with the spir-itual energy of the templedeities. These parade deitiescarry the power of God and theGods to people who may notbe able to enter the temple. Forinstance, those who are notvegetarian.

Often the parade is led by agroup of musicians playing thelarge temple drum and the na-gaswaram, a loud reed instru-ment with a piercing sound.Groups of women may besinging bhajan and men may bekeeping up a steady chant ofthe God’s sacred name. Conchshells are blown into the air. Itis like a circus of sound.

Here, two girls are greeting eachother. Their hands are in a spe-cial position, palms together,hands facing skyward. Puttinghands in special postions likethis is called mudras. Mudrameans “seal” as in making a sealof psychic energies flowingthrough the hands.

FestivalWhen we meet each other we say“Namaskara” or “Vanakkam.”

Seers can reach Him because He is visible; worshipers, too, can see Him. but if they possess lovefor Him, Hara, will manifest Himself to their mind as light.—TIRUMURAI

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tion. Namaskara is a beautiful Sanskritword that means “I see the Divine in youand I bow down to the Divine in you.”Thus, this greeting which we should useeveryday turns an everyday “Good morn-ing” into a spiritual “seeing” and reminderthat we are all souls of Siva Spirit.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. When we hold a festival, it is like a grandparty for God and the Gods. They are thechief guests to this great party on Earth. Itis held at their temples and the surround-ing countryside. Imagine all the prepara-tions we would go through to have the bestparty for Siva. The temple should be veryclean and spotless.

2. During the festival we are trying to im-prove ourselves spiritually. We join a bhajangroup and sing to Siva. We learn to play thecymbals. We get up a little earlier in themorning just to say Siva’s name as the sunrises. We are more selfless. We try to helpas much as possible. If we get an allowanceof money, we give some of it to the poor.We go to be with the swamis and spiritualleaders. We bring them a gift. We try to un-derstand a little more of our religion. Weask questions. And we also have a lot of fun.

STORY READINGShanti woke up by himself this morning.Usually his mother had to come in andwhisper to him to wake up. Sometimes shehad to give him a little shake too. But Shan-ti came out of dreamland by himself. It wascold outside. He looked out the window. Inthe pale moonlight he could see white driftsof snow. The trees of his yard had arms ofsnow. He really liked the snow. He was bornin Toronto, Canada. And that is where hestill lived, out in a suburb. So snow was afun friend each winter. Still it was early inthe morning and he was glad to be indoors,in his bed. A huge mountain of cottonblankets covered him. Ok, he thought, timeto jump out of bed and see if his sisterShakti was awake. He quickly shoved theblankets aside and leapt up. He put on arobe to stay warm and headed down thehall to his sister’s room. But then he heardher singing a lovely Siva bhajan in the bath-room. Gee, she woke up before I did, hethought to himself. And she beat me to thebathroom. “Don’t use all the hot water,” hesaid cheerfully. And he went back to his

bedroom. He made his bed, tucking in allthe corners nice and neat. He was extracareful today. This was Maha Sivaratri, thegreat night of Siva festival. It was late Feb-ruary. There were a lot of devotees of Sivain Toronto. He would be up all night tillearly in the morning. Last year he fellasleep. But this year he wanted to try tomake it all the way. He would be worship-ing and singing. He would try to sit still inmeditation. He would talk to his friends.He would eat all kinds of good food whenthe late night worship was finished. Today,he would just be eating fruit as a part of thespiritual practice for being close to Siva.But he also knew he could have hot milkwith honey this morning. He was lookingforward to that.

Shanti had a pet hamster. It was in a cagein the corner of his room, on a desk. Heturned on the desk lamp. The hamsterwoke up and blinked his eyes at him. Shan-ti gently petted his soft fur. He was struckby the thought that God was in this ham-ster too. It was still dark outside. The sunwouldn’t be rising into the cloud-filled skyfor another hour. But Shanti could see afaint reddish glow in the east. He went overto the window that faced east. There was abit of frost on the window. With his finger,he wrote out the word SIVA. He wrote itbackwards so it could be read by peoplewalking by outside. And he began to thinkwhat he could do at the temple that morn-ing. He really wanted to help make this thebest Maha Sivaratri ever.

Later that morning he and Shakti put ontheir winter clothes and boots. Theyjumped out into the snow banks laughing.It was a good day. The sun was out. Thesnow was powdery like sugar. He and Shak-ti had decided to walk to the temple. Noneed for dad to drive the car and causemore pollution they decided.

So they walked and threw snowballs.They saw a few adults along the way andthey greeted them with their palms in thenamaskara salutation. The Siva temple ofToronto wasn’t too far away. They weremeeting a bunch of other children to helpwith cleaning the temple. Shanti really likedthe Siva temple in winter. It rose like awhite castle out of a field of snow and ever-green trees. It had high towers, all made ofwhite granite. In the distance Shanti andShakti could see their friends standing out-side the beautiful temple. They were allsmiling, and they all had buckets and clothsand brushes to clean with. Shanti went in,and with a group of boys began to polish

the floors so they shone like mirrors.

HOMEWORKHave the children think of several waysthey could help clean and prepare a templefor a major festival. The temple should besuper clean. What would they do to makeit like a beautiful temple out of a fairy tale?

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring a picture of Lord Siva, a strongportable fan, a big bowl of honey-sweetened popcorn, and arrange forthe children to bring flower petals andbells, cymbals and drums from home.The Lord Siva picture is placed at thecenter of the classroom. Place the fanso that it is facing towards God Siva,but a ways away. While most of thechildren are making as much noise aspossible with the bells, cymbals anddrums, the children take turns releas-ing flower petals in front of the fan sothey blow toward Siva (like a helicopterdropping petals out of the sky). Thenthe popcorn is offered to Siva (fan off),and everybody eats the popcorn.2. Bring to the class a variety of differ-ent colored ribbons: yellow, red, blue,orange, green. This can be ribbon usedfor wrapping gifts. Or it can be yarn, ifthat is more readily available. The chil-dren help each other tie one color ofribbon around their hands that are inthe customary greeting gesture of thepalms and fingers face-to-face and theright thumb over the left thumb. As aresult, each youth has their hands innamaskara greeting bound by a singlecolor of ribbon. That is their color.Now, all children with like colors clus-ter together in groups. Then theteacher calls out two combinations ofcolors: red and yellow, for instance. Allthe children with red and yellow rib-bons have to go over to each other andwith their hands still in namaskar, doa slight bow and say “Namaskar.” Asthat is happening the teacher calls outanother pair. They rush over to bowand greet each other. The teacher keepscalling out different pairs of colors, soall the children have to pay attention towhich color to seek out next. This is afast, colorful game.

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LESSON FOCUSThe chariot festival and pulling the chari-ot are an important annual event at manytemples. The chariot, holding the paradedeity image, becomes an extension of thetemple into the greater community. Thecommunity is blessed and benefits throughworship and service.

KEY PRESENTATIONSThe chariot is a large, wheeled vehicle usedto carry a special deity image from the tem-ple around a parade route. Usually thechariot is ornately carved from wood androlls on four large wheels. Some smallerchariots are gilded with precious metal atwealthy temples. A large chariot can standseveral stories tall and carry many priestsand devotees who tend to the parade deity.Many temples, both large and small, havechariots for the chariot festival. This is es-pecially true in South India and Nepal, andwhere the Hindus from these regions havesettled around the world. But also manytemples would not have chariots, depend-ing on their locale and traditions. But theywould have some kind of parade palanquinfor festivals that parade a deity outside thetemple. Some ancient temples have chariotscarved in stone as part of the temple archi-tecture.

The chariot is usually stored in a specialshed built for it near the temple. For mosttemples the chariot is only used rarely dur-ing the year. Then it is taken out of the shed,cleaned and polished. It is decorated withbright cloths and beautiful patterns of flow-ers and leaf decorations. The idea is to makethe chariot beautifully visible for long dis-tances. People will be able to see the chari-ot from far away. Then they too may wor-ship. The chariot’s height makes it visible inlarge crowds. Often, the chariot is madetaller by the addition of large and brightlycolored cloth sails at the chariot’s top.

The chariot is pulled by thick, long ropes.Temple chariots are never pulled by ani-mals, such as bulls or oxen. It is men whoalways take up the rope and pull the holyvehicle for the God. Since chariots can beso big and heavy, it often takes hundreds ofmen and women to pull the chariot. It isconsidered a great honor and spiritualpractice to be among those who take therope and pull the mighty chariot. Some-times there is an established selection

process for each year’s chariot pullers. Youmust remove your shoes before pulling.when you first approach the rope, youtouch it with both hands and touch bothhands to the eyes, in respect.

Stored inside the temple is the parade deity,which like the chariot, is only used severaltimes a year. It is often a smaller version ofthe main diety in the temple shrine. Afterelaborate pujas inside the temple whichcharge the parade deity with spiritual force,it is placed on the chariot outside. The ideais to temporarily transfer a part of the pow-er of the temple to the deity on the chariotoutside. A colorful psychic beam of energyconnects the temple to the chariot. Thisbrings the power of the temple to manymore people than could normally worshipin the temple or who may travel a great dis-tance to be at that temple. Once loadedwith the parade deity, the chariot begins itsslow route around the temple, often goingout into streets a great distance from thetemple. The chariot parade is awash in

singing, drumming, chanting, bell ringing.It is a very joyous, physical festival. Becauseof its extroverted nature. often this festivalis the most popular among devotees. Atlarge temples, tens of thousands of devoteesparticipate. Each temple will schedule itschariot festival according to its own calen-dar, so there can be chariot festivals all dur-ing the year at different temples.

With the chariot festival outdoors in thesun as a lengthy parade, many people getthirsty and hungry. As a special service tothe devotees, water sheds are set up by car-ing people. Other sheds serve free food.Itis a special time to allow the poor to wor-ship and to feed them a hearty meal. Thisis typical of the many good karma servicesthat are performed as part of the chariotfestival. Often children help with this ser-vice.

Book 1, Lessons 9, 10 & 11VISUALINTERPRETATION

See how strongly these menand boys are pulling the char-iot. They use all of theirstrength to pull the power ofGod on the chariot. We shouldput this much strength intoour daily spiritualpractices.There are musiciansleading the chariot parade.

Sometimes devotees roll onthe ground in front of thechariot. This is a way of sayingthey are sorry to God Siva forwhatever they did wrong overthe past year. They hope thatrolling on the ground will helpsoften their karmas for thecoming year. We can also see inthis picture that women areprostrating on the right. Theyare surrendering to the powerof Siva and hope His love andlight will be in their lives.

Perhaps this is a family of fa-ther, mother, son and daughterwho have set up a water shed.They give out water to thirstydevotees for free. It is oftenvery hot during the festival.Food is also given out for free.And the poor are fed a grandmeal.

Pulling the chariot.Chariot festival

I’ll wreathe Him in garlands. I’ll hug Him to heart. I’ll sing Him His name and dance withgifts of flowers. Singing and dancing, seek the Lord. This alone I know.—TIRUMANTIRAM

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ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. The chariot festival extends the spiritualpower of the temple to the surroundingtown and countryside. This is like if we hada single room with small windows but witha very bright, pure flame burning inside.Very little of the fire light goes outsidethrough the windows. This analogy repre-sents the temple. Normally, not a lot of itspower spreads out. It is contained in thetemple. During the chariot festival’s templepujas, a part of that fire burning inside theroom is actually brought outside throughthe parade deity, placed on the chariot andparaded around for long distances.

STORY READINGAs the three boys ran up the steep stairs of anarrow lane they could see a milk whitedome rising into the morning sky. Thewalls of houses rose up on both sides of thestairs. So all the boys saw was the dome atthe top of the stairs. It was large and madeof stone blocks. The blocks fit together likea puzzle. A carving of a face—the face ofSiva—stood out from it. It was a face ofpeace and power. This was the central tem-ple of the capital of Nepal, a kingdomcarved into the Himalayan mountains. Outof the top of the dome came a gold spire, astraight rod going through golden balls thatgrew smaller toward the point. It was solidgold, and had been there for many hun-dreds of years. The three boys saw it shin-ing, catching the orange sun light. A yellowcloud passed behind the sacred spire. Thewinds that came out of the Snow Jewelmountains near the city had shaped thecloud into a horse. The boys stopped theirjumping. They stared. The horse cloudswept overhead. It pranced right over thegold spire. “What do you think of that?”said 9-year old Devanathan. He was theoldest of the three, a big lad who liked toeat sweet candy and wear a red scarf tiedneatly around his curly black hair.

“I’d say it was a wonderful sign. An omenthat today’s chariot festival will be good,”said Guhaji, whose round, somewhat sadface was still looking up. He was theyoungest, but the smartest. While his warmcotton blue shirt and long brown pantsstirred in a quick blast of cold wind he washoping another magical cloud would floatby. Among the three he was the most spir-itual. The great Siva temple they were

climbing towards always made him feel bigand light, like he was a bubble of watergrowing into a lake. That was the way heexplained it. Most children didn’t under-stand what he meant. But to him it meanthe was experiencing Siva. “Hmm, looks likethat was it. No more horse clouds,” he said.The third boy, Srinivas—with a wide smileand mud brown hair that always brushedhis forehead—shook his head, “Yes, yes. Itmight be a holy day, but its also a fun day.I hope to pull on the ropes today. Let’s getgoing.” The children ran up the narrowstair lane, laughing and giggling. Out ofnowhere some monks in dark, thick orangerobes suddenly appeared at the top of thestairs. They were old and wrinkled like wal-nuts, with silver hair. Through their hairsnaked a strand of Siva’s rudraksha beads.These were special monks, from a rare or-der. The boys knew them from a distancebut had never met them face to face. Theirfaces looked frozen, like a man who spendstoo much time in the snow fields of themountains. But their eyes were clear poolsof kindness and love. The boys stopped likea bull running into a fence, nearly trippingover each other. They did not wish to of-fend the holy monks. They also did notknow quite what to do. Then the oldmonks started to laugh, their faces wrin-kled even more over wide smiles of miss-ing teeth. Guhaji, relieved that the monkswere not disturbed by their play, respect-fully approached them and touched theirold brown feet. The monk in the leadleaned forward on a thick pine wood staffand whispered, “You saw the sign, eh? Thecloud that became a horse?”

“Yes,” whispered back Guhaji. “We all sawit a few minutes ago.”

“Only from the angle of this lane couldyou see it. It was meant for you,” the oldman said. “You will all get your wish today.Now let some old men down the stairs.”

The other two boys touched the ancientswamis’ feet and they all three pressed upclose to the wall to let the monks pass. Theywalked noiselessly by. The boys went up theremaining stairs and stood at the top of acourtyard, wide-eyed. They overlooked agiant crowd of people that filled the wholecity. They could see a great line of peoplewalking down the main road through thecountryside. Coming around the corner ofthe beautiful white and gold temple was ahuge chariot with wheels taller than a war-rior guard. It moved slowly, pulled by six-

ty men. Srinivas said, “I’m heading for therope to help pull.” And he ran off. De-vanathan went to a food stall to offer hisservice in caring for devotees. He workedhard without eating himself. At the end ofthe day a priest gave him a huge bowl ofsweets blessed in the Siva temple. Guhajifound a nice corner in the temple and med-itated more deeply than ever before. Allthree boys got their wish that day.

CONNECTIONSThis lesson connects in important ways tothe lessons on festivals, worship and thetemple. Note that the chariot festival makeslarger the area of power of the temple forthat day. It allows huge numbers of devo-tees to worship. Some Hindu children maynever see a big and massive temple chari-ot, but you the teacher must help themimagine what a spiritually charged and en-tertaining time the chariot festival is.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring to the class two ropes, about15 feet long. Divide the class into abouttwo-thirds and one-third. The group oftwo-thirds become the chariot bygrouping together in the design of achariot vehicle, complete with wheels.This group holds onto both ropes, oneon the left and one on the right side ofthe group. The one-third group are thedevotees who pull the chariot just likein the picture. They pull on the rightand left ropes and guide the chariotaround the classroom or outside. Redi-vide the group so everybody gets topull.

2. Bring to class some cardboard box-es of large, medium and small size, andtwo sheets of cardboard that can be cutinto wheel shapes. Have the childrencreate a chariot out of the boxes andcut out the wheels, and stand themnext to the chariot. Then they gatheraround the chariot and sing a few bha-jans.

3. Bring some water containers , andsome of the children bring some pop-corn or some other simple snack. Inone part of the class area the childrenset up a mock water and food stall.Here they pass out water and snacks tothe pilgrims and poor people, who areplayed by the rest of the class.

Book 1, Lessons 9, 10 & 11

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LESSON FOCUSYoga is a method, even a science we shouldsay, for directly finding and experiencingGod Siva. Siva is one with us. How to per-sonally find this oneness is through yoga.People who practice yoga are called yogis.Since yoga is a union of the yogi and Siva,yogis are very close to God Siva. Childrenshould practice simple yoga.

KEY PRESENTATIONSAs children know from their own view ofthe world, there are many pursuits in life.There are many people doing many kindsof activities, from work to entertainment tosleep at night. Life is so rich with experi-ence and activities that most people do notknow what the purpose of life is. An entirelife of 100 years can come and go withoutthe person knowing or pursuing the realpurpose of that life. Children should askthemselves early in life: why am I on Earth?What is the purpose of my life? Theyshould ask themselves this because there isa clear, definite answer. The single purposeof a birth, and life, on Earth in a humanbody is to find God. We are here to discov-er our innate oneness in and with God Siva.It is like we are searching for something.Many people do feel they are searching inlife, most usually after they have found suc-cess. They have a good job, a beautifulfamily and lovely house and car and theytake a vacation once a year. But is thatenough? Most people don’t think so, even ifthey are very wealthy. They need and searchfor something deeper. What they are look-ing for is the presence of God. Children areespecially open to this truth. Trying to findGod and feeling the presence of Siva is avery natural expression for youngsters. So,if the final purpose of life is discovering ouroneness with Siva, there must be a methodor means of discovery. That method iscalled yoga. It is the oldest, most powerful,science of our human civilization. Yogameans to yoke, as in the wooden yoke thatbinds two bulls together to pull a plow.Yoga is a union between our mind and themind of God. And in that union, we dis-cover we are one with Siva. We find God.God is in us, in the perfect stillness of ourmind. And we find that God is everywhere,in all people and all animals, in all skies,mountains, valleys, rivers and oceans.

A person who practices yoga is called ayogi. Even children who practice yoga arecalled yogis. During childhood is one of the

best times to learn yoga. Often a youngchild can be successful at beginning yogabecause he or she has a pure mind, unclut-tered by the ego and mental clouds thatarise at puberty and into adulthood. Manychildren in the world do practice yoga,which is also called meditation. Their par-ents practice meditation, so naturally theyteach their children meditation. In theUnited States and Europe, there are manytens of thousands of children that do yoga.

Children like to learn yoga, because it is likea game. For one, it is a search. You are try-ing to find something. Children love tosearch for treasure. For another, yogameans you have to sit still. Children do notnormally sit still for long, but giving them achallenge to sit without moving is oftenenough to motivate them. The best time foryoga for children is after they wake up andshower, and just before they go to sleep.

Yogis, the great master yogis who have ded-icated their lives to seeking and realizing

God, should be revered and honored by allchildren. There are people who practiceyoga as a daily or weekly part of their lives.Then there are the master yogis who liveyoga. Children should be taught that thelifetime yogi is a very unique person, a per-son deserving of great respect and awe.They can give wise advice and powerfulblessings to people and to the Earth itself.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. What do we do when we have lost some-thing of priceless value, or something thatwe absolutely need: an ancestral heirloomor the car keys, for instance? We stop every-thing and look for the lost object with to-tal determination. It is vital we find whatwas lost. We ask people if they have seen thecar keys. Who had them last? We look


This is the Ekakshara Ganapatiform of Ganesha. He is verybeneficial for helping us inyoga. His feet are in the pad-masana—lotus pose—wherethe two legs are bound so thetwo upturned feet look like lo-tus flowers. This is the best seat-ing pose for practicing yoga. Sohere Lord Ganesha Himself isbeing an example of a greatyogi master.

The crescent moon is usallyseen on God Siva, but here it ispart of Ganesha’s symbols. Itreminds us of the passing oftime, that we need to use ourtime well. It also signifies thebest time for an occasion, as inthe most cosmically favorabletime.

In this hand Ganesha is holdingthe goad. This goad moves usalong when we are going tooslowly on the spiritual path.Perhaps we are spending toomuch time in play or evenschool study, without givingenough time for daily worship,divine learning and meditation.

Ganesha says, “Yogis arevery close to God Siva.”

From all knowledge, yoga practice and meditation, all that relates to the Aum sound is to bemeditated on as the only blissful (Siva). Indeed the Aum sound is Siva.—ATHARVA VEDA

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Book 1, Lesson 12

everywhere. We retrace our steps mentallyand physically. It is the same in our searchfor God Siva. We have temporarily lost ouridentity as God. That identity is actually al-ways there inside us. Our search for Siva isin our mind. We need to search for Sivawith all the determination and energy wewould put into searching for a lost dia-mond. We look in our mind. We ask gurus,where is Siva in our mind, and follow theiradvice. We retrace our steps of misplacingour Siva identity, and find that Siva is in theperfect stillness of mind.

2. Yoga is like a bridge. A bridge brings to-gether two pieces of land, separated by wa-ter or a steep valley or chasm. The twopieces of land are actually part of a onelandscape, a one terrain. The chasm flooror the river bed that the bridge crosses is apart of the whole terrain. Yoga is the bridgethat crosses from our individual mind tothe mind of God. But like the oneness ofthe land terrain, our mind and God’s mindare a one whole. They are only separated byour feeling that we are a physical body withemotions and a human mind.

STORY READINGYellow, red and orange leaves floated fromthe sky. Dozens sailed from the great oaktree. To Hara, a nine-year-old boy withcurly brown hair and dark brown eyes, theywere sky-boats. Turning and twisting theleaves were caught by the wind. They sailedright and left, up and down. Hara lay onthe grass of his home’s front lawn. Hishome was in Hamm, Germany, and it wasthe fall season. He was on his back. Hewatched the colorful leaves break loosefrom the oak tree a hundred feet in the air.He was smiling. It was such a simply joy tolie there, on his back, watching the leavescome down. The oak branches were darkagainst the sky, a pale shade of grey blue,filled with horse-shaped clouds. The leaveswere landing all over the ground. Heturned his head to try to listen to hear theleaves hit the grassy lawn. He heard it. Asoft, brief swish. One leaf landed right nextto his face. It was caught at the same mo-ment in a single beam of sunlight that shotthrough the tall oak. The leaf lit up like itwas a window. A stained-glass leaf windowfilled with rust and golden colors. Wow,Hara thought to himself, what a beautifulsight. It reminded him of a deep thoughthis older sister, Meenakshi, taught him re-cently, “The enjoyment of beauty is a way

to be close to God Siva.” So as the leaf layin the grass, still glowing by a sunbeam,Hara silently said in his mind “AumNamah Sivaya.” And he thought I am sur-rounded by beauty this morning. I must besurrounded by Siva. And with that finethought, a few leaves landed on his chest.Hara was raking up the leaves on the lawn,and was now taking a rest. He had workedhard. There were piles of sunset-coloredleaves around him. Piles of leaves, like pilesof hay, invite children to jump into them.Run, yell and jump into the air, land in theleaves, like a big, bouncy bed. Normally,that is what Hara would do. But this morn-ing, his thinking of Siva brought anotheridea. I want to do yoga, Hara thought. Hehad attended a class with a Saiva swami re-cently and all the children had been intro-duced to yoga. Hara liked it. Now, in a hap-py mood on this fall morning, yoga was thething to do. He sat in a welcoming pile ofleaves. He crossed his legs and sat upstraight, like an oak staff was against hisback. His hands, covered by cotton gloves,went into his lap, the right hand on top ofthe left, palms up. His brown eyes closed.As he had been taught, his breathing be-came deep. Leaves fell around him. Thewind whistled by. He didn’t move. Harawas a yogi. He thought of beauty. He sawthe stain-glass leaf in his mind. The beau-tiful image stayed with him. It was his yoga,his bridge to Siva. The leaf looked as real inhis mind as on a television set. And then,as Hara watched in his mind, the leafturned transparent, faded and brilliantwhite light washed into his imagination.The nine-year old Hara had touched Siva.

BACKGROUNDHistorically, yoga is so old that its originsare unknown—predating the ice ages. It isthe oldest, most powerful system of psy-chology and mind development. It is likeHinduism itself, with no human founder. Itis understood that yoga is a system devel-oped by the God Murugan, Lord of Yoga, inthe inner worlds and given to humanity ina far, far past, as a technique for spiritualunfoldment and Siva Realization. The ear-liest known writings on yoga occur in theVedas and Agamas. Yoga is Hindu.

CONNECTIONSLord Murugan is the principle deity of ac-tual spiritual practice, and yoga is the pri-mary spiritual practice. Our highest wor-ship of Lord Murugan brings us into yoga,

and He then guides each yogi on the yogapath. Worship itself and temple attendancecreate the proper mood of spiritual love foryoga to be successful. The energy from pujacan be used by yogis—even children—forsustaining deep yoga into the Mind of Siva.

CITIZENSHIPA simple practice of yoga for children isone of the best contributions to good citi-zenship. Yoga creates a peaceful, kind, tol-erant person. The youngster who practicesyoga will feel responsible and compassion-ate for the situations of his country and hisfellow citizens and his environment. It isproven that people who meditate generatea psychic energy that positively influenceslarge groups of people around them.

HOMEWORKHave the children practice sitting still in ayoga pose at home for five minutes everyday. They can mentally chant Aum tothemselves, or try to feel the Love of Sivacoming into them, or simply allow themind to quiet like the surface of a lake thatis perfectly still, not even a ripple on it.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring something small of value tothe classroom: a coin, piece of jewelryor a crystal. Hide it someplace (any-where, including on yourself or on oneof the children) in the classroom. Allthe children sit in a yoga posture, closetheir eyes and try to mentally find theitem you hid. They don’t look for itphysically. If they think they found it,they raise their hand. Then you askthem where it is. If they get it right,then everybody goes outside while youhide it again. If no one gets it within areasonable amount of time, then tellthem where it is, and hide it again. Thisis like yogis searching for God.

2. Have the children sit down in across-legged position—preferably ahalf-lotus pose, and breathe deeplythrough the nose for nine counts in-halation, hold the breath one countand breathe out for nine counts. Theyshould try to remain perfectly still.Place a book on each child’s head asthey breathe. The object is to be so stillthat the book remains on their head forfive minutes.

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LESSON FOCUSThe focus of this lesson is to introduceLord Murugan to children as the brother ofLord Ganesha and let them know that LordMurugan has really wonderful temples thatSaivites love pilgrimaging to. Another focusis that Lord Murugan was created by LordSiva.

KEY PRESENTATIONSSaivite Hindus understand Lords Ganeshaand Murugan as brothers. We know fromprevious lessons that souls—including theGods—are not male or female. So Ganeshaand Murugan are not really male. Theyboth are special super soul creations of GodSiva. Siva created Ganesha and Murugan assuper souls to help with all other souls.Hence we look at them as brothers, becausethey are both special souls from Siva. Theywere among the first souls created by GodSiva so long ago that it is beyond our Earthtime. Both of these Gods have specific du-ties to do in the universe, and they bothhave incredible spiritual powers to carryout these duties.

Lord Murugan is the God who moststeers us on our spiritual journey. He is alsothe God who oversees the political rulers ofcountries so that religion and spiritual lifeare made an important part of the country.Ganesha guides us especially in dharma:our path of good conduct and mindfulnessin earthly life. Murugan guides us especial-ly in our spiritual life. Murugan is ap-proached by tens of millions of devoteesevery day for help at His powerful temples.Many Saivite Hindus do not distinquishbetween the celestial duties of Ganesha andMurugan. Often they pray to Murugan forvery speedy help in matters of health, orsuccess in a business venture. Girls oftenpray to Murugan for a handsome and vir-tuous husband. Murugan is revered as be-ing extremely quick in responding to theneeds of devotees. And so many peoplepray to Murugan at His temples for allkinds of help. But Murugan’s main respon-sibilities and interests are in guiding andproviding for us spiritually.

Murugan is revered in scripture and po-etry as the God of celestial beauty. It is abeauty that is enchanting, like in a fairytale. The children should understand thatno artist or sculptor is able to capture ex-actly what a God (in this case Lord Muru-gan) really looks like—i.e. the beauty, radi-ance, spiritual presence and energy. So, ifthe children ever see Murugan in adream/vision themselves that is the “right”picture.

For children, we need to keep a descrip-tion of Him quite simple. Here are a fewvery general insights into Lord Muruga’snature to help children feel closer to Him.Murugan is very energetic, “full of purespiritual force, cosmic power, Siva’s pureprimal energy.” You can sense that He is aBeing who never gets tired, never thinks,“Oh “I’ll do it tomorrow when I have moreenergy” or “I’ll do it when I feel a littlemore inspired.” In His presence, you feel Heis standing inside the source of inspirationitself, like someone standing inside a giantwaterfall and has all that energy pouring onthem. He is also like someone who justreaches the top of a giant mountain andimmediately says, “Let’s climb anotherone!” You feel in Him the most positiveoutlook—a “We can do it!” approach toeverything. “We can solve anything, healanything, help anyone, accomplish any-thing” are phrases He might use. He is very,very positive. He never worries or doubts.

He is full of sun-like Self-confi-dence. “I can, we can, you can, weare able!” are expressions Hemight say to inspire devotees.

Murugan is very beautiful. Hisname translated literally actual-ly means “beautiful one.” Those

who have seen Him in vision say Heis extremely beautiful to look at. Like a

celestial movie star! He also loves beauty, allkinds of beauty. Love of course is the purestform of beauty and he loves the beauty oflove the most. That is the most wonderfulkind of beauty. What is more beautiful thana happy smile on the face of someone pureand loving?

Look at the beauty of nature all aroundus. Murugan loves this too. Think of a waveswelling up on the ocean—curling up high-er and higher and then rolling forward andfinally crashing and then gliding up grace-fully on the beach. That is beauty. Or asmall bud on a fruit tree turning into awhite flower and then slowly turning intoa big round red apple. Or drops of waterfalling from the sky and splintering into ashower of trillions of snowflakes. These arenatural wonders of beauty, the work of tril-lions of deva spirits in love with the ener-gy of God.

Murugan likes it when we humans create

Book 1, Lesson 13, 51 VISUALINTERPRETATION

Lord Murugan

The peacock is Murugan’s vehi-cle, or vahana, that he chose tobe associated with. The peacockis very beautiful and reflectsMurugan’s spiritual beauty. Mu-rugan likes to fly. So He chose abird. This is how he travels fromstar to star, from the Pleiades,his star home, to earth.

Murugan’s lance. This is his“jnana shakti” weapon of loveand intelligence to conquer theignorance which covers the soul.

Siva creates Lord Murugan whoemerges out of His third eye andappears in a lotus in the Sara-vana Lake. This lake representsdivine essence or primal con-sciousness, the very first andprimary state of consciousness.

Radiating the luminous sparks is Murugan, who lights up the world by His peerless light.—KATHIRGAMA PURANA

Lord Murugan—brother of LordGanesha. We pilgrimage to His greattemples.Lord Siva creates Lord Murugan.

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beauty too—a kolam design in front of ahouse, a beautiful marble temple, a beauti-ful bronze murthi, a beautifully hand-sewndress or a beautifully prepared meal. Heloves refinement and elegance.

Murugan loves beauty in all forms be-cause beauty uplifts us. It fills us with en-ergy, with joy, and makes our soul light up.

Murugan is also very courageous. Helikes it when you have the courage to behappy when it would be very easy to be sad,defend people who are unfairly treatedwhen it would be easy not to defend themand say nice things about people when itwould be easy to say things that are criticalor judgmental. This is the courage to actlike our soul which loves.

Pilgrimage to Murugan’s templesWe can come right to the side of Lord

Murugan by thinking about Him. The chil-dren can see Murugan in their imagination,and He will travel to them much faster thana bolt of lightening. He will be there, im-mediately. We want His powerful assistancein our spiritual life. But besides calling Mu-rugan mentally from anywhere in theworld—even down in the snow-frozenworld of Antarctica—there is another greatway of visiting Murugan. This is the ancienttradition of pilgrimaging to His temples.Murugan has six great temples in South In-dia. The children are familiar with oases inthe desert—pools of fresh, clear water sur-rounded by date trees in the otherwiseparched vastness of sand. Murugan’s sixtemples are oases of spiritual power in thedesert of worldly life. To pilgrimage to Mu-rugan’s temples is a great spiritual event forthe Saivite Hindu. All Saivite Hindus allover the world wish to come to these veryold palaces of Murugan in India. The chil-dren should hold this dear in their hearts.

Created by Lord SivaMurugan was created right out of Siva’sthird eye, or out of the energy of Siva’s ownbeing. The third eye is the center of “divinesight.” This eye sees the divine, the light andGod-energy inside the physical forms thatthe two physical eyes see. Ask the youths toimagine themselves creating a being out oftheir mind, spirit, inner divine vision. Thisway they will get an idea of how amazingbeing able to do this is. And this is whatGod did. But for God, creating a being oflight of out His own being of light is actu-ally similar to your mother giving birth toa baby physical body out of her physicalbody. Even physical reproduction and the

birth of babies is very extraordinary whenyou stop and think about it. We tend to for-get how amazing that is—one body comingcreating another. Murugan’s creation wasjust quicker, came from the third eye in-stead of the womb and was made out oflight rather than flesh.

ANALOGIES/ILLUSTRATIONS1. Here is an image we can think of whentrying to visualize Murugan—as a powerfulvolcano that is erupting, but the lava thatis erupting is pure white molten energy,pure love. This image of power and ener-gy is very good to catch and convey as Mu-rugan has this kind of energy. You can addyour own images like thunder, lightning,fusion generators, meteor showers, geysers,etc.

2. A dramatic visual image for the creationof Lord Murugan by Siva to think of thefirst rays that shoot out from a rising sunover the land. Take a thousand of thosesunrises and put all their rays of sunshinebursting out and then multiply all this amillion times, squeeze it together, and thatis like the light that came out of Siva’s eyewhen Murugan was created.

STORY READINGAvinash lives in Himachal Pradesh, India,a state nestled in the lap of the Himalayas,North India. His home is in a beautifulgreen-carpeted valley with snow-cappedmountains behind it and wildflowers allaround. Gushing streams and thousands oflittle paths are everywhere. It is a peacefulland, not much electricity, but the peopleare happy. Avinash loves Siva and Murugan(whom he calls Kartikkeya) and Ganesha.His father has a very big herd of goats thatAvinash and his three sisters milk every dayafter school and their father sells to the vil-lage nearby. One day when Avinash waswith the goats on a hill, he took a nap anddreamed. He dreamed he was running upa hill and then just kept running up into theair, into the sky. In the dream it seemed sonatural. He could feel a tingling feeling inhis spine as he left the ground. Sort of likean anti-gravity booster rocket. He soaredabove the earth and then swished throughspace. He looked back. Earth was a littlespeck. He felt very bright and wonderfuland was passing many bright stars. Thenahead he saw an extremely bright cluster ofstars. He was heading right into them. The

brightness was so bright it was like divinginto a giant world of light. When he got in-side, He saw Murugan standing there andbehind Him was a land so beautiful youcan’t describe it. He went over to Muruganand gave him a hug and just as he did, hewoke up. One of the goats was pushing himand trying to wake him up to take themhome for milking. Avinash still felt a tinglein his spine as he went home and laterfound out that Murugan’s home is thePleiades star cluster.

WRONG THINKING1. Murugan is a warrior. Some of the Pu-ranic stories about Lord Murugan andsome festivals revel in the idea of Lord Mu-rugan as a warrior, a killer of demons andasuras. No God is more a God of peace thanMurugan. He was born in the lake of Sara-vana, the mind in a state of absolute tran-quility, peace, no ripples. The idea of Himbeing having a “warrior-like” nature is onlytrue in the sense that He fights for peaceand harmony but He fights using love andintelligence as weapons. Murugan does notmurder. He combats darkness with light,impurity with purity, hate with love.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring to the class six fairly largesquares of colored paper or cloth. Theserepresent the six temples of Murugan inSouth India. Also bring a small box. Scat-ter the colored squares randomly aroundthe class area as if they are pilgrimagedestinations, and number them 1through 6. In the box place a large num-ber of pieces of paper—each single piecebearing a number from 1 to 6—so thatwhen each piece is picked out of the boxa single number is written on it. Theseare pilgrimage tickets. Have each of thestudents pick a pilgrimage ticket. Theyread the destination on the ticket andthen pilgrimage to the correct coloredsquare. This can go fast, so there are sev-eral rounds played.2. Bring to class a video tape that displayssolar flares, giant jets of plasma gaserupting from the sun millions of milesout into space. We want to show this tothe children as a small display of the kindof power that went into the creation ofLord Murugan, who was created as a jetof energy from God Siva. After watchingthe video, or watching that section sever-al times, have the children sit down andthink about the awesome power of LordMurugan.

Book 1, Lesson 13, 51

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LESSON FOCUSThese two lessons present two ways tobring Lord Murugan’s grace and powerinto our personal lives. These are chantingor singing a special spiritual phrase, anddancing as a form of self-changingpenance.

KEY PRESENTATIONSLord Murugan is the God of spiritual ad-vancement. He oversees your progress ofunfolding spiritually. That is, like a flowerunfolds its petals into its greatest beautyand fragrance, each soul on Earth unfoldsinto its greatest spirituality. Lord Muruganprovides ways and guidance for this un-foldment. In fact it is Lord Murugan whooversees all religions on our planet andmany other planets as well. In all religions,singing and dancing are popular and pow-erful ways to create a sense of God’s near-ness. Singing and dancing also bring us intoour own personal spiritual nature. Theycreate devotion and surrender. Divinesinging and dancing take the devotee out oftheir normal feeling of body, emotions andmind. The devotee, when singing or chant-ing a key phrase, or dancing as an expres-sion of surrender, is not very aware of bodyor intellect. The devotee is much moreaware of their soul nature.

There are many styles of singing in Hin-duism. One that is spiritually potent is bha-jan. Bhajan is devotional singing by an in-dividual or a group. It uses a series of sim-ple lyrics that often express simple philo-sophical truths. The music is fairly simple,easily memorized and repeats itself. In thecase of this lesson’s illustration, the singingis part of the kavadi dancing. It creates therhythm and the mood for the dancing. Therepeating of the lyrics and melody has thesteady power of a train on tracks. It is hyp-notic. People, including children, can go forhours in singing bhajan.

It is important to understand the meaningof the words. In this instance, the man inthe picture is singing a song to Muruganwith the lyrics, “Vel Vel Muruga, Shakti VelMuruga.” Vel is the spear of spiritual lightthat Murugan carries to bring God knowl-edge and wisdom to people. Shakti is thetremendous power of the Vel. There ismore power in Murugan’s Vel than in allthe stars of our galaxy. So when we singabout Murugan’s Vel, we are inviting Himto protect us and to give us spiritual ener-

gy so we can live good lives and know GodSiva through yoga. We should always knowthe meaning of songs or chants.

Sacred dancing is a great expression of de-votion. Because it is physical, the normalfeelings of the body are left behind. A new,fresh energy comes into the dancer. Chil-dren can especially feel this. Children loveto dance, and they quickly abandon them-selves to the joy of dancing. Kavadi is a veryspecial dance to Lord Murugan. It is adance that positively changes the karmas ofthe dancer. This is called penance. This isdone by the dancer feeling great love forLord Murugan, feeling sorry for anywrongdoing he or she might have done,and vowing to Lord Murugan to live reli-giously in the future. At the same time, thedancer carries a heavy arch on the shoul-ders decorated with symbols of Lord Mu-rugan. This is extra weight for the dancer.This extra weight places a strain on thebody, a discomfort. The dancer is bearingthe discomfort on purpose. This is a phys-

ical karma the dancer is bringing to himselfor herself. This act, plus feeling sorry anddeep devotion, begins to soften the badkarmas he or she has yet to face. Thus, thedancer’s future is improved by the kavadidance, if it is done in the right spirit. Kava-di is also done as a performance.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. Singing a devotional song to Murugan isvery much an act of worship. The wordsand melody, often repeated, are like a bub-ble of rainbow colors that surround thesinger. Since bubbles can float, the singerfloats in the song bubble to the great MindBubble of Lord Murugan. The surface ofthe two bubbles come together and thespiritual power of Lord Murugan comes tothe devotee who is singing.2. People are not the only ones who sing

Book 1, Lesson 14 and 15VISUALINTERPRETATION

Here a man and woman aredoing the kavadi dance at aMurugan festival near a river.The timing and message of thedance is set by the singers whoare playing the drum and cym-bal. Kavadi dancing always hassome sort of weight that is car-ried by the dancer. On top ofthe man’s head is a large potwith a coconut encircled by awreath of leaves and flowers.The kavadi dance is a simpledance, with very few steps, andoften the dancer is inspired tomake up his own pattern ofdance. The lady is carrying asmall pot with camphor burn-ing in it, making it a beautifulsight, especially at twilight.

These are professional kavadidancers at the famous Kathi-ragama Temple in southern SirLanka. This is a performancekavadi dance that entertainsand uplifts the devotees, but isnot a true penitent kavadidance. Kathiragama is dedicat-ed to Murugan, and is as pop-ular with Buddhists Muslimsas it is with Hindus. Buddhistsalso do kavadi.

We sing, “Vel Vel Muruga, ShaktiVel Muruga.”Kavadi dance in the temple.

In the heart of those who recount His name, He reveals His gracious feet. Thus He appears tothose who chant the hallowed name Murugan. He stand immanent in all.—TIRUMURAI

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Book 1, Lesson 14 and 15

sacred songs. Whales deep in the ocean singlong songs of spiritual joy, and they areamong Murugan’s helpers on Earth. Thou-sands of species of birds sing very beauti-ful and unique songs of sacred purpose.Even the wolf howling at the moon is asong of spiritual beauty. Streams and riversmurmur with a constant song of spiritualcelebration. Children can easily hear songsand melodies in nature’s waterways, or theocean waves.

3. Sacred dancing creates many new feel-ings in the body. There is a rush of energyand happiness that comes to the dancer.The body feels lighter, stronger, more inbalance. Think of what it feels like to comeout of a rain or snow storm, cold and shiv-ering, and warming up next to a big roaringfire. We immediately feel better. We arewarming up and getting comfortable. Wethink happy thoughts next to the fire. Wefeel like there is a glow inside of us. Ourmind, not consumed in the coldness, is freefor higher thinking and spiritual awareness.This is how dancing affects the dancer.

STORY READINGAnjali was walking in a large and thick for-est one day with her friend, Deepa. Herbrother was a few steps ahead. The treetrunks rose up like giant wood columns at atemple. Dark, twisted roots reached outacross the ground. They looked like theyhad muscles, like the arms of warriors. Itwas dim in the forest. Very little sunlightcame down. The leaves and branches of allthe tree tops formed an umbrella thatstretched far over the land. This was a landin the northeast corner of India, where thegreat Himalayan mountains touched Chi-na. Anjali lived in the low lands, near thesteaming jungles fed by heavy rains andrivers. Many children would be afraid inthe dark green jungle. But not Anjali andDeepa. They liked the green glow of lightcoming down, and the huge boat-shapedflowers and thick vines that stuck to thetrees. Anjali and Deepa looked alike, mid-night black hair and moon-like cheeks withalmond eyes. Their people worshiped Sivathe Supreme Soul, and many of the moun-tains in the distance, wearing cloaks ofsnow and cloud, were sacred to Siva. Butthis jungle was kept sacred for Lord Muru-gan, or Kartikeya as Anjali’s people knewHim in the north.

Anjali and Deepa walked along the jun-gle trail, happy in their freedom and listen-ing to all the buzzing and screeching

sounds of the jungle. Big dragonflies withpurple wings flew around them and mon-keys with white faces swung on vinesthrough the trees. Anjali and Deepa left theworn foot trail at a special marker they hadplaced. They headed north swiftly, going totheir secret spot. In a few minutes theycame upon it. It was a group of rhododen-dron trees that formed a circle. It was a ringof trees. At the east side of the ring was anentry way, like a door, through two wrin-kled trees. The girls knew it was a magiccircle for Murugan. In the middle was flatground, all clean and smooth. But a carpetof flowers lay across it, for the trees were allblooming with ruby red flowers. Anjali,Deepa and her brother wordlessly steppedinto the ring. A large beam of golden lightshot into their circle. They carefully undidtheir packs and brought out two pairs ofbeautiful bronze cymbals. They sat in theflower carpet and began singing their fa-vorite bhajan to Lord Kartikeya. Their voic-es were like fairy whispers and the cymbalssounded like wind turned to metal. Birdsflitted nearby to join in the song. Butterflieswith butter-colored wings wove and dovearound the pair, now in their song as if ina trance. Then, Anjali and Deepa rose, andwith cymbals beating like clocks, began todance a Murugan dance. The cymbals beatvery steady: claaang, clang-clang, claaang.They were barefoot. They danced in a circleinside the circle of trees. A sudden windblew across the tree branches and theywhispered. But they were totally unafraid.Their faces glowed like moonlight, and theylaughed for they were happy dancing onthe red flowers for Lord Murugan. Anjaliand Deepa felt that anything they had donewrong that month melted into the saltinessof their tears. They were sorry. Muruganlifted up their feet like wings of rainbowlight.

CONNECTIONSEvery lesson on Lord Murugan will try toawaken the power and knowledge of thisgreat God in the children. But it also takesthe children being open to Murugan’s wis-dom and the direction He is wanting themto go. Temple worship is one easy way, andyoga is the most advanced way. Singingbhajan and kavadi dance are often done aspart of temple worship. Murugan is ourspiritual teacher, as many lessons discuss.Intelligence and devotion go together.Think of this as learning and love togeth-er. When we are expressing devotional love,we are better able to understand the teach-

ings.

WRONG THINKINGSince kavadi dancing is a spiritual dance offeeling sorry and wanting to improve ourfuture, it is often said by people who dokavadi that their suffering pleases Lord Mu-rugan. This is wrong. The physical discom-fort caused by carrying heavy arches or byhaving spears through cheeks, tongues andother parts of the body is not to please Mu-rugan. These are acts the devotee does tohimself as a self-inflicted karma to softenfuture karmas. Murugan is pleased withthis karma-changing process and thewillpower of the devotee, not by the suffer-ing. Also, for the devotee properly tuned toMurugan’s mind, there is little discomfort.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring a large bundle of incense (thetype that will really smoke a lot) to theclassroom. And also provide plenty ofstiff cardboard squares, about as largeas a piece of paper. Put the incense inthe center of the room and light it sothat lots of smoke is created. Half of theclass, with their cardboard squares linesup on one side of the incense, ready tofan the smoke up to the ceiling as itcomes at them. They represent Muru-gan and his Vel which dissolves badconditions. They sing Vel Vel Muruga.The other half of the class lines up onthe other side and with their cardboardtries to fan the smoke directly to theMurugan side. They represent peopleon earth creating bad conditions likewars and animal slaughter and pollu-tion. After awhile they switch sides.

2. Each student brings an object thatfeels heavy, but not too heavy it can’t belifted comfortably. Cymbals are need-ed. Everybody sits down with theirheavy object. While a simple beat ismaintained with the cymbals, the chil-dren lift up their heavy object, still sit-ting, and raise it to shoulder level. Theythen begin to sway in time to the mu-sic, keeping their object in the air. Asthey begin to get tired, or feel strainedthey pray to Lord Murugan forstrength. They should expect a newstrength to come to them from theprayer. When they are really tired, theyput the object down and rest. Then tryit again.

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LESSON FOCUSThe making of garlands, both for use in thehome shrine and temple, is an enjoyableand beautiful act of worship. For the mostpart, garland making is simple, yet it can bea very intricate art in the hands of a mas-ter. It gives the devotee the opportunity towork with living forms. Garland makingfocuses the mind of the devotee, for it de-mands a pure mind that is thinking of spir-itual well-being.

KEY PRESENTATIONSDevotion is our love, our spiritual love, forGod Siva and the Gods. Ideally, devotionshould be a natural part of our emotions allday long. And devotion should be at itsheight when we are in the home shrine orthe temple. But devotion does come and gofor most people, including children, as dai-ly activities occupy us. There are many,many ways to spark devotion within us,and certainly garland making is one of thefinest and most ancient ways.

First, garland making places us in the lapof nature—the flowers must be gathered.This is an opportunity to express friendlyand grateful feelings to the nature devas ofthe deva world. They are the ones who cre-ate the flowers from their invisible region.The nature devas’ flower creations comeout of a combination of spiritual life force,divine love and a caring intelligence. Thechild who is picking flowers for a garlandshould have this same type of awareness.This creates a spiritual bond between thechild and the nature devas. Picking theflowers allows the child to select ones thathe or she feels are beautiful, and that willlook pretty in combination. It is a time forcreativity. The child is trying to craft a gar-land that will be an expression of love andbeauty. Children in different countries willhave many different varities of flowers tochoose from. In many countries, this de-pends on the season. If it is winter in onelocale, then devotees buy their flowers frommerchants who grow them in hot houses.

If while picking the flowers, any one dropsto the ground, that flower should not beused. It is considered as already offered tothe earth spirits.

The actual crafting of the garland is a verypleasurable pastime of devotion. Garlandmaking is often taught to the children ear-

ly in life by their mother or grandmother.When learned young, it can become a life-long devotional practice. Girls and boysalike should learn this spiritual art. Whenyoung men reach adulthood, garland mak-ing can be a very peaceful way to unwindfrom work into a spiritual mood. Eventu-ally over time more and more skill is ac-quired. Ultimately, the very thick and plushweavings of flowers into rope-like thicknessand balls made of flowers can be mastered.

Making garlands can be done in many dif-ferent places, from the home to the templeitself. Often people will gather together tomake garlands. Several people can work ona single garland that is very big. Whilestringing the garland, that is placing theflowers on the string with a needle orknots, it is best to be thinking about GodSiva or the Gods Ganesha or Murugan—whichever God the garland is meant for.The sacred sound Aum can be silentlychanted, or a bhajan can be sung. Kind and

good thoughts should be in themind. A child can think a good

thought each time they string a sin-gle flower. Young children should be

supervised by an adult if needles are beingused. Garlands can be made for the homeshrine and the temple. They can also bemade for special guests, for swamis, ormost importantly for the spiritual mastersatgurus.

When the garland is finished, it is usuallyplaced in a basket or on a fine tray, perhapswith several others. They are best offeredfresh, but can be refrigerated overnight. Ifthere is a water cleansing area at the temple,the garlands are sprinkled with water be-fore they are taken into the temple. Thegarlands are given to the priest of the tem-ple. It is he who actually places the garlandon the diety’s image in the temple. In thehome shrine, a young child may offer theirown garland to the deity before the dailypuja. Or the father may place it as part ofthe daily puja.

Garlands bring living beauty to the temple’sinnermost shrines. Flowers and stone are a

Book 1, Lessons 16 & 43VISUALINTERPRETATION

The brother is bringing in abasket of fresh flowers he hasjust chosen and collected. Per-haps he has permission fromcertain neighbors to pick flow-ers from their yard garden. Orhe went to a wild area of flow-ers that is available to all thetown folk. It is good to havepermission before picking flow-ers in someone’s yard.The sister is beginning to weaveher garland. She is tying theflowers with knots. In her hairis an arrangement of flowers,another skill of flower arrang-ing to be mastered by girls.

Here, a group of friends are cre-ating a very nice, large garlandfor the temple festival. This gar-land is very thick. What colorare the flowers?

Let us string a garland.We make big garlands for the festival.

Purity of mind and purity of conduct—these two depend upon the purity of a man’s companions.—TIRUKURAL

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beautiful combination. The subtle forces ofthe flowers drift through the atmosphere ofthe shrine. Visiting devotees like to see lotsof flowers and garlands on the deity. Itmakes them feel more spiritual, that theircommunity shares in deep devotion.

During festivals, there will be thousandsof large and intricate garlands crafted bydevotees. Or devotees will buy masterfulgarlands made by the professional garlandmakers. But to buy a garland is not thesame at all as making one yourself. In cre-ating the garland yourself—includingchoosing and collecting the flowers—thereis much good feeling and karma.

It is a true spiritual joy to see your per-sonally made garland hung on the deity.The Gods can sense the subtle vibration ofthe devotee through the garland. Buying aready-made garland is an act of devotion,but it has nothing of the devotee’s person-al love, sacrifice of time and creativity.Therefore, the good feeling and karma aremuch less.

STORY READINGNear the top of the world is a countrycalled Norway. It is far north, and the coldsea is on one side of it, with beautiful silverrivers that drop through steep, stoney val-leys into the sea. In the northern country-side of Norway the winter snows stay as iftime stopped. The winds moan coldlythrough forests and villages. The skies of-ten stay gray for weeks.

On the edge of a large river was a townwith lovely wooden houses that had verysteep roofs and small yards with gardens.Many of the streets were made from old redbrick. Along the streets were trees and brickboxes to grow flowers in. The town wascalled Red Rose. It was famous for its redroses, and for the smell of roses that filledits friendly streets. A number of Hindufamilies had moved to the town years ago.They were merchants and inn keeperswhere tourists could stay.

“Oh mummy,” begged Devi, turning withwide gold-brown eyes while her motherbraided her straight black hair. “Let Shaktiand I go out today after school. Look. Thesun is out. The snows are melting. I thinkspring is finally here. That means flowersare coming up in our secret places. I hearda meadow bird singing this morning.”

Her mother finished a long braid andreplied, “Yes, it looks like the spring thaw ishere. Ah, sun and warmth and birdssinging. That should make us feel better for

the Siva festival tommorow. So you want tofind flowers for a garland. Good luck. Ihaven’t seen any.” Here in Red Rose, Nor-way, lived Devi and Shakti. They were bornhere, and had seen eight years of white win-ters and brief, bright summers. The Hindufamilies saved their money and built a Sivatemple from tree timber and rock careful-ly fit together. It was as big as a house, witha tower the height of a juniper pine tree. In-side were giant wood columns carved in In-dia. The main deity was a greenish blackSiva Linga, a perfectly polished stone fromthe Narmada River in north India. A largestove that burned wood was kept in onecorner of the temple to provide heat overthe winter chill. As a service for good kar-ma Devi and Shakti liked to collect firewood for the temple. They knew the woodswell. They knew all the flowers. In the sum-mer and fall they helped their mother growa vegetable garden. The garden providedmany fresh vegetables for their vegetariandiet. Devi and Shakti looked so healthy, andwere so smart and good natured that oth-er people in Red Rose gave up eating meat.

“Let’s go,” Devi called to her sister impa-tiently. “The sun is still setting early. Wehave to be quick. We need to gather 108roses for our garland. We will string thegarland tonight. Full moon tonight too.”

Shakti was still putting on her coat andmittens. It was cold outside, but as theymoved, they would warm up. “Yes, yes, sis-ter. I know. I’m ready. Grab the basket tocollect the roses. I’ll get the scissors to cutthe rose stems.”

Since the town was famous for its roses,there were patches of rose bushes all over.Many had become wild during the years.They grew in the grassy meadows outsidethe busy town. When the two sisters andtheir brother searched the snow coveredforest for firewood, they had found sevenrose bushes that seemed very lonely. Theywere far away from any other rose bushes.They rose out of the snow like bare deerantlers. But Devi and Shakti were delightedto see many buds on them. These roses wereproducing flowers even in the end of winter.Despite the thorns, Devi and Shakti gave thebushes a little hug and said, “You are braveroses. We appreciate your strength. Yourblooms will be very dear to us. And we willbring your flowers to the temple of Siva.”

Buried in warm clothes and waterproofboots, the sisters and their brother flewdown the brick streets. They headed duenorth, quickly jumping over an icy stream

and climbing over large logs. They wereboth full of energy. “Let’s sing a little songas we go,” said Devi. So they sang a favoriteSiva bhajan, their high voices echoingthrough the trees and up the valley likecrystal bells. “There they are,” shoutedShakti excitedly. “Look. See the redblooms.” And in the yellowish afternoonlight spreading a golden blanket over themilky snow, the sisters saw many deep redroses. They were like red butterflies floatingin air. “I can smell them,” said Devi. “Whata divine fragrance. God Siva will really likethese.” And so the sisters approached theseven rose bushes. They said thanks to therose devas, and carefully cut 108 roseblooms, putting them in their basket. Therewere many rose blooms left, so they also cutsome for their home.

Later that evening the two girls sat intheir living room, a roaring fire in the fireplace. With their red roses they created abeautiful thick garland. It was a rope of ros-es. While placing each rose on the garlandthey thought that God Siva would help afamily who just lost their home in a fire.The next day, at the temple festival, theirred rose garland was placed on the SivaLinga. It was the only fresh flower garland.The two sisters were very happy. And wordquickly spread through Red Rose that theHindu sisters had found red roses when allother roses were still in their winter sleep.

HOMEWORKHave the children go out to their own yard,or a neighbors’ yard or from wild flowerbushes and select what they think would bebeautiful flowers for a garland. The chil-dren should think of the nature devas thatlive inside the flowers—the flowers are liketheir houses. The children should offerthanks for the beauty of the flowers to thenature devas.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring colored paper to the class andstring. The children all cut out lots ofdifferent shaped flowers from the vari-ety of colored paper. They can also foldsmaller pieces of the paper into flower-like shapes. As they cut out flowers orfold them, they carefully punch smallholes through them and string them asa paper garland. Each child takes theirgarland home to offer in their homeshrine or to their mother.

Book 1, Lessons 16 & 43

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LESSON FOCUSCreation is one of the ultimate powers ofGod Siva. The original source of all cre-ation is God Siva, the Supreme Soul. FromHis infinite knowing and infinite energy, allbeings and all things are created. At thesame time, God Siva is all of His creation.He is in it as the Supreme Soul creator. AndHe is it as the complete spreading of love,light and energy through all.

KEY PRESENTATIONSCreate is an important word. It is a key con-cept to understand. When we create some-thing, it means we are making or producingsomething that did not exist before. If wegive the children a sheet of white paper andcolored crayons and tell them to make adrawing, they will all be creating. They usetheir mind, their hands and the crayons tocreate a picture. If we tell the children to doa good deed for an old person, the childrenhave to think of, or create, a good deed.They are being creative. The children haveto generate a new idea where one did notexist before. However they do this, it is be-ing creative. Our world is full of creation.A country creates a youth program. A poetcreates a poem. A husband and wife createa family, and a family creates a home. Thesun creates light. The wind creates soundthrough the tree branches in the forest. Au-tomobiles create pollution of our air. Aflower creates a scent. A bee creates beeswax and honey. Everyday, there are millionsof acts of creation. The forces of nature arecreating. Life is creating life. Life withthinking minds, such as people, can createalmost anything they need or want.

All these acts of creation are wonderful.This is part of God Siva’s spiritual plan—for everything to have the ability to create.Yet deep within, beyond the sight of oureyes or tools such as a microscope, it is GodSiva that is the true Creator. If everythingin our world, and every person, animal andlife form were magically followed to theiroriginal source, we would see God Siva isthe first creator. He is creating all the time.Let’s look at the children creating a crayondrawing. Have the children think of this.Where did the paper come from? If they saytrees, then ask where did the trees comefrom? If they say from soil and seeds, askwhere they came from. If they say from theEarth, ask where Earth came from. This islike running a film in reverse. Finally, wesee that the first Creator is God Siva. Let’ssay God Siva is number 1. All other num-

bers, representing all other beings andthings, come from Him. And we see thatGod Siva not only created all things and be-ings in our world, but all worlds and allsouls and all other forces, such as time andlight. God Siva is the Creator of all. And Hecontinues to create. It is not just a singleevent of creation. God-Creation is allthrough time.

The amazing thing for the children tounderstand is that God Siva creates every-thing out of Himself, out of His own ener-gies. He creates from His mind of light.There are no materials or energies lyingaround for Him to create from. Remember,He creates all energies and matter. Let’s goback to the children creating a picture.They are given paper and crayons. Theyhave also been given intelligence by GodSiva. The children do not create the paperor the crayons or their own intelligence.They use these to create their picture. Theyuse materials and their personal mindwhich are already provided. All people cre-ate with things and their minds which are

already provided. Also, throughour senses of sight, hearing and

touch, we feel things are outside ofourselves. God Siva does not do this.

His creation is all from His unending andall-powerful Mind. And everything is a partof Siva, not outside of Siva. To see what thisis like, have the children try to create some-thing, like an apple, completely out of theirmind. They think about the apple. Theyimagine it. Then they create it with theirmind as a physical apple in our world. Thenthey feel the apple is part of their sense ofself. Can they do it? Probably not. Thephysical body and mind are very limited.

However, children and adults can createfrom their own energies in more subtleways. If the children were to think of purelove, a happy love feeling, and project thatout of themselves to others, it would createa love feeling for other people. Or it mayhelp heal a sick person, or calm someonewho is upset. This is creation from withinourselves.

Now God Siva does not create a soul ora world or a sunflower or an elephant, andthen let it exist on its own, separate fromSiva. In fact, that is impossible. No thing orperson, animal, bug or soul can exist totally


This is the Bala Ganapati formof Lord Ganesha. It is thechildlike image of Ganesha. Itreminds us that even as chil-dren we need to fully under-stand and appreciate that GodSiva created everything andeveryone. Also, it is a reminderthat adults need to keep achildlike view of life, thateverything is perfect in thegreat spiritual progress ofthings.

All of the different items thatGanesha is carrying in thisform represent the great vari-ety of life on Earth and the vig-or of Earth life. When we thinkof the term everything, wemust realize that there is al-ways new life and new thingsthat are being created in thegreat cycle of Earth life. Thismeans God Siva is creating allthe time.

Ganesha says, “God Siva createdeverything and everyone.”

As threads come out of the spider, as little sparks come out of the fire, so all the senses, all theworlds, all the Gods, yea, all beings, issue forth from the Self.—YAJUR VEDA

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separate from Siva. If Siva were not fullywithin Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain onEarth, then Mt. Everest would not exist. Itwould not be here on our world. If Siva’sMind was not completely through all thewater and minerals of the Pacific Ocean,our world’s largest ocean, then the mightyPacific would not be here. Let’s return onceagain to the children’ pictures. The childrenhave their pictures in front of them. Thewhite paper is smooth and thin. Thecrayons are waxy and round. If we breakthe crayon in two we see the inside of thecrayon. Where is Siva? Well, let’s give thechildren magic fingers. These children nowhave fingers that can peel back a very thinlayer of crayon. The inside space of thecrayon is shown. In that space is an incred-ibly bright white light sparkling like a bil-lion stars. That is Siva inside the crayon.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. One of the neatest analogies for under-standing God Siva as the creator of every-thing and everyone is a puzzle. A puzzle is apicture made of many pieces. All the piecesfit together to make the whole scene. Whenthe pieces are apart, there is no picture.When the pieces are all fitted together, thepicture is seen. If possible, bring a nice puz-zle to class. Tell the children that the puz-zle represents all the people and animalsand things in the world. Each puzzle pieceis created by God Siva. But each puzzlepiece must fit with the other pieces. Theycan not be separate. They must be togeth-er. So when the puzzle is put together, thisshows God Siva creates the whole and thateverything is together through Siva’s light.

STORY READINGThe bright blue and gold helicopter flewsmoothly over the grey stone ground thathad great black cracks in it. It was like a spi-der’s web of stone. Some of the cracks wereso wide and deep they could swallow a jeep.The helicopter turned slightly east, flyingover a couple of wind-bent trees and wentright over the edge of a cliff. Whoosh. Thehelicopter dove down. The cliff rocks wentrushing up. Mahadevan and Sruti pushedtheir faces to the window. “Wow, what aride,” said Mahadevan. “Look at thoserocks. Dad, look at those rocks. They’recarved aren’t they?” he asked his father whowas sitting in the seat in front of the them.

The rocks came up the cliff like roundcolumns, smooth as ice and the color of redsand. “No, perfectly natural,” replied Dad.“This place is a wonderland of nature. Thisis nature creating poetry in stone.” The pi-lot was busy working with hands and feeton the controls. The helicopter stopped itsdive and stood still in the air. It was a bigdragonfly with four people in it, stoppedright next to a cliff that formed a solid wallfor as far as they could see. Sruti could hearthe whine of the blades, sounding like a gi-ant food blender she used at home to helpMom with the vegetarian cooking. Momwasn’t here. She was back in Malaysia, theirhome. Sruti missed her mom, but this was atrue adventure. Her dad was an expert injungle flowers. She and her brother—hewas 9, she was 8—came with father on atrip to Brazil in South America. When theywent over the cliff she closed her eyes. Nowshe opened them. “Incredible,” she saidsoftly. “What a creation.” The cliff wentstraight down hundreds of meters into agreat sea of green. The green carpetstretched across the horizon, lifting hereand there by low mountains. It was calledthe rain forest. Mahadevan pressed up tothe window and looked down with his sis-ter, saying, “The largest rain forest in theworld. Here in Brazil. And we are going towalk into it, exploring for new flowers.” Thehelicopter was now going down, like an el-evator with windows. They could see somesmoke rising a long ways away and whatlooked like fire.

“Those trees down there are hundreds offeet tall,” said Sruti. “So much life. Dad toldme the other day that here in the rain forestof Brazil there could be over one milliontypes of living plants, insects and animals.He said the rain forest creates a hugeamount of the oxygen for Earth so we allcan breathe and live. That’s amazing.”

Mahadevan gulped some air and hisgray-brown eyes gleamed. He said, “Onemillion kinds of life. Hard to imagine. Thiskind of creation has to be from a very greatBeing. A Being that reaches out everywhereand creates with pure love. Remember whatwe were taught a few months ago. AboutGod Siva as the creator. If we tried to findthe original force that created all of this, itwould be Siva.” The helicopter continuedits slow fall. The top of the rain forest beganto look like a golden green roof, a gianthome for Siva’s living creation. But thesmoke and fire worried the children.

They knew what it was. Slash and burn.

The rain forest was being cut down andburned. Once cleared, the land is used aspasture to feed cattle. The cattle are killedto supply meat all over the world, particu-larly to the fast-food restaurants. Srutilooked at the pillars of fire in the distanceand said, “Scientists estimate 100 speciesevery day are lost forever from the slashand burn. God Siva’s wonderful creationsof plants and insects gone forever.”

“Yea,” said Mahadevan. “Just for meat.We are destroying our planet just for meat.Siva has created, and we, people, are de-stroying.” And the helicopter landed. Theengine died down. The children jumpedout. It was like being in a giant green domeheld up by brown tree trunks. It was notsilent. The rain forest was alive with a mil-lion voices of Siva. Mahadevan and Srutilistened. It was forest music. They stoodstill. They prayed the rain forest would besaved.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring to the class a roll of aluminumfoil. Also bring a medium size glass ormetal bowl (semi-spherical kind) thatis completely covered with aluminumfoil. Make a little stand in the center ofthe class and place this aluminum bowlin its center with the opening down.This makes a silver, round half-globeshape on the table. This representsSiva. Then pass out fairly large squaresof aluminum foil to the children. Theyare told they are going to help Siva increating everything. Encourage themto create any image or object they likeout of the aluminum foil: birds, ani-mals, people, houses, trees, snowflakes,stars, etc. Then as they finish their cre-ation they place it around the Sivaglobe at the center. If they finish quick-ly, they can make another creation.Once all of the images are finished andsurrounding the globe, all the childrensit and appreciate the silvery images.You can even darken the room andshine a light on them. Then they all goforward and undo their artistry andspread the flattened aluminum foilover the globe, returning the imagesthat were created out of Siva to Siva.

Book 1, Lesson 17

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LESSON FOCUSWorship of God is an important part of ourdaily family schedule. Twice a day, duringthe dawn and twilight, the whole family orindividual student/career person dedicatessome time to puja, study and meditation.Usually this is done in the home shrineroom.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWhile the temples dedicated to Ganesha,Murugan or Siva serve a large community,the shrine in the family home is for themembers of the family. It is their spiritualsanctuary inside the home. The homeshrine should be the center of the home. Allthe interests, activities, life pursuits andgrowth of the family come from the home’scenter: the dedicated shrine area or room.For our spiritual life is part of everythingwe do, and God is the life of our life. Thereis nothing that is outside of the Siva Lightand Love that goes through all of life andEarth. It is the family that makes a house ahome, and it is the God altar that makes thehome a sacred abode for the Supreme Be-ing and the Gods and devas to assist thefamily. Children often like to set up theirown personal altar in their room or create atemporary altar as play. This should be en-couraged.

All land species and most aquatic speciesfollow a biological timing set to day andnight. But there is also a spiritual timing inthe change from day to night and night today. The morning dawn and evening twi-light are very spiritual hours. The rising sunbrings gentle solar life force and the deepnight, which is good for sleep, gives way tosunrise beauty and a quiet among humans.At twilight, the business and sharpness ofthe day is over, and again gentle, peaceful,beautiful energies are around us. Sunriseand sunset are the best times for familyworship, or for private worship for studentsor young adults who live alone. Monks andlone yogis find these times among the bestfor spiritual practices. At these hours, weare naturally spiritual, more filled with life’spurpose and beauty. We feel religious grat-itude and the reality of Siva wells up in ourheart.

In an ideal Saivite Hindu home, whether itbe for a family or individual, there wouldbe a worship/meditation time in the homeshrine at dawn and twilight. Ideally, the

family would rise from sleep before the sunactually rises, and the father, after a show-er, would prepare the Siva altar for puja.The children may help gather flowers orfetch fresh water. The family would gatherand the father performs a short puja. Thechildren may join in at times if they knowthe Sanskrit. The whole mood is worshipfullove. The altar is the focus. The family con-centrates on the spiritual energy of the al-tar. The devas who assist the Deities sendtheir energy to the altar. From there it fillsand surrounds the home. The shrine roomshould have a very special feeling. It shouldfeel holy, slightly electric, like a tingling onthe skin. After the puja or a simple show-ing of the arati, the family may sing bha-jan, or the father may read from Saivitescripture. Then father, mother and childrensit still for ten minutes, meditating on thespiritual energy of God Siva. At twilight, abrief arati flame is passed and a longerstudy and meditation period may occur.

Temples with their regular puja and trainedpriests are the dedicated places for theGods. The home shrine is not spirituallyempowered in the same way. The altar inthe home is designed to attract and holddevas (the angelic helpers of the Gods)from the temples. The celestial communica-tions of the Gods is relayed from the tem-ple to the home by the devas. Thus a super-charged atmosphere is created in the homeshrine. The devas can actually live and workwith the family as long as the shrine is keptholy, regular worship is performed andthere is harmony among the family.

In the case where the family or individualhas no shrine area or room, then the sameschedule of morning and evening worshipand meditation should be established in anice, clean area dedicated to that purpose.


This is a simple home shrineroom with pictures that serveas the worshipful images. Here,there is a picture of Ganesha onthe left, Murugan on the rightand God Siva in the center. Onthe shelf are kept some items ofceremony: camphor burner, in-cense, water bowl, vibhuti andkumkum vessels.

Some families keep an oil lamplit all day and night. It is im-portant to keep the shrineroom very clean, and not to al-low oil smoke and drips tobuild up. Spiritual beings oflight called devas live in theshrine room and they like tolive in a spotlessly clean room.

Father is applying Siva’s vibhutior white sacred ash to the fore-head of his son and daughter.Can we tell if this is morning orevening worship? No. There isno indication. It could be eitherone. After this, the family sitsdown for a short meditation.

Morning and evening weworship God.

Yes, may the man who within his home pleases you all his days with songs and with offeringsreceive a rich reward, be loaded with your gifts. To him be happiness.—RIG VEDA

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ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. A nice thought that all children can ap-preciate is that all during the day where thechild lives, there is always a sunrise andsunset at another part of our world. AsEarth turns there is always a sunrise andsunset somewhere. So there are alwaysSaivite Hindus worshipping around theclock, so to speak. It is like everybody is tak-ing turns worshiping Siva, and at dawn andtwilight where the children live, it is theirturn.

2. The home shrine is central to the fami-ly’s well-being. It should be a special placefor children. Children should look at thehome shrine as a magical place, the area orroom in the home where magic can hap-pen. Children can psychically see the devapeople in the shrine. Children may seebright colored astral light in the shrine.They should feel free to talk, either out loudor mentally, to the devas. Talk to themabout their cares, problems and successes.

3. There are many activities that childrendo at the same time each day. Eating,brushing teeth, showering, studying,watching TV, sleeping, talking to friends.Every day we follow set times for certain ac-tivities. Children learn this at a very youngage. The times of morning and eveningworship to Siva should become one of, andideally, our most important, daily activity.

STORY READINGWild, fluffy banks of clouds rolled in overthe Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Theclouds were splashed with pinks and pur-ples and a silver yellow. And they weremoving fast, as fast as a herd of kangaroos.“Wow, look at those clouds. Aren’t theywonderful,” cried Arati as she spun in thesand of a beach near her home. She spokewith an Australian accent. In Australia, thesun appears very big and it was sending outa fiery show of color as it met the sea. Aratiwas 8 years old, old enough to know thatthe sun did not sink into the ocean. But sheenjoyed the magic of the sun and seatouching. “It’s not too late to splash in thewater,” she yelled against the blowing windto her friend Anandi. “Let’s go.” And theyran down the sand with crabs scurrying outof the way. They ran into the dark water,shooting up fountains of silvery sea waterthat also became painted with purples and

pinks. Of course they got a little wet, andsmall waves were breaking across theirknees. The water was warm. The air waswarm. The sky and ocean were like mir-rors. “Wait. Stop. Look,” cried Anandi,breathing hard. “A seahorse washed up onthe beach.” And there was a little tan-col-ored seahorse struggling for life. “Let’s saveit,” said Arati. “It is one of Siva’s beautifulcreatures. A seahorse created by Si-va. See,it rhymes,” said Arati to her friend, and theylaughed. They both said together, “Siva’sseahorse.” Arati reached down to pick upthe seahorse and drop it back into theocean. She saw the time on her watch. “Oh,Oh. I’m going to be late for puja at home,”she quickly said. “See you tomorrow,” andshe ran north for the road that would takeher quickly to her house. She ran up to thegate, then slowed down, and walkedthrough the door. “Hi mum. Sorry I’m late.We found a seahorse washed up on thebeach,” she said to her mother, dressed in ared and silver sari, all ready for the worshiptime in the home shrine. “Alright dear. Youstill have a few minutes to shower andchange. Hurry.” Arati said, “I picked thesedaisy flowers on the way home. I’ll bringthem to the shrine room after I’mchanged.” She then skipped down the hall,chanting “Siva, Siva. Siva is the seahorse.”She showered, changed, gathered up herflowers and entered the shrine room. It wasall polished wood, with beautiful oil lampsand a dark red carpet on the floor. Her fa-ther and mother were there. Her fatherpassed a camphor flame and chanted soft-ly before the bronze Siva Nataraja. It wasnow dark purple outside. The night wasfalling. Arati eyes fell shut for a short timeof yoga.

BACKGROUNDThe Vedas devote many hymns to describ-ing the spiritual environment of the home.The connection between devas and thefamily was an important Vedic relationship.Turning a house into a holy domicile wherethe family could spiritually advance and re-ceive aid from the devas is a recurringtheme. Much family wealth has gone intocreating home altars that go on for gener-ations. In ancient times, when wood, stoneand metal craftsmanship excelled, theshrine room was elegant and harmoniouswith nature and human nature. The Aga-mas contain detailed instructions on whereand how the shrine room is to be built inthe house. It is vital to keep the home

shrine extremely clean, not allowing it tobecome oily or grimy or dusty. Everything,every wall and the floor must be spotlessand polished.

CONNECTIONSTemple worship and home worship relateclosely. Home worship, of course, is muchmore frequent than temple worship. Wor-ship at the temple may be once a week oronce a month. Any art or expression of de-votion that is done for the temple can bedone for and in the home shrine. For in-stance, weaving garlands or singing bhajan.If the family is guided by a spiritual guru,a satguru, then the home altar would in-clude a section dedicated to the worship ofthe guru. This appears in a future lesson.The shrine room is often the best place inthe home for personal yoga practice.

CITIZENSHIPA daily time of worship in the home is oneof the best ways to promote family unityand well-being, which most countries andsocieties consider the heart of citizenship.All religions have a daily routine of spiri-tual practice, of drawing close to God. InSaivite Hinduism, our daily worship, studyand yoga create a daily opportunity to re-new compassion and ahimsa nonviolenceand to see Siva everywhere, in all people, alllife, all worlds. Daily worship also cultivatesa spiritual willpower that can serve thegood of the family’s nation. It makes a per-son who is responsive to needs and respon-sible in meeting problems with intelligentsolutions. As the devas work through thehome altar, they can help in all these ways.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring two small, thin pieces ofwood. Cross them in the middle of theroom and have the children determinewhich direction is north, south, east,west and correctly position the wood.One half of the class faces east, sitsdown and each one draws a picture oftheir family worshipping during a sunrise. The other half of the class sits fac-ing west and draws a picture of theirfamily worshipping with a moon ris-ing at evening time.

Book 1, Lesson 18

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LESSON FOCUSServing in a volunteer and selfless spirit isone of the best ways to help others and tohelp ourselves spiritually. To serve meanswe are giving of our time, energy and in-telligence to help other people or to helpsituations. Naturally, this makes us morespiritual because our sense of personal selfis lessened. Service awakens the higherqualities of giving, compassion andstrength. Service is necessary to see to manyneeds of the local Hindu community. Ser-vice is a necessary foundation for success inyoga. Helping elders is a necessary servicefor youth. Elders need caring. They repre-sent the vault of life wisdom stored frommany decades of experience.

KEY PRESENTATIONSCertainly one of the great acts of humanlife is service. To volunteer to serve in someway “makes people feel good,” as the verypopular saying goes. Many people testifythat volunteer service is the most impor-tant part of their life. And many peoplemake a life out of selfless service. This in-cludes helping the poor, the ill, the home-less, the environment, disaster victims, or-phans, refugees. Their life is dedicated tohelping others. Obviously, this is a very ad-vanced life, and stands out to all spiritualpeople as a great example. That “makes mefeel good” is actually a first feeling of thesoul, of the soul lighting up the physicalbody. For anybody who has done a selflessact out of kindness or compassion, theirsoul is coming foward. And this is actually agreat spiritual event to be emphasized tochildren. Do a good, selfless act, and youwill feel your own soul light.

Selfless means that the children are notthinking of themselves. They are not con-cerned about their body. They are not men-tally bored. These are what we could callthe “small self.” The soul is the “light self.”The young children are not thinking of be-ing someplace else, or playing, or eating, orwatching TV. They overlook discomfort.They think helpful thoughts. They try to dothe best job they can. They think of others,rather than themselves. They volunteer forother services. They learn to like volunteerservice, to make it a regular part of theirlives. Selfless is a special state. It is a spiri-tual state of mind. When there is less self,there is more soul. It is that simple, and thatprofound. Volunteer means to do some-thing from our own decision and strength.We are not asked to do it by someone else.

The child sees a way to serve in the home,school, temple or in the community, andsays “I want to help.” Spiritual service alsomeans that there is no payment. No mon-ey is given for the service. Ideally, the per-son who spiritually serves is not even ex-pecting a “thank you.” Gratitude may come,but it is not expected. Why? Because the“you” is the small self, the personal bodyand mind. It is the soul that is serving, andthe soul does not feel a sense of being aphysical body and mind. It does not feelsmall and different from everybody else. Itfeels as large as light and at one with every-body.

Service is good karma. It is creating ac-tions that are good, kind, helpful, inspiring.All of these acts of service are recorded inour karma bank, and they will return to usin future lives. In future lives we will haveacts of goodness, charity and wisdom cometo us from our good deeds we do in thislife, even as a young child.

Service for the young child starts in thehome. How can he or she help? What

chores are there to volunteer for?Is there a special service they cando often, like bringing flowers fordecoration? Service is beyond thenormal chores of home life, or ex-pectations of the parents, such as

making the bed. It is a volunteerservice. Outside of the home, the tem-

ple or local Hindu society often needs a lotof volunteer service. Young children canvolunteer to help under adult supervisionfor groundskeeping, landscaping, polishingthe inside floors, polishing metal trays andpots, collecting recycle materials for fund-raising for the temple, helping to put outmailings. There are always many ways toserve. The children need to be encouragedto look around and to ask around for ser-vice needs.

One of the most important caring acts forchildren and young adults is to help elders.Children enjoy a special relationship witholder people. Quite often their most likedrelative is grandfather and grandmother.The grandparents offer a perspective onlife, and humor and compassion. Eldershave gone through family life, raising afamily, and they can look backwards andsee how they could have improved, ormade better decisions in life. An elder per-son will generally be more spiritual. Theyhave lived life, and now feel a need for spir-


Here, the mother, daughter andson are all working on cleaningthe floor in their home. Servicestarts in the home for children.They should offer to help theirparents often, and not wait tobe assigned chores. This sonand daughter volunteered tohelp their mother with thiswork. They are looking at it asa spiritual service. It will makethem more selfless. It is a goodkarma.

Here, the son and daughter arehelping their grandparents. Thegrandfather is holding thegrandson’s hand for guidance.

The daughter has prepared anice cup of tea for her grand-mother. One day these childrenwill be the elders.

Let us serve.We help elders.

Let the aspirant for liberation behave in an unselfish and kind way and give aid to all, let himundergo penance, and let him study this Agama.—DEVIKALOTTARA AGAMA

itual experience. They want to preparethemselves well for their next birth in rein-carnation. Because they are more spiritu-ally inclined, the elders can offer good ad-vice—advice that has the spiritual, cultur-al and character development of the childmore in mind. They can see more opportu-nities for the child.

Children and elders are at the oppositeends of the age range. The elderly are inbodies old with age. Children are in bodiesyoung, strong and energetic. It is naturalfor children to aid the elderly, and to showrespect for their age and wisdom. Childrencan help elders in many ways. And if a childcan see no obvious way to aid an elder, theycan always ask, “Is there some way I canhelp you?” That alone would be a wonder-ful gesture to the elder. Helping elders isanother good karma deed. Every time weassist an elder, we are creating good karmafor ourselves. Again the good karma isstored for the child, so in a future life theirelder stage of life may be filled with help-ful assistance from kind-hearted children.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. The heart of spiritual experience is feel-ing and identifying with our soul body andintelligence. The more we in human formcan feel our soul, the more spiritual we be-come. Suppose we had a window thatlooked on a magical scene of a tall, redstone mountain, a Siva temple made of di-amond, and streams of liquid gold flowingthrough a forest of emerald trees. The win-dow is perfectly clear. This is the beauty ofour soul nature. But on one side of it, thewindow is covered with dark dust. It is sothick we cannot see through it. This is ourlimited human view. Everytime we do anact of service, we wipe a little dust from thewindow and can see a little of the beauty ofour soul nature.

STORY READINGThe doors of the subway train slid backwith a quiet hiss. The subway was under-neath Paris, France. Through the metaldoors stepped an old man. He walkedstrong and stepped into the bright lights ofthe subway station and looked around. Hisface was the color of a bronze pot, his hairas white as salt. There was a crowd of peo-ple around him, but he stood out. His whitehair was long, and it was partially tied in aknot at the back of his head. On his fore-

head was a red dot and three lines of whiteash—the marks of Siva sight. He lookednoble, like an old king. He stood straight.He wasn’t tall, but he looked tall. In hishands were a map and a briefcase. Helooked around, turned the map sideways,and said to himself, “Ganesha, I’m lost. Iam definitely lost.” He was in the middle ofthe subway station. People rushed by him,carrying shopping bags and briefcases.Tourists were talking in many languages.Another subway train came in at highspeed with a whoosh of wind. All the doorsin the subway opened at the same time. Outpoured many people moving fast, and theold man was pushed a bit in a crowd head-ing for the subway stairs. The old man heldonto his map, and gripped the edge of a pil-lar to steady himself. He was beingsqueezed in the crowd. It reminded him ofriding buses in Delhi, India. “Time to askfor directions,” he thought. He didn’t speakFrench. He was in Paris on a trip to raisemoney for a Hindu monastery. He startedto look around at people’s faces . Perhaps akind face that looked helpful. He had brighteyes, like flashes of moonlight on lake wa-ter, for he had practiced yoga much of hislife. In fact he had started to do yoga whenhe was 8 years old. A very old man withthin white hair, over 100 years old, gavehim his first lessons in Siva yoga. He wasalways grateful for that, and had never for-gotten the ancient one’s gentle face andwise words. So, now lost in Paris, he lookedfor a gentle adult face. Then two smallhands grabbed his map. “Do you needsome help,” said a young child’s voice inEnglish from down below. The old manlooked quickly down. He saw a young boyand girl looking up at him with kind smilesas their hands held his map. They wereboth fair skinned, with blondish hair andsea blue eyes. And they both had small reddots between their eyes.

“Why yes, I need help,” the old man saidin English. “I need to get here by six o’-clock,” and he pointed to a place on themap. “Are you Hindus? You don’t look likeyou’re from India,” he said loudly, becausethe crowds were very noisy. The boy quick-ly replied, “Of course we’re Hindus. Thisred dot means we try to see Siva in all peo-ple. It’s like a game. Quite often we just stopand help people, or talk to them. You havenice white hair. We were born here inFrance. Our parents lived in India and be-came Hindus.” The girl added, “We just gotoff that subway that came in. I saw youlooking at the map like you were lost. You

want to go here?” and she pointed at astreet on the map.

“Yes, that’s it,” said the man. “You two arelike devas. Namasivaya to you both.”

“Well, it looks like we’ll have to take youto another subway station. It’s a few blocksaway,” said the girl. “Here, I will hold yourarm so we don’t get separated in this awfulcrowd.” The boy reached for the elder’sbriefcase, adding, “I’ll carry this for you.Let’s go.” So the two youngsters and the el-der went up the stairs into the Paris traffic,crossed a busy street, walked two blocksnorth and one block east and went downinto the cave of a subway again.“Here,” saidthe girl. “Take this subway, and it will takeyou right to your street. We wish you well.”

“You’ve been very kind children. To takeme all the way here, out of your way. Thankyou so much,” the elder replied. “Muchgood karma will come your way.”

CITIZENSHIPVolunteer service, especially toward needsof the religious community and the elders,is one of the great expressions of citizen-ship. If each religious community of a na-tion is practising selfless service, therewould be greater harmony and respect.Also religious organizations can operate anumber of social charities that are of agreat help to society in general. Caring forthe elderly is a primary concern for manycountries, as the population of the elderly ison a steep rise.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Locate a park nearby and have all thechildren pick up trash and litter intogarbage bags or nearby garbage cans.The idea is to be thorough and to bejoyous in an activity that is serving oth-ers rather than serving ourselves. Havethe children think of other ways theycan serve others while they are doingthis.

2. Invite an elderly person to the class; arelative or friend. Ask the elder to give atalk on what their life is like, their in-terests, what they did as children of 7or 8 years old. Then encourage a dia-log between the elder and the youths sothe children can offer ways to help theirelders.


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LESSON FOCUSThere are certain festivals that celebrate ourhuman dependence upon and gratitude forthe bounty of our planet. This also extendsto our vital and delicate relationship to thesun. We are indebted to Earth and sun forour water, food, resources, energy. Harvestfestivals also renew the bond of coopera-tion between humans and the spirit world.

KEY PRESENTATIONSThere are many harvest festivals around theworld. Every ancient civilization and cul-ture had at least one major harvest festival.Our modern nations and cultures all haveharvest celebrations too. Nothing is so im-portant to humanity as its agriculture. Peo-ple must have food, sleep, clothing andshelter before the path of spirituality can bewalked. Harvesting the season’s cropscomes at different times in different areasof the world. So there are many harvest fes-tivals at different times of the year. Tai Pon-gal is a harvest festival held in South Indiaand Sri Lanka. In those areas, the first riceharvest is over by January. Tai Pongal is acelebration held at home, outside in frontof the home or in the house’s courtyard.Everybody celebrates it, not just farmers.Doctors, lawyers, politicians, soldiers, po-licemen, engineers, housewives, executives,taxi drivers, temple priests—everybody.Everybody is dependent upon food for sur-vival. As rice is the main crop for Asia, it be-comes the focus for celebrating the cycle ofgrowing and harvesting all food crops. SoTai Pongal is not just a rice festival. It is agiving of thanks for all grain, vegetable,fruit, legume and nut crops from anywherethat are part of our diet.

Since Tai Pongal is a celebration of harvest-ing farming crops, it is also a celebration ofour Hindu vegetarian diet. Tai Pongal doesnot celebrate the killing of animals for peo-ple to eat. It does not celebrate the killing ofchickens or fish for people to eat. Tai Pon-gal offers personal gratitude to the naturespirits that create the vegetarian crops thatnourish us. Thus Tai Pongal for SaiviteHindus is a statement of our ahimsa nonvi-olence lifestyle. Because Tai Pongal remindsus of our ahimsa consciousness, it also re-minds us of our relationship to all humansand life on Earth. And it reminds us thatSiva is truly in all life, that He is life itself.This creates for children a feeling that eventhe environment—the forests, mountains,valleys, lakes, rivers, meadows, prairies,

farm lands and oceans are all sacred. Theyare all part of Siva. They are all filled withspirit beings, guided by the Nature Mind ofGanesha.

The Tai Pongal ceremony is performed out-side under the energy eye of the sun. Cen-tral to the ceremony is the boiling of ricein a pot to the point where the bubblingrice boils over the side of the pot. Often,there is also a kumbha pot with a coconutrepresenting Ganesha, God of Nature. Thepurpose of the festival is a to give thanks.It is a mood of love to the Earth and foodspirits and sun for nourishing us.

The Earth orbit is in an exact position fromthe sun to breed and sustain life. If we werea little closer to the sun, all of our oceansand fresh waters would boil away. If wewere a little further away from the sun, ourplanet would freeze. So we are in a perfectorbital dance with the sun. Light from thesun fuels plant growth and causes vitalchanges in the soil. Heat from the sun

maintains a temperature ideal for life. Heatfrom the sun turns water to cloud to rain.Seasons come from Earth’s orbit aroundthe sun. Our energy sources all come fromthe sun, including oil. In all ways we arelinked to the sun. At the height of the TaiPongal harvest ceremony, an arati is passeddirectly to the sun Deva. It is a moment ofprayer, thankfulness and wisdom that thebeing of the sun makes our physical andspiritual progress on Earth possible.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. The act of harvesting has much mean-ing for people. The crops have grown fromseed, a remarkable, even miraculous eventin itself. Water, soil and sun grow the crop.Or more precisely, the nature devas of thewater, soil and sun worlds grow the crops.We humans tend it. Then, when the crop is


A family is preparing for the TaiPongal rice harvest ritual. Theson is putting rice from the re-cent harvest into a large pot.The daughter has flowers. Themother is making sacred kolamdesigns. Father is finishing thecreation of a Ganesha vessel.

Notice it is outdoors.There is an arati lamp lit. Thenature spirit devas enjoy thefire and life force of the offer-ings.

Father is raising an arati flameto the great star of our solarsystem: the sun. Thus, human-ity is asking for the continuedsustaining energy from the sunfor all life. Through the devo-tion of the ceremony, we givethanks for another year of lifeon Earth.

Mother is prostrating as thearati is offered. The children areholding their hands in the di-vine salutation of namaskar.They are using the same mudrahand position as discussed inLesson 55 on how we greet eachother.

Tai Pongal festival in January. We cele-brate the first rice harvest.We thank the sun and earth for givingus food.

You must not use your God-given body for killing God’s creatures, whether they are human,animal or whatever.—YAJUR VEDA

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ready, we harvest it. We reap the final glo-ry of Ganesha’s bounty. Thus harvesting islike receiving a gift from nature. Naturegives to us a gift of food, of water, of re-sources. We receive the gift with a smile andwords of thanks.

2. Offering our thanks and kind apprecia-tion to Earth and the nature devas is ofcourse an act we can do everyday. Once ayear on a special occasion is good. But nat-urally, every time we sit down to a meal weshould be bonding to our planet, sun andtheir bloom of life. In Saivite Hinduism,there are such meal time ceremonies, in-cluding Sanskrit chanting. If we don’t offerdaily thanks, but wait till only once a year,this is like only thanking your mother andfather once a year. And look how muchthey do for you everyday.

3. The Earth and sun are like a ball (earth)tied by a wire to a central pole (the sun).The earth flies around the sun at alwaysabout the same distance away. Along thewire from the central pole (the sun) trav-els all the energy for the ball (earth) to hostlife. This goes on for billions of years.

STORY READINGThe weather forecast came over the radio9-year-old Shankara was listening to: “ex-pected showers today, but clearing by to-morrow,” the weatherman reported. Good,thought Shankara. At least we’ll see the suntomorrow. It was January in Madras. Theair was cool. Shankara pulled his jacketaround him. Clouds that looked like blackchalkboards lay thickly overhead. Shankarawas on the rooftop of the apartment build-ing his family lived in. The building wastall. It was near the beach area of Madras.Despite the brownish haze of pollution inthe air Shankara could see for miles. Thispollution is awful, he was thinking. It is innearly every city of the world. How canpeople allow this to happen? We are de-stroying our world. Killing species. Makingourselves sick. He kicked at the cement ofthe rooftop. Wish there was something Icould do, he thought. Ganesha, he oftenvowed to himself, I will help save Earth.And he coughed as a big cloud of auto ex-haust fumes came up from the street below.Tomorrow was Tai Pongal. All over SouthIndia families were preparing for the har-vest festival. Shankara’s family would be upon this rooftop holding the ritual. Shankaraloved the sky, the sun, the stars and planets

that shone at night. He read books on thenight sky. For his birthday, he wanted atelescope. So he was relieved that the stormoverhead would be clearing. He liked theceremony of Tai Pongal. It made him feeltied to the Earth and sun. He was part ofnature. Nature was part of him. This yearhis father was going to let him pass the aratiflames to the sun. Shankara had been read-ing about the sun and looking at pictures ofit taken through telescopes. It was clear tohim that the sun was a powerful and greatstar. A Saivite swami had taught him thatthe sun was also a being with a vast mind.Shankara wanted to come close to the sunmind. Tomorrow, he thought, my mind willjoin the sun. I will feel the light and heat. Iwill talk to the sun. Maybe some idea forhelping Earth will come to me from the sunmind. Here on the roof Shankara was alsogrowing some vegetables and herbs. Hewalked over to his garden near the roof ’snorth edge. He leaned over and took somesoil in his fingers. It smelled good. The pep-pers and caulifower were doing well. Hewas a vegetarian. There were some smells ofpotatoes in a tamarind sauce drifting onthe wind. It made him hungry. He talked toother children about being vegetarian.Most weren’t interested. That madeShankara sad. People who eat meat arekilling animals and hurting the Earth. Butsome children had decided to be vegetari-an because Shankara talked to them. Thatwould be part of of tomorrow’s Tai PongalShankara said to himself. Bringing peopleto the vegetarian diet is a great gift to theworld.

CONNECTIONSIn Hinduism, there are many different har-vest festivals. Tai Pongal is just one. It is ahome celebration. It relates to our dailyhome worship. Harvest festivals are forhonoring the devas, as well as bringing theGods close to us. Ganesha is the Lord ofNature. His knowledge and power guide allthe spirits of nature creating the worldaround us. Because Ganesha governs na-ture, our harvest rituals reach into Hisrealm. He is happy that humans expressgratitude and honor to the nature devas.That makes humans less selfish, more spir-itual and more a part of the three worldsdiscussed later.

CITIZENSHIPA nation’s most vital concern is water andagriculture. Every government has min-

istries and departments that oversee anddevelop water resources and land and cropmanagement. This is usually done throughscience and civic responsibility. Religiousceremonies and practices such as vegetari-anism do have a great contribution to citi-zenship. Tai Pongal and other harvest fes-tivals are ecological celebrations. Theyteach of man’s delicate place in nature, theworld and in our solar system. They bring asense of sacred oneness to the citizens. Thefarming industry is appreciated. Such cele-brations can awaken new thinking aboutusing energy sources directly from the sun,rather than from polluting oil fuels.

WRONG THINKINGIt is wrong to judge the old harvest rites asbeing superstitious or outdated. These ritu-als are supernatural. They tap into a superpower within nature, that of the naturespirits. These spirits are intelligent and car-ing. They create our food and forests andflowers as an expression of their Sivaness.They like to be acknowledged, to bethanked, to be honored with love as fellowbeings in the universe. Further, chemical-based methods of farming are being founddestructive of land, whereas old farmingways are in balance. Sometimes “modernscience” has ignored the great spiritualtruths held by our ancestors. As a result thenatural balance of our planet has been up-set. This balance will be restored when allmen again start to work with the great in-ner forces that guide and guard nature.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring in a picture book from the li-brary on the sun. Or show a video onthe sun. Talk to the children about howpowerful the energy of the sun is, andhow important it is to life on earth. Thesun should be understood as muchmore than a massive, gas sphere under-going constant nuclear fusion. It is asan intelligent, powerful being, a stardeva.


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LESSON FOCUSGod Siva is the creator of all souls, all spir-it beings, all life, all planets and stars, allplaces high and low. All of Siva’s creation isin three very large universes. These arecalled by ancient scripture the three worlds.This lesson discusses what the three worldsare and the act of Siva creation.

KEY PRESENTATIONSEvery child lives in a home that has rooms.There are rooms for cooking, for eating, forsleeping, for cleaning, for enjoying compa-ny. The home is where we experience ourworld the most. Our world is what we see,hear, touch, smell and taste. We call thisworld the physical world, because it is theworld that is real to our physical body. Welive in the home in our physical body, ourbody that we see in the mirror every day.We see the walls. We hear the voices of ourfamily. We smell flowers in the shrineroom. We taste mother’s food. We feel theblankets of our bed. When we step out ofour home we see the neighbor’s homes andthe towns of our country, and the sky,mountains, trees and flowers. As we travelfurther away from our home, all that wesee, hear, touch, taste and smell is part ofour physical world. Earth, the planet we liveon, the sun and all the stars, and all ofspace is part of our physical existence. Thisphysical world is solid to us. It has certainlaws. Falling from heights can hurt us. Firecan burn us. We cannot walk throughclosed doors. We need air and water to live.

So the physical world is what our physicalbody experiences through the senses. Butthere is another large world that existsthrough and inside the physical world, butwe can not see it with our physical eyes. Wecan not hear it with our physical ears. Thisworld is there, all around us, even goingthrough our bodies, like fine light travelingright through us. It is a very large world,much larger than the physical world. It iscalled the devas’ world, because the peoplewho live there have bodies that shine withlight (the meaning of deva). While ourworld is physical, this devas’ world is men-tal. It is built from thought. But to thosewho live there, it is very solid. Yet its lawsfollow the power of thought, rather thanthe forces of physical matter. Let’s go backto the rooms in the child’s house. The childsteps into his or her bedroom and sees thebed. At the same time, the child is actuallystanding in the devas’ world, and the child

has a deva world body, a body that has dif-ferent colors of light shining from it. Thisdeva world body is actually the more im-portant body of the child. It is the child,with full intelligence and abilities of spiritthought. The physical body only exists be-cause of the life force from this deva worldbody. When we sleep, we live at night in ourdeva world body. When we die, we live for along time in our deva world body, helpinggreat spiritual souls and preparing for ournext birth in the physical world. The devaworld has many levels, like vast steps goingfrom down to up. One level is all the spir-its of nature. On the lower steps are beingsand people who are not spiritual, but en-joy being mean, ugly and instinctive. Onthe middle levels, or steps, are people whoare helping humanity with new discoveries,new ways of thinking, new ways of healing,and with art and culture. On the top levels,or steps, are great spiritual deva people whoguide humans in their spiritual search andpractice.

There is one more world, or uni-verse, that is even larger and much morespiritual than the deva world. This is theGods’ world and it is so vast, so beautiful,so filled with wondrous light and bliss anddivine intelligence that it is even beyondour imagination. This is the world of GodSiva, where He exists as the Supreme Soul.This Gods’ world is also where all the veryadvanced souls that we call Gods exist andperform their great cosmic functions. Deepinside each child’s deva world body is thesoul body of pure light. It looks a little likea human body, because the human body isa dense copy of the soul body. The immor-tal soul body is the child’s true identity.This soul body grows and learns more of itsGod-like nature through the experiences ofthe physical world and devas’ world.

God Siva, the Supreme Being, creates allthree of these worlds from His Mind. Hekeeps all the worlds going with perfect or-der and purpose by His Mind. Therefore,even our physical world exists in His Mind.


This is the Kshipra PrasadaGanapati form of Ganesha. Hisbig belly symbolizes all of thephysical world. Ganesha is theGod who guides nature and hu-manity, who gives high cultureand great ideas. He also directsthe activities of much of thedeva world. Ganesha is a greatGod in the Gods’ world. This iswhere Ganesha lives and viewsand helps all the happenings inthe physical world.

In this hand Ganesha holds atwig of a wish-fulfilling tree. Wecan wish directly to Lord Gane-sha in the Gods’ world. If ourwish is good for us, then Hewill advise the deva people inthe devas’ world to make yourwish come true.

Ganesha says, “Siva created 3worlds: our world, the devas’world and the Gods’ world.”

These worlds, tiered one above the other from the lowest to the highest, make up the universeof transmigration.—MRIGENDRA AGAMA

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All we see and hear and touch is part ofSiva’s Mind of light, love and pure energy.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. Let’s imagine three rooms that are insideone another, like a Chinese box with boxesnested inside each other. We walk into thefirst room, the largest room. This is theGod’s world. It surrounds and contains theother two rooms. In the God’s world roomwe can see the walls of the next room. Adoor opens and we walk into the nextroom, the door closing behind us. This isthe Deva’s world room. It surrounds andcontains the physical world room. We cansee the physical world room’s walls. A dooropens. We walk through into the physicalworld room, the door closing behind us. Allwe see now is a single room with its walls.We don’t see the Deva’s world or the God’sworld from this physical room. Yet weknow they still exist.2. Children are very familiar with the spir-it world, or the devas’ world. This is be-cause up to age six many children can nat-urally see into the devas’ world. They seenature spirits, like fairies, or they see, talkand play with deva world children theirown age. These are the famous “invisiblefriends” that many young children have.Often children will be visited as they arefalling asleep by high deva or angel people.These devas guide the children, offer themexcellent advice, or teach them some finespirit skill.

STORY READINGJnani lay on her bed, smelling of freshlywashed sheets, under a brown and redblanket with Indian designs. She shared thisroom with her younger sister, Tara, whowas four. Jnani was 8 years old. She was justrelaxing, her hands behind her head. Herhead rested on a pillow that matched theblanket. Her bed was not soft. She didn’tsink into it. It was firm. Jnani had learnedsome yoga postures which she did on herbed. She had told her mom, “I want a firmbed so I can do some yoga on it and sleepwell.” So there Jnani lay on her firm bed,floating on it like on a raft drifting lazilydown a river. She lived in Fiji, near Nadi,where a new Murugan temple was recentlybuilt. She could hear the temple bells chim-ing like metal birds in the distance. It wasnearing the evening puja time. The last of

the bell tones echoed into silence. Theroom was almost dark and Jnani could onlysee faint outlines of the pictures on herwall. A feeling of sleepiness passed over her.But she wasn’t tired. Her bluish-grey eyeswere open. But, as if she had stepped intoa movie theater, Jnani suddenly saw yellowand blue light fill her room. It seemed tocome from the center of the room, a greatcircle of yellow with blue shooting out of it.She watched the light with incredible joy, ahappiness she had never felt before. Theyellow light surrounded her, sparkling likefireworks and feeling like warm bubblingwater. She no longer felt or saw her body.It was like she had become a cloud, float-ing and airy. The room was not lit up by theyellow and blue colors, but the golden andblue colors seemed to go through the walls,like they were made of glass. Jnani wasfrozen in joy, not moving, breathing slow-ly. Her only thought was, “Devas. Spirituallight. This must be the deva world. I amseeing the deva world.” Then the yellow andblue light became very soft. A room ap-peared before her vision. It was solid, real.She could touch the surface of the wallsthat were made of dark, shiny stone thathad a soft green glow. Yet Jnani knew shewas also in her own bedroom. She was intwo worlds at once, she thought to herself.Then two people walked into the room,one young man and one young woman.Their faces were kind and beautiful. Theywore very fine Indian-style robes and theirwhole body gave off orange and deep bluelight. “Yes, Jnani,” the lady said. “You haveseen the deva world while still in your phys-ical world body. This is so you can remem-ber, and tell other children about the realityof the deva world.” Then they walked out,and Jnani’s eyes closed. When they opened,all she saw was her room in darkness. Butin her mind, she still saw, as true as life, thedeva world.

CONNECTIONSNotice how this lesson closely connects tothe Ganesha says lesson on Siva createdeveryone and everything. Everyone andeverything have to exist somewhere, andeach according to its purpose and spiritualadvancement. Also, this lesson nicely com-pliments the lesson on home shrines andworship, and on temple worship. In thehome shrine, we are tuning into the devaworld. In temple worship we are tuninginto the Gods’ world. In learning yoga, weare also functioning in the higher devas’

world and occasionally entering and goingbeyond the Gods’ world.

HOMEWORKHave the children practice lying on theirbed or on a comfortable mat on the floorwith the lights out or very dim. Theyshould relax their normal eyesight so theyare not staring or focusing on anything, butare just looking. They should be havinggood thoughts about the devas’ world anddeva people. In this state of receptivity thechildren may experience psychic images oflight in the room, of beautiful places or ofvery kind spiritual people.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. The ideal prop for this activity wouldbe to have the kind of balloons thathave one or two balloons nested insideof the main balloon. When you blowthem up you see through the main out-er balloon to a second balloon insideand a third balloon nested inside thatone. The outer balloon represents ourworld which looks into the Deva worldand deep inside of the Deva world canbe seen the Siva world. This is the bestthree-dimension representation of thisabstract concept. If this kind of novel-ty balloon can’t be located then bringin a supply of balloons of different col-ors and sizes. Have the children blowthem up so there are three differentsizes. The largest size is the Siva world.The next largest is the Deva world. Thesmallest is our world. As three differ-ent sized and colored balloons areblown up, the children line them up ina close row and try to see through thesmallest one (our world) into the Devaworld one and Siva world one. Thenthey can let them float around and ap-preciate that Siva created them all.

2. Gather the children into the middleof the room and have them form a cir-cle. The lights are on in the room. Thechildren are directed to look around ateverything in the room. Then the lightsare turned out so it is dark. The chil-dren jump up to a standing positionand take in a deep breath. As theybreathe out they see the room beingcreated from their own body energy.When the lights go on, they childrenhave successfully created the room. Re-peat this a few times. This is like GodSiva creating the three worlds out ofHis own Mind.

Book 1, Lesson 22

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LESSON FOCUSThe world of animals is a beautiful and im-portant part of God Siva’s creation onEarth. Saivite Hindus view all animals, in-cluding dolphins and whales, as being thebody homes of souls. Souls live in animalbodies, just as souls live in human bodies.Humans are friends with many animals,such as the dog, cat, cow, goat, horse andelephant. Among the animals that are ourfriends, the cow and elephant are theSaivite Hindus’ best friends. The cow andelephant give us many good things for ourlives. They symbolize spiritual truths. Theyteach us certain good qualities. All life is sa-cred. All life helps in Siva’s plan of life.

KEY PRESENTATIONSThe animal kingdom has many kinds ofanimals, from antelope to tigers, from seaotters to dolphins. We can make a very longlist of all the animals in the world. Our listwould cover lots and lots of blackboards.What would our world be like without an-imals? It would be lonely. We people wouldbe by ourselves. It would be silent. No cowsmooing. No dogs barking. No wolves howl-ing. No bears growling. No cats purring. Nohorses whinnying. Without animals, theworld would be less beautiful. The worldwould be boring and dull without the run-ning, jumping and playing of animals. Weneed all animals to make our world spiritu-ally complete. The animals help our worldbe full of Siva’s beauty, and each animal isa part of Siva. The animals help teach us,for they live in nature. Animals only takewhat they need. Animals do not harm na-ture. Most animals are vegetarian. The an-imals that hunt, like tigers and wolves, aresmart enough to know which is the weakestanimal to kill for food, and they have devas’world (see lesson 22) permission to do this.We humans do not do this. We can be self-ish and harmful. Very sadly, we humanshave made extinct many animals. That cre-ation of God Siva does not exist any moreon Earth. All gone, and none of the chil-dren will see them.

For Saivite Hindus, we try to see the bestin animals and honor that best. We learnand we are thankful. We see Siva in all life.All life is spiritual. All animals are filledwith Siva’s light.

To Saivite Hindus, all animal life is holy,as is life itself. Further, non-life—such asthe soil, rocks, sky, clouds, water, moun-tains, volcanoes, deserts—is also holy. It isvery good for children at this age to realize

this. Everything has a purpose in Siva’splan. Everything is connected to everythingelse through mind consciousness. Every-thing is bursting with Siva light. To sym-bolize this sacred existence, Hindus see thecow and elephant as perfect examples. Forthousands of years of history the cow hasbeen a generous friend of man. No otheranimal has provided so much for humanbenefit, and with such a gentle spirit. Allover the world, in many different times andsocieties the cow has served humans withprecious milk, with dung for fuel, with afriendly nature. Besides Hindu India, manyold societies—from Egypt to Europe toChina—regarded the cow as sacred, as agift from the Gods. Every day, all over ourplanet cows are providing millions of gal-lons of milk that is made into butter,cheese, yogurt and even ice cream. Cowsgive tons and tons of dung for fuel every-day. And the children should not think that

cow dung is an unscientific fuel.In California, USA, a very large

electricity power plant uses onlycow dung fuel to produce enough

electricity to power a small city. Cow dungis very antiseptic—it kills germs. For thou-sands of years cow dung has beensmoothed over kitchen floors in India as akind of instant tile. It creates a solid surfaceand helps keep the kitchen free from germs.Finally, cow dung is burnt down into itsfine ash form for vibhuti, the holy ash thatis a mark of Siva’s pure white light thatshines through everything and everyone.

The elephant is one of our most belovedcreatures. The elephant is majestic, smart,strong, and is among the most caring ani-mals on our world. We have learned muchabout elephants in the past ten years. Ele-phants talk to each other through a verylow tone language (it is below the humanrange of hearing). Elephants grieve fortheir dead, and actually hold ceremonies.Elephants are so close to each other, so car-ing and loving, that if elephants in a herdare away from each other for over twenty


Here we see two children ex-pressing their joy and fondnessfor the cow. Being close to acow like this, or close to a herdof cows, it would be impossi-ble to think of harming such abeautiful animal. And it wouldbe very difficult to even thinkfor one second of eating a cowfor dinner. Most childrenaround the world have a diffi-cult time eating meat whenthey actually meet the animalsface to face. Notice in this pic-ture that the cow has been giv-en a garland. This is a fine ges-ture of our seeing the cow assacred and so generous to hu-mans.

Here is the temple elephant.The temple elephant is dressedin fine clothes and ornamentsand in many cases has designspainted on its hide. The ele-phant is a great example to usof how to take care of our ownfamily and community. Ele-phants are very caring.

Baby, see the milking cow. She is sogood to us. She is like our mother.We never hurt the cow.In India, all big temples have an elephant.

You must not use your God-given body for killing God’s creatures, whether they are human,animal or whatever.—YAJUR VEDA

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minutes, they greet each other as if theywere parted for 20 years: noisy trumpeting,dancing with their big feet and wrappingtheir long trunks together.

Like any higher intelligence animal, theelephant can be trained from childhood toperform services for man. Unfortunately,this training can be cruel, and often is. Allyoung Hindus should protest cruel treat-ment of animals. But if an elephant israised with love, gentleness and respect forits intelligence and generosity, the elephantcan be a great friend and help us in ourspiritual lives. Such are the special ele-phants that are kept at the very large tem-ples in India. Children that visit these tem-ples love the elephants. Their eyes are deepand smart. There is no fear. The elephantsare trained to reach down with their trunksand give a blessing on the top of the head.

The children should be taught that theelephant is in very grave danger now. Theelephant population in Africa has been re-duced by 70% due to deadly poaching forthe elephant tusk, or ivory.

STORY DISCUSSIONWith dust flying everywhere the black jeeppulled up quickly into the house yard.Skidding on the red dirt, the jeep stopped.Grabbing to unhook his seatbelt, 8-year oldGanesha jumped out of the jeep into thedirt. He was skinny with a big floppy hatover his curly black hair. He was smilingand his black marble eyes were quicklylooking at everything in the hot morningsun. Over next to the log house was a longthick leash that disappeared around thecorner. The leash was moving like a snake.“Something very interesting must be onthat leash,” thought Ganesha. His fatherhad been driving the jeep. He was in a bighurry, and had already run into the house.This was the home of the game warden, theman who took care of the animals in thishuge park. The park was so big it wouldtake a week to drive through it. They werein Kenya, Africa. Home of elephants, lions,giraffes, zebras and many other beautifulanimals. It was also Ganesha’s home. Hisfather, a good Saivite Hindu man wholoved animals, was the assistant game war-den. Ganesha had a camera around hisneck. It was a good camera. He loved pho-tography and he really loved elephants. Inhis room at home stuffed elephants werespread all over. Often he dreamed of ele-phants. After all he was named after LordGanesha. Ganesha moved the camera to his

shoulder. The leash was moving again. “Ihave time to check this out,” he thought.Usually the game warden didn’t have ani-mals around his home, except for the bigsheepdogs. The game warden, a tall, Africanman, liked to have animals in the wild. Freeas the wind. So something on a leash wasunusual. “And it must be big, at least as bigas a cow,” said Ganesha as he neared thehouse corner. “I think it is a…”

“Yes, a baby elephant,” he shouted in tri-umph. Staring him right in the face withcurious, friendly eyes was a kid elephant,dark gray and dusty. His trunk, looking likea living vacuum cleaner hose, was sniffingat Ganesha. Sniff. Sniff. The trunk waivedin the air and was right in front of Gane-sha’s face. “Hey fella. You want to know me?This is so neat,” he said to the elephant.They were nose to nose. The elephanttrunk, slightly moist and smelling of freshhay, was touching the boy’s nose. The ele-phants big ears were fanning the air. Theears went back and forth. Ganesha said, “Ibet you’d really like a bath in the river.” Thebaby elephant’s head went up and down.“Hey. You understand me.” Then he no-ticed the elephant was wounded in his leg.Ganesha had been to India last year, andhe’d been to the Meenakshi Temple insouth India where a huge elephant greetedpilgrims. The temple elephant was gentle,but no one approached him unless themahut, his keeper, was right there. This ele-phant was decorated with fine cloth andeven had jewels as a necklace. The templeelephant picked Ganesha out of a crowdand brought its great trunk down to Gane-sha’s head. It felt like a wet butterfly landingon him. It was a blessing. Ganesha knewsomehow his karma would bring him tohelp the elephants. Siva is in this elephantas much as He is in me, Ganesha knew.With tears in his eyes, Ganesha looked atthe wound on the baby elephant’s leg. Theelephant’s skin was thick and a little rough.Ganesha slowly petted the elephant. Hestarted chanting,“Aum Namah Sivaya.” Thewound was healing. But still it was a badwound. A deep voice said from behind him,“He was shot.” Ganesha turned quickly. Itwas the game warden and his dad. “What?How,” cried Ganesha.

“Outlaw hunters,” said the African man.“They were killing elephants for their whitetusks. This little guy was in the way. But hewill get well.” Ganesha was happy at thatnews. But he was angry with the hunters.Right now, he and his dad and the game

warden were driving out to check on anelephant herd. There was little rain thisyear. The elephants needed water. It was an-other big problem for helping the ele-phants. Ganesha jumped in the jeep. Hewas very glad he was helping.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. If possible, locate an educationalvideo on dairy cows to show to theclass. If this isn’t possible, bring in a li-brary book on the subject of dairycows (not beef steers) and show thechildren the pictures and read some ofthe text. The idea is to present to thechildren all the bountiful products thatcome from the cow. Then ask them torepeat together in a loud voice threetimes, “I will never hurt a cow or anyother animal.”

2. This is the elephant game. Bring toclass some brown or gray cloth mater-ial. A large portion of the cloth isdraped over four children who arelined up and crouching over. The ideais for them to form the shape of an ele-phant. Make some kind of trunk out ofa piece of cloth. The child who is theelephant head uses the trunk. The ele-phant walks around in the class, thenstops and gives blessings with its trunkto the other children. Everybody gets aturn at being the elephant.


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LESSON FOCUSAmong world religions there are manychild saints—children who show a path toGod through their artless devotion andnon-intellectual yet deeply spiritual view ofthe world. In Saivite Hinduism, Saint Sam-bandar is such a spiritual prodigy. He ishonored for his lofty songs to Siva.

KEY PRESENTATIONSChildren are naturally open to the spiritu-al realities. It is easy for them to believe inthe nature spirits. It is easy for children tosee the spirit beings in nature. Life is full ofmystery and discovery, and God is part ofa child’s search for answers. It is part oftheir natural wonder that they easily seeGod Siva in everybody and everything.Children very readily accept teachingsabout sacred knowledge, about the magicpower of ceremony. Worship wells up freelyin a child. Contact with the deva people ofthe deva world for children is as natural asadults watching TV. So childhood is a mag-ical time. Some children have special expe-riences that set the course of their lives.Some children have extraordinary experi-ences that are then forgotten as they growolder. And the experience, usually of a vi-sion nature, is only remembered late inlife—then becoming a sign of direction inlife. Of course, if a child is wrongly raisedby the parents or becomes clouded by caresand desires too early in life, then these nat-ural perceptions are dimmed.

There are children famous in history fortheir musical or artistic gifts that blos-somed while they were only five or six yearsold. This is often used as a demonstrationof reincarnation, for a child manifestingsuch incredible talent at an early age indi-cates a mastery gained through several pastlives. In the history of south IndianSaivism, Sambandar is revered as a saintlychild, a child who unfolded a strength andbeauty of Siva knowledge far beyond hisyears. Undoubtedly, he had achieved a highlevel of spirituality in his previous births.He lived over twelve centuries ago. Thisshould not seem such a long time to thechildren you are teaching, for they too werealive at that time. Sambandar was born intoa Saivite Hindu family. As a three-year-oldboy, he became separated from his fatherat the temple. He cried to Lord Siva forhelp. Lord Siva appeared to him, blessedhim and fed him with milk. Finally his fa-ther found the young boy again, and when

he asked him how he got the milk, the childimmediately sang a song describing his ex-perience. he had seen Siva.

After this spiritual meeting with God Sivathe young Sambandar was inspired to singmore songs to Siva. He traveled from tem-ple to temple. Through his songs he in-spired the people of South India that Sivawas a loving and ever-present Supreme Be-ing in their everyday lives. Soon, he was be-coming known as a saint, a person whoselife is dedicated to God and who is very vir-tuous in conduct. He composed manysongs, the melody and words coming spon-taneously from his devotion. His songs cov-ered many topics, often relating to theeveryday needs of Siva’s followers. Thesongs often carried Sambandar’s assurancethat God Siva would respond to the pleas inthe songs. Because of his youth and thepractical nature of his songs, a large groupof people accompanied him on his pil-grimages to Siva temples and other holysites. Eventually Sambandar began travel-

ling with the elderly saint Appar, the oldman and youthful boy enriching the lives ofhundreds of thousands.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. The holy songs that Sambandar sang aredifferent than the bhajan type of song dis-cussed a few lessons ago. Bhajans are usu-ally a simple phrase or set of lyrics set to arepeating melody that is easily memorized.Sambandar’s songs are more rich in theirverses and melody, though it must be statedthat the original melodies Sambandar com-posed are lost. They were not carried downgeneration to generation. But the melodiesand lyrics we have now represent a spiritu-al school of singing that is very precious inSouth Indian Saivism. In fact, these songsare like windows into a time of tremendousspiritual change in South Indian Saivism.


Sambandar is standing inside atemple hall here. The outline ofa Siva Lingam is seen in theback. As we can see Sambandaris very young. He is wearingthree stripes of holy ash on hisforehead and a pottu mark. Heis wearing earrings as was thecustom in those times. Aroundhis neck is a colletion of sacrednecklaces, including rudrakshabeads and Siva symbols madeof gold.

In this scene Sambandar issinging one of his songs. He iskeeping time with the cymbals.Sambandar has a nice smile onhis face because he is happy.When he sings of Siva or sits inyoga to find Siva inside himself,Sambandar is happy. Even as ayoung boy he knows that thehappiness that comes directlyfrom love of Siva and Siva’s lovefor us is more important thanhappiness from physical thingswe may like to have, like newtoys or a car for our family.

The child saint Sambandar.He sang holy songs.

The Lord of Appati is both inside and outside, form and no form. He is hidden in all thoughts.He is thought and meaning, and embraces all who embrace Him.—TIRUMURAI

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The songs tell of people’s concerns that areas real today as 1,200 years ago.

2. Imagine a child that is so enchanted orenthralled by the beauty of a bird singing ina tree or of a butterfly flitting from flowerto flower in a meadow that he or she burstsout into song. The child simply starts tosing as a scene of beauty or a gesture offriendliness is observed. They make upwords and melodies. Spontaneous singingis common to children. And it is delightfulto listen to. Children are not shy in this way,or have adult inhibitions, so they sing freelyand airily, a spontaneous expression ofhappiness. This is a very spiritual momentfor the child. This does not include ayoungster singing some rap or rock or popsong they hear in movies or on the radio.Some children, like Sambandar, are so in-volved in God’s hand being in all thingsthat they sing directly of a God experience.Certainly, this is to be encouraged in chil-dren.

STORY READINGIt was over one thousand years ago. Up atthe top of India, inside the cradle of the Hi-malayan mountains was a kingdom calledKashmir. At the center of Kashmir was avery large and deep lake. It was greenishblue and had lots of fish and ducks andgeese. All around the lake were great forestsof pine and birch trees and piles of old, grayrock. The rock sparkled in the sunlight forit had many quartz crystals in it. At theedges of the lake, which was called Siva-mana—Siva’s Mind—were lovely templesbuilt of the quartz-filled rock. The templescame out over the water. They seemed likethey were floating right on the water. Of-ten devotees would feed bread to the gold-en and brown-spotted fish swimmingaround the shining rock temples. All thetemples were to God Siva. Kashmir wasknown throughout India for its great loveof Siva. There were many Siva yogis in thefrozen mountain caves of Kashmir. In abeautiful wood-and-rock house near thelake lived 8-year-old Parasiva. His fatherwas an administator at one of the large laketemples. Parasiva was lean, but strong likea mountain lion. His blackish brown hairwas very long, often tied in a knot on thetop of his head. His large grayish browneyes were unusally keen. He could see verylong distances. He liked climbing up on therock ledges high above his home where hecould see the entire valley, and watch the

great road that led to the city near the lake.Many strangers entered the land by thisroad. One day he saw a tall man with verybrown skin walking along the road. He hada staff. He could see a small image of Sivaon the staff. The man was dressed very dif-ferent. And he was singing something. Heseemed very joyful. Curious, Parasivajumped from his rock and ran full speed tothe road. He leaped onto the road and wait-ed for the tall stranger. And soon he heard aman’s voice singing a very lovely song. Themelody was unusual, much different fromthe songs of Kashmir. Parasiva could onlyunderstand a few pieces of words. He spokeDogra, the language of Kashmir, and knewsome Sanskrit. The tall man had a kind faceso Parasiva called to him, “Noble sir, thesong you sing is new here. It is very beau-tiful and I hear the word Siva in it.” Theman stopped walking and leaned on hisstaff. He knew Dogra because he traveled toKashmir often. “Umm. You like this song?Yes, it is beautiful, full of wisdom. It is fromthe south, in the Tamil land,” the tall mansaid. “From Tamil land. That must be veryfar south. They worship Siva there?” theboy asked. The man smiled, “Of course,they are great worshipers of Siva and domuch yoga. This song you like was com-posed by a young boy your age. His namewas Sambandar. He was a Siva saint, andhis songs are very popular in the south. Doyou want to learn it?” The boy eagerlyreplied, “Yes, I will sing it in the temple andthe woods.” And so Parasiva was the firstperson to sing a Sambandar song in theland of Kashmir.

CONNECTIONSMany of Sambandar’s songs, as well as theother Saiva saints, are sung as part of tem-ple worship in South India. They are oftensung when the doors are closed or the cur-tain is drawn for the dressing of the deityduring the puja. This is an example of howsomething new in Saivite Hinduism—itwas new 1,200 years ago—gradually be-came an accepted custom in the temple. Inthis case, the singing of the Saiva saintssongs. In many of this book’s lessons wetalk about Siva being everywhere in every-thing, as the creator and as the creation it-self. This is a philosophical truth. For manypeople (including children), they may notbe able to understand this as a philosophi-cal truth, but in a song this suddenly be-comes understood. It has personal meaningthrough the song, and through the song’s

composer. Sambandar’s songs are sung dai-ly by millions of people.

CITIZENSHIPWhile singing alone does not make one abetter citizen, Sambandar the child saintdoes represent someone who was a goodcitizen and also worked for helpful changein his country. For instance, the youngSaivite Hindu youth of today could be bet-ter citizens by working to see that all theHindu temples were always clean and beau-tiful. Youth could volunteer to do selflessservice (karma yoga) at a nearby monasteryor ashram. Youth could work to bringSaivites back to vegetarianism.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. If everyone knows a Sambandarsong, then that can be sung as a classactivity. An alternative or in addition tothis, have the children compose a sim-ple song by themselves. Divide the classinto several groups, each group tocompose a very simple song of love ofGod Siva. They do not have to create amelody (if they want to, they can set itto a well known melody), just thelyrics. Then they recite the song to theclass. Explain that Sambandar, as ayoung boy their age, composed hissongs out of such spontaneous inspira-tion as the children are doing now.

2. Bring in three tennis balls, or smallballs that bounce. Arrange the classinto a circle. Pass out the balls aroundthe circle. The children with the ballsstand up. In some simple melody theysing “Aum. Everything I see is Siva,Siva.” Then they bounce the ball over tosomeone sitting down. The child catch-es the ball and jumps up and sings thesame phrase, while the other child sitsdown. The idea is to keep the ballbouncing around to different childrenat the same time, each one singing thephrase and then bouncing the ballaway.

Book 1, Lesson 24

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LESSON FOCUSRebirth, taking a physical body many, manytimes, is a fundamental knowledge inSaivite Hinduism. We emphasize the wordknowledge, as this is not just a belief thatcan be held to or rejected. It is a law. Thechildren must learn it as a very importantfact. Everybody is experiencing a long seriesof births. It does not matter whether theybelieve in rebirth or not. Rebirth is a keyfact to understanding our spiritual life andpurpose. It is called reincarnation, meaningto re-enter a flesh body. This means we havehad past lives, and we will have future lives.Each life is like a stage of growth. It takesmany lives to grow from ignorance—wherewe live only for physical enjoyment and cando bad—to enlightenment, where we knowour spiritual soul nature of oneness withGod Siva, and serve others in goodness.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWhat a delightful, fun knowledge to knowthat we have lived many lives before. Thisis an extraordinary knowledge. Childrenvery naturally agree to the law of reincar-nation. It makes perfect sense to them. It ischildren who most easily remember theirpast lives. Researchers into reincarnationhave found their best cases to be youngchildren born in India who remember theirimmediate past lives. Teenagers also veryeagerly accept the law of rebirth. And theyare very curious about what their past liveswere. Children like to dress up and pretendthey are other people. They easily enter intodrama roles, and spontaneously act out be-ing a princess or a pirate or a priest. Theyenjoy pretending they are adults, doingadult things. This demonstrates a naturalinclination for the minds of children to beintrigued with other bodies, other lives.

Reincarnation means to re-enter theflesh. That is, we experience birth into aphysical body many times. The physicalbody we are born into may live for a hun-dred years or it may only live a few months.Each life is different in many ways and sim-ilar in many ways. Each life builds on theprevious lives, like building a pyramid withblocks. We may be born as a man or awoman. It all depends on the purpose ofthe life—what is the reason this particularbirth is taken. It also depends on the kar-ma lessons of the life—that is the acts wedid in past lives return to us in our presentlife through karma. The laws of rebirth andkarma are very closely connected. When weare born into a new body a certain amount

of our karma travels with us into the newlife, like a suitcase, a suitcase of karma. It isthere with us all the time.

So reincarnation means we have a longseries of lives that have purpose and direc-tion. We are not just born by accident. Weare born with purpose. Our lives are goingtoward a goal, like a mountain climberclimbing toward the mountain top. What isthe goal of our many lives? Well, there aremany small goals that we must obtain inour lives—from becoming smart and cul-tured, to being nice, kind, generous and un-selfish. There are many small goals, all ofthem good. They develop us as a physicalbody, our minds, our emotions, and final-ly spiritually. But there is one big goal thatour lives go toward. That is knowing ouridentical oneness with God Siva throughyoga. That is the final goal of all of ourlives. It is the reason why we are born againand again on planet Earth. Obviously, tochildren and adults, there are many won-derful reasons for physical life. There arealso many things we want to do and be in

a life: king, president, scientist,doctor, lawyer, jet pilot, designer,wealthy businessman, company

executive, famous actress or mu-sician, peace negotiator, priest,

monk. In fact, through our long seriesof lives, we experience all of these, andmuch, much more. But, like a mountainclimber using his tools, all these contributeto the final goal of yoga enlightenment.

If the physical body dies in each life, anda new body is given to us each birth, thenwe need to know who is it that is beingborn. Who is it that is re-entering the flesh?It is our soul body of light that is re-enter-ing the flesh. Our soul takes on the newbody, and uses it to learn and grow as asoul. Our soul uses the physical body to ex-perience karma and to experience the lim-itations of the body, emotions and humanmind. This is like an astronaut (the soul)who uses a space suit (the physical body)and is limited by it to work on the moon.But the soul also shines through two otherbodies: a mental body and an astral body,both of which are invisible to our eyes. Butwe live in them all the time. At night, whenwe sleep we use these two bodies. When thephysical body dies, our soul continues togrow through these bodies until the nextbirth.


This is the Nritya Ganapatiform of Lord Ganesha. In thisimage He is the happy dancer.This tell us that our long seriesof lives through rebirth is like aspiritual dance. In our begin-ning lives, we are just learningabout life and we make lots ofmistakes—mistakes in ourdancing. In our middle series oflives our spiritual progress islimited as we go after physicaland emotional pleasures—ourdancing is selfish. Finally, in ourvery last lives on Earth, we aremaking much spiritualprogress, and our dance isbeautiful and serves others.

Ganesha is dancing under akalpavrikasha tree. This meansthat in every birth we shouldstrive to be joyful and be veryactive in realizing God Siva, soour birth cycle ends.

Ganesha says, “Everyoneis born again and again.”

Lead me from unreality to reality. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality.—YAJUR VEDA

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Now, when the soul is just beginning totake on physical lives, the physical body andits desires blot out the natural goodnessand light of the soul. The physical humanbody is an animal body. It has strong de-sires, and can be bad, selfish and greedy infulfilling those desires. In the beginninglives, the physical body and mind will actbad because the soul’s light can not getthrough the desires. This is why we see so-called evil in the world. It is not an evilforce. It is the physical person ignorant ofits own soul/God nature and selfishly seek-ing only low desires and power. Everybodygoes through this stage, then grows out ofit. The more lives a soul has experienced,the more we see the soul shining through.The person is said to be good, honorableand spiritual. Spiritual people are peoplewho have lived many, many lives on Earth.They have learned from many karmiclessons.

All the children in the class are in theirpresent life. They have all lived hundreds ofpast lives. But they will also have lives in thefuture. The children’s actions in this life di-rectly effects the quality of their future lifeand lives. Each child is building his or herfuture now, at every moment. This meanswe are each responsible for our future, avery important teaching.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. One nice illustration for our series ofbirths is a string of pearls that is laid outflat rather than joined in a circle. Each pearlrepresents a birth. At the beginning of thestring the pearls are very tiny and dull,meaning we are small in spirituality. Buteach pearl is progressively bigger than thelast. This means that we are growing spiri-tually in each birth. Toward the end of thepearl string, the pearls are very large andbright. The last pearl is the largest and itglows with light from within. This is the lifein which we know God Siva in yoga one-ness.

STORY READINGIt was a very long time ago. Out of a townin the steep, cold mountains above India acaravan of horses and camels walked slow-ly north. The horses had big muscles andyou could see hot breath steaming out fromtheir nostrils in the cold. It was early in themorning. A few stars were still holding

onto the dawn sky. On the backs of thehorses were large packs of spices, gold andrare, carved wood. The camels, looking likefurry gold in the rising sun, stepped alongthe trail with big, round feet. They carriedrubies and sapphires, incense, and orna-ments for Hindu puja rites. At the front ofthe caravan was a girl on a beautiful brownhorse with a star on its forehead. The girlwas young with pretty brown hair and shewore a thick, dark red coat over a long blueblouse and white pants. On her foreheadwere three white stripes, meaning she wasa devotee of Siva, Lord of BeginninglessLight. Her cheeks were high and proud,making her thin silvery brown eyes flashlike jewels. Her name was Priya, and shecalled her horse Starshine. Alongside herrode her father on a very big, white-as-snow horse. He was the owner of this car-avan. They were leaving a Hindu kingdomcalled Khutan. They were leaving the coldmountains for a hot desert of sand and lit-tle life. This caravan was going to China.It would go around a great desert that hadcities on its edges where water flowed infrom the mountains. While Starshinewalked along on the trail, Priya oftenthought of her life. She was now very inter-ested in her past lives. She knew she hadlived many times before. “Perhaps I was aboy in my past life,” she thought. “Look atme. I can ride horses and camels well. I canlive in snow storms and sand storms. Iknow how to read. And now I am learningto write. If I was a boy in my past life, thosethings would carry over to this life. ”

The caravan went through valleys andlow hills. In three days it came into thedesert road. Priya could see endless wavesof hot, white sand go off forever into thedistance. It was a sea of sand. But on her leftwere dusty cliffs of rock and tired treesthirsty for water. Priya wore a scarf over herface to protect her from the desert windthat was filled with sand. On her head was awhite turban to guard against the very hotsun. By the end of the day she and her fa-ther could see sparkling yellow lights, thelights of the first city. But also on the side ofthe road, buried in the desert sands werethe white bones of a horse that had died.This reminded Priya that each life ends,and then there is another birth.“Starshine,”she spoke to her horse. “I don’t want youto die. I love you and I know I would missyou.” In response Starshine looked back ather with moon-like eyes and went nee-ee-ee-eey in horse talk. “But we are all in a

long line of births and deaths. You and I, weare souls of light flickering in these bodies.In this life I have many opportunities,” shesaid outloud to the night sky. “I may mar-ry a wealthy trader. But I will make sure heis a very spiritual Saivite Hindu. I want thislife to be close to Siva and the God’s world.I want to find a yogi master who can teachme yoga.” The lights of the city were gettingcloser, and now she could smell the fires ofcaravans camping outside the city. Shethought to herself that all of these men, andsome women, were in the wheel of rebirth.Most of these were rough men. They couldbe cruel and selfish. But they were honest.They had learned to be honest and to helpeach other. She knew they’d advanced thatfar in spirit law. These traders were bettermen than the robbers that swooped downon caravans. Priya knew the robbers werereal beginners in the birth cycle. It wouldbe near impossible to see the soul in theeyes of the robbers. Priya’s caravan settledinto a camp and she went into the city withher father. It was alive with all kinds of peo-ple. And there were flowers here and won-derful green trees. Priya went into one ofthe garden parks. There, sitting against alarge fig tree was an orange-robed yogi,middle-aged. His face shined with Sivalight and Priya knew this was his last life.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Have the children bring in whateverold clothes, costumes, hats, wigs orother drama-type items they can lo-cate. The teacher can help too by bring-ing costumes, etc. All the clothes arearranged in stacks somewhere in theclass. The children sit down and quick-ly think about who they were in theirlast life. Then, without telling who theywere, three of them go to the clothesand quickly try to assemble a costumeof who they were. It could be an Amer-ican cowboy, Egyptian princess, Greekphilosopher, Indian warrior, Hinduyogi, European noblewoman, Chinesesailor, Roman priestess, Arabian camelmerchant, German scientist—whateverthe children think of. The girls and be-come boys and the boys become girls.For a short time they act out the part oftheir last life. Then they quickly removetheir costumes and the next groupdresses up as their former incarnation.

Book 1, Lesson 25

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LESSON FOCUSThis is a famous and popular story amongSaivite Hindus in South India. This storydemonstrates the reality that Siva is ineveryone, and that an act done to one per-son does indeed impact everyone, all lifeforms—for Siva is fully present in all life.This tale also demonstrates the power ofspiritual faith—that by fully believing inthe divine realities and through prayer, Godand Gods can assist us in many ways.

KEY PRESENTATIONSIn this story, drawn from the life of SaintManickavasagar, Semmana Selvi is facing asudden crisis. Everybody is needed to helpbuild a dam to protect the village from theriver’s flooding. The entire village could bewashed away and many people and animalshurt. So everybody is needed, even the el-derly. Obviously Semmana Selvi is not theonly old person in the village. There aremany, and perhaps most are saying “I’mtoo old to help—what can I do?” But shereally wants to help. And knowing she istoo frail to be physically active, she prays.She prays with the power of one who isdesparate, who is really expecting some-thing to happen from the prayer. Her crisisdrives her to a state of super-belief, of spir-itual expectation. And her prayer is an-swered by a temporary physical embod-iement of God Siva. All people face suchcrises in their lives, including children.There are major and minor events in ourlives that place us in jeapordy, misery andunhappiness. In today’s TV world we seenews everyday of natural disasters, man-made disasters and war tragedies. Men,women and children are in peril. Duringthese times of trial, religious people turn todeep prayer as a way of comfort and aid.But there are many small events in our dai-ly lives that bring us to deep prayer to GodSiva. Prayer is a form of communication, oftalking. We are talking to God. SemmanaSelvi’s plight drives her to mentally ap-proach Siva for help. But she has a genuineneed for help. That is a key. If we are inneed, that is the time to pray deeply. If we,as adults or children, are simply desiringsomething—a new car or toy for in-stance—than such praying will not be an-swered. It is too selfish of a prayer for spir-itual aid from God, Gods and devas.

Prayer needs absolute belief and sinceri-ty. Semmana Selvi was totally sincere andfully believed in the love and power of Siva.

When children pray, they should firmly be-lieve in the power of their prayer, as long asit is good and unselfish. They should be-lieve that Siva will somehow help them.Help from the Gods’ world or devas’ worldcomes in many forms. And it always followsthis law: the help given to a prayer must bein accord with the karma of the personpraying. This is very important. The helpmust fit the child’s karma, and it mustsomehow relate to the spiritual growth of

the child. Prayer can be used forall kinds of genuine needs. Per-sonal prayers for help in our livesare expected by the Gods anddevas. They want to help. Whenwe pray we are asking. Because weare asking, we are giving permis-sion to the Gods and devas tohelp us in our karma.

In Semmana Selvi’s story, whenSiva is hit by the king’s cane,everybody feels the strike. This isa powerful and beautiful truth.God is in everyone, indeed iseveryone. God is fully all people,animals, insects and microbes.

Therefore the blow is instanta-neously felt by all. In this story, God

Siva uses a physical body to make a lessonfor Saivite Hindus. But let’s take this truthof God’s whole presence in all to the nextlevel. Since God Siva is in us if we hurt an-other person or animal, then everybodyfeels that hurt. Everybody feels the bad act.If we do good to someone else or animals,then everybody feels the good. Normally,we do not fully feel the pain when anotherperson is injured. But actually we do. Wecringe. We feel bad. We may actually feel

Book 1, Lesson 26 - 35VISUALINTERPRETATION

Notice that in each one of thesescenes there is a Siva temple inthe background.

Semmana Selvi is praying withall of her heart. She is lookingtoward the Siva temple. She isfully expecting that God Sivawill somehow help her.

Here Semmana Selvi is on theporch of her house, preparingrice pittu when Siva as the la-borer offers to help for somefood. Semmana Selvi is veryhappy to feed the laborer, butshe does not yet know He isSiva.

Semmana Selvi is an old lady. The river in her vil-lage is in flood. The king announces, “The river isflooding. All citizens must come to raise the banks.”The old lady prays to Lord Siva, “I have no help tobuild the dam.” Lord Siva comes as a laborer. La-borer says, “I will build the dam for you. I am veryhungry. You can pay me with food.” He digs theearth, he takes the basket on his head and dances.Often he eats. The dam is not finished. but the la-borer goes to sleep. The king comes. The king hitsthe laborer with his cane. The laborer disappears.Everyone feels the hit, because Siva is in everyone.

When the Creator dances, the worlds He created dance. When He in heart endearing dances,t heseveral elements, too, dance. —TIRUMANTIRAM

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pain or a little sick. In an invisible way, weall feel everyone else’s pain and joy. That isbecause we are all God Siva inside of our-selves.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. Prayer is talking to someone who canhelp us but we can’t see them. They are in-visible to us. We can’t hear them either. Butthey can hear us. Have the children imaginethey are sitting in a beautiful meadow withtall grass and yellow buttercup flowers.They are praying. As they pray, their wordsform into bright bubbles that float acrossthe ground and up into the sky. Theirprayers are a stream of silvery bubbles.These bubbles travel a long ways and arevery fast, faster than lightening. The bub-bles arrive to the prayer devas and Gods,the beings who can best help us. The bub-bles glow with light, then burst with theprayer words going into the mind of thedevas and Gods. They then help us withour prayer, as long as it is good for us. Butthey rarely send bubbles back to us. Theyanswer our prayers through helping withopportunities mostly.

2. God Siva being in everyone everywhereis a wonderful concept. Let’s imagine thatthere is a beam of white light that goesfrom God Siva to every person and everyliving being. God Siva is at the center of avast, unending net of light bridges to eachperson and being. If an act, painful orgood, happens to one being on the net oflight, it goes to Siva and from Him to all.This is a constant, unending process.

STORY READINGThe large Boeing 747 passenger jet liftedsteeply into a cloudy sky. The clouds sweptby like streams of milky water. The jet’s en-gines were quiet inside, but the climb wasso steep that 8-year old Selvi was grippingher chair arms. Her back was pressedagainst the seat. Her seatbelt was tight. Theplane was going so fast. Most of the pas-sengers were relaxed, talking or looking outthe window. Selvi’s uncle and aunt werenearby, reading magazines. They were trav-eling from Singapore to Madras. Selvi livedin Singapore. She was visiting relatives insouth India. This was her first air flight.The jet’s climb ended and the plane went

level, flying high over a soft sea of clouds,now painted by a pink/purple sun. Selvi letgo of the armrests and swept back her al-mond brown hair. “Well, this is fun,” shethought. “I’m safe. This plane is like the bigseagulls I’ve seen at the Singapore shipport.” Selvi was next to the window. It wasnearing sunset. Through the bed of pinkclouds, that reminded her of her bed inSingapore, she could see the ocean far be-low. It looked like dark green stone, flat andhard. The captain of the jet came on thecabin speakers and told everybody howhigh they were, how fast the jet was flying,when they would arrive in Madras. Selvilistened as she continued to watch thechanging colors on the bumpy clouds be-low. “So beautiful. Earth is so peaceful fromup here. I wish I was up in space, and couldlook at Earth with its white swirls of cloudsover the blue oceans and brown land,” shethought to herself. Far to the north she sawa pale brown spread of land that had a flashof white and yellow lights on it. “That mayhave been a city,” she thought. She alsoknew that very far to the north, far beyondwhat she could see, there was a large earth-quake that had hit in the country of Burma.Buddhists and Hindus lived together inBurma. There were many lovely templesamong the country’s jungles and rice fields.Now many people were suffering from theearthquake, including children Selvi’s ownage. She thought of them briefly and withcompassion. She opened a little, illustratedbook that her aunt had given her to read onthe flight. Selvi had been pleasantly sur-prised to see the main lady in the story hadher name. It was Semmana Selvi, and shewas an old lady in south India who hadprayed to God Siva for help during a floodof her village. Siva came as a laborer, helpedrepair the village dam, but was beaten witha cane by the king. When the cane struck,everybody felt the blow.“What a fine story,”thought Selvi as she finished the little book.“That explains why I felt such pain thismorning when I heard about all the chil-dren being hurt in Burma during the earth-quake. I am a part of God Siva and a part ofthem. Even though I don’t know them, Ifeel what they go through.” Selvi also took alittle vow to herself to be sure not to injureanyone, not even to call them a name ortease them meanly. Selvi knew that every-body in the whole world would feel thepain she caused. “Wow,” she thought. “I re-ally have to be careful. I don’t want to be

like that mean and thoughtless king in thestory.”

Selvi unfastened her seatbelt andsmoothed out her yellow punjabi outfit.She folded her legs into a yoga posture, andfound it was quite comfortable in the air-line seat. She had decided to use the timeto pray to God Siva. She closed here eyesand her breathing slowed. She put all of herenergy into her thoughts and began to prayto Siva to help the children in Burma. Sheasked God Siva to help all the Buddhist andHindu children who had been hurt andwere suffering. She knew that those whohad been killed would have another birth.And she prayed it would be a good birth forthem. Selvi believed in her prayer and knewit would somehow be answered.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring a roll of string to the class. Todemonstrate how one act can effecteveryone, tie the string to one finger ofall the childrens hands as they aregrouped in a circle or several lines.Every finger should be linked by theone string, and all the children handsshould remain in front of them so thestring does not get tangled up. They aretold they represent all the people of theworld. When everybody is connected,then they raise their hands out in frontof them. The teacher gives a gentle tugon the string, and as the movement ispassed down the string each person’sfinger and hand are moved until themotion reaches the last youth. Every-body’s hand moves as a result of a sin-gle act.

Book 1, Lesson 26 - 35

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LESSON FOCUSThe realization of our oneness with GodSiva through meditation is the final goal oflife. It is the final achievement of life. Afterthis knowing or realization, there is nomore purpose for a physical world birth.The reincarnation cycle ends.

KEY PRESENTATIONSThere are many ways to experience Siva. Wecan know Siva through learning aboutHim, as in these classes. We learn or knowthat God Siva is the Supreme Soul in theGod’s world who creates all beings, thingsand worlds. We learn or know that GodSiva exists as everything and everybody, forHis Mind is everywhere, is all. We learn orknow that we come close to God Sivathrough temple worship and chanting AumNamah Sivaya. We learn or know that GodSiva loves us far more deeply than our ownmother. These are all very importantknowledge that we learn through study. It isto know something in our mind ofthoughts and memory. So children in theseclasses know Siva intellectually. They un-derstand who Siva is.

There is another kind of experiencing orknowing. We can say we know someonewell. Children know their parents. Theysee, talk to, eat with, enjoy entertainmentand travel with their parents all the time.Children know how their parents think,their habits, what they like and do not like.Youngsters know the emotions of their par-ents very well. Children know their parentsas the parents are around them. But youngchildren or even older youth would notknow their parents as they are at work.That is a personality side of their parentsthey don’t see. This kind of knowing is apersonal knowing—you know the person-ality and emotions of someone very well.Children can know God Siva this way whenthey go to a Siva temple. They know Him inthe temple or at some great sacred site as aPersonal Being. They can feel His love andspiritual energy. They can feel that He, theSupreme Soul, is guiding and taking care ofthem. Children feel and sense the lovingpresence of God Siva, like He is the moth-er and father of their soul.

These are both very important kinds ofknowing. But there is a third state of know-ing that is much deeper and powerful. It isto experience our oneness with Sivathrough yoga meditation. This is a spiritu-al knowing where in our mind we experi-

ence our identity as one with Siva. Thisknowing is beyond our physical body andmind. It means we are so still, so peacefulthat we become one with Siva’s Light andthe indescribable Source of that light. It isthe spiritual experience of our own perfectsoul being that is identical with Siva’s per-fect being. To know in this sense is to real-ize. This means our body and mind andspiritual mind are totally in the experienceof oneness of God. In that meditation,there is only oneness. That is the discovery,the realization. This can only be achievedthrough yoga. It can not be done by schoollearning. It can not be done by temple wor-ship.

When we experience this deepest one-ness with Siva, then the true purpose of ourlives in many physical bodies is complete.Each of the children in your class have beenborn, lived on Earth and died many times.Many hundreds of times. This is reincarna-tion, the cycle of birth and death. The chil-dren have been both girls and boys in many

lands leading a great variety oflives. Each of those lives adds to

the individual soul’s experience,until the person becomes very spiritu-

al and has a series of lives dedicated to spir-itual pursuit, to finding God, as was dis-cussed in an earlier lesson. This is the truepurpose of life. It is the meaning of life. It iswhy we are born. Finally, each individualknows Siva through yoga, and there is nomore need for a physical body. The cycle ofreincarnation ends. This is called liberationor freedom from rebirth. Liberated soulscontinue their spiritual growth in thedevas’ world.

It should be explained that when we die,it is only the physical body that is dieing.Each person continues to live, learn andspiritual grow in their astral or deva worldbody as discussed in the lesson on the threeworlds. Then, when it is the best time andthe best family for the individual is avail-able to enter a physical body and makegood progress toward spiritual awakening,the next birth is entered.


This form of Ganesha is calledVijaya Ganapati. He is the giv-er of success. It is success thatwe want when we are trying toknow Siva. At first we want toknow Siva from our studies.Then we know Siva personallyin the temple. Vijaya Ganapatican help us be successful infeeling Siva’s energy in the tem-ple. Finally we want to be suc-cessful when we quiet our mindin meditation to feel ourselvesas Siva.

In this hand Ganesha holds thegolden mango. It is very sweetand delicious. The mango rep-resents the highest spiritualprogress for us. Here, Ganeshaholds it to remind us that ourhighest spiritual goal on Earthis to experience our onenesswith Siva. Then, we no longerhave to be born on Earth andlive in physical bodies.

Ganesha says, “There is just one way tonever be born again. You must person-ally experience God Siva.”

Even as water becomes one with water, fire with fire, and air with air, so the mind becomes onewith the Infinite Mind and thus attain final freedom.—SAMA VEDA

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ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. Knowing Siva as a complete experienceof oneness has many analogies. This com-plete experience of oneness means that theindividual meditating no longer feels sep-arate from God Siva, but experiences his orher true identity as God Siva. First startwith a simple analogy. This can also bedemonstrated. The children all imaginethey are big yellow sponges, the kind theirmother has at home for cleaning, or fatheruses for washing the car. At first thesponges are dry. They think of themselvesas dry and small. This is like the child aboutto meditate. But they are about to jumpinto a pool of clear, fresh water. The wateris God Siva. The sponges all jump into thewater. The water immediately completelysoaks through the sponges. They are filledwith God Siva. And each sponge grows verybig. Their mind expands. The sponge has apartial oneness with the water. We say par-tial because there is still a sponge and water,which is not complete oneness. But this isa good beginning analogy for children.

2. When we say we will never be bornagain, we are stating that the reincarnationcycle has ended. No more births in physi-cal bodies. No more need to be on thephysical planet Earth. This is like we nolonger need to be in school. We receivedour education. We did very well on all ofour tests. We graduate from school. Thatpart of our education is complete. Life onEarth is a school. We are in school for manylives. We are learning about our divine na-ture and our identity as a cosmic soul inoneness with Siva. When that oneness isknown through yoga, we graduate fromEarth school.

STORY READINGJai squinted his eyes into the afternoon sun.Out of the west, in the yellow haze of thesun were two bright silver flashes. Theymoved fast. They turned quickly and splitup. Each moved straight up into the bluesky, then flew along the bubbling clouds.They dropped down and flew right over Jai.Two metal ships, looking like aluminumsea shells. There was no sound as they flewby. Total silence. Jai could hear the birdsand wind in nearby trees. The beautifulcraft went by almost like they had wings.There was just a slight hum, like bees.“Space birds,” Jai whispered to himself with

delight. “Must be heading to the Bali SpacePort.” Jai lived in the future of Earth, in theyear 2124. His homeland was Bali, a Hin-du island near Java, in Indonesia. The pass-ing space birds caused his brown and bluerobes to move. And his sand-colored hairblew into his eyes. On the edge of his up-per robe was a large white crescent moon. Itwas the sign of Siva. Eight years old and cu-rious about everything, Jai knew that learn-ing more about Siva would help him be apilot of the space birds. That was his greatdream. Knowledge of space travel hadcome to scientists in the practice of Sivameditation. To fly a space bird, the pilothad to enter deep meditation. The pilotsbecame one with the space mind of Siva. Inschool Jai studied this. But he also studiedreincarnation as part of his Saivite Hindulearning. He thought of reincarnation of-ten. “Who was I in my past lives? Where didI live? What did I do? Was I good and kindand did I try to find Siva inside myself?” Heasked himself these questions. Sometimeshe fell asleep at night thinking about them.Jai turned on his feet, his long robes almosttouching the ground. He watched the spacebirds fade away like silver bees. He prac-ticed the space meditation at home. Justgive your mind to Siva as space. HoweverJai had been taught by a very old yogi, whowas one of the first space bird pilots, thatthe real goal in life was total oneness withGod Siva. He told Jai, “Earth is a school. Tograduate, you have to know Siva. Not justthe space meditation, but the completeidentity in the Supreme Siva. Then, nomore Earth lives.” Jai understood that in-stantly. He liked that. Jai knew he was muchmore than a physical boy who might be-come a space bird pilot. He vowed to strivefor Siva oneness in this life, and graduatefrom the Earth world.

CONNECTIONSThis lesson closely relates to the Ganeshasays lesson on being born again and again.The reincarnation process is key knowledgeto understanding our present life. It makesus realize that we are spiritual beings on aspiritual mission here on Earth. That mis-sion is to know Siva as our own self. Thislesson also closely connects to the Ganeshasays lesson on yogis can find God. Yoga isthe way, the method, that we know GodSiva. If we don’t practice yoga, and keeppracticing it more seriously as we grow old-er, then we will not know Siva in this life.

Every lifetime presents an opportunity tofind and know Siva. It is up to parents,teachers, elders and swamis to instruct chil-dren so they can make knowing Siva part oftheir lives. And they should clearly under-stand that life on Earth has a spiritual goal.

WRONG THINKINGSome Hindus think that since they are inthe reincarnation cycle, it does not mattermuch if they pursue the realization of Sivain this life or the next. This is not healthythinking. If you are actively pursuing aspiritual goal, you will try to lead a good lifethat creates good karma, that is selfless andhelpful to your fellow humans. You are as-sured of a more advanced birth in yournext life because of striving done now. Ifyou lead an ordinary life with no real spir-itual goal, there is no guide to your con-duct. Future lives may present no opportu-nity for real spiritual advancement. In thisway, many lives are not fully utilized.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring to class a rope, a light prismand two large pieces of thick, darkcloth. Darken the classroom and set upthe prism so that a beam of light isstriking it and creating the prism rain-bow effect. This is God Siva, creatingthe entire universe out of His whitelight. In front of this display, put oneof the cloths so it hides the prism dis-play. Set up the other cloth close by (orhave two children hold it) and pass therope under it so it is equally divided onboth sides. One child comes forwardand ties one end of the rope around hisor her waist and faces the cloth hidingthe prism. This side represents themind of the devotee. Another young-ster grabs the other end of the rope onthe other side of the cloth. This otherside represents an earth birth. Thechild facing the prism display standsstill, breathes deeply and waits to“know Siva” by seeing the prism light.At first the cloth in front of the displayis not lowered, the child does not knowSiva and the other child holding therope tugs him gently through the clothto a new physical birth. On the secondtry, the child says “I will know Siva inthis life” and the cloth to Siva is low-ered and the child sees the prism lightdisplay and knows Siva. The rope isdropped and he or she is free.

Book 1, Lesson 36

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LESSON FOCUSAmong the most important, if not the mostimportant, responsibilities of human soci-ety is the raising of children. Each motherand father are more than biological parentsof a newborn. They are guardians of a soulwho has reincarnated into the parent’s pat-tern of life and karma. During the child-hood years, the mother and father are themost significant teachers and guides for theyoungster. They are gurus in the sense ofcarefully giving knowledge and direction inall matters of life and spirit. The youngchild needs to know and understand thisrelationship, to respect and cultivate it.

KEY PRESENTATIONSOver the past decade many studies, oftenutilizing visual or sound imaging, havedemonstrated that even unborn babies arelearning in the womb. They are very sensi-tive to movement in their small, wateryworld, but also very sensitive to sound andvoices. Unborn babies know their mother’svoice long before they are born. In thewomb, babies are learning, for while thebody’s biological development is unfin-ished, their astral faculty of intelligence isfully functioning. Of course, this has beenknown by mothers for thousands of years.Many cultures, including Hinduism, placegreat emphasis on prenatal learning. Moth-ers sing, read and talk to the unborn infant.At this time important knowledge of theSaivite spiritual goals and values of life canbe given. So the guru relationship is estab-lished even before birth.

Newborn babies are superlearners. Theylearn at a rate that is many times greaterthan an adult. The mother continues tostrongly bond with the baby as the prima-ry comforter, protector and teacher. Themother’s responsibilities as the child’s firstguru are fully needed by the baby. Where-as the father’s responsibilites come later,when there are more language skills pre-sent. But the father, of course, does nurturea strong bond with the child, and does im-part knowledge through talking.

When the child can talk and walk, and has asense of ego identity, then the relationshipof the mother and father as teaching guruscan be understood by the child. Everydaythe young boy or girl is learning or beingguided, perhaps gently corrected. The childcan begin to see his or her parents as gu-

rus—the parents answer questions, offernew knowledge, shape the youngsters’s eth-ical sense. This introduces a new responsi-bility to the child, that of obedience, respectand honor. Even at an early age the SaiviteHindu child should look at the parents asgurus. What is a guru? Simply stated, it isanyone who teaches from experientialknowledge. The guru has personally beentaught and then experienced the knowl-edge. Young children need to understandthat their parents do have lots of experiencein life. The parents know much about lifethat they need to teach their children. Thechildren obey and respect their parents outof love, for mother and father are theirgrowing-up gurus. Obedience and respectshould be a natural part of a child’s atti-tudes. Children also need to express grati-tude—thankfulness to their parents.

In Saivite Hinduism, obedience means agenuine willingness to follow advice andinstructions. Children are obedient because

they know their parents as gurus are tryingto teach them and guide them into a goodsocial and spiritual life. Children shouldalso be encouraged to ask questions, to becurious, to want to know the whys andwherefores of what they are taught. Obvi-ously, the parents have a serious responsi-bility of being knowledgable enough them-selves to give good answers to their chil-dren. Or the parents must guide the childto another person, another spiritual guruwho has the answers.

The child’s respect to his or her parents isshown in Saivite Hinduism in many ways.One old and still valuable custom is the sonor daughter touching the feet of the parentson a daily basis, or during special timeswhen parents are honored. This demon-strates humility and affection and grati-tude. It puts the child in the mood for ac-


In this scene the children areprostrating to their parents inthe shrine room. It may be aspecial occasion. The childrenmay be seeking the blessing ofthe parents for some new eventin their life. The young girls isprostrating in the manner ofwomen, and the boy in themanner of men, with a fullbody prostration.

Father and mother are reach-ing down to their children topull them up and towardthem. This shows their humili-ty and love for their children.

The prostration is mainly anact of being open. The chil-dren are open, intelligentlywilling to follow their parentsadvice. The prostration setsaside the human identity to al-low the spiritual identity tocome forward.Mother and father are

the first guru.

Be one to whom the mother is a God. Be one to whom the father is a God. Be one to whom theteacher is a God. Be one to whom the guest is a God. —YAJUR VEDA

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cepting advice and instruction. It also re-minds the parents that the young person intheir family is a soul born into their care-taking, and that spiritual unfoldment is thehighest purpose in life. Children can bringflowers to their parents as a sign of love andrespect. Often this softens the heart of aparent who may be upset or angry andwould not in such a state give good adviceor good correction. Children do not arguewith their parents. But they should ask in-telligent questions. Children should showhonor and respect to their parents by vol-unteering to do chores and be helpful.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. One of the best analogies of the guru isthe mountain guide. The mountain guideknows the mountains very well, so well thathe can safely guide someone in life anddeath situations. He knows all the paths, allthe bridges, all the secret routes, all the hid-den dangers. He can take someone who hasnever been into that mountain region andsuccessfully and safely guide them. He is athome in the mountains. He knows how tolive there under all conditions. The guru islike the mountain guide—knowledgeableand experienced in the area of his or herexpertise.

STORY READINGOver a thousand years ago a huge woodensailing ship was on the seas. It had tallmasts and great white sails as big as clouds.Stitched across the main sail with thick redand gold thread was a very large SivaNataraja figure, the dancing Siva, Lord ofthe universe. When the wind shifted orgusted the sail, the Siva Nataraja woulddance on the wind. Kavita and her brotherGurunatha enjoyed standing under the sail,feeling the sea-smelling wind across theirface and watching with fascination the Sivamove across the white cloth. One earlymorning the captain had put a safety ropearound them and let them climb up themain mast. Kavita and Gurunatha weretwins. They were exactly the same age, bornin June, and now almost nine years old. Upin the ropes of the mast their chocolatebrown hair blew around large grey eyes.They were a striking pair. Everybody no-ticed them and liked them. Together, like apair of doves, they looked out at the darkgreen sea and purple blue sky. There was

not much light. But they could see a light-ening storm in the distance. Giant ham-mers of clouds gathering on the horizon.Pinkish streaks of lightening shot into thesea. The ship raced across the choppy seasheading east from India to an island faraway and very strange. Kavita and Gu-runatha came down the mast like junglemonkeys and started to run for their par-ents’ room on the ship. “Hey children,” thecaptain yelled. “Don’t run on the deck.”

“Yes, captain,” said Kavita as the twinsstopped their run. “But we just saw a light-ening storm on the horizon. We are goingto tell our parents.” They ducked down ahatchway to the dark rooms below. Thetwins were traveling with their parents.Their father was an important official inthe king’s court. The family would make anew home in a Saivite Hindu city now be-ing built on a very large island called Java.Father had told the twins a few days ago,“We will be strangers in this new land, andyou will have to learn well from me newcustoms and ways. Remember the laws ofkarma I taught you. You both will havefresh karmas, new lessons. Everybody youmeet will have some karma for you thatyou created in a past life. Karma is yourgreatest teacher. Always tell me everythingthat happens to you. Then I can help youunderstand it.”

“Wait Gurunatha,” said Kavita as theywalked against the ship’s rocking motion.“Let’s bring some sweet coriander milk tomother. We can visit the cows and ship’scook.”

“Good idea. That would be a nice earlymorning gift,” agreed Gurunatha. “But let’sgreet father and mother first. We got upvery early this morning.” The passengerarea on the ship was cramped and smelledof old wood and sea water. But the familyhad created a nice area made comfortablewith cotton pillows and brightened withdyed cloth and oil lamps made from brasscages. The twins ran into father as theymade their way around some ropes andbarrels. They both immediately touched hisfeet, and said perfectly together, “Goodmorning, father.” Normally they wouldwait for father to greet them back. But to-day with the excitement of the lighteningstorm, they both quickly said, again in cho-rus “Father, there’s a lightening storm.Come and see.” Father, holding a barrel tosteady himself against the roll of the ship,said, “Really? We must see this. Perhapsthere is land nearby. Go and tell mother.”

And the twins, quick as deer, jumped off tosee mother, touch her feet, and tell herabout the beautiful pink lightening. Thefamily went together up on deck. While theship leapt into the sea waves they watched agreat lightening show of Siva’s power. Fa-ther quietly said, “Inside that lightening,deep inside its heat and force, is the light ofSiva’s Mind. It is like golden lightening thatfills the whole universe, and never ends.Think about that.” The twins looked at eachother, their eyes big and thoughtful. Thenthey happily went off to get some sweet co-riander milk for their mother.

CONNECTIONSIt cannot be overemphasized to the chil-dren the importance of the guru, or thattheir parents are their first gurus. If chil-dren look to their parents as gurus, then theparents will be obligated to continue theirspiritual education and advancement sothey can be the best possible guides to theirchildren. The law of karma operates here. Ifparents are good gurus to their children, inthe parents’ next life, they will have parentswho are good gurus. Have the childrenconsider that it was a great guru who pro-duced this children’s course for them tostudy.

CITIZENSHIPFamily education and guidance is vital inany society. The function of the parents aseducators and guides in life is fundamen-tal to a stable, morally healthy country.Viewing the parents as gurus, as teachers, aspart of our culture certainly is the mostprofound way to develop the family educa-tion process. In this approach the parentsare responsible to raise spiritual citizenswho value ethics and the principles of com-passion, tolerance and respect for all.

Book 1, Lesson 37A C T I V I T I E S

1. All the children make a circle. Goingaround the circle each child tells ofwhat recent knowledge or advice theirparents gave them. Then going aroundthe circle again, each child states out-loud a good deed they plan to do fortheir parents over the coming week.

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LESSON FOCUSBesides God Siva and the Gods Muruganand Ganesha, the only other person weworship is the satguru. Again, as in worshipto God and the Gods, we find our deepestdivine love given to the satguru. When weare in our final series of lives, and the spir-itual path is very important to us, the sat-guru becomes the most important personin our life. The satguru is the enlightenedguru. He knows his inner identity in andwith God Siva. The satguru is the only per-son who can guide us to our own realiza-tion of Siva. The satguru’s feet are symbolsof our following his footsteps.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWe taught the children in a previous lessonthat the father and mother are the first gu-rus of the son or daughter. There are in theSaivite Hindu tradition many types of gu-rus. There are family gurus—the priestswho do special ceremonies for the familyand often offer advice. There are music gu-rus and dance gurus. In old times, all teach-ers would be looked at as gurus. A guru isone who is very knowledgeable and expe-rienced in his or her field. There are sever-al types of spiritual gurus. Some gurusteach Sanskrit and perform rituals. Somegurus teach philosophy. Some gurus sing,tell stories and teach ethics. Some gurusteach yoga and meditation. Some spiritualgurus advise families on how to live andhelp make choices in their lives. Some spir-itual gurus may do a combination of these.But these gurus may not have personallyexperienced their oneness with Siva. That iswhat a satguru is—one who personallyknows his identity in God Siva. And the sat-guru continues to know that identitythrough personal meditation of identitywith Siva. The satguru is the yoga master.The word sat means knowing the truth ofGod’s Being. So sat is a very special prefix.This means this guru is a knower of God,and he can guide worthy disciples to thatsame enlightenment.

A satguru is truly a very rare person. Heis much more rare than a king or a presi-dent or prime minister of a country. Be-cause the satguru is constantly filled withthe light, peace and power of Siva he is avery, very important person. In fact, toSaivite Hindus, the most important personon Earth is the satguru. The satguru is likea living window to the indescribable bliss,love and knowing of Siva. Wherever thesatguru is, wherever he lives or is traveling,

he always shines forth with Sivaness. This iswhy many Saivite Hindus come to worshipa satguru when he visits. They come to re-ceive the blessings of his Siva light. To manySaivite Hindus, even to see a satguru from adistance is a very great blessing. It bringsthem into a purer spiritual mind. The sightof the satguru helps to ease their karmas. Itgives them hope, faith and security. Seeingthe satguru reminds people of the real rea-son they have a human life. They can lookforward to their own enlightenment. Forthese Saivites, the satguru is a distant bea-con of light, like a lighthouse. They do notrelate personally to the satguru.

Many Saivite Hindus honor a chosen sat-guru by keeping his picture in their homeor in the shrine room. These Saiviteschoose a satguru that they feel drawn toand love. They daily honor his picture andseek his blessings through this simple wor-ship. As a spiritual law, all Saivite Hindushonor all satgurus.However, when the person is very advancedin the reincarnation cycle, and spirituality

is the main drive in life, then thatindividual finds and becomes a

personal disciple of a living sat-guru. The satguru has to personal-

ly accept the disciple. This means thesatguru gets to know the person. He beginsto give personal direction in his or her life,and begins to work with the individual’skarma pattern. Becoming a disciple, orshishya (in Sanskrit), often involves a spe-cial ceremony. At this stage, the sishya is inthe most advanced relationship with thesatguru. He or she is being personallytaught and guided by the satguru, and apsychic bond of light and subtle knowledgegrows between them. The satguru directlyhelps with the karma. This is when dailyworship of the satguru’s feet is most im-portant and significant. The holy feet of thesatguru, often symbolized by a pair ofwooden or metal sandals, are a special partof the shisya’s home shrine. Every day, theshisya (and this could be an entire family)prostrate to the satguru’s feet and do a sim-ple puja. They try to feel the presence of thesatguru, the special feeling of his enlighten-ment. They try to think as the satguruwould think. They remember to put histeachings into practice each day. They per-sonally seek his blessings and guidance for


Here are a pair of bronze san-dals that represent the feet ofthe satguru. These sandals arein the old style, with roundpegs that come up for the toesto fit around. These sandals arein a shrine room, surroundedby fresh flowers that arechanged every day. The sandalstell us that we follow the guru’ssteps very closely. They also tellus that the power of the satgu-ru’s Siva knowing goes all theway to his feet. The satguru iscompletely filled with Siva.This is the Dhundhi Ganapatiform of Lord Ganesha. It is theimage meaning “sought after,”and of course this reminds thechildren that it is God Siva thatwe are seeking after.Here is a small pot of preciousgems in the left hand of Gane-sha. This symbolizes the spiri-tual awakenings of our future.

Daily we worship theSatguru’s holy feet.Ganesha says, “Our guru helps usknow God Siva.”

One should worship his guru by daily performing full prostrations to him. By worship, one at-tains staediness and ultimately realizes one’s own true nature.—GURU GITA

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all important matters. Finally, and mostimportantly, the shisya seriously practicethe spiritual disciplines of puja, mantra andyoga so they attain Siva knowledge in thislife.

The satguru’s holy feet are importantsymbols for the children to understand.The holy feet mean that we follow veryclosely the footsteps of the satguru. He hasattained Siva consciousness. He hasclimbed the spiritual mountain. He knowsthe trails to the top. He knows the dangerson the path. So we follow very carefullywhere and how he guides us. The holy feetalso tell us that we need to be humble, ego-less, as we pursue spiritual enlightenmentunder the satguru’s direction. Our thinkingof “I” and “mine” and “me” are left outsidethe gate of the satguru’s wisdom. So wehumbly touch the satguru’s feet and pros-trate before him or his sandal symbols inthe shrine. This creates a feeling of surren-der and openness to the spiritual forceswithin him and us.

Often, our worship of the satguru ex-tends to those satgurus who are no longeralive. This includes the line of gurus thesatguru comes from. Sometimes, a SaiviteHindu will choose a satguru who is notalive as their chosen satguru. They followhis teachings and invoke his devas’ worldpresence through guru pujas.

STORY READINGThe blue smoke lifted into the gray sky andseemed to stop, like a tree made of smoke.There was no wind. Not even a tiny breeze.Everything was still. A few birds tweetereda birdsong from the deodar trees. The firethat 9-year old Jai had built was made ofyoung wood. It made a lot of blue smokeand there were tears in his light brown eyesas the smoke drifted into his face. Hecoughed, pulled his thick, black cotton coatover his red hair and turned to his sister,Shanti, “Next time I’m searching harderand getting old, dry wood.”

“That’s alright brother.” Shanti said. Shewas ten, with hair like shiney brass and athin face that almost looked like a cat. Hereyes were ice blue. She could have been aprincess. “You didn’t have much time. Thatrain storm came over the forest faster thana running tiger. Everything got wet. I’mglad you got this fire going.” She took offher gloves and put her hands up to thecrackling fire that was built in a circle ofround stones. She had found the stones. Jaifound the wood. Night was falling quickly.

She was wet, and wanted to dry out. Theirtraveling companion, Skanda—a big, kindman and a trusted friend of the family—was now fetching water for making dhaland chapatis.

It was spring in the country of the Ma-hadeva River. The river was sacred to Siva,and the river was so clear it was a window.Green moss stones and black rocks withgold and red streaks lined the bottom.Brown and rainbow-colored fish swam inpools the color of turquoise. There werewater falls like liquid silver. A few temples,made of great deodar beams, and roofedwith gold tiles, were built on great flatstones in the middle of the mountain riv-er. Bridges of wood and rope strung acrossthe silvery waters like spider threads to thetemples.

The winter grip of snow was gone. Yel-low, purple, pink, red, blue and white flow-ers, looking like fairy faces, danced in thegrasses of the meadows. But it was stillcold. And sudden storms brought sheets ofrain and hail—little white balls of frozenrain. Jai rubbed at his face where a ball ofhail had hit him. As he rubbed, he smearedsome charcoal from the fire across hischeek. Laughing, Shanti, said, “You lookfunny, Jai. You could be a raccoon. Let medo the other side for you.”

“Hah, hah,” said Jai, but he was smilingas the fire cast a comforting warmth onhim. It was good to be on this journey upthe Mahadeva River. “Well, it shouldn’t belong before we find him. We are far up theriver now. ” Jai said. “Yes,” said Shanti. “Weare close. It feels like there is lightening inthe air. It could be the storm. But this feelsmore magical.” Jai and Shanti were tryingto find a man who lived where the Ma-hadeva River began as a lake. The man wasa legend, a living Siva satguru. He was tall,wore long orange robes and his hair was thecolor of morning frost: white silver. MostSaivites of this country saw him from afar.He carried a pine staff as tall as he, walkedas sure as a mountain goat and always hadseveral men in yellow robes behind him.When the country Saivites saw the satgu-ru, they would often prostrate on theground even though the guru was a mileaway. They knew the satguru had the un-limited brightness of Siva inside him. Theyhoped some of that brightness would shineinto their lives. Jai and Shanti wanted tomeet the satguru face to face. He walkedinto their dreams. They both knew the agedguru was their spiritual guide for this life.

Skanda had finished toasting the chap-atis and cooking the yellow dhal as nightfell into purple darkness. Shanti had madesome tea. The food was hot and steaming,and smelling of good spices. Jai and Shan-ti were very hungry. All three of themprayed in Sanskrit to God Siva to bless thefood. The plates of food were in their laps.

Then, an owl hooted. There was the flut-tering of bird wings. Twigs crackled not toofar away from their camp. There were foot-steps. They were regular, like men walking.Jai and Shanti peered into the wall of treescovered in night black. Then, they heard adeep, wonderful voice that sounded oldand new at the same time, “Aummmmm.Namah Sivaya, young children.” Jai andShanti were startled, and almost droppedtheir food on the ground as they jumpedup. Out of the trees, and into the gentle redlight of the fire, stepped the satguru. Hiseyes were like two full moons, full of pow-er and kindness. Jai and Shanti immediate-ly prostrated on the ground, covered withstones and pine needles. But they didn’teven feel them. All they felt was the Sivalove and light coming from the tall satgu-ru in orange robes. “Now children, get up.You will get all dirty there,” said the satgu-ru. Jai and Shanti stood. Then Jai spoke,”Great guru, we want to be your sishya,”

“Oh, yes I know.” said the guru. “But firstlet’s have some nice dinner. Then we willtalk of the path to Siva bliss.” And so thechildren served the guru, and he began tolearn more about Jai and Shanti.Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring numerous blindfolds to theclass. Have several of the children tieon the blindfolds so they can not see.Then one other youth acts as theirguide, telling them where to step asthey walk around the classroom andoutside. The blindfolded youngster istotally dependent on the guide, who inturn is totally responsible for the wel-fare of the blind person. This repre-sents the guru guiding the student to-ward knowing Siva. The person who isbeing guided is obviously very gratefulfor the help, and offers deep gratitudeto the guide. This represents the dailyworship of the Satguru.


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LESSON FOCUSThere are very important times in our lifewhen we really need the guidance andblessings of God, the Gods and devas.These times usually mark a major changein our life, such as starting our education ormarriage. We experience these times asyoung children through old age. The sam-skara ceremony is a specific ritual to invokethe presence of the divinities during theseimportant periods of change. One of themost important samskaras for childhood isthe beginning of the child’s education. Thisis marked for divine guidance by the writ-ing-of-the-first-letter samskara ceremony,which is usually done in the temple.

KEY PRESENTATIONSAll people, especially young children, like tohave good luck and good fortune in theirlives. There are many times in children’slives when they wish (which is a mentalprayer) for something to happen. Or theywish for an event to turn out well for themand their family or friends. At a young ageand as we grow older there are many im-portant changes in life, and having goodfortune and wisdom at the exact time ofthose changes is indeed an important partof Saivite Hindu living. We call the cere-mony that brings us good luck and wis-dom, the samskara. There are many sam-skaras given throughout child and adultlife. The last samskara is the one for whenwe die. This samskara is held after we haveleft the physical body, and are on our wayto the devas’ world in our astral body.

Samskaras are always ceremony rites.They are religious rituals. There is always acertain way of doing each samskara. For in-stance, the groom and bride always takeseven steps around the fire during the wed-ding samskara. But samskaras do not alwaystake place in the temple. Many take placeat home, or at public halls. But most sam-skaras need a priest to perform the rite. Thesamskaras’ purpose is to bring the Godsand devas directly into the life of the devo-tee at the time of the major change. Bless-ings are given—which means the Godssend pure colors of light that helps the per-son be smarter, more caring and more spir-itual. The Gods and devas look at the kar-ma map of the person and see what is bestfor them during the change. New opportu-nities may come, and this is good fortune.

Many changes for children involve phys-ical abilities or growth: such as having teethgrow in or learning to walk. Or the child

learns to make its first sentence, a very re-markable accomplishment in itself.

But there are changes that are super-im-portant. They are so important that theGods and devas themselves want to be in-volved and to aid the young devotee. Thefirst of these events is the name-givingsamskara, called the namakarana samskara.In Saivite Hinduism, this is when the babygirl or boy receives their religious name. Aname is chosen by the parents for the sonor daughter, and that name is ceremonial-ly given to the child with a priest conduct-ing the rite. This samskara is usually donein the temple. This samskara is one of themost important rites, because it is consid-ered the child’s formal entrance into SaiviteHinduism. The child is introduced to theGods and devas, and the boy or girl becomepart of the great overview of the Gods help-ing us with our spiritual growth and kar-

ma. During this rite, the Godsand devas are very aware of theindividual girl or boy. Many bless-ings are sent for the most success-ful spiritual life. It is during thissamskara that a guardian deva isassigned to the boy or girl. This

deva is a personal guardian orfriend for the child, and helps guide

and protect the person throughout theirentire life. This receiving of a guardian devais one of the most important parts of thename-giving ceremony, and indeed one ofthe most significant events in the person’slife. If a child did not have a name-givingsamskara held in a temple, then therewould be no guardian deva for them. Alsothey would not have formally entered thereligion. There is a common misconceptionthat you are born a Hindu by simply beingborn into a Hindu family. Actually, to be aHindu means you have joined the religionthrough the name-giving samskara. This iswhy and how people who have not beenborn into a Hindu family can formally be-come Hindus. Even people who have beenin other religions can formally enter intoHinduism through the name-giving sam-skara. The name-giving ceremony can oc-cur at any time in life. It does not have to


This is the Yoga Ganapati imageof Lord Ganesha. He is doingmantra chanting and is sittingin a meditation posture. Thisshows the power the Gods havein helping us at very importantchanges in our life, when wehave samskaras. Because oftheir great powers of mind, theGods can help many millions ofpeople at the same time.

Here, Ganesha is holding a sug-ar cane stalk. He loves to seechildren happy with sweetthings in their lives. The sam-skaras bring children a sweet-ness and success in life thatwould otherwise not be there.

Here the Tamil character for “a”is written in a tray of rice. Thefirst character of any alpha-bet—Hindi, English, etc.—iswritten into the rice.Ganesha says, “A samskara is a

ceremony done to bless us atvery special times.”

We write our first letterin the temple.

Life universal shall guard and surround you. May Pushan protect and precede you on the way. May Sav-itri, the god, to that place lead you where go and dwell the doers of good deeds—RIG VEDA

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take place only in childhood.There are a number of other childhood

samskaras, but the most important one—after the name-giving—is the writing-of-the-first-letter samskara. This marks theformal beginning of the child’s education,one of the most important changes andtimes of our life. Writing the first letter—which is the letter A in the child’s spokenlanguage—signifies the entry into theworld of education. Usually the letter iswritten into a tray of rice, and it is writtenquite large. During this samskara, which isheld in the temple in most cases, the Godsand devas are able to give the child a greatpsychic push into success in school studies,in social education and spiritual learning.This is a samskara that will be felt all theway through the university years. This sam-skara opens the doors for the most success-ful and beneficial education for the indi-vidual. However, it is up to the child andthe parents to make sure they go throughthe right doors. That is, that they make theright decisions—in tune with the Gods anddevas thinking—regarding education op-portunities. This means that the educationplan has the greater spiritual progress ofthe child (and later teenager) at heart. Thissamskara holds many keys to this process.The parents and child must be open to di-vine guidance.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. A normal calendar marks out the daysof the months of the year, with holidaysnoted. But let’s say we have a samskara cal-endar. This calendar marks all the impor-tant changes for our whole life. It marks themonth, day and year these changes takeplace. It actually starts from before we areborn, for there are samskaras for thewomen pregnant with a child. And it endsat our death. At each of these major eventsof change, it is a personal holy day. That is aholy day just for each of us. It is a day onwhich the forces of the holy Gods anddevas are sent directly to us personally.

STORY READINGPremila looked out the window of herhouse. Tall coconut trees moved in thewind. Their branches swayed like large fansacross a pink halo around the rising sun.Premila was a talented 9-year old girl withhair like waves of midnight and soft black

eyes set wide in her face over a pretty nose.She had the eyes of an artist. She madehand fans from fine strips of palm frawnsand from finely split bamboo. They weresold to shops in the city. One of her fanswas so beautiful, with delicate brown, greenand gold threads sewn into a banyan treepicture, that it was given to the Siva templein her town in Sri Lanka. Premila gave it tothe temple on the day one of her friendshad her ear-piercing samskara ceremony.

It was the dancing palms in the dawnlight that gave her the idea of making fans.She always watched the palms through thewindow, chanting Aum softly to herself tostart the day well. In front of her jackfruitwood and thatch roof home was a gardenof flowers and a walkway through a row ofpalms to the beach. The surf was small inthe lagoon she lived on. But storms at seaoften washed in wood from India, whichwas just over the sea waters. Often she wentto the beach to look for old creamy-whitewood that had animal shapes. These shewould take home She would polish themand keep them in her room. Her youngersister, Tara, shared the same room.

Today Premila watched the palms as thepink halo melted into a sky touched withsoft blue. She had her favorite deep reddress on, and her hair fell in a long braiddown her back. Bunches of small whiteflowers hung in her hair. Her 5-year-old sis-ter Tara walked in the room and looked outthe window.“It’s very pretty today,” she saidin her young girl’s voice.

“Yes, and you’re late as usual. We need toleave soon. Are you ready to write your firstletter?” asked Premila, as she straightenedout part of her sister’s dark green dress.Tara had yellow and red flowers in herbraided hair. This morning the whole fam-ily and many uncles, aunts and cousinswere going to the Siva temple for Tara’ssamskara of writing her first letter in rice.

“I’ve been practicing all week,” said Taraconfidently. “Now, it is just perfect. Every-body will see that it is a perfect letter. AndI hope that Lord Ganesha in the Gods’world sees it. I really want Him to help mewith my studies.”

Premila said, “He will. Lord Ganeshaloves to help us with the growth of ourmind and heart. But He doesn’t do thestudy for you. You have to work to be assmart as possible. I do very well in school.And my fans are becoming very popular.And now I am learning to play the vina. “She turned to Tara, who was sitting and still

watching the palms in the orange-bluelight. “I remember my first letter-writing. Itfelt like Lord Ganesha was watching overme, like mother does when we go to sleep.And it felt like there were a lot of invisiblepeople—devas—at the temple. Like I knewthem. I think you will also experience this,”said Premila, and she smiled.

Tara smiled back. “That’s my prayer. ButI want to help the animals as I grow up. Notto just learn about them in school. But helpthem so they are not harmed,” she said.“Mother said there is a lot we can do for theanimals. They are Siva souls like us, right,”she said brightly.“Yes, Tara. They are. And it is wonderfulyou want to help others. Well, we need togo. Time to join everybody. “ And the twosisters left the seat before the window andpalms, and walked out the door. A greatgathering of family was waiting.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring paper and crayons or markers,scissors and scotch tape. Instruct thechildren to draw and color in anywaythey want the first letter of the alphabetthey currently write in. It could be Eng-lish, Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati, etc. Theletter should be very big, a giant singleletter all colored in. When the childrenare finished, they cut out their letter.Then all the letters are set out side byside and scotch taped together so theyform a long line. This is then displayed.A more fun alternative is to divide theclass up so that each group of childrenis producing the letters that spell outSiva in the language they write in. Eachof these Siva’s is then taped togetherand displayed.

2. We are re-creating the ear-piercingsamskara. Choose one, two or more ofthe girls who already have pierced ears(and a boy if one does). They shouldtake out their earings before it begins.the boys will be the priests, one to ringthe bell, the rest to chang “Aum NamahSivaya” in unison. One student writeson the blackboard,“This will bring youhealth and wealth.” The rest of the stu-dents repeat this phrase softly as theearring is put in by the teacher. Thiscan be done for each child. taking fiveminutes or so apiece for the chantingand bell-ringing. It should be empha-sized that no actual ear-piercing isdone. It is a play using children with al-ready pierced ears.


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LESSON FOCUSKarma, like reincarnation, is a fundamentallaw of Saivite Hinduism. It is one of thegreat invisible forces of our world, and thedevas’ world and Gods’ world. Karma statesthat whatever action we do, good or bad,returns to us in the same or a similar way asour original action. This is very importantknowledge. It means that everything thathappens to us is of our own doing. We didsomething in a past life. Now it is return-ing to us for us to live through. What we doto others, or to ourselves, comes back to us.We live through it, and hopefully, learnfrom the karma. This is key knowledge.Karma is our teacher. It makes us carefuland responsible for our actions.

KEY PRESENTATIONSKarma is one of the most widely known ofAsian spiritual laws. Many millions of peo-ple in the West believe in the law of karma.And they guide their lives by it. However,it is not necessary that someone believe inkarma. It still exists as a law. Just as we don’thave to believe that we need air to breathe.But if we run out of air, our life ceases. Sowhether one believes in karma, or not, itstill operates. Thus, our entire world is ex-periencing all the time the law of karma. Ifyou were to show a map to the children(which is a good idea) or to show them apicture history book (another good idea),all people in all the places on the map, andall the events of history are constantlyshaped by karma. This is a very big andcrucial idea for children to grasp. If thisclass is successful, it means the children arebeginning to examine their young lives inthe light of karma.

Of course, guiding our lives by spiritualtruths is why we learn spiritual knowledge.You learn something as true, then guideyour life on a daily basis by it. We learnabout karma, then we live by its law. Therecould really be nothing so simple or pro-found as this. Even young children need tofollow this basic approach to spiritual liv-ing. Karma is the most important knowl-edge for a young person to understand andlive by. Karma is not a complicated idea. Itis really very simple. Let’s say we do some-thing good. We give a coin to a poor per-son. That is an action. We are giving. We arebeing kind. We are being selfless. It is agood action. In the future, in a future life,that action of giving the coin will comeback to us. Someone will give us somethingof value when we really need it. Suppose we

help an elderly person across the street, orgive them a seat on the bus. That is a good,kind act. In a future life that act of helpful-ness or sacrifice will come back to us.Someone will help us when we are aged.Let’s say we get some money for our birth-day. Normally, we might spend it all onourselves, buying things or doing things welike. But on this birthday—our 8th birth-day—we decide to give half of our moneyto an orphanage. We are giving half of ourbirthday money to children who have noparents and an unknown future. That is avery great act of generosity. This is a verygood karma. The law of karma records thatact, like a video camera in our personalmind. It is like a video is being taken of theaction, and is stored away deep in ourmind. Later, in a future life, that act of greatgenerosity will be played back to us, likeplaying a video on a VCR tapedeck. A greatact of generosity would come to us from

some person. We may not evenknow them. Because we weregenerous in our childhood, thekarma may came back to us in alater life when we are an adult. Itdoes not necessarily mean it re-

turns to us when we are a child.This may mean that, as an adult, we

receive a sum of money to help us in diffi-cult times.

Karma also applies to how we think. Weare thinking that we want someone who issick to get well. That is good karma, and asimilar well-wishing will come to us in a fu-ture life. We are thinking that we want to bea vegetarian because that protects the ani-mals and environment. That is good kar-ma. A similar thought of compassionateconcern will return to us. It may be strongenough to dramatically change our futurelife into deep spirituality and success.

Karma also applies to our emotions.What we feel is recorded on the karmavideo tape, and is played back in a futurelife. If we give love to a person no matterwhat they do, even someone we don’tknow, that good karma of love and affec-tion will come back to us. We will be lovedin a future life, despite our faults.

But what happens if our actions, our kar-


This is the Ekadanta Ganapatiform of Ganesha. It means “sin-gle tusk.” Notice that the worddanta meaning tooth or tusk isvery similar to the English worddental, meaning of the teeth.There are many Sanskrit wordssimilar to European languagewords.In this left hand is an axe usedfor cutting through our igno-race. To do good karma we haveto be smart, and to understaandthe spiritual laws.

This is the Haridra Ganapati,the “golden one.” When we seegolden light around us, itmakes it very difficult to do badkarma, because gold is a spiri-tual color.In this left hand is the noosethat Ganesha uses to hold usclose to Him, so we do not dobad things.Ganesha says, “Do good and good

comes back to you. This is karma.”

Ganesha says, “Do bad and badcomes back to you. This is alsokarma.”

All suffering recoils on the wrongdoer himself. Therefore, those who desire not to suffer refrain from causing others pain.—TIRUKURAL

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ma is bad? What if we act bad, think badand feel bad. Let’s say that instead of beinggenerous with our birthday money, we finda wallet and keep it without searching forthe owner. The karma video camcorder ison in our minds. This bad action is record-ed. In a future life, we will lose somethingthat is very important, and it will not befound. Someone else will profit by it. This iskarma of a negative nature. Let’s say thatinstead of wishing someone health, we sayto ourselves, “I wish that person would getsick,” about someone we don’t like or areupset with. That is a mental bad karma. Ina future life, people will send their thoughtsof “get sick” to us, and we could get sick as aresult. If we get angry at a person, or if weare jealous of our sister or brother, these arebad feelings. They will return as anger orjealousy toward us in a future life.

We can see that karma is with us everysecond of our lives. It is an inescapable law.Everything that happens to any person canbe traced to their karma. This means we areeach responsible for what happens to us.There is no one else to blame. We are themaker of all of our own karma. So, goodbrings good. Bad brings bad. What does thelaw of karma accomplish? It spirituallyteaches us. Karma is our greatest teacher.We learn to be spiritually good. We learn tosense when actions and thinking are goodfor us. We learn to judge our future by howwe behave now. Of course, we learn hardlessons from our bad karma. Basically, welearn not to act, think or feel bad. Oursense of right and wrong becomes clear. Wecan sense when an action will be bad. Welearn to control our feelings and thoughts.All of this develops us spiritually.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. The bouncing ball or push ball on astring, as used in this lesson’s activity, is avery good analogy of how karma works.

STORY READINGAnanta opened the back door to his fami-ly’s new forest green car. He was excited andmoving so fast his brown curly hair flewaround wildly. At nine-years-old, Anantalooked like a midget soccer player, thin andnot too tall. But he never played sports. Hewas an idea kid. Ideas noisily rumbledthrough his head like a never-ending herdof elephants. On his nose sat a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, the round kind that an old,

scholar who looked like a white owl wouldwear. Ananta liked the idea of a scholar, aperson dedicated to tracking down old andvaluable knowledge. Sometimes at nightAnanta fell asleep with his gold, round-rimmed glasses falling off his nose.Tonight, after going with his parents to seea movie as part of his birthday celebration,Ananta was buzzing like a loud cricket. Hejumped in the car and slid onto the softseat, and shut the door with a loud thud.“Okay, dad, let’s go,” he said. “I’ve some-thing really important to do at home,” as helocked the door and buckled the seat beltacross his favorite grey-blue kurta shirt. Hesat back to take off into the night time traf-fic of San Francisco, California.

“Sure, Ananta. But, first let your sister inthe car. You shut the door before she gotin,” said his dad, chuckling. “What’s thehurry?” They were parked so only one backdoor could be opened. His sister was stand-ing at the window, a street lamp lighting upthe frown on her face.

“Oh gosh,” said Ananta, as he opened thedoor to let his 8-year old sister, Amala, in.“Iforgot all about you. Sorry about that.”

Amala hopped up onto the seat andstared at him with her butter brown eyesand her red pottu dot, which she alreadyknew was her eye of spiritual sight.“Hmm…Ananta. You were just going toleave without me. I’d say that was a badkarma. Leave your sister alone in the bigcity.” Amala was learning about karma, andso she looked at everything as whether itwas good or bad karma. “But, that’s alright.You’ll learn. Your own karma will teachyou. What is the hurry, anyway?”

“Well, for one thing I forgot to feed YogiTurtle. I was watching the movie, munch-ing on my popcorn and I remembered Ihadn’t fed Yogi Turtle. Poor guy.” Yogi Tur-tle was Ananta’s pet turtle that he kept in alarge rock-and-grass tank in his room. Hecalled him Yogi because the turtle liked towithdraw his head and legs into his shell,like a yogi withdrawing into Siva’s mind.

“See,” said Amala turning to him as thecar pulled out into the headlights of othercars and went up one of San Francisco’ssteep hills. “Another bad karma. You knowin your next life you will miss a lot meals.People will just forget to feed you. You can’tblame them. It’s your own karma. If youneglect Yogi Turtle now, you will be ne-glected in a future life.” Ananta was look-ing at her red pottu as she spoke. He knewshe was right. He was studying the law of

karma. To him, it was a truly great idea, alaw that built a bridge from the past to thefuture. Ananta had even created a karmamap, or actually a karma web, on his com-puter. It was a picture that looked like a vastspider’s web of all the different ways karmatied to a person, in the past, present and fu-ture. They were driving across the GoldenGate Bridge now, hundreds of feet over thePacific Ocean, all black in the night. ButAnanta knew there were whales swimmingdown there in the ocean waters, and theywere surfacing for air. That was what wason his mind. Whales. Saving whales.

“Yes, yes. You’re right. I know. I need tobe more careful. That is bad karma. And Ihave no excuses,” he said to Amala with asmile. “Keep reminding me.” Then heleaned forward in the seat and said to hisparents, “I need to make a phone call whenI get home. Is that alright?”

“Sure,” said dad. “What’s up?”The family had just seen the movie “Free

Willy,” about an Orca whale that had beenfreed from captivity by a young boy. At theend of the movie was an offer and phonenumber to adopt-a-whale. “I want to takeall the money that I received for my birth-day and give it to the adopt-a-whale pro-gram. Isn’t that good karma, Amala?”

“Oh, yes. Very good karma,” said Amala.“And by the way I fed Yogi Turtle. I noticedhe hadn’t been fed, so I fed him. Now, thatis also good karma.” And they all laughed.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring to class two balls or other lightround objects, one white, one black,with a rope or twine securely fastenedto it. Tie the two balls to the ceiling sothey can swing freely. One child standsby each ball. Have the children suggestan action which is good karma. thechild by the white ball pushes it awayfrom himself and says, “Good karmagoes out.” Then, as the ball comes backand the child catches it, everyone saysin unison, “And good karma comesback.” Then the children suggest a badaction. the child with the black ballpushes it away and says, “Bad karmagoes out.” Then, as the ball comes back,all say, “And bad karma comes back.”They should suggest at least six goodand six bad actions, and turns can betaken pushing the ball out, relating aspecific negative action to each blackball push and a specific positive deed toeach push of the white ball.


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LESSON FOCUSScriptures are the instructions from GodSiva in how to live a truly spiritual life.Scriptures are the teachings of God Sivaand the Gods given directly to humankind.Scriptures are the holy guidance of GodSiva and the Gods. When scripture is writ-ten, we call it holy books. They are like spir-itual school books for people. We call ourscripture the Vedas and Agamas. Original-ly our Hindu scripture was spoken fromSiva’s Mind to the spiritual minds of greatyogis in meditation. They then memorizedthe teachings as a spoken and chantedbook, and later wrote them down to bepassed down from one generation to thenext. Now, in our times, reading scriptureneeds to be continued in the home with theparents reading holy books to the family.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWhen we go to school we use text books tostudy from. We use text books in our class-es. The teacher talks to us about the textbook to help us understand. We often takethe text book home to study at home. Textbooks were written by people to teach uscertain knowledge. The knowledge is givento us at a level we can understand. Scriptureare the text books for spiritual life. Theword scripture comes from the same root asscript, which means to write, or a group ofwriting characters. All the children in theclass are learning to write in script. It is oneof the first things a child learns in school, toread script and write script. If one of thechildren went up to the blackboard andwrote out the word SIVA, (a good demon-stration) that would be putting the name ofGod into script. It is a holy name. It is partof our Saivite Hindu scripture. And indeedthe young student would have written aword—Siva, the name of God—that ap-pears very often in our Hindu scripture.Scripture in Saivite Hinduism are the textbooks, the school books for us to study, tolive by and be made happy by in the mostimportant aim of life: spiritual living andpersonal knowing of God Siva. We call ourscripture holy books because they arebooks that teach us how to be good andholy. They teach us how to pray, worshipand do yoga. They teach us how to buildtemples, and even how to build homes andtowns so they are more spiritual and closeto the devas’ world. They teach us how tolive close to God Siva and the Gods anddevas. They teach us about our soul, andhow to live as a soul being of light on ourphysical world. They teach us about the

soul’s journey to Godness. They teach usabout caring for all beings and our planet.They teach us how our universe of stars,worlds and time was created, and who theCreator is. These are very holy books. Thescriptures for Saivite Hinduism are theVedas, which means “Wisdom from whitelight,” and the Agamas, which means “Thatwhich has come down”—this in itself refersto the process of scripture coming fromSiva’s highest consciousness to our world.Our scripture is the oldest in the world.Out of all the religions, Saivite Hinduismhas the oldest scripture. It is over 8,000 -10,000 years old.

Children—and adults too—think ofmoney and gold and jewels as being of verygreat value. But the children and adultSaivite Hindus should think of our Vedasand Agamas as truly priceless treasure. Ourscriptures are large, very, very old treasurechests of diamond and gold wisdom thatwould fill a giant vault. It is our duty to re-

vere our sacred scriptures as apriceless treasure that must bestudied, guarded and passed fromthis generation of children totheir children. Protecting andpreserving the Vedas and Aga-

mas is an important point to makewith the children. In the old, old past

some of our scriptural texts were lost. Theyare gone. Fortunately, so much is still withus now that Saivite Hinduism still has thegreatest treasure of scripture in the world.The children should think of themselves asguardians of our scripture.

Our holy scripture were written in thelanguage of Sanskrit, which is a most sacredlanguage. It is a holy language that has thepower to connect our world with the sub-tle worlds. It is also such a precise language,that it is being used by scientists as a pro-gramming language for computers.

How did we receive these great scrip-tures? Well, they came from Siva, theSupreme Being. Have the children imaginethat Siva is talking into their mind. He hasthe most beautiful, powerful voice, a voiceas peaceful as rolling ocean waves and ascomforting as the bright, twinkling stars.The children close their eyes and hear Siva’svoice mentally in their minds. Siva says intotheir mind, “You are a soul of brightest


The father and son are seatedon the floor in a nice shrineroom. Father is reading fromthe Vedas to his son. But Fatheralso reads to his daughter andmother reads the scriptures too.At least once a week the wholefamily gets together to studySaivite Hinduism.Notice that the son is sitting ina good yoga posture and hisback is straight. This is good forstudying the holy books.

The rishi is the yogi with spiri-tual sight, the same psychicsight that wearing of the redpottu symbolizes. The halo oflight around the rishi’s headmeans he is experiencing Siva.Perhaps Siva is talking now.The rishi is writing down in analphabet called devanagari theVedas. The language is Sanskrit.The script is devanagari.Father reads holy books to me.

God Siva spoke our scriptures.Wise holy men called rishis wrote down His words.

As when a fire is lit with damp fuel, different clouds of smoke come forth, in the same way from thisgreat Being are breathed forth the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda—YAJUR VEDA

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white light. You and I are one. Simply sitstill, be still in your mind and you willknow Me.”

This is similar to the way our scriptureswere projected from Siva’s Mind into theminds of the great yogis that we call rishis,which means “one with spiritual sight.” TheVedas and Agamas were projected fromSiva—like a slide projector—onto the slidescreen of the minds of the rishis, the wiseyogis. This spiritual voice of Siva was notlike ordinary talking. It was a projection ofa complete idea—a vision—including pic-tures and feeling. The wise men we know asrishis received this projection permanentlyinto their memory. They then taught it asa spoken or chanted Sanskrit scripture, andlater it was written down. Today, our scrip-ture is available for reading and study asholy books. If we were to collect all of ourVedas and Agamas together as books, theywould fill up many large shelves.

We have learned that our father andmother are our first gurus. One of the du-ties of the father (or mother) is to begin in-troducing our scripture to the children.This is done at home, during a special timeset aside for such reading. It is usually aweekly event, and all the children attend.Besides the Vedas and Agamas, there areother Saivite Hindu scripture that help ex-plain or add to our supreme scriptures.These are also holy books. Among them arethe sacred songs and writings of the Saivitesaints of South India.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. Above, we used one analogy of the slideprojector and slide screen to explain howSiva projects knowledge to the rishis. Be-cause rishis means “seer” or one who sees, itimportant to stress the vision or seeing re-ality of this process. The television is an-other good analogy of this process.

STORY READINGAbout three meters up on the face of asteep rock cliff was a secret cave. Longboulders hung over the cave like stoneguards. Hundreds of years ago, maybethousands, a part of the cliff had fallen.Boulders and rock and dust tumbled downlike a river of earth. The cave was almostsealed. But a sliver of the cave entrance re-mained open. Mahesvara put his hand tohis honey brown eyes to shield them from

the white glow of the sun. He had a largenose and thin eyebrows and his black hairwas very long and loose. It fell over a deepred Hindu shirt that today was very dusty.He wore a large brim hat that he hadbought at a stall in the capital city of hiscountry. His country was part of the Indianempire of long ago. It was the land next tonorthern India—due west—a bleak androcky land with a few small rivers and greatcliffs that looked like castles of giants. It wasa lonely land. But it was here that long agoSiva yogis had come to be alone and seekthe Face of Siva. The yogis lived in cavesthat drilled into the cliffs. On this day, Ma-hesvara and his friend were looking for aspecial cave, a cave so secret it had beenlong forgotten—except by one man.

“Look. There’s the opening. Right therebetween those four big boulders. Very nar-row. We can climb up that way,” and hepointed to a pile of stones that formed anarrow chute they could crawl up.

“It’s steep. Watch your step,” said Kashi ashis foot slid on some gravel, and a showerof grey stone fell to the ground below.Kashi was the same age as Mahesvara, nineyears old. They were both very curious, nat-ural explorers. Kashi looked down at hisyellow tunic, also covered with grey and reddust. He checked for the map. It was stilltucked into his thick black sash. The maphad been given to them by an old man wholived alone in a rock hut in a valley of redstone and one gnarled old fig tree. Mahesh-vara and Kashi went to the old man, whowas known as Saint Veda, because he knewthe Vedas. The two boys wanted to learnmore of the Vedas. So he taught them overa period of one year, and they learnedmuch soul knowledge and spirit laws. Thenone day he gave them a map—an old, wrin-kled piece of dried leaf with strange markson it. He told them: “Learn to read thismap. Seek the cave that has guards of stone.It is a Siva cave. It has a secret treasure.”

After months of making hard trips outfrom their village to try and figure out thestrange map, they had finally found thehidden cave. They could have given up. Butthey didn’t. They knew this search was im-portant. It was part of their life’s karma.

The cave was just a slit, like a large cat’seye. It was pitch black. Kashi came up towhere Mahesvara was standing on a narrowledge. They both looked in. Nothing. Puredarkness. Mahesvara put his hand into theblackness. “It feels cool,” he said to Kashi,raising his eyebrows into a look of ques-

tioning. “Unusual. It’s so hot out here.”Kashi put his hand into the black cave.“Hmm. Very cool,” he said. “Well, let’s go.”They both slipped through the cave en-trance, disappearing completely into ablack passageway. Behind them unwounda strong rope from Kashi’s sash, so theycould find their way back. It was totallyquiet, an unearthly silence except for a tinytinkling sound of running water. They fol-lowed the narrow cave passageway, whichmade many sharp turns and seemed to beclimbing up. Behind them was the black-ness. But, now in front of them was a paleblue light, like sun light going through verydeep blue water. They made one moresharp turn, then they stood at the entranceof a huge cave room. They gasped. It wasas big as a palace, and filled with a beautifulblue light that seemed to come from a poolof water in the center. On a small island inthe center of the pool sat a very old, oldyogi. He had large eyes, like green emeralds,and he said, “So, you have found me. NowI will teach you how the Vedas and Agamascame from Siva’s mind into the minds ofmen like me. Breathe deep and make yourmind like clear water,” and his old voiceechoed through the cave. A thin bridge ofstone dropped to the island, and the boyswalked across, already slowing their breath.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring a copy of the Upanishads tothe class (or Dancing with Siva if youhave a copy). Have the class gatheraround, sit down and chant Aum threetimes. Then read from the Upanishadsor Dancing with Siva scriptural quotesthe easiest sections to understand.

2. This is a mental game. Divide thechildren up into pairs. One of the pairis God Siva. The other of the pair is therishi. The child playing God Siva thinksof a nice thought about religion or na-ture. Then he or she mentally projectsthat thought to the youth playing therishi. The rishi sits with his or her eyesclosed and tries to mentally hear thethought being sent by God Siva, andspeaks it out. It may be similar to theprojected thought, or it may not be.The intention is not to catch thethought exactly right, though that mayoccur. The purpose is to have the chil-dren experiment with this kind of psy-chic transference, which is similar tothe process that brought through theVedas and Agamas.


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LESSON FOCUSWhen we go to the temple, we are steppinginto a spiritual palace. We prepare our-selves. We dress a certain way. We do thingsa certain way. We behave a certain way. Thisis just as would be expected if we were vis-iting the emporer of India. We call thesetemple customs. Two very important tem-ple customs are how we stand in front ofthe deity for worship during puja and howwe receive the arati lamp when it is offeredto us after the puja.

KEY PRESENTATIONSOur world is obviously divided into boysand girls, into male and female. There aremillions of species of life forms on Earth,including animals, birds, reptiles, bugs andplants. All, with a handful of exceptions, aredivided into male and female. And it is ob-vious to children even at a very young age,that there are big differences between girlsand boys, between men and women. Thereare differences in male and female bodies,even in faces. Simply by looking at the faceit is easier for a child to tell the differencebetween a girl and boy human, then be-tween a male rabbit and a female rabbit.Children also know there are big differ-ences between what girls like to do, andwhat boys like to do. They have different in-terests, and they think about things differ-ently. They also feel about things different-ly. This means in body, mind and emotionsgirls and boys, adult men and women arevery different. Boys like to be with boys.Girls like to be with girls. This is natural.And this division continues into adult life.Marriage does not change the naturalbonds of men and men, women andwomen.

The temple is the most important placefor this natural division to be followed. Thetemple is the place where we want to be asmuch a soul as possible. In the temple, weare more a soul of light, and less a humanbody of flesh. So, if the girls and boys, themen and women were a mixed group in thetemple, it would create a strong sense ofhumanness. The identity of soulness wouldbe clouded by the feelings of attraction orunattraction (in the case of children whodon’t like to get too close to the oppositesex) between boys and girls. The childrenwill understand this quickly. Let’s look atthe temple as a ship that takes us to Gods’world. Boys and girls are together on thisship. The ship is sailing through space. Itwill take a while to reach the Gods’ world.

On their own, the young boys and girlswould form separate groups. Boys would beon one side of the ship. Girls on the otherside. Which side would they choose?

Well, boys would feel drawn to the rightside. They could not even explain it. Theywould just feel comfortable there on theright side of the ship. It feels natural tothem. Girls would be drawn to the left side.They would be more comfortable, more re-laxed and secure. But they won’t be able toexplain it. So, in the temple, it is a very old,old custom that men are on the right, and-women on the left.

But there is an explanation. In all peoplethere are two subtle currents of force thatrun alongside the spine. These are like neontubes of light. We can’t see them with phys-ical sight. We see them with our spiritualsight. The current on the right side is ourmental force. It is sky blue in color. It iscalled the sun current. Boys are in this cur-rent more strongly. The current on the left

side is our emotional force, ourfeeling and physical health force.

It is rose red in color. It is called themoon current. Girls are in this current

more strongly. Boys and girls use both thesepsychic currents, but, by nature, they dom-inate in one or the other. In general, girlsare more caring, kind, understanding andlive longer. Boys are more pushy, more ana-lytical, more brave, reckless, less sensitive toother’s feelings. Boys are strong.

Certainly, one of the most beautiful cus-toms in Saivite Hindu temple practice isthat of receiving the arati flame after thepuja is over. Each devotee passes their out-stretched hands over and through the verytop of the orange flames and sweeps the en-ergy up to the eyes, touching the upper eye-lids. This is done three times, with a slow-ing down on the third time. This is trulyone of the most amazing and powerfulpractices. Fire itself is a wonderful force, amagical energy. It is complex and mysteri-ous. Even scientists who study fire as a pro-fession cannot fully define what it is or howit works. Fire serves many purposes in thetemple, for its energy flames can be seen in


The boys are lined up on theright side facing Ganesha in theshrine. The girls are on the leftside. Often too, for many reli-gious classes, the boys sit on theright and the girls on the left.

When we enter the temple, wewalk around the inside of thetemple from the left to theright, in a clockwise direction.

Notice how the hands of thisyoung women are coming overand partly through the flame.Her face is about eight inchesaway from the flame. This samecustom applies to any kind offlame that is passed before theGod. It could also be a singleflame, rather than an aratilamp.She takes the energy of theflame which has been chargedwith blessings from the Godright up to her eyes. On thethird pass, her eyes are closedand the eyelids are touched.

During puja boys stand on the rightand girls on the left.We pass our hands over the aratilamp and touch our eyes.

Offerings of perfumed substances, flowers, incense, lamps and fresh fruits—these are the five elementsof the traditional puja which culmiates with the offering of the lamps.—KAMIKA AGAMA

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our world, the devas’ world and Gods’world. This is an important point. Fire is aconnecting door to all worlds. When thearati lamp is passed during puja, God Sivaand the Gods send pure color beams oflight into the energy cloud of the flame.The arati lamp is then brought to the devo-tees attending the puja. Each devotee passestheir hands three times over the flame,sweeping up part of this energy cloud andthe bright color light to their eyes. Thisbrings the power of the God’s blessing di-rectly into the body and mind of the devo-tee. It helps them to see our world and livesas a spiritual adventure. Children shouldfeel open to this power as they receive theflame. Their attention should be in thechest, neck and head. They will feel the en-ergy enter their body like a tingly cloud.

Further, the deva people of the devas’world can see the devotee when the aratiflame is passed in front of them. They cansee us as the fire flames light up our faces.We usually cannot see the devas, but it ismore important that they see us. They areoften the ones working directly with ourkarma, and the detailed progress of our life.

STORY READINGThe ferry boat was as large as a buildingturned on its side and floating in the baywaters of Vancouver on the west coast ofCanada. The ferry was huge, a great whitehull with red markings—like a floatingHindu temple. It had a wide, wooden deckfor viewing the beautiful Vancouver baywith its cold, charcoal blue waters. It couldcarry hundreds of people and lots of cars.The bow of the ferry opened up, and carsdrove right in. “Just like going into a drag-on’s mouth,” said Ratna to her friend Saras-vati, as they both watched a stream of cars,some honking, slowly crawl into the ferry.Then the bow doors shut with a metalclanking. “That’s it. Cars are all in. Weshould be leaving the dock soon. Canadasure is beautiful. Look at those mountainstopped with snow and sunlight. Wonder ifSiva is there?” said Sarasvati as she tossedher black hair over the shoulder of hergreen and yellow punjabi outfit. She hadlight green eyes, and that’s why she liked towear her deep green punjabi when going tothe temple. Today was Sunday, and theywere traveling across the bay to go to a Sivatemple in the mountains outside Vancouvercity. Vancouver was a lovely city, and thetemple was like a diamond off to its side.

“Of course Siva’s there,” said Ratna very

confidently as she walked beside Saraswatidown the wooden deck that shined likeglass. She had on her favorite pink andlavender punjabi. “Siva is everywhere all thetime. He’s in those high mountains, butSiva’s also through this bay and through allthe streets of Vancouver. And believe it ornot, Siva is even in my older brother,” saidRatna as her brother came up carrying twocups of hot chocolate for them. The hotchocolate steamed into the chill air andformed sweet-smelling clouds. Actuallyboth of the girls’ elder brothers were withthem to look after them, and there weremany other Hindus on the ferry. It was apopular day to go to the temple.

“Yes,” said Sarasvati. “I love my brotherand I’m sure Siva is there somewhere, butthey are boys. Boys. They can be so…sopushy. Like charging bulls.”

They found some nice chairs on the opendeck and sat down. They were on the leftside of the ferry boat, looking out to thepine forests and rocky coast where sea ot-ters splashed in the waves. “You know wesat down on the left side of the boat,” saidRatna, looking at Sarasvati with her browneyes. “Just like in the temple, when we goto the left side for puja.”

“Hmmm. Interesting,” said Sarasvati. “Itmust becoming a habit. I didn’t think aboutit. The view is very good on this side. Herecome our brothers. Now, are they going tosit on the right side?” The brothers, very talland bundled up in coats over their brownkurta shirts, came up and said,“We’re goingto sit on the other side. We’ll keep an eye onyou from there.”

The girls giggled. “Well, they sure tookoff to the right side fast,” said Sarasvati.“We are moon girls. They are sun boys,”and they laughed loudly. “You know weshould watch the moon one night from thisferry. We are moon girls,” she sang to a bha-jan melody. Then she jumped up and ran tothe railing. “Look. I think I can see the tem-ple from here. See the white tower peakingup over those trees. The sun is painting akind of mango-colored light on it.”

Ratna hurried over. “Oh yes, I see it.Looks like a little palace. A Hindu temple inVancouver, Canada. Who would havethought of that a hundred years ago?” sheasked into the swirling sea breeze. “I’m go-ing to be practicing taking the arati flamestoday. Did you know that fire is like danc-ing energy. Ice is frozen energy. Fire is en-ergy dancing very fast. I used to just fan myhands through the arati flames real fast.

Now I’m going concentrate on feeling thepower of Siva in the heat and light aroundthe flames. Take it right into me.”

“Me too,” said Sarasvati. “We’re almost atthe dock. Prepare to go ashore,” she said likea captain and laughed. The ferry hadsmoothly crossed the large bay. Now thetwo sisters and their two brothers got intheir car and drove to the temple that wasset on top of a hill, and overlooked thewhole beautiful bay. They pulled into theparking lot, got out and walked through thetemple’s outer doors into a large hall wherethey left their shoes. The temple was madeall of white marble with very fine lines ofpink through it. The floor was solid RockyMountain granite, with pale blue carpetspread in large squares. The girls paused atthe entrance to the main temple hall, thenwent up on the left side. They did theirprostrations and sat down. They were hap-py. The boys walked to the right side andprostrated. It was natural.

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Boys, who are naturally of a mascu-line nature stand on the right in a reli-gious assembly. Girls, who are natural-ly of a feminine nature stand or sit onthe left. Boyhood is represented by thesun. It is warm, brave and adventurous.Girlhood is represented by the moon.It is cool, caring and wise. Bring to classthe drawing and scissor materials. Allof the boys are going to make a big sunimage for themselves. It should some-how depict warmth, bravery and ad-venture. All of the girls will make a bigfull moon image for themselves. Itshould depict coolness, caring and wis-dom. When they are finished the boysand girls line up in their correct assem-bly, all holding their sun and moon im-ages.

2. Paint or crayon sets should be pro-vided and thick cardstock paper. Havethe children paint a series of flames likethey would see on an arati lamp. Theflames should be 5 or 6 inches high. Af-ter this they cut the flames out of thepaper, but being sure the bottoms ofthe flames are still connected, so theyare still one unit. Then the youngsterstake these cutout flames around toeach other and practice drawing bothhands over the painted flames andtouching their eyes, right hand to righteyelid, left hand to left eyelid. They donot actually touch the eye itself.


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LESSON FOCUSIn our physical world we each have a moth-er and father, two parents who are separatepeople—one a man, the other a woman.They are the mother and father of ourphysical body. Our soul body of light wascreated long ago in the Gods’ world, just asour physical body was created a few yearsago here on Earth. The creator of our soulbody is God Siva. Siva is both our motherand father. Siva is not a man, nor is Siva awoman. Siva is the supreme Soul of light.Out of endless light, love and intelligenceSiva created us and cares for us like a moth-er and guides us like a father.

Nandi the sacred bull is a symbol of theperfect soul devotee of God Siva. Nandi isvery attentive to Siva, always looking to Sivato serve and seek divine oneness. At tem-ples, Nandi reminds each one of this per-fect relationship.

KEY PRESENTATIONSNo one is more important in a child’s lifethan mother and father. It is a precioustruth that without mother and father eachchild would not be in this world. In a verytrue sense all the children in this class werebiologically created by their moms anddads. Out of their union of life came a newlife as a baby boy or girl. The baby lookslike a combination of the parents. The hus-band and wife become mother and father.The child has two parents, two differentpeople who live together in a marriage.They make a home. One is a woman. One isa man. Together, but still as separate people,they raise the child. That is the way of na-ture in our Earth world.

Deep inside our Earth body is the soulbody of light. It is our most real body anddivine intelligence. It is truly who each ofus is. We are soul beings. As souls we rein-carnate into Earth bodies of flesh and boneas the class studied in a previous Book 1lesson. Our soul of light is immortal. Thatis, the soul never dies. Nothing can destroyor hurt the soul. Each of us as a soul wascreated by God Siva. Each soul is personal-ly created by the Supreme Siva. Our soul oflight, like a glowing ball of light shootingfrom the sun, came out of the all-powerfullight and intelligence of Siva. Every soul,and there are uncountable souls, flashedout from the unthinkable brilliance of Siva.We are soul children of Siva.

The children have explored God Siva inother lessons of Book 1. We know that GodSiva is not two different people. Siva is not

two different beings. Siva is not two differ-ent souls. Siva is not like our Earth parents.Siva is not a man. Siva is not a woman.Souls are not male or female. They are be-ings of super light. Siva is the SupremeSoul. In fact, we cannot really refer to Sivaas Him or He. Nor can we call Siva as Heror She. Siva is the One, the auspicious One,from which everything flows, like a oneocean that feeds uncountable rivers. Sivacreated our soul. Siva creates souls allthrough time. Even as we study this won-derful lesson Siva is creating new souls. Wecan know Siva as the mother and father ofour soul. The emphasis is on the and.Mother/father in One. Mother is unendinglove. Father is unending knowledge andpower. As a One Soul, Siva is both divinemother, divine father.

Now Siva is the most beautiful soul beingimaginable. It is a beauty that is neither ful-ly male or female. If the children were to sitand close their eyes and imagine the most

beautiful person they could thinkof that would be close to Siva’sperfect beauty. Beautiful face.Beautiful eyes. Beautiful hair.

Beautiful body. Beautiful skin. Allmade of light that is more brilliant

than all the stars. That is Siva the PerfectSoul. When Siva creates each soul, that soulis a likeness of Siva. The soul looks like theSiva soul, only it is very young, a child soul.It is very beautiful, with a face, eyes, nose,mouth, ears, hair, arms and legs—all madeof pure tones of light. Our soul is not atravelling ball of light, or a vast misty cloudof energy. It is an actual body with a cosmicmind that is one with Siva’s mind. Our hu-man body—as well as our astral and men-tal body in the devas’ world—follows theoriginal form of the soul body. The humanform is in the likeness of the soul body.

Siva is our soul’s mother/father. Siva’slove for us is much deeper and strongerthan even our Earth parents. Siva’s love islike a gentle, ever-flowing wind all aroundus. We can feel it all the time. It fills us. Itgoes into us and comes out of us. Have thechildren wave their hand through the airslowly. As their right hand passes throughthe air in front of them they are going


Often Siva will be depictedwearing a female earring and amale earring, showing that Sivahas the qualities of both moth-er and father in guiding eachsoul in its spiritual journey.

The cobra snake symbolizes thespiritual force that rises up ourspine when we practice yoga.The same spiritual force that isin Siva is in us. Siva controls theforce for us, as part of His love.

When Nandi sits in front of thetemple or a shrine, he is alwayssitting down on his knees. Thelargest Nandi in the world is ata Siva temple on a hill above thecity of Mysore in southern In-dia. Many Hindus go there justto see the Nandi. The largestgranite Nandi carved this cen-tury is at the Kadvaul SivaNataraja Temple on the islandof Kauai, Hawaii in the USA.Lord Siva is the mother and father

of my soul.

Nandi sits in front of everySiva temple.

He is the never-created creator of all: He knows all. He is pure consciousness, the creator oftime, all-powerful, all knowing. He is the Lord of the soul and of nature…—KRISHNA YAJUR

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through Siva’s love. It is there. All the time.All around them and through them. Siva isthe perfect mother/father. Here on Earthwe as souls in physical bodies are growingand learning. We learn through our ownkarma. We learn from other good people.We learn from gurus. We learn from ourown spirit voice. Siva is taking care of ushere on Earth, seeing that we get all theright experiences, all the right guidance, allthe right goals so we can know our onenesswith Siva. The mother love of Siva sees thatwe are safe, comfortable, provided for, gen-erous, kind, happy and peaceful. The fatherlove of Siva sees that we are brave, strong,smart, adventurous, curious, virtuous, ded-icated. Siva does this for us in a thousandways every day, and all through the night.

The bull is a remarkable animal. It is sa-cred to many ancient cultures. Standaround a big bull and you can feel itsstrength and determination in the air. Nan-di the bull is a great symbol in Saivite Hin-duism. Nandi is the animal mount of Siva.In some scenes Siva rides Nandi the bull.This means Siva is riding or controlling thehuman body—which is strong and hasmany desires—toward spiritual unfold-ment. We could look at this as part of thefather love of Siva. Nandi the bull sits infront of Siva at every Siva temple or shrine.Nandi faces Siva with a look of ultimate de-votion and duty. Nandi symbolizes for usthe perfect soul devotee of Siva. Nandi isthe spiritual person: humble, ready and ea-ger to strive, strong in faith and practice.

STORY READINGThe jungle was so thick that even men withrazor-sharp machetes couldn’t get throughit. The jungle was a thousand shades ofgreen splashed over giant brown treetrunks, twisting vines and flowers as big astemple trays. The jungle went on endlesslyacross the land called Cambodia, only cutby muddy rivers and narrow animal paths.“Dinosaurs could still be living here,” saidJnana in a voice meant to be scary. “Onefoot of the brontosaurus could crush ourjeep like a…well like a Coke can, like whenwe crush them for recycling at home.”Jnana liked to think of himself as a di-nosaur expert. He was 8 years-old, with around, chubby face and eyes so brown theywere almost like chocolate candy bars. Hewas sweet-natured like candy. But he likedto tease his younger sister, Amrita, who hada face like a baby deer. She had seen the

movie Jurassic Park, so she knew a littleabout dinosaurs. She said, “Luckily for us,most of the dinosaurs were vegetarians.They were giantly gigantic, yet all they atewas an awful lot of plants. Veggie dinos,”and giggled so hard her sun hat almost felloff her reddish black hair.

“Yeah, but look over there,” said Jnana ina hushed, scary voice, and his hand pushedback some huge leaves called elephant ears.“Raptors. See. About six feet tall. Huge,sharp claws. Very fast. Very smart. They likemeat. Look, they’ve spotted us,” and heturned to grab his sister’s shoulders. “Let’srun,” he said excitedly.

His sister stood still, totally unbothered.“Hah. There haven’t been any raptors formillions of years,” she said, and smiled.

“Yes,” said Jnana. “But they can live inour mind, and in movies. Maybe all the di-nosaurs are alive on another world? MaybeLord Siva just took them to another plan-et. Well, let’s get back to mom and dad.”

They walked back to where the black jeephad brought them in. They were deep in-side Cambodia, deep inside the great greenjungle. And right in front of Jnana and Am-rita was a stone city with walls, and gatesand towers and palaces and stairs and wa-ter ponds that seemed to float. The wholecity rose out of the jungle like a giant spaceship. But it was real. And it was old and inruins. No one had lived here for a thousandyears. It was called Angkor Wat. It is thelargest spiritual temple in the world. A tem-ple city. A temple city for Siva built by aHindu people a thousand years ago. Thesepeople were called Khmers.

Jnana and Amrita stood staring at thestone city, surrounded by a water moat,their mouths open and eyes wide. Together,their heads rose up and they looked at a gi-ant, peaceful face on a tower. It was made ofstones as big as cars pieced together. “Thatis Siva, the mother and father of our souls,”whispered Jnana. “When I see Siva, I thinkeverything is perfect. Though I wish the di-nosaurs were still around.” The sun wassinking over the jungle fast, casting dark or-ange and purple light over everything. Thechildren couldn’t see the sun. It was belowthe city now. There was a small hole in thestone face of Siva on the tower. Suddenly, afiery beam of orange-yellow sun light shotthrough the hole in the stone Siva. The lightbeam shot out, widened a bit, and lit up thetwo children standing in front of the stoneSiva. They were in a beam of sparkling lightcoming right out of Siva. They stood,

frozen. “Wow. Look at this,” said Jnana ex-citedly. “Amazing. It feels like we are rightwith Siva in the Gods’ world. You know…Ithink Siva has brought us here just for this.Siva wants to personally show us His love.”The light, far more intense than a rainbow,continued to light their faces. “See how thelight splits into two beams. That is themother and father powers of Siva,” Jnanawhispered. “I’ll never forget this.”

Amrita was like a rock, staring at thestone Siva, the deep orange/yellow light inher eyes. “Aum Namah Sivaya,” she chanted.“Like a beam of light, my soul body wascreated by Siva. I am a soul child of Siva.”

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring to class a stiff white plasticsheet that you can roll and tape into atube about 2 feet tall and a soap bub-ble maker. Up through the tube youwill shine a strong light. Also bring tothe class a piece of pink thick paperand sky blue paper. Tape the pink pa-per on the left of the white tube and theblue paper on the right. This representsthe Being of Siva: the white tube is Hispure spiritual force; the pink paper isthe mother side of God’s being; theblue side is the father side of God’s be-ing. This matches Lesson 46 where welearned how girls are on the left andboys on the right. Yet God is still justone Being. While all the children arewatching, have one of the students sitbehind the white tube and blow soapbubbles so they float up over the glow-ing white tube, lit up by the light. Thesoap bubbles are souls being created byGod Siva, out of Himself. They comeout of His spiritual energies, and He isboth mother and father of the soul.2. Nandi never takes his eyes off Siva.Bring a beautiful crystal, brass orbronze object d’art to the class. Alsobring a soap bubble kit. Place the arti-fact up high at the front of the class soeverybody can see it. Instruct everyoneto sit in front of the object and to seehow long they can keep their eyes onthe object without being distracted.Then have two of the children standbehind the object and start to blowbeautiful soap bubbles. Despite this en-tertainment, the children attempt to re-main steadfast in gazing at the object.


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LESSON FOCUSLord Murugan is the God who guides us inall of our spiritual practices. Murugan is asa monk, a sadhu or swami. He has nohome, no money, no clothes, no wife, nochildren, no things, no hair. Muruganmonk guides us out of earthly things andhuman joys and into the vast spiritual landof blissful yoga. Murugan’s highest missionis to be our guide and friend in yoga. Mu-rugan is the God of yoga.

KEY PRESENTATIONSPeople, including young children, enjoylooking different for different occasions.Many adults and school children dress dif-ferently every day. Women often changetheir hair style. When they do, it is like theyare another person. A girl with long haircan get a short haircut, and the girl sud-denly looks like a boy. A young man growsa bushy beard. His parents may not knowhim. We put on special clothes and hats forall kinds of different outings: going out toa fancy restaurant, going to the temple, go-ing out to play soccer, going to a cookingclass, going to see our relatives. In each ofthese examples, we appear different to oth-ers, yet we are the same person. Now, LordMurugan is a super soul, a God. As a soulbeing of vast power, age and beauty, Muru-gan does not change how He looks. But inthe temple images that represent Murugan,there are several different ways He looks.These are called darshanas, or views. Thishelps us as worshippers to approach Mu-rugan for help in different matters. LordMurugan can grant help in many ways andfor many reasons. This is like the king of acountry. He is king of the people. He is theleader of the ministers. He is the chiefjudge. He is the commander of the army.He oversees the treasury. The king hasmany different duties. So too does LordMurugan have many different duties.

Murugan is first and foremost a monk.What is a monk? A monk is a spiritual manwho is totally dedicated to God Siva, toknowing God Siva. A monk lives very sim-ply, so all of his intelligence and action goesto yoga, to oneness with Siva.

Murugan is dedicated to spiritual yogalife. He wears a loin cloth and his head isshaven. There is no wife, no children. Hehas no home or land or car. The monk hasno possessions, no job. He has no money orjewelry. In short, Murugan has given up allthe normal goals of human life. Why? Be-cause when you do yoga and seek oneness

with Siva, all of that is left behind. It is notthere with you when you meditate deep in-side of yourself. If it were there, even inyour mind, it would distract you. Thebridge of yoga would not be crossed. Theimage of Murugan represents this total dri-ve to Godness. This is in fact how all ad-vanced spiritual people spend their finallives on Earth—as monks. This is an im-portant point for the children. In reincar-nation, the final lives on Earth will be asmonks. The goal of Earth life is realizationof God Siva through yoga. The sure way toachieve Sivaness is through a simple life ofyoga practice and spirtual service—themonk’s life. A monk is a soul living onEarth, but as if without a physical body withall its needs and desires. Satgurus, whom westudied a few lessons back, are all monks.That is why Saivite Hindus revere, followand financially support the Siva monks intheir spiritual quest. The young childrenshould respect and love all Siva monks.

When we see the image of Murugan-as-a- monk in a temple or shrine, it also teach-

es us that the Gods are pure andpowerful Soul Beings. The Godsare very advanced souls living inan unthinkably vast world of themost powerful mind and lightforces. The Gods do not have

homes as we know them. They donot have wives or children or mate-

rial things as we know them. The Gods donot live human lives. They live as greatsouls of light and intelligence, helping un-countable people in uncountable worldsthroughout the universe. The Gods do havegreat spiritual tools, made of spiritualforces, that help them in their service, suchas Murugan’s Vel.

Murugan is the God whose mission it isto help us with our spiritual growth. Thisis His duty, given to Him directly from GodSiva. Whenever we think of spirit thoughtsor do activities that bring out our soul na-ture, Murugan is there, around us invisibly.Fortunately Murugan can help millionsand millions of us all at the same time. Mu-rugan’s mind hovers over our mind whenwe do spiritual practices like study ofSaivite Hinduism, puja, temple worship,Aum chanting, praying, penance, religiousgood karma, spiritual service, deep breath-ing, yoga poses and yoga meditation.

The greatest and most valuable way Mu-rugan develops us is in our personal yogameditation. Let’s look at it this way. Muru-


Here, Murugan is seen as awandering monk with a shavenhead and a loin clothe aroundhis waist. He wears rudrakshnabeads as emblems of Siva con-sciousness. He also has earringswhich for a yogi show that He isusing the highest spiritualnerve currents.

Murugan is carrying a danda,the yoga staff. It is a sign of thepower of the spine, the tremen-dous spiritual force that flowsup the subtle channel of thespine. The children should keeptheir spine as straight as a staffwhen practicing meditation.This is the first step in unleash-ing the spiritual energy at thebase of the spine. Muruganhelps each child with this.

Lord Murugan is a monk.He is the God of yoga.

From all knowledge, yoga practice and meditation, all that relates to the Aum sound is to bemeditated on as the only blissful (Siva). Indeed, the Aum sound is Siva.—ATHARVA VEDA

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gan is the God of yoga. Yoga is the final,highest practice in life. Lord Murugan is theperfect power of yoga. He holds the powerof yoga in His soul being. By working di-rectly with us as we attempt yoga, Muruganhelps quiet our mind, make us peaceful,and He carefully draws each child into Hisblissful yoga power. This is a beautifulteaching.

STORY READINGThe night sky was deep black with longnecklaces of stars running across it. Therewas no wind. There never was any wind.There was no sky, no blue sky. Even whenthe sun was seen, like a big ball of yellowgas, there was no colored sky. Just nighttime black with the glittering stars and theyellow sun. There was no air. No trees grew.No flowers bloomed. No water ran. Therewas no sound. This was the moon. Themoon that circles around Earth.

Chandra was a boy whose name meansmoon. He stood on top of a very highmoon boulder that rose at the edge of ahuge crater. He was ready to jump off. Itwas night time on the moon, a night thatlasts for 14 of our Earth days. Yet Chandracould see fairly easily. At his feet was astrong spotlight, casting a light beam faracross the crater. Chandra reached up withhis thick space suit gloves and moved hishelmet a bit so his neck was more comfort-able. He had to wear a space suit, and car-ry his air with him in light metal tanks onhis back. Everybody who lived on the moonhad to wear a suit when they went outside.Chandra had a special suit for young boys.To mark that he was a Saivite Hindu, Chan-dra sewed on the right shoulder of his suit ared circle with three white stripes acrossit—the mark of Siva. He was 9-years oldnow, and had lived on the moon for fiveyears with his family. Traveling from Earth,a large colony of families from many differ-ent countries came to the moon. One of thefirst things Chandra’s family did was to cre-ate a shrine room as part of their newmoon home. Among the deity images wasMurugan. It was all in gold, gold that hadcome from the planet Mars. Chandra tookvery good care of this image, for he knewMurugan was the master Soul of Yoga.Chandra did yoga every day.

Chandra leaped off the boulder, kickingup a small explosion of moon dust as hisheavy metal boots left the rock. It was along ways down. He began dropping gently.On Earth he would fall like a rock. Here on

the moon, he dropped slowly, floating like apuff ball of seeds on a summer breeze.Chandra felt very light, even with the heavysuit. Everything weighed less on the moon.The spot light lit up his sky blue space suitagainst the dark grays and browns of themoon surface. As he drifted down, it re-minded him of yoga experience. As he wentinto yoga meditation, he felt very light. Noweight. And it felt like he was floating insome kind of magic space that Muruganprovided for him . It was like swimming invery light water made out of happiness andbliss. Then, he landed in pillows of thickmoon dust. He smiled and laughed.

Far off to his right was a yellow glow,with towers of red, white and blue flashinglights. It was the moon village. It was a largegroup of metal buildings popping out ofthe moon like silver mushrooms and cop-per bubbles. He headed there, to home.

Hissing softly, the doors of his homeopened. He stepped in. The doors shutquickly behind. Off came his suit, which hecarefully folded and put away, checking forany damage to repair. Another pair of met-al doors swished open. Chandra steppedthrough, wearing a formal dark green cot-ton kurta shirt and light brown pants. Hehad very long black hair and tiny ruby ear-rings. “Main lights on,” he said outloud,and the room filled with soft white light. Itwas the living room, full of comfortablefurniture, books, valuable Hindu art andliving plants. There was a view of the Hi-malayan mountains on one wall. Chandracrossed the room to a single door thatlooked like pearl. In the pearl was a beau-tiful green crystal Sanskrit Aum. It glowedwith its own light. This was the shrineroom door. He said “Namah Shivaya,” andthe door opened with a series of bellchimes in a Hindu music scale. Chandrastepped through. “Please give me a cavelighting,” he said, and the shrine room wasmade almost dark. He liked this for medi-tation. The shrine room looked like carvedgranite stone, but it was not real stone. Inone niche was the gold Murugan. A paleblue light shone on it from behind. Chan-dra worshiped Murugan, then sat in a fulllotus position. He began to feel Murugandraw him into the golden center, a gold-colored force in his spine.

Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. Bring in enough medium size yellowballoons for the whole class. Distributethe balloons to the children so they canblow them up. The balloons they areinflating represent Lord Murugan, whohas a golden spiritual force. Lord Mu-rugan is going to help them do “bal-loon yoga.” With their inflated bal-loons, each of the children sit comfort-ably on mats on the floor in a cross-legged or half-lotus position. Theyhold their balloon in their lap andthink of Lord Murugan, God of yoga.Then they rub the balloon on their hairto build up static electricity, tilt backtheir head and place the balloon on thetop ridge of their nose and their fore-head, and try to balance the balloonthere for as long as possible. Their yogais to balance the balloon. If the balloondrifts off, they grab it, build up somestatic electricity, place it back in posi-tion and try again. They mentally askLord Murugan for help.

Book 1, Lesson 52

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LESSON FOCUSThe focus of this lesson is to affirm to thechildren that singing spiritual songs is animportant part of life because it helps the

soul shine and grow.

KEY PRESENTATIONSWhy do we sing to God, Godsand guru? First, singing is fun.It’s happy. It’s joyful. At satsangand at the temple, we sing to theGods because we love them. Wewant them to know how muchwe love them.

When the Gods hear a songsung to them, they send some

devas immediately to that person or group.These devas are music-type devas and spir-itual too. They sit around those who aresinging. They are in the devas’ world so usu-ally you can’t see them. But then they startsinging whatever you are singing. Theyknow all the songs we know and a lot more.What happens when they sing? When theysing along, our inner body, our astral bodywith its inner ears and an inner nerve sys-tem hears them and vibrates. And it feelslike a new charge in the vibration. This usu-ally means there are devas present who areattracted by the devotion of those presentand they are adding their spiritual energy tothe group and it really increases the shakti.It turns the vibration of the group that issinging to a combination of physical worldand deva’s world (sometimes even Gods’world) symphony. As they sing along, thedevas fill all the sounds and notes andwords and sounds from the instrumentswith Second world energy, like divine heli-um (the gas that they use to make balloonsgo up in the air). (This is a nice image to ex-pand on.)

The most important thing that happenswhen you sing alone or in a satsang (agroup of devotees singing together), is thatthe sounds stimulate one’s devas’ world orastral body. The most powerful devotionalsinging actually vibrates the cells of the soulbody.

Devotional sound, devotional singing,has power. It acts like a devaship, a Star Trektransporter chamber and can fly you intothe vibration of the Second World. (Boththese images can be expanded for the chil-dren—devaship and Star Trek transporter.They are good because they show some-thing really happens, we “go” somewherewhen we sing, rather than nothing happen-ing except making sounds.

One great benefit of devotional singing,especially when it is done for many years, isthat by energizing and strengthening the as-tral body, we are better equipped to handlechallenging karmas when they come up.

There are many ways to sing. The way tosing that really creates a beautiful feelingand helps the soul body grow is when youare concentrating on the singing—thesound, the feeling of the sound, the feelingof the rhythm, the words, their meaningwith visual images of the Deity. When yousing like this, the magic of singing happens.But when you just say/sing the words andhave your mind on something else and/orare letting others do the singing while youjust listen, then not much happens for youand you don’t contribute much to the spir-itual vibration of the group. It is like you arerowing but when you pull the oars youdon’t put the oars through the water. Youjust skim the oars over the top of the water.The boat doesn’t move. It is sort of lazy. So,be sure to impress on the children that onlywhen their minds are on the singing, whenthey sing with a full heart—as though the

Deity were right in front of them listeningand looking and smiling—does the realmagic of devotional singing work.

Our traditional instruments: Our mosttraditional instruments are the vina, tam-bura, flute, cymbals and drum. Why? Thereare dozens of other instruments in India,even ones that considered very classical.Why are these five so special? They are spe-cial because they represent in both purityand simplicity the inner sounds that wehear when we meditate very deeply or canhear “played” in nature—like Aum-likedrone sound of ocean waves breaking faraway or the flute-like whistling of the windthrough the trees. The strings of the vinaand the tamboura, you can tell the children,represent the nerve currents, long subtlewires of subtle energy of our inner bodies.Playing the vina is like playing the nervecurrents of our inner soul body. The tam-boura is like the Aum, a never-ending hum,harmonizing all sounds of the universe. Thedrum represents the primal drum beat ofconstant creation, the extraordinary power,

Book 1, Lessons 54 & 58-61 VISUALINTERPRETATION

1. Vina. A multistring instru-ment played with the fingers.2. Drum. The two-headed mr-dangam is our traditionaldrum.3. Flute. The traditional bam-boo flute has a beautiful sound.4. Harmonium. This is not oneof the classical Hindu instru-ments. It is a miniature pianoand is used in bhajan groups alot nowadays because it is easyto play and helps the singershear all the notes of the songcorrectly.5. Tambura. A four-stringed in-strument gently strummed tokeep the basic pitch.7. Cymbals. Used to keep timeand rhythm. All children shouldlearn how to play the cymbals.8.Tavil. This is a temple drum.You will almost always see itplayed at temple festivals andDeity processions. Usually it isplayed with other musiciansplaying the nageswaram, a diffi-cult oboe-like wind instrumentvery common for temple occa-sions.

All that God does shall win our praise. We magnify His name with hymns, seeking boonsfrom the Mighty.—RIG VEDA.

We love to sing songs to God,Gods and Guru.

Our traditional instruments arethe vina, tambura, cymbals,drum and flute.

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beat, dance, force that Siva infuses into theuniverse every second. The flute is super-consciousness, soft, delicate, ethereal, thehigh soaring, bird-like feeling of realization,enlightenment, also sometimes equatedwith the hollow current of the spine wherethe energies of light flow like wind currentsup and out the cranium sahaswara chakra.The cymbals are syncopation, beat, rhythm,and represent living in rhythm with the restof life, learning to live in rhythm with sea-sons, with people, with karma, not fighting,but flowing.

ANALOGIES &

ILLUSTRATIONS1. One nice image you can teach children isthat when they sing they are blowing up aballoon, a spiritual balloon. If a group often or fifteen are singing in the mandapamof a temple, when they start, the balloon isvery faint and only as big as they are. It justenvelops them. But as they keep singing—and especially when they are very happyand full of spiritual feelings—then the bal-loon gets much bigger and can even becomeas big as the temple.

STORY READINGManisha lived in Rajashtan with her three

sisters and four brothers and parents. Herfamily was poor, but they were never starv-ing. Her father was a farmer and her moth-er was a very good weaver. She weaved themost beautiful clothes in the world, Man-isha felt. They had so many different shadesof red and orange. Manish loved to watchher mother weaving. She would sit right be-side her and sometimes even fell over in hermother’s lap and would rest there. Even themotion of her mother’s arms going backand forth as the weaving shuttle block wentback and forth wouldn’t wake her up. Butmostly what Manisha loved about sittingwith her mother, was listening to her moth-er sing. Her mother had the most beautifulvoice in the whole world. When she wentwith her mother to bathe in the afternoondown at the river, her mother would sing.Her mother would wash Manisha and alsoonce a week would massage oil on Man-isha’s body and in her hair. All the motherswould do this to their daughters and youngsons. It was to keep them healthy and keepthe hair healthy. Manisha used to noticethat when her mother sang, even the birds

would stop chirping and listen. She sangmany songs, but mostly ones about Gane-sha and some ballads that her great grand-mother made up about how you are only asrich as your heart is rich. You are poor whenyour heart is empty. She knew hundreds ofsongs.

Manisha learned them all like a taperecorder that was put on “record” and allthe songs went into Manisha’s memorywithout any effort. Manisha would singwith her mother when they walked any-where and sometimes at home. But a lot ofthe time, she just liked listening to hermother. One day when she was listening toher mother sing, she fell asleep and had adream. She saw her mother’s soul body driftout of her physical body and into the cloudsand Ganesha was there and she went andgave Ganesha a big hug. Ganesha wassinging the Ganesha song that his motherloved the most!

One day the head of the local orphanageasked Manisha to come with her. They wentto a house and went inside. There was a boylying on the floor. He was very sick. He wasthe son of the head of the orphanage. In adream, the head of the orphange had hearda voice say, “Let the little one sing, wings ofwellness she will bring as you strum yourstrings.” She asked Manisha to sing someGanesha songs while she played her veena.They played very softly for many hours andprayed to Ganesha to help the boy. A fewdays later he got better and told them thatwhen they played and sang that day that hesaw little light green and yellow streams ofsparkling energy going all through his body.He was so sick he thought he was imaginingit. But now he knows that singing is one ofthe greatest forms of magic.

Notes:

A C T I V I T I E S

1. These songs can be introduced andlearned any time during the year. Forthe class on these lessons, we want toteach the children two things: How tofeel while singing and how to lead.Have everyone sing together eachsong and concentrate on the meaningof the words. Tell them to really feelthey ar taking refuge in Lord Gane-sha’s protection. do this with eachbhajana until most seem to have thefeeling.Then have them take turns inleading. One child leads, and all theothers respond enthusiastically. Aftera short while another leads. Thosewho ar shy should be encouraged andtold what matters is not o how wellthey sing, but how they feel when theysing. Everyone should applaud aftereach one leads and say how well he orshe did. There are additional andmore difficult Ganesha songs afterthis guide which can be taught.

Book 1, Lesson 58-61

66

LESSON FOCUSYogaswami was a very great Saivite satgu-ru of the island of Sri Lanka, just below thesouthern tip of India. He lived to be 92-years old—dying in 1964—and spent near-ly sixty of those years teaching and guidingmany Saivite Hindus of Sri Lanka. He tooka keen interest in Hindu youth, includinginspiring a school course in Saivite Hin-duism—which this course amplifies. Hissimple, one-room ashram was in a smalltown near Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka. Heis called a sage because of his piercing real-ization of Siva consciousness and his re-markable yoga powers. Yogaswami is in aline of satgurus called the Kailasaparampara. Yogaswami is the satguru ofSivaya Subramuniyaswami, the present sat-guru of the Kailasa parampara.

KEY PRESENTATIONSYogaswami means a master (one of themeanings of swami) of yoga. When we lookat the life of Yogaswami, we are viewing atruly great Siva yogi, a man as familiar withthe spiritual land of yoga as the children inclass would be familiar with their ownhome. Now, Yogaswami was once a child.He wasn’t always Yogaswami. He was bornin a village in northern Sri Lanka in the1870’s. This was a time before we had carsor airplanes or refrigerators, computers, ra-dios, TV’s, movies. He grew up year by year,going to school like the children in classhere. He learned to read and write, doarithmetic, made friends, played games,sang bhajan and went to Siva and Murugantemples to worship. He learned about theSaivite saints of south India. He was a veg-etarian and kind to animals. He was an ad-vanced soul, reincarnated on Earth, goingthrough all the happinesses, curiosities andtrials of a kid’s life. By his late teens a foun-tain of Siva spirituality was starting to wellup within him. A relative started callinghim Yoganathan, and the name stuck.Many years later, when he followed verystrict, demanding yoga practices, peoplestarted calling him Yogaswami out of greatrespect.

As a young man he decided not to marry.He had no interest in marriage or familylife. It simply had no attraction for him. Forthe class children, this is similar to some-thing they definitely have no interest in ordesire for. For example, let’s say some of thechildren in the class have no interest in go-ing to see a circus. A circus is a very excitingevent for children, full of wonderful ani-

mals, people on tightropes and trapezes,clowns, fun food, games, noisy bands, scaryrides, flashing lights. Most children will re-ally want to go to the circus. They desire thefun, excitement and newness. But a few willhave no interest in the circus at all. Theydon’t want to experience the circus. No de-sire for it.

So, Yogaswami had no desire for mar-riage or raising a family. He was beginningto steer his life in the direction of a monk,as in the Murugan lesson. He graduatedfrom college, found a job, and began his se-rious spiritual experimentation in medita-tion. He dressed simply, ate simply, slept ona simple bed, kept to himself, did his jobwith great care and concentration. Yearswent by of this simple, monk-like life. Hewas not a satguru yet, but the foundationwas being laid. Then, on one unforgettableday he met his satguru at the sprawlingMurugan festival at the famous Nallur Kan-daswamy temple near Jaffna. Withoutwarning, without an appointment, without

forethought, Yogaswami sudden-ly met Chellapaswami, his satgu-ru. Chellapaswami was a tallman, thin, dressed in a raggedwhite verthi and shawl and so fullof Siva’s light that is was like

standing right next to an ex-tremely bright search light. His

knowing of Siva was so full, so complete,that he was always looking at the world asthrough Siva’s Eyes. And with those eyes,Chellapaswami looked straight into Yo-gaswami’s eyes from a few feet away, andasked in a commanding voice, “Who areyou?” Now, the children may think this is asimple question, and that Chellapaswamiwanted to know who Yogaswami was.“Who are you?” A child may answer, “Well,I am Sivajnana Senapati and I go to schooland I live on Royal Street.” But is this whatChellapaswami was asking Yogaswami? Washe asking for Yogaswami’s name, home andjob? No, he wasn’t. He was asking Yogaswa-mi to quickly search inside himself for histrue identity, his real “you”ness. That iden-tity is as God Siva. Chellapaswami asked“Who are you?” Yogaswami at the time re-mained silent and did not give an answer.Years later, Yogaswami said Chellapaswamihad lifted him out of a period of darknessand into a meditative experience with thatquestion. And here is a remarkable example


This is the right-facing profileof Yogaswami. This illustrationis drawn from one of the veryrare photos taken of Yogaswa-mi. This particular picture wastaken when he was in a state ofmeditation. This is what hecalled summa iru, “being still.”

His hair was very long andwhite. He tied his hair in a knotat the backof his head, an oldSaivite custom for holy men.He always wore white robes. Heliked children and childrenliked him. Many of his sayingsand writing are specially meantfor children and youth.

Satguru Yogaswami was thesage of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

God exists. The world is at peace. God is peace. What happens on the surface is all a game. Godis overwhelmingly present everywhere.—NATCHINTANAI

67

of responsiveness and obedience to a satgu-ru. A few minutes later Chellapaswamicame up to Yogaswami who was standingon the hot sand grounds of the Nallur Kan-daswamy temple and said, “Wait here untilI return.” Chellapaswami walked away. Hedidn’t return for 3 days. Yogaswami was stillthere, in the sand, waiting. Yogaswami wasnow Chellapaswami’s shishya. They spentseveral years together in deep Siva yogatraining, until Chellapaswami’s death.Chellapaswami made Yogaswami the nextsatguru in the line of gurus.

Yogaswami then spent five years sittingin yoga meditation under a large tree on astreet in a village very near Jaffna. He wasthere day and night, blazing sun and pour-ing monsoon rains. He wore white robesand let his beard and hair grow. He ate onceevery few days. This was in the early 1900’s.Then he moved into a one-room hut at thesame spot, and this became his ashram.And it became the center of spirituality inSri Lanka as Buddhists from southern SriLanka and the Hindus from the north cameto meet with the great sage. Many SaiviteHindu families became his disciples.

Over the years individuals and familieswould come to see him every day. He begantaking a serious interest in the spiritualprogress of the Jaffna youth. He often invit-ed youth to ride with him in cars of devo-tees. He taught and advised them person-ally, wrote letters to them when they trav-elled and watched over their karma with hisyogi powers. He made up songs of teach-ings that could be easily memorized. Thesebecame known as Natchintanai, meaning“good thoughts.” Yogaswami worked witha group of adult men who did good karmaservice for Saivite Hindus. Yogaswami in-spired these men to introduce a course onHinduism into the Sri Lankan schools. Themen were successful, and that course wasthe starting point for this course we arenow studying. In 1949, a young Americanman came to Sri Lanka in search of his sat-guru. Yogaswami initiated this man as thenext satguru in the line, and gave him thename Subramuniya. He is now Sivaya Sub-ramuniyaswami, who is overseeing the de-velopment of this children’s course.

STORY READINGThere was a slow drizzle of rain coming inover London. Clouds, gray and sad and wet,came in over London Bridge and the Buck-ingham Palace where the Queen of Englandand her family lived. Everybody that was

outside on the streets had umbrellas up.London looked like a city of umbrella peo-ple. From out of the window of his family’sapartment 9-year old Jyothideva waswatching the drizzly rain come down. Hehad opened the window, and cool, foggy airwas coming in. It rustled his short blackhair and the pale white curtains. On thewood wall beside him was a picture of aman with snow white hair and beard sittingin meditation. He was wearing a white ver-thi and shawl. The picture was black andwhite and kind of fuzzy. The man’s eyeswere closed. It didn’t look like he was sleep-ing or dreaming. To Jyothideva, it lookedlike he was traveling somewhere. The manwas sitting totally still, frozen like ice. But atthe same time he was traveling, probablyacross Siva’s world. The picture was of Yo-gaswami. Jyothideva missed Yogaswami.Before his family moved to London twoyears ago, they lived in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.Yogaswami’s very small ashram was just tenminutes walk from where Jyothideva lived.He used to visit Yogaswami often, some-times twice a week. Yogaswami sat on asimple wood bed. They talked in Tamil andEnglish. They laughed. Yogaswami was veryfunny. Often devotees would bring a tray ofofferings to Yogaswami. If there were sweetpastries or candy, he would immediatelypass it out to the children, softly chuckling.Now, Yogaswami was very far away in Lan-ka. On occasion Yogaswami wrote him aletter. In the last letter that came, Yogaswa-mi wrote, “You must meditate in the morn-ing and evening at night before you go tobed.” Jyothideva kept all these letters in asilver plated box in his room. This morn-ing he had meditated, and he hoped Yo-gaswami was watching. He knew Yogaswa-mi had the power to see people from veryfar away. So as he meditated, in his mind hesometimes smiled at Yogaswami.

Below on the street cars and trucks racedby. There was honking and a man with ared face was selling newspapers. He wasshouting about the news: Russia had sent adog on a rocket ship up circling aroundEarth. “Hey Savitri,” he called to hisyounger sister. She was over sitting on thelight green and brown carpet from NorthIndia. Crayons were spread all around herand she was busy coloring in a picture ofSiva. “There’s a dog up in space, goinground us in a rocket ship,” Jyothideva saidexcitedly.

“In space? What’s that?” Savitri asked, asshe selected a bright blue crayon.

“Very, very high in the sky,” said Jyothide-va. “So high that there is no more blue, justthe night time of the moon and stars.”He then whistled loudly. There was a low-pitched woof. Then click, click, click, clickthe sound of a dog walking across the tilefloor of the kitchen. In came a beautifulgolden retriever dog, just about one yearold, wagging a big shaggy tail. He was a bigdog. And he headed right for Jyothideva’sface, to give him a big lick. “Hey, Grihanya.Do you want to go up in a rocket ship?” hesaid to the dog as he ruffed up his thick fur.Grihanya means gold in Sanskrit. Grihanyahad reddish golden fur and very smart eyes.

“Who would feed him?” asked Savitri.“He eats a lot, you know.”

Jyothideva said,“I wonder what Yogaswa-mi would think of a dog in space. He alwayshad something funny to say. Once hespelled out G,o,d, and d,o,g, and said bothare the same,” as he petted Grihanya whowas batting crayons all over the room withhis wagging tail. “The world is a playgroundof God—that’s what he said. I wonder whatYogaswami is doing right now. Let’s see. Ifit’s noon in London, it must be early morn-ing in Sri Lanka. He’s probably sitting inmeditation now. I used to really love sittingwith him when he did yoga. It was so mucheasier for me. It felt like electricity was com-ing from Yogaswami. So pretty soon, somechildren might stop in to see him on theirway to school. He’ll chat with them, maybesing a new Natchintanai.”

A C T I V I T I E S

1. This is a variation on musical chairs.Bring to the class a tape cassette playeror CDrom player to provide music. Alsobe sure there are enough mats for every-body to sit on the floor. Yogaswami, agreat satguru of Sri Lanka, was famousfor telling people “Summa iru,” whichmeans in Tamil, “Be still.” Set up themats so they are in a wide circle. Thechildren are standing inside of the circleof mats, forming a circles themselves.Start playing the music, something up-beat. The children skip and dance clock-wise around the circle next to the mats.Suddenly the music is stopped and theteacher cries out, “Summa iru.” Andeverybody must find a mat to sit on ina cross-legged postion and become per-fectly still. Not one movement is al-lowed. After a short while, the music isstarted again and the children skip andjump going round the circle till the nextSumma iru is called out.

Book 1, Lesson 62