Hello Everyone,
I am a very fortunate yogi, one who has been trained by wonderful teachers and who continues to benefit greatly from the practice: hatha, pranayama and raja yoga in general. I have been studying and practicing for 15 years, or so, and teaching since 1997. If I can share insights from my experience, or help anyone on the righteous and most magnificent journey [I](that is yoga),[/I] please don’t hesitate.
Thank You,
[B]Om[/B]
Emil
a.k.a. SIVA
Hello Spyrotone & welcome to the forum! I’m glad that you joined to the community!
Namaste Spyrotone, glad to meet new members. I am sure your experience will be most valuable for someone like me. I hv only being practicing Integral Yoga for five years. Love it and is really helping me in many ways.
Love & Light;)
Namaste Spyortone,
Welcome and we look forward to your contributions.
However, I have a bit of a problem with your word choice describing the yoga path as “righteous”. It sounds as if you equate yoga to being a religion, especially it sounds like orthodox Christianity to me. A bit absolutist if I may say so.
Perhaps that wasn’t what you meant, it just felt to me so much like that.
Hari Om Spyrotone
Swami Satchidananda always said There is One Truth but Many Paths. Yoga for some of us is the righteous way, but different people may need different things or hv found different paths to reach the inner self.
?The end result shld be the same. Find the Guru within, the Light.
Om Shanti
Dear Friends,
I am a true Christian, a true Muslim, a true Hindu, a true Buddhist, a true Sikh and a true Parsi.[I] “Righteous”[/I] as stated in my introduction, simply means [I]“in accord with the divine.”[/I] Perhaps it’s my use of the word [I]“most”[/I] which concerns you and might be misconstrued as meaning [I]“more than,”[/I] or [I]“better than.”[/I] Rather, it was meant as something much more general, as in…[I]“I am most happy to meet you too.”[/I]
Thank you for allowing me to clarify.
Peace,
Siva
Dear Siva,
Thank you for explaining, it makes sense.
[QUOTE=Pandara;10563]Dear Siva,
Thank you for explaining, it makes sense.[/QUOTE]
Pandara,
Could you, please, help me in the translation of OM NAMAH SIVAYA ?
As far as I know it means “God thy will be done.”
I have read a few translations and am not sure.
There are many meanings and translations and all are mostly correct, personally I like: “I bow to Shiva” or “Adoration to Shiva”. It is one of the panchakshara mantras meaning it has 5 syllables. For me Lord Shiva is the supreme reality, the inner Self. He is the name given to the consciousness that dwells in All.
[I]The meaning of the 5 syllables:[/I]
[I]Na[/I] is the Lord’s concealing grace,
[I]Ma[/I] is the world,
[I]Śi[/I] stands for Śiva,
[I]Va[/I] is His revealing grace,
[I]Ya[/I] is the soul.
The five elements embodied in this ancient formula for invocation is:
Na is earth,
Ma is water,
Śi is fire,
Vā is air, and
Ya is ether.
Trust this sheds some Light. 
Good job Pandara,
A single translation is difficult. They are all wonderful, of course. I’ve chosen one more personal than literal, that is…“I surrender to Siva,” or “I surrender to the power that is Siva (which resides in us all).”
siva
Mukunda Stiles teaches his students a poetic translation of [I]Om Namah Shivaya[/I] that he was taught by his teacher, Swami Muktananda of Ganeshpuri[I].[/I] “[I]With great respect and love, I honor my heart, my inner teacher. Namaste.[/I]” is that poetic translation. We begin our classes together with our hands to our heart in a way that connects us to our hearts, and we say this together as a way to sanctify the space for the sharing of Yoga. 
My husband and I also shared this as part of our wedding ceremony.
Pandara, thank you for taking the mantra to its elements. You are so gifted at shedding light!
Namaste,
Nichole
[QUOTE=Pandara;19629]
There are many meanings and translations and all are mostly correct, personally I like: “I bow to Shiva” or “Adoration to Shiva”. It is one of the panchakshara mantras meaning it has 5 syllables. For me Lord Shiva is the supreme reality, the inner Self. He is the name given to the consciousness that dwells in All.
Trust this sheds some Light. :)[/QUOTE]
Thanks a lot for your help. It does sheds some light. However, I am still not completely clear: even the title of this thread is OM NAMAH SIVAYA. I have
a CD with the title OM NAMAHA SHIVAYA.
What’s the difference ?
[quote=oak333;19658]Thanks a lot for your help. It does sheds some light. However, I am still not completely clear: even the title of this thread is OM NAMAH SIVAYA. I have
a CD with the title OM NAMAHA SHIVAYA.
What’s the difference ?[/quote]
As far as I know absolutely no difference, it is just one of the many variations that is out there.
[QUOTE=siva;19637]
They are all wonderful, of course. I’ve chosen one more personal than literal, that is…“I surrender to Siva,” or “I surrender to the power that is Siva (which resides in us all).” siva[/QUOTE]
yes, the first one is great i.e. i surrender to Śiv. the second one is quite contrary to the first one…as Śiv cannot be power…power is a dead phenomena. Śiv is a Person. Power connotes energy. Energy cannot have a life, it cannot have intelligence; it does not have a soul.
Śiv is Divine Person. The One, who drank the poison to save the demigods from the ruins.
However, this is my understanding, pls. correct me if i am wrong.
your servant,
Sadāśiv Dās
[quote=oak333;19658]Thanks a lot for your help. It does sheds some light. However, I am still not completely clear: even the title of this thread is OM NAMAH SIVAYA. I have a CD with the title OM NAMAHA SHIVAYA.
What’s the difference ?[/quote]
OM NAMAH SIVAYA=OM NAMAHA SHIVAYA.
Hello Horia,
It is simply a Sanskrit to English to phonetic spelling issue–not a difference in the mantra itself. Perhaps someone will be able to speak more specifically to this, such as one of our Indian members or a Sanskrit scholar who can contrast Sanskrit, the source language of these mantras, to Devanagari, modern-day Hindi, English, etc. My cursory understanding from my Sanskrit studies is that English lacks the accent marks of Sanskrit, therefore we often spell things phonetically to create the sound of the mantra–the sound, the vibrations in our bodies due to the sound and the energy of the teacher giving the mantra is what is important, not the spelling.
You may like to check out http://www.tilakpyle.com/sanskrit_alphabet.htm if this kind of thing holds some interest for you.
Cheers,
Nichole
Thank you all for the light shed on the subject.
If somebody, like me, is not familiar with the Hindu and Sanskrit, will this mantra really
resonate in him ? It might tell not much or different things.
E. g. you can select a mantra like: “God your will be done and I surrender to you.” The sense is clear in English.
I know that some mantras do not have to make sense literally, but they have a hidden sense, which acts if time is given. Is this the case ?
[quote=Reunion;19725]Śiv cannot be power…power is a dead phenomena. Śiv is a Person. Power connotes energy. Energy cannot have a life, it cannot have intelligence; it does not have a soul.
[/quote]
Thank You Sadasiv.
What if I said…“I surrender to the power that is thou?” Would this also be a dead phenomenon?
Power and energy? Are these not also consciousness? Is consciousness intelligent? Is it life? Lastly, is Siva consciousness? Are they not only separate in quality?
om,
siva
My little sister started talking to an imaginary friend when she was 3 yrs. old.
She called him Om. She talked to him everyday until she was about 5 yrs old.
She wanted to be alone all of the time and would say to me and my mom- GO AWAY NOW!!! I WANT TO TALK TO OM!!! I thought she was calling him o at first and I told her, O is not real, you come out of your room and forget about him. She told me " his name is not O. his name is OM and he is my friend. go away.
I always assumed om would be spelled OHM. (for some reason). I never knew there was anyone by this name that existed in spirituality or reality. I thought up until recently it was odd but odd was normal for her. So I looked up the word Om and what i found was a god.
so anyway, the true problem I have is that my sister became atheist a long time ago. she is 24 and has no belief in god or any sort of afterlife. I started thinking about that. How could she never have asked god for help or prayed w/o realizing she was praying. I have questioned god many times and I decided I do believe cause I have spoke to him when I am all alone and noone else can hear me. i must have done it for myself. not for show. not for any other reason than the hope that he would hear me. you dont call out to a god if you doubt that he is there.and when you get no answer that should be your truth, but to do it another time, and another and i couldnt even count all the times i have spoken to god, though i have never heard his answer. i will always have faith that hes listening, then working to find a way to show me the answer to my own questions of love, death, or faith. These are questions that only i myself can answer or learn or find meaning to. when I have called on god I usually have been in an emotional or spiritual state of disagreement with myself or questioning reasons why a god that truely cared would let me feel so much confusion or grief. Why if we are just meant to live and die then what is the point in loving greiving or learning. This belief of mine is what made me stop questioning my faith. at the same time the reason i ever thought it questionable is all the fairy tale stuff like heaven I still think the place heaven seems like a fantasy- created like santa claus or just a reason to believe that death is not permanent so as to go on living w/o those you love and you lose. Is it ok to believe in god and believe in a freeing of the soul from the body to be heaven? that is the knowledge i have found for myself and it will help me all the days of my life. And this is why i worry about my sister— so i started looking into how odd she is. she is an atheist, she has a 4.0 at the least (She is Very Smart) she is a lesbian, she believes she cannot give birth and has no desire to do so and could these be reasons for her lack of faith. That she believes she is to smart to believe in something imaginary to us all. Could it be that some religions say lesbianism is against god. that she cant have faith in something that has no faith in her, that she would have to change her lifestyle to be accepted into gods grace? Does she think I with an iq of probably 2.0 half the brilliance she has, could be an idiot for thinking i may save her from purgatory cause it does not exist to her? But then i thought about her child self, her innocence, her brilliance, her world before she walked into judgements and she was to young to know the meaning of a god to begin with- how she slept walked when she was 3-5 yrs old in the middle of the night and neighbors would bring her home to us. How she never socialized as a child and still remains antisocial. she is very unaffectionate, she has always been a loner, and then i thought of her imaginary friend named Ohm. and thats when i saw all these things about Om. This is an unknown god to me so i have to say i am confused. Could this spirit have tried to visit my sister as a child because he knew her faith would be tested later on and maybe she would remember him and realize nothing but a god would have visited her seeing she was a child unlike any other he had created, that she would challenge her god and face his consequences without fearing a wrath, did he know that she would think she was above any god and being just human is the only way to be. when there is no spirit world to believe in there is no savior that saves souls because there is no souls to be saved. we are only beings of evolution, that everyone in this world will die and never rise again and the body she was born in is the only freedom she will ever know. Om kept her in his company for 2 years. there had to be a reason behind this. Who else has had an imaginary friend that is well known as a god. how could this be a coincidence?