They are learned in Vedic lore. Knowing God is within them, they thought themselves to be God and plunged into distracting pleasures, forgetting all thought of God.

Monday
LESSON 148
What Is the Anava Marga?

Much has been said of the path toward merger with Siva, and much remains to be said. But the truth is this: most people on this Earth are following another path for the moment, the path of self-indulgence and self-interest and selfishness. No doubt, it is the most popular path, and it has its own pandits and masters, who teach how to perfect the path of the external ego, how to perfect worldliness, how to perfect the trinity of I, me and mine, how to perfect self-indulgence. But that is not the ultimate path, which is followed by the few, by mature souls. It is important for aspirants to know that the real path leading toward merger with Siva has many detours, pitfalls and sidetracks that beckon unwary travelers. It is important for him or her to know about these side paths, to be warned, as I am doing now, to be wary of them, to be cautious, to be extremely careful.

One of these I call the anava marga, or the path of egoism. True, it is not a traditional path, but it is a path well worn, well known in all human traditions. In fact, you could say there are three such untraditional paths, three worldly margas: anava, karma and maya. The last two bonds, karma and maya, are the first to begin to diminish their hold on the soul as one proceeds on the path to enlightenment. And when these fetters begin to loosen, the anava, the personal ego identity, thoughts of "me," "my" and "mine," should also begin to go, but often don't. When karma and maya begin to go, anava often becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.

The karma marga is when the soul is totally enmeshed in the actions and reactions of the past and making new karmas so swiftly that little personal identity, or egoism, is experienced, like a small boat bouncing on a vast ocean of ignorance, the ignorance of the maya marga. This marga is not spoken of at all in Hindu scripture, except indirectly, yet all the sages knew of its delightful distractions. It is truly there for the soul who is bound to ignorance of how to know karma, know dharma, or even know anything but the next and the next experience, as each is eagerly thrust upon him. Here the soul is bound by karmas, bound by maya, giving the abilities to ignore. That is the path that has to be left once on it, the sidetrack to be ignored and passed by. A sharp turn, a firm decision, brings this unhappy soul onto the anava marga, the path of extreme personal identity. Here the realization comes that "Yes! I am a person on this Earth with the rights of all. I am no longer bound and harassed by experience. I can adjust experience, create new experience for myself and for others. I can be the controller. I am I."

The I becomes the realization and sometimes the end of the path of the karma and maya marga. The I, that all-important personal identity, so strong, becomes the realization of the small and limited "self," which appears to be a big and real "self" to those who have found this path, which is not the spiritual path, but the path of grayness; while the karma and maya margas are the paths of darkness. Yes, the anava marga is a real marga, a labyrinth. It truly is.

We are concerned to define anava because a word can be dispatched too quickly; a concept can be forgotten. Anava, the personal ego, finding oneself, with a small "s," the personal identity, gaining intellectual freedom are all modern cliches. Defining the anava marga appeared in my mind as a necessary thing to do while I was helping devotees to understand the charya marga, the kriya marga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga and raja yoga. To offset the negative with the positive better explains the positive. To understand the pure essence of ignorance, where it comes from, its values, beliefs and motivations, better defines the heights of wisdom out of which comes dharma and aspirations for mukti. Sometimes, in fact, we see anava margis thinking they are yoga margis.

We cannot advance on the path without a starting place. No race was ever won but that everyone began at the same place. To know where we are on the path of life progressing to mukti -- which is one of the four tenets of life, dharma, artha, kama, and mukti, merger with Siva -- we should not be deluded by the ignorance of what the anava actually is, and what artha and kama are, the strength of their hold on the soul, preventing the dharma and the final attainment of mukti.

Tuesday
LESSON 149
Self-Concern, Self-Preservation

People who are living totally on the anava marga are not religious, and if attending religious functions, they stand with folded arms, on the outside looking in. Their only emotions are for themselves, their immediate family and friends, but only if the latter prove useful to them. Selfishness and avarice are two descriptive words for their lifestyle. To their immediate family, they are protective, kind and resourceful, provided the spouse, sons and daughters are productive and equally as concerned for the family welfare. The animal instinct prevails of "Let's preserve the nest, the lair, at all costs."

The businessman on the anava marga is generous by all appearances, gives enough to gain praise, adulation and to make friends. In proportion to his wealth, he gives a pittance. There is always some attachment to the gift, some favor to be eventually reaped. The gift is a purchase in disguise. The anava margi in giving charity would always want adulation, credit, name to be mentioned, and if it is a large amount, some control in the use of it. There are strings attached. He may even follow up years later and wreak criticism and havoc if the gift given in cash or kind is not maturing in value.

In contrast, the devotee of God on the kriya marga would know that he was only giving to himself through indirection, and place his gift freely in the hands of those he trusts. Trust is always preceded by love. There is no difference between the two, except the method of follow-up. The anava margi becomes the law. The kriya margi knows that divine law will work for him if he follows the path of righteousness, while the anava margi is driven to manipulate the law in fulfillment of each of his concerns.

Emotional ups and downs are contingent to the anava marga. Four steps forward, three steps backward, a step to the side, six steps forward, two steps backward, a step to the side, six steps backward, three steps forward, a step to the side -- it is an amazing dance. It's a maze. They all think they are going someplace. This dance of ignorance is not one of Lord Siva's favorite dances, though it is definitely one of His dances. He does it with a smile and a sneer, mirth and a tear on His face. He actually has most of the world doing this dance now. Ignorance is equally distributed throughout the planet. The intrinsic ability to ignore, consistently and persistently, the eternal truths of the Sanatana Dharma is one of the great qualifications of the anava margi.

Television is a window into the anava marga. We see extremely successful professional people who maybe have started on the anava marga and have bypassed it to the artful acting portrayal of people on the anava marga. We can see in their eyes, they have a life that is seeking and searching, understanding and knowing, and their magnetism keeps them before the public year after year after year. These are the professionals. Then we see on TV the anava margis by the dozens. They come and go, are hired and not rehired.

Before the anava marga, there is only confusion, unqualified thoughts, desires that are only motivative or directional, not crystallized into any kind of a concept that can be manifested toward a fulfillment. The confusion arises out of the drive for self preservation. All animal instincts are alive in such a human being. He does not hold to promises, does not seek to strive, is a proverbial burden on society. Society is made up of anava margis and those who live in the other margas. Deception, theft, murder, anger, jealousy and fear are often the occupation and the emotions of those living without a personal identity, a well-defined ego.

A personal identity and well-defined ego is the anava, and the pursuit of the development of that is the marga. Each purusha, human soul, must go through the anava marga, a natural and required path whose bloom is the fulfillment of the senses, of the intellect and all the complexities of doing. It is prior to our entrance upon the anava marga and while we are happily on the anava marga that we create the karmas to be understood and overcome later when we walk the charya and kriya margas. You have to understand before you can overcome. This is the time that we "do ourselves in" and later understand the all-pervasiveness of Siva, the laws of karma, dharma, samsara. Yes, of course, this is the time the mischief is done.

Wednesday
LESSON 150
Fear, Anger and Opportunism

Those who want to hold a position and those who don't want to hold a position combined, those who have no time to perform sadhana, who avoid their yearly pilgrimage, whose family cannot gather in the shrine room, who do not read scripture daily and attend a temple infrequently, if at all -- they are doing extremely well on the anava marga, in my estimation. Their artha and kama are coming along just fine. Dharma is ignored, and mukti just may not happen.

Many people on the anava marga perform yoga, japa, disciplines of this kind, and gain great adulation, as well as business contacts, through it. But nothing is gained other than a few minutes of quiet and aloneness. These are the opportunists, the people who make the world go 'round as we see it today.

Swamis are most precious to those on the anava marga, giving blessings, amplifying their desires; adulation is sincere but not real. The swami is taken into their family as a personal figurehead of it, like a status symbol. They do not enter the swami's ashrama to do sadhana and become a part of his life. And if the swami rebels, preaches dharma and holds back blessings, he is generally abused. "Love you, use you and abuse you" is the methodology of those on the anava marga. All swamis, gurus and priests know this only too well.

The anava margi looks at God from a distance. He does not want to get too close and does not want to drift too far away, lives between lower consciousness and higher consciousness, between the manipura, svadhishthana and muladhara and the lower three, atala, vitala and sutala, which represent fear, anger and jealousy. He does not get into confused thinking. That is super lower consciousness, in the realm of the talatala chakra. He is guided by reason. That is why he can come into the other margas.

Therefore, God is at a distance. He sees himself pluralistically, separate from God, coexistent with God. Those who fear God anger easily. They fear their elders. They fear their government. They fear impending disaster, and they fear disease. God is just one item on the long list of things that they fear. They are not on the path of spiritual unfoldment. Their higher chakras are dreaming benignly, waiting for the consciousness to explore them. Only when someone begins to love God is he on the path of spiritual unfoldment. Only then is he a seeker. Only then does his budding love begin to focus on religious icons. Only then is he able to nurture his love into becoming a bhaktar and at the same time a religious person, a giving person. This is the charya path. We come onto the charya marga from the anava marga. We come to Lord Ganesha's feet from the anava marga. He is now the guide. The personal ego has lost its hold.

The anava marga, and the glue that holds it together, is ignorance of the basic tenets of Hinduism. There is no way one can be on this marga if he truly accepts the existence of God pervading all form, sustaining all form and rearranging all form. There is no way this marga could be pursued by one understanding karma, seeing his manifest acts replayed back to him through the lives of others, his secret diabolical thoughts attacking him through the lips of others. The anava marga does not include this knowledge. The dharma of a perfect universe and an orderly life, the consciousness of "the world is my family, all animals are my pets" is an abhorrent idea to someone on the anava marga, especially if he is casted by birth in this life. The anava margi abhors the idea of reincarnation. To pay the bill of one's indiscretions in another life is not what anava is all about. There is a forgetfulness here. When you renounce your childhood, you forget that you ever were a child. You forget the moods, the emotions, the joys and the fears and all that was important at that time.

Thursday
LESSON 151
Surrender Is The Way Out

The yoga marga must come naturally out of intense bhakti and internalized worship. The intensity of bhakti is developed on the kriya marga. The final remains of the ego are pulverized on the charya marga, where Sivathondu, selfless service, is performed unrelentingly with no thought of reward, but a hope that the punya, merit, will be beneficial in the long run. The anava marga is easy to leave through total surrender to God, Gods and guru, along with seva, service to religious institutions. Surrender, prapatti, is the key. All the religions' teachings teach surrender to the divine forces. Great suffering, the psychic surgery kind of suffering, great repentance, is experienced in the overlapping of the charya marga with the anava marga. The beginning knowledge of Hindu temple worship, scripture, being dragged into it by some aggressive teacher, later a desire for reconciliation -- all this leads to penance, prayashchitta, followed by serious sadhana. It is not without a great ordeal and effort, soul-searching and decision-making that one marga bends into the other or bows before the other before it releases the consciousness to go on. One marga must really bend before the other before one can be released. Before entering another marga, it is a matter of giving up, which is painful, most especially for the anava marga people, for whom suffering is no stranger.

How can someone on the anava marga be convinced that there is a better way to live, think and act? The word here is pursuit. We are talking about pursuit. Anava people are always pursuing something, the fulfillment comes on the anava marga, and there is fulfillment, but in a never-stopping pursuit of fulfillment. As soon as we stop the pursuit of fulfillment, we become unhappy, empty, feel unfulfilled and, I might even say, at times depressed. The anava marga is the I-ness, me-ness, mine-ness; me, my, I. "I want, I give, I get, I collect." I, me and mine are the key words here. The true anava margi is the owner, the getter, the consumer, not always the producer, vulnerable to the emotions of fear, who uses jealousy as an asset to obtain. Anger is the motivating power to fulfill desire, by stimulating fear in others. He is a master of deceit. The true anava margi, perfected in the art, has at his beck and call the eighty-four wiles of the lower emotions.

Why would someone begin to feel the need to change to a nicer way of life? The word why is the important word here. They are questioning, they are asking, they are intuiting another way of life. They have observed, obviously, others living a fuller life, fulfilled by the fulfillments of their pursuits, having left the anava marga. Anava margis have become aware of the existence of the charya margis and maybe a kriya margi or two. It is the very force of the desire of pursuit that leads the purusha, the soul, to the charya marga into Saiva Siddhanta. I see the whole thing like a tunnel -- the karma marga, the maya marga, the anava marga, the charya marga, the kriya marga, yoga marga -- which the soul matures through as a child matures from a child to an adult. The problem is that it takes a little doing to define the pursuit. Therefore, the entrance of this tunnel, to be a good anava margi, is kind of crowded, and this is where the problem lies. To truly get on the anava marga, to define the ego's identity, one must have the goal of pursuit.

There are two margas before the anava marga begins, within the realm of deep ignorance. Here reside the masses who live in confusion, the professional consumers who know the generosity of society, who will never in this lifetime manifest a desire, a goal, a thought for the future worthy enough to be accepted on the anava marga. They are the slaves of the anava margis, those whom, as slaves, they manipulate without conscience.

Friday
LESSON 152
The Pernicious, Persistent Ego

Anava is one's personal ego, his identity and place in the world and position on the planet. If his motives are proper and the position is earned on account of good deeds, it is not anava. But if, when praised, he takes credit for himself, it is anava. Anava is the tricky substance of the mind. It is behind every door, it's peeking in every window. It is the first thing to come at birth and the last thing to go at death. To break the chain of anava, the yoking to the Infinite beyond comprehension in any state of mind must be complete and final. And yet, while a physical body is still maintained, the anava elf is still lurking in the shadows, saying "praise is better than blame, name must come into fame, and shame is to be avoided at all cost." This is the anava routine. It keeps people held down on the planet in the instinctive-intellectual mind of remorse and forgiveness and suffering the adjustments to circumstance that occur beyond their power of understanding. A big gun that shoots the bullet of the depth of knowledge of karma, the second bullet, of the deep understanding of the perfect universal energies, and the third bullet, of the dharmic way of a balanced life, kills the anava and brings that purusha onto the charya marga, onto the path of the Gods, the hospital of the soul at that point. The final conquering of the tenacious anava is the final mahasamadhi, when all three worlds sing, "Mukti has been attained," the final goal of life that we on this planet know, merger with Siva.

Because ignorance is all-pervasive, equally distributed throughout the world, one must leave the world and get a wise dome, wisdom, a wise head. He must transmute the energies from the solar plexus -- nothing must affect him there -- to his third eye, see into the past, see into the future, and with that seeing understand the present.

If we were to admit that there are really seven margas, we would find that charya, kriya, yoga and jnana are progressive states of fullness, and the anava marga, by comparison, is a static state of emptiness. This feeling of emptiness is a motivative, driving force of desire toward the attainment of the feeling of fullness. The feeling of fullness is the awakening of the higher chakras, of course. And the constant feeling of completeness is, of course, the permanent awakening of the sahasrara chakra. The feeling of emptiness distinguishes the anava marga from the other four margas, and this is why it is not included in Saiva Siddhanta, but is not excluded either, because the anava mala is mentioned here and there and everywhere within the scriptures. For the sake of understanding individual ego in its struggles to be whole, we have delineated it as a path leading into charya, kriya, yoga and jnana.

The path of the anava teaches us what to do and what not to do. It creates the karmas to be lived through and faced in many lives to come. And when dharma is finally accepted and understood and the religious patterns of life are encompassed in one's own personal daily experience, then and only then do we see the end of this path in view. So, the anava marga is definitely not a never-ending maze or a no-man's land. Though a state of ignorance, it is still a state of experiential learning. All is leading, in evolution of the soul, to Sanatana Dharma.

Everything preceding charya is anava marga. People try to fill their emptiness with things. They work so hard for their money, thinking, "Oh, when I can buy this object for my home I will feel fulfilled." They buy it with their hard-earned money. A day or two later, after ownership has taken effect, the initial fulfillment of ownership wanes, and unfulfillment, which has always been there, takes over, with the accompanying desire for the next fulfillment, object, or in the case of the intellectual, the next idea, group of ideas or new sphere of knowledge. There is no fulfillment in the instinctive-intellectual mind. This is the way it is. This is the way it has always been, and always will be, too.

Saturday
LESSON 153
Bound to The Path

A powerful businessman, a bum on the street, a highly educated scientist and the uneducated field worker could all be sharing the anava marga. It is a path of gratification of the ego, or the gratification of other persons' egos. These days egos get gratified by going to heads of corporations, meeting important people and bowing before heads of state. It is on the charya marga that we learn that rich and poor, the powerful and lowly are all purushas, pure souls, jivas encompassed in a physical body. And on this marga we learn to bow before God and the Gods. We learn that their home, their officiating place, is the temple, the home shrine and under sacred trees. Being in their presence makes the charya margi feel small. The first glimmer of the feeling of smallness is the first footstep on the charya marga.

Those who are not successful in life yet, and experience the repercussion of karmas of past lives denying them things, experiences, security and wealth, are the ruthless anava margis. For those who have fulfilled their dharmas, and desire has waned for more -- they don't need more money, they don't need more food, they don't need more houses, they don't need more respect -- the anava wanes of its own accord, like an old leaf on a tree turns color and falls to the ground. They enter the charya marga and kriya marga with matured respect and humility.

The one who has little desires the most. He takes issues with the smallest things. The instinctive desire to save face is ever prevalent in his mind, for his face is all he's got. He doesn't have anything more. The rich and anavically powerful can buy new things, and when something goes wrong in life, change their image by retreating into their money, place, prestige and come out anew. Those full of anava who have satisfied, put to rest, the many desires of life, entering the charya, kriya and yoga margas gain a new spiritual face, a light in the eye and become looked up to even more than they were when they were sought out for donations for worthy causes.

Even the jivanmukta doesn't like unjust criticisms, but he is bound by his wisdom to nondefensiveness, just, unjust, true or false. "Let them say what they have to say, and if it affects me, it is helping me on the way to my final mukti." He would bless them for that. The anava margi is not like people on the other margas, who have mixed feelings about these issues. The anava margi is a prefect in retaliation. That comes as one of the powers or boons of living on this marga, along with deception and the ability to lie one's way out of a situation. And to save face, place and position, no matter how lowly they might seem, is the goal of life for the anava margi. So, one should never drive the yoga margis, kriya margis back to the anava marga, because they would maintain their higher vision and be masters of the art and win at every turn. They should be left alone to pursue their goals.

In the Saiva Siddhanta system of understanding, the progressive margas define the unfoldment of the individual soul, or the awakening of the chakras. When one comes to the temple because he wants to, has to and needs to live near one, he is on the kriya marga. This does not mean the anava marga has not gone away or he has lost his personal identity. There is a little of the anava always with us right up to the moment of mukti. The anava presides through the fourteen chakras, but is most expressive before the awakening of the knowledge of the Gods and their abilities as helpmates to spiritual unfoldment. You don't get off the anava marga. Individual ego slowly diminishes as the soul unfolds from marga to marga. Nandi the bull represents the ego, personal identity, and in a large traditional Hindu temple, we see many images of Nandi, getting progressively smaller as we approach the innermost sanctum. This indicates the soul's progression toward God or the diminishing ego.

Sunday
LESSON 154
Exiting the Anava Marga

Anava still exists in the other margas, but it diminishes. It first starts out as "I'll do it all myself. I need no one to help me." Fulfillment comes through fulfilling each individual desire. Self-preservation is a very important part of the personal ego. But then, later, as progressive steps are taken, spiritual identity fulfills the emptiness, as water fills up a container. Only at the moment that mukti occurs does the container vanish. Until then the anava is like smoldering coals in a burnt-out fire. New wood can be thrown upon them. They can be fanned up. Detractors to a spiritual movement will often try to reawaken the anava of its leader and kill out the rival movement by creating his downfall.

Anava comes strongly to the Hindu when not living up to Hindu Dharma, when not performing sadhana, when there is no desire for mukti. When he has a fatalistic view of karma, when his Sanatana Dharma does not include pilgrimage once a year, daily reading of scripture, home puja, temple worship, when he is overly involved in the acquisition of wealth, ignoring all the other goals of life -- we have here the makings of a fine anava margi. Being overly involved with personal pleasures, kama, neglecting artha, not understanding karma, we have the makings of a wonderful anava margi. Being overly involved in dharma or the desire for mukti, we have here the makings of a wonderful karma yogi, bhakti yogi, raja yogi, jnana yogi. The normal Hindu needs a normal balance of all the goals. It is no accident that the Hindu sages can understand the anava within man. Yes, of course, they passed through it themselves and are just tapping their own memory patterns, seeing the actions of others and knowing the outcome.

As the soul leaves the anava marga and enters the charya path, a budding love begins to unfold. He is now conscious in the muladhara chakra, looking out through the window of memory and reason at the world around him. His personal ego, which had until recently been well placed on the anava marga, is feeling bruised. It now has to deal with some very real challenges -- loving one's country, loving the world, family, friends. The charya marga brings him into penance, which eventually brings him into sadhana, which is regulated penance. Without sadhana, penance tends to be spontaneous, erratic; whereas consistent sadhana is the regulation of penance. Now the soul begins dropping off the bonds of karma, maya and anava as it unfolds into bhakti, love. This is true Saiva Siddhanta. All this is not without being a painful process. Therefore, the protective mechanism of fear, which in itself is an avoidance process, is right there to help -- in the chakra just below the muladhara. The presence or absence of spiritual surrender and willingness to serve shows whether a person is on the anava marga or on the charya marga. Devotees on the charya marga are striving to unfold spiritually and reach the kriya marga. People on the anava marga are not striving at all. They are their own self-appointed teachers and proceed at their own pace. When we are on the charya marga, we have a lot of help from family, friends and our entire religious community. When we are on the kriya marga, the entire Hindu community, the elders and others all get behind us to help us along our way. Then when we are finally on the yoga marga, we have all the saptha rishis helping us. The satgurus are helping, too, and all three million swamis and sadhus in the world are helping us along the path at this stage. When we have entered the jnana marga, we are bringing forth new knowledge, giving forth blessings and meeting the karmas that unwind until mukti.