Be careful what you wish for

HARI goes to a bar and orders drinks for everyone around. He has a great time with everyone back-slapping him and telling him what a great guy he is. As he is about to leave, the bartender gives him the bill. Rattled, Hari says, I only ordered the drinks. I didn’t order the bill.

Most of us live our life like Hari, just as foolishly, just as brainlessly. We have no recollection of asking for the bill as we go about acquisitions and expectations of acquisitions. When the bill does finally arrive, we are startled and depressed as this is not part of our expectation. There is a saying: be careful what you wish for, for it may come true.

We are driven all our lives by our Samskara. These are our unfulfilled desires that are deeply embedded in our unconscious mind. Most of the time, we are not even aware that these samskara exist. However, they are what determine what our decisions will be. They become our will. They drive us into illogical and irrational decisions, even decisions that are harmful to us.

When you drink or smoke once in a while you enjoy them. As long as you have the freedom to drop them you enjoy them. When you get addicted to them they enjoy you. Addiction is when you do not enjoy the habit but cannot do without it. You can get addicted to food, TV, newspaper, gossiping, so many things. When you are addicted, food eats you, cigarette smoke you and liquor drinks you. When you do not have the freedom you are used; you are not in control however much you believe you are; your desires control you and lead you into a vicious cycle of suffering.

Often people tell me that they have good samskara. These memories help them improve their lives. As long as you live in the past you cannot improve your life. You cannot drive forward by looking backwards.

Meditation is the path to dissolve and burn your samskaras. Meditation leads you into a no-mind state where samskaras cannot exist.

Meditation brings you into the present, the here and now, where you are aware of what is buried in your unconscious and have the energy to destroy your samskaras. You become liberated. We can live our life in joy, without the fear of having to pay the bill.

Consciousness, not conscience matters

From our childhood we have been told to act out of our conscience. These were just social rules that were laid down by society for some justice and peace to prevail in society. But it is very important to understand the difference between conscience and consciousness.

A man, who has real consciousness, can't hurt others or kill others, because he feels others as an extension of himself. A person with conscience may not kill with knife, but he will kill with words because his being is violent. With conscience, we may be socially non-violent, but with consciousness, our being will be non-violent.

Morality should be based on consciousness, not on conscience. When this happens there will be no need for rules. Because our love for ourselves and society (which is only an extension of ourselves) will be so great that we will never think of disturbing or harming anybody.

A serial killer has no consciousness, which is why he does what he does. The fact that he does not abide by societal rules, what religion and moral studies would term as conscience, is only a secondary issue arising out the first. If he had consciousness of his existence, he would be aware that he is the same as every other being and would not harm another being.

Conscience is a poor substitute for consciousness. In the meditation program called NSP (Nithya Spurana Program), I help people to experience at least one glimpse of consciousness, so they can start living with consciousness instead of conscience. Anything based on conscience is skin deep, it's not eternal, but anything based on consciousness is eternal. We should work for conscious experience. Just because we don't have conscious experience, we should not compromise with the conscience. Our morality, understanding, lifestyle everything should be based on consciousness. When it's based on conscience, it's based on fear and greed.

If the idea that we should not speed on the highway is based on fear, when we don't see a cop's car we will speed up. It becomes tempting to break laws, and we feel courageous. Whenever anything is followed because of fear and greed, we will be waiting for the chance to break the rule. Kids saying no to parents have a similar basis, and it makes them feel they've proved themselves. If morality is based on conscience, we will always do something to violate it, directly or indirectly.

Accept guilt and move on

ANANDA is bliss. Nanda is something that can die out, disappear and related to suffering. Ananda is that which can never disappear from your being, it is bliss. It is not joy. Joy brings suffering in its wake. Ananda is beyond joy. It is eternal bliss, nitya ananda.

Pleasure is what you feel through your senses based on an outer object; music, a fragrance, a beautiful sight, physical touch. When you meet nature, a mountain, a sea, a forest, you feel joy. When you feel ecstasy without sensory inputs or nature, not even inputs of forms of God, only from your inner core of energy, your atman, without any external input, it is bliss. It can be with no reason. It comes from within. That is Ananda.

Yoga: It’s important to understand what yoga is not. Yoga is not physical exercises or breath control; these are but a part of Yoga. Yoga is union; the union with the divine; union with the cosmic power. It is chitta vritti nirodaha: it’s the cessation of the mind, to take it beyond the mind, to be one with existence. The blissful technique to unite your own self with the divine is ananda yoga, using bliss itself to unite.

Life has no goal, it has only purpose. Living has a purpose. If life is a goal it’s a rat race; even when you win this race, you are still a rat. The very living is bliss when you go without a goal, only with a purpose of enjoying the path.

You cannot look at God as a goal. You cannot run towards God. In inner world, logic is vey different. Goals are not reached by running towards them. Vivekananda says: Arise, awake and do not stop till the goal is reached. I say: arise, awake, stop; goal is reached.

Seeking makes you tense, will make you miss your purpose. In a relaxation course you are so tense that you lose the purpose.

I say accept all guilt, all mistakes, and all failures; even if you can not accept, accept that you can not accept. You will then relax; guilt will drop from your mind.

If your mind is tense it can never stop. Only when you relax it can cease. You have to drop goal orientation. If you accept what you are, what is, mind will lose its roots. When mind is, bliss is not. It is either mind or bliss.

Create your children in a better mould!

Till the age of 7, a child is like a sponge. Anything that the child is exposed to, the child absorbs. Its mind body grows at an amazing rate.

In this phase, the child is in visualization phase. Whatever the child sees is imprinted and embedded into its unconscious. The embedded memories start replaying as the child grows into adult. These embedded memories drive adult decisions.

Between the age of 8 and 14, the growing child is in verbalization mode. The child starts learning languages and verbal imprints, not merely visual images, start getting embedded. Using words like happiness, suffering etc instantly evoke appropriate pictures and therefore emotions.

During this entire period, the child is controlled by its parents or parent substitutes. Most of what is embedded in their unconscious comes from the elders close to them, mainly parents. So, children imitate their parents.

People ask, do we inherit the sins of our parents? Do their karma become ours? No, don’t worry; you do not inherit the sins and karma of your parents. But, unfortunately you do inherit something that is equally powerful; something that can either be very positive or very negative.

You do inherit the mindset of your parents. You inherit the way they think and act. You inherit their values and beliefs. You get conditioned by them. You inherit the mindset to commit the same sins, to inherit the same karma.

So, I say again and again, be careful as parents in how you bring your children up.

If the mother always complains, whether of a headache or the husband or the neighbor, the child learns the words and the behavior. If the father coming home flops down on the sofa at seven in the evening saying he is tired, the connection between seven in the evening and tiredness becomes hardwired in the child’s mind. If a father comes home and displays keen interest in playing with the child that behavior too is imprinted.

Why is it that you rarely see an ugly child? Why is it that you rarely see a beautiful adult? If a child is being natural and playfully rowdy, we cannot tolerate such behavior as an adult and we must control. We have to make the child as insipid as we are, as ugly as we are. Let them be natural. Let them grow into beautiful adults. It is in your hands to do that.

You are what you think!

We become what we think. Yad bhaavam tat bhavati, is what our scriptures say.

What ever we think and feel again and again is what we become. What we think we verbalize, what we verbalize we visualize and what we visualize happens.

Wisconsin University carried out an interesting research. There are societies and cultures in our world where the language spoken is very refined and without negativities. For instance, if you notice, people from the Lucknow area, whether Hindu or Muslim, would use the respectful term for ‘you’, even to their children. Politeness and etiquette is bred into them.

On such communities Wisconsin University carried out research and found that people in such communities rarely suffered from depression and such similar ailments. They found that if the words people use are refined and without negativity, mind is not adversely affected. They do not get stressed, they do not get worried and they do not get depressed. They lead a relatively happier life.

Worry is nothing but the constant inner chatter with in us, the constant negative inner chatter. I am asked again and gain, ‘To what extent are we responsible for our thoughts?’

If we are not responsible for our thoughts, who else can then be responsible for them? Our thoughts arise from within us, not from or through someone else! Is it possible for some one to come between us and our minds? Certainly not!

Brahma havit brahmaiva bhavati, say our scriptures. He who focuses on the Brahman, the Ultimate, becomes the Brahman, the Ultimate himself. What we focus our mind on, what we think, what we feel is what we become. There is no doubt about this.

How can we stop worrying? How can we streamline our thoughts without negativity? This is what everyone wants to know.

The solution is simple. You need to be aware of what you think. Constantly be aware of what your thoughts are and straighten them out. You need not stop doing anything you are engaged in to do this. You can be driving, you can be in conversation, you can be cooking and still you are thinking. Constantly thoughts arise. Most of the time, you do not even watch your thoughts. You let your thoughts guide you into fantasies.

For a change, watch your thoughts. As soon as there is a negative thought change it into a more positive thought. You may say it is too simple. Yes, it is that simple.

Life has no goal!

We feel happy or satisfied when we are running after desires or when we run away from our fears.

So every moment, we are continuously either in greed by running after our desires or in fear by continuously running away from something. Our happiness in every moment is measured only by either greed or fear.

But how can you be happy or satisfied when in this moment you are running towards or away from something? This means we are not actually experiencing the moment. We are not actually living in the present moment. We are continuously in the web of greed and fear. We either living in the past or we are in the future thinking about our list of desires. We fear if our desires will get fulfilled due to past experiences.

We are never in the present moment. We can enjoy something totally only when we are completely in it and we can be complete only when we are totally in the present moment, enjoying what we are doing here and now.

When you are in the current moment, when you are completely in the present moment with full enthusiasm, you are in a state of bliss. Bliss is the state of joy which has no reason and which is not affected by the past or future. It is not affected by either our fear or our greed. It is always there.

Then, the current blissful moment will give birth to future moments of bliss. You enter a virtuous circle rather than being caught up in the vicious circle of fear and greed that you are now caught in.

This running towards or away from something is fundamentally because we think that life has some goal to be achieved.

If you are running behind a goal in life, you will be disappointed at the end of life. Sadly, you will feel terribly dissatisfied; you will feel a complete void when you look back at what you have been running for.

But when we see life itself as a goal, we make the path itself as the goal. So every moment when we are on the path of life, we are achieving the goal. The goal is achieved every moment of your life.

The self-realized person is active and happy because he is completely in the present moment, living in reality. The Divine Energy simply blissfully flows through him and he does his activities with that blissful Energy. He no longer needs to derive energy for his activities from desire.

Middle-aged at 136!

This incident happened when I was in Lhasa, in Tibet.

I had heard that there were people in this area who lived long, some who were over 300 years of age. I wanted to meet some of them and talk to them. One of the lamas in the Potala Palace directed me to another lama working on a nearby filed.

I asked this lama who looked fairly old, ‘sir, I am told you are very old. I would like to understand how you live.’ He was very active at work pulling of weeds and repairing the field when I went to him.

He laughed. ‘I am only middle aged! I am just 136! There are many here who are far older than I am! You should go and meet them if you wish to see old people, not me’

I saw a medical report testifying he was over 136 years old! I asked him how it was possible for him to work so hard at this age. He simply said that for us lamas 300 is a normal life span. That is what we believe and that is what we see. There is nothing surprising in some one working hard physically at 150 or 200 years of age.

I asked him again, ‘how did this belief come about?’ He said, ‘in all our ancestral burial places it is written when they were born and when they died. They all lived to about 300. to die at 200 would be an early death.’

What your mind believes, it makes happen.

Medical science now understands that every part of our body gets renewed once ever so often. Millions of cells out of the estimated 60 trillion cells in our body die every day and get created again. Limbs are recreated. Our entire body becomes totally new once every 18 months or so. Not one cell in your body now was there some two years ago. Not one cell that is present in your body now will exist as it is now two years from now.

As long as you do not disturb our mind body system and allow it to function the way the Tibetan lamas do, you too can live to 300! These lamas understand the science of how the body recreates, renews, and regenerates itself and have established both the concept and the process to make this happen. So can you!

About Losing Fear and Conquering Greed

I have talked about spirituality and religion earlier. Spirituality is about liberation, whereas religion, s it is understood and practiced, is about control.

At the lowest level religions tend to control through ignorance and blind belief. They do not wish to be questioned, because they have no answers. The Vedic culture is very clear on this. What they laid out as scriptures are the eternal immutable truth, called sruti. They are not regulation. You can take these or leave them. They are meant to be guidelines for evolution, for the flowering of your consciousness.

When they laid down regulation for day to living, they made it clear that these regulations, the smruti, are changeable. These regulations need to evolve with time and space. There is no rigidity, there is no compulsion, and there is no pronouncement that these are God given and therefore cannot be questioned.

Vedic culture and religions which sprang from the Vedic culture stood for individual freedom; only such freedom can lead to awareness and liberation. Religions that tend to control through ignorance graduate into control through fear and greed. These are the next two steps, which work as the basis of a number of such religions.

Spirituality is about losing your fear and conquering greed. Krishna advises us in the Gita to drop aversion and attachment, in order to reach Him. Unfortunately, some religions foster fear and greed through regulations that they impose on you. They will tell you that if you do this or that, you will be a sinner and will go to hell; and if you stay away from all such evil actions, you will be redeemed and will go to heaven.

There is no heaven and hell. They exist only in our minds. You commit sins because you are in hell; you do not go to hell because you commit sins. Redemption is liberation and heaven, when you reach that inner awareness that you are one with all. The bliss that overpowers you is that heaven that our sages talked about. It is not some place where wine, women and song keep you occupied 24 hours a day. Such a place would in fact be hell, as it will lead to infinite boredom.

Drop all notions of sin and merit, and of hell and heaven and live with awareness. You will reach Nithyananda, eternal bliss.

Ego or Surrender, which happens first!

How are you going to surrender the ego, when it does not exist?

Suppose you are sitting in a dark room. You want the darkness to disappear. But can you push it out? Can you fight darkness and force it to leave the room? No! No matter how long you keep trying, you are ultimately going to be defeated - and that too by something which does not exist!

Ego is all about the illusory identity we build about ourselves, around ourselves, so that we can feel secure. A child has no ego. It is free to explore. As we grow, our education and conditioning helps us build this barrier around ourselves. It is an ‘unreal’, non existent barrier that separates us from our true Self. It is a barrier that keeps us in bondage.

The ego is like darkness, it has no positive existence. Just like darkness is simply the absence of light, the ego is nothing but the absence of awareness. To struggle to kill the ego is like struggling to push the darkness out of the room.

To really expel the darkness, what you need to do is to forget all about dealing with the darkness. Focus your energy on light instead. Just bring a small lamp into the room, and you will find that the darkness has fled on its own! So, I tell you to forget all about the ego. Instead, focus on bringing a lamp of awareness into your being.

When your entire consciousness has become a flame, you will find that the ego is no more.

The ego is an illusion. You cannot surrender it when you are unaware - because you don't know how. Of course, you cannot surrender it when you become aware either - because then you realize that there is nothing left to surrender! What you have heard, read, been taught - 'Surrender the ego in order to attain Self-realization' - this is unworkable. It can happen only the other way round. Self-realization dawns, and suddenly you cannot find the ego anymore. The surrender has already happened, just like that.

I am glad if the question has arisen in your being. The ego is the root cause for all your anxieties, sorrows, and tensions. It is your doorway to hell. To actively feel that you want to drop the ego, to feel the need to be rid of this burden is itself a step towards awareness. It shows that you are stirring from your sleep!

You are eccentric!

Your being is always centered. Your mind is always at the periphery.

Your mind constantly seeks outward led by the senses. Your being stays centered at the core and is directed inwards. You are constantly tugged between the center and the perimeter. When you are at the periphery you are mad, truly mad. You are overcome with fear and greed. You are consumed by lust, desire of power and wealth.

When you at the center, you are Siva. You are in cosmic Consciousness.

Over time, you develop the capability to stay some where in between. You have no choice. You have to choose madness otherwise, because your mind will not let stay at the center. You become eccentric, moving only briefly back and forth between the bliss of your core and the illusions of your periphery.

At the periphery your senses control you; they make merry. Once in a while, if you are intelligent, you realize that you are getting nowhere. You go wherever your senses lead you and try to enjoy the sense objects presented to you. Over time the enjoyment decreases; you need more and more of the same object, while the enjoyment gets less and less. You are about to get addicted. Some bit of intelligence in you warns to get out.

You move away from the periphery and try to move towards the center where you have experienced brief moments of great peace and happiness. Your awareness does not last long. Your mind gets restless and you go back to your old ways. You now move back towards the periphery.

Please understand that at the peripheral level you are in the grip of the need to survive and possess. You are governed by your ego, or ‘I’, based survival needs and ‘mine’ the need to possess. Your fear of losing your identity and your greed to possess more and more are the two strong forces that keep you tethered to the periphery.

Your ego reduces when you realize your connectivity with others, and when you understand that you can collaborate with others far more effectively than if you compete. Your need to possess more and more decreases when you develop the awareness in enjoying what you have with you, instead of rushing to acquire more.

As you move from being eccentric to the center, you move away from the past and future to the present moment. You move away from suffering into bliss.

Do you bathe when you bathe!

Everyday, early in the morning, a Zen Master asked his disciples: How many of you have bathed this morning?

Almost all the disciples raise their hands dutifully.

Next question: How many of you are aware that you bathed when you did?

Not a single hand was raised.

Bathing is an act. Bathing with complete awareness that you are bathing is different. Today surely all of you must have bathed and all of you must have brushed your teeth. How any of you were aware of what you were doing when you did that?

Bathing is not a noun; it is a verb. It is the action. It is the process.

When you brushed your teeth how many of you were aware that you were brushing your teeth? When you bathed how many of you were aware of the hot water and the hot shower pouring on your body? Were you aware that your body was just getting ready after the bath, and that your life was getting rejuvenated after the bath? How many of you were aware of all these things when they happened?

A small Zen story:

A king went to a Master, and asked: ‘Master How can I become enlightened? Tell me about all the practices you do. What did you do to become enlightened? Please teach me’.

The Master says: ‘Oh! I eat when I eat; I sleep when I sleep. That is all I do’.

The king could not understand.

The Master explained: ‘When I eat I only eat, I do not do anything else when I sleep I only sleep I do not do anything else’.

But what do we do? Recall how you eat. You will remember that you were watching TV or reading a magazine when you were eating. Or it could be that you were talking to some one or continuously thinking of something. If you were calm, sitting quietly and eating your wife would have been there to report some problems in the house.

So in one way or another, when you eat, your mind does everything else but focus on the food and eating. You do everything except eat.

You treat food with such cant respect. It is another form of garbage that is stuffed through your mouth. That is the reason why the food treats you like a garbage bag. It withholds its energy unless you become aware of what you eat.

If you treat your food with respect and are aware of what you eat when you eat, wellness results.

This is true even when you sleep! When you sleep you do everything else except sleeping. Because, only when you sleep you dream, you have your nightmare and fear strokes. You then have disturbed sleep.

Catch yourself in the act. Become aware. That will set your inner transformation in motion.

Words, Words and Words

Imagine for a moment that the first half of this column is empty. Imagine that the tape you are listening to you is silent and has no content for just two minutes. What happens?

Your mind races. Thoughts flood you. What has happened, you wonder, what has gone wrong? Why are there no words?

Nothing has gone wrong, nothing at all. Your mind cannot tolerate silence; that is all. Thoughts and words are a call of your Consciousness telling you that your center is unfilled.

There are two kinds of people. One kind is the people who follow words and seek meaning behind the words. Another kind is those people who ignore the meaning and seek the source of thoughts. The first kind is the Commissar and the second kind is the Yogi.

Seeking words and thoughts cannot fulfill you. When you seek words you move into the outer world. You move into the space of sense objects, which results in pain or pleasure. However many times you may experience the physical or sensual pleasure led by your thoughts, you still keep seeking the same pleasure. What one calls karma, is really the effect of these unfulfilled desires.

The meaning of thoughts and words is not to provoke movement towards these external experiences that can never be fulfilled but to move towards the center, the core of your being. Only there you will find the comfort in silence.

Words soothe your superficial mind the same way as scratching an itch seems to provide some comfort. In actual fact it makes the problem worse. It is the same with words. More words you use more confused you are. Be careful of all these scholars and philosophers who use highly complex language and words to propound their theories. They themselves do not understand what they are saying, so they are forced to confuse others by using complexity as a tool.

Whenever you ask questions, more questions arise. This is seen as the measure of intelligence in our system of education. When one really understands, one realizes two things. Firstly, one realizes that questions and answers do no lead to any understanding at all. Secondly, one realizes that understanding happens when thoughts cease.

Truth resides in silence. Truth resides in contemplation. As you move inwards towards the source of words and thoughts, mind become still in simplicity.
This stillness, this silence leads to fulfillment.

Don’t you want to be born again?

To many followers of Western religions reincarnation is a difficult concept to accept.

One is so used to being told that this life is all that we have that the offer of another life, in truth, many more lives, can at the same time be very exciting and very dangerous. It is an adventure.

The Western religions and their followers believe we all live only once. What happens after death is a mystery. Because of this, the focus of the present life, sensory pleasures and material benefits is intense. It is do or die, before you die.

Western culture therefore has rightly focused on living life to its maximum in this one and only life time. It has developed much better than its Eastern counterpart, in everything related to the external world of sensory enjoyment, including science.

With Eastern religions it is a lot more relaxed. You have many lives to live. If you have not achieved in this life you still have a chance in the next and the one after. It is also an adventure. Like some one said, life is really like a candy box! You really do not know what you are going to get in your next life!

Any amount of empirical evidence, which now shows that reincarnation is a reality, is difficult to accept because of our conditioning. It is also as a result of the belief that life is all about body. The Western mind has only a vague concept of the spirit and soul, of which the Bible says a lot. The belief is that what is intangible and what cannot be held in one’s arms does not exist. This is the same conditioning that led to the belief for many centuries that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

Why is it more threatening to accept that the spirit returns to another body rather than believe that it burns in hell or frolics in an unseen heaven? The simple reason is that it is easier for religions and society to control us through greed and fear through the concepts of hell and heaven; that’s why.

Once you realize that you will return to another body on earth instead of being consigned to a heaven or hell forever, reduces the pressure on you to conform. You have the time to look within you and find the truth for yourself. You decide how you must live, not others.

Why we cannot tolerate criticism!

A lady came to me complaining that she is hurt by even small criticisms coming from others. She said she was very sensitive.

I asked her to stop using that word. I said, ‘You are not sensitive. A really sensitive person will be porous; she will allow the words to pass through her. Only arrogant people get hurt. If you are hurt, please understand that you are arrogant. You are strong like a stone, which is why words come and hit you.’

A sensitive person would have allowed the words pass through her; she will never suffer. Even if someone is deliberately rude, a sensitive person understands where such a person is coming from and is not defensive.

Suffering is always from arrogance, never from sensitivity. A person who is sensitive will never suffer. A sensitive person will suffer on account of another person in distress, not for oneself.

You suffer from words when you stop them, when you resist them, when you create your own meaning out of them. When we do not create our own meanings out of words, we do not suffer. We play with words. We always choose nice words to support our ego. We do not say, ‘I am hurt because I am arrogant.’ We always use polished words such as, ‘I am hurt because I am sensitive.’ Please don’t cheat yourself with words. Let your words be unfiltered by your ego.

Let me tell you a small story:

Once, a contractor wanted to donate a sports car to an official. The official refused, saying, ‘I am an honest person and I cannot think of accepting this gift.’ The contractor asked him, ‘In that case how would it be if I sell you this car for ten rupees?’ The official replied immediately, ‘In that case, I will have two cars!’

When an untruth is wrapped in gift packing, you forget you have a problem. You accept it without a murmur. However, when truth is presented bare, you do protest. Presented bare, truth hurts; ego cannot tolerate truth easily.

We are so concerned about politically and socially correct statements, it seems no longer acceptable for anyone to speak the truth. But it seems to perfectly acceptable to lie in a politically correct manner.

Ramakrishna says beautifully, ‘Let your words and mind be straightened.’ Whatever is, let it be offered straight without filtering. Learn to accept truth bare. At least you will know you have a problem that you can solve.

Letting others rule our minds!

How to control the mind without allowing the world from outside influence our thoughts?

Most of us have no control over our minds. We’ve heard people talk of it. We’ve only heard of it. We’ve never been able to practice it. We’ve never experienced it. Control over mind is only told, only heard, not practiced. If we only hear of something that’s beyond the realm of our experience, we decide that the statement is wrong.

Does this mean that the outside events, or other minds, can still influence an individual’s mind and thought processes? Let us examine this. If we’re married, we know that our spouse can influence our thought process. It happens verbally when we give orders. It can also happen without words.

Here is an example. You decide to come for the meditation camp. Let us say your spouse puts on a long face. But you decide to come anyway. Your spouse hasn’t said anything. There’s no negative body language or verbal arguments regarding this matter. Watch what happens when you are in the meditation retreat and getting into a joyful mood. A thought of your spouse wriggles into our mind. Your energy will change. Your entire mood will change.

Even without their physical presence our spouses influence our meditation. We’ll be meditating on the negative energy of the spouses. Just the memory triggers so many reactions in us. It lands us in low energy field and negative mood.

So it is real that others can influence our mind. They needn’t express their thoughts. They can be a memory. This operates even if we haven’t met a person. This is brought about by pattern of thought. The best way to change this thought structure is to become aware. When we’re aware of our thoughts we can change the mood or the habit. We can choose to be happy.

Human beings can make a conscious choice. We can decide whether we’d like to live with intelligence. Animals and non-living things don’t have this choice. They are intelligent by birth and remain intelligent. Their intelligence is not from their intellect. Human beings have a choice; they can choose to become fools or intelligent. We choose to use our intellect and become foolish.

I think, therefore I am, said a Western philosopher who did not even know how his mind worked. In contrast, our scriptures said many thousand years ago that you discover yourself, your true divinity when you stop thinking.

You have a choice as to whom you listen to!

You are destined to have freewill!

People spend more time arguing about whether they are driven by destiny or acting out of freewill than doing what they should do. They forget that they waste their time of their own accord, their own sweet free will!

There is no such thing as future. Future does not exist till you create it in your present moment, here and now. We all waste our time regretting or savoring what happened in the past and speculating about what would like in the future. Neither is of any productive value. There is nothing we can do about the past, it is gone; it is history. There is nothing that you can do thinking about the future; you have to act now to make your future. Your future is in your hands, and your hands only. Trying to fashion your future based on past experiences is like driving car looking at the rear view mirror. All you will meet is disaster!

We are comfortable being told that we are destined to do certain things. We are relieved when we learn that our sins and problems are because of our past karma, because then we can disown responsibility.

Be very clear, there is no such thing as karma, the way you understand it. Your unfulfilled desires shape your actions and this is karma. As of now your future is driven by your fantasies, your unfulfilled desires, and what you do not have. When the product arrives, you ask, who ordered this, not I!

Start being comfortable with what you have. Enjoy what you have acquired instead of hankering after what you do not have. Spirituality is not about renouncing in the sense of what you understand. There is nothing that you have now that you need to renounce. Nothing at all. Just renounce what you do not have, your fantasies. You will see your life change in front of your eyes.

When you focus on enjoying what you have now, you will have to focus on the present instead of wasting time speculating and regretting. Your entire mindset will be on action. Because this action is not tinged with regret and speculation, you will automatically fall into what Krishna refers to in the Gita as the action without expectation.

When you learn to stay in the present, your freewill destines you to be a true Yogi, one who is truly uniting material and spiritual life. You will be in eternal bliss, nithyananda.

From the form to the formless!

Idol worship is an important belief of Hinduism. Many people are surprised to see people pray to stone idols; many of them in fact. They term this pagan worship.

We must understand that there is no such thing as idol worship in Hinduism; it is worship through idols.

The Eastern mystics have always maintained that God is one, all pervading energy, beyond form and formless, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. Let me ask you honestly, the moment I say formless what comes to your mind? The sky, an ocean, an open space comes to our mind. Again it’s a form, but it’s not described by length, breadth and depth.

Please be very clear, unless we experience it, we cannot relate with something formless. So as an initial way to relate some forms are created. It’s a technique. For example after learning to ride a bike, we can remove our hands from the handlebar and ride the bike, but initially we need to hold it and learn. Just the same way, when we enter the spiritual journey, in the end everyone experiences the formless, but at the initial level we need a form to relate to.

As long as we think we are a form, we can’t relate with the formless. Most of us think we have a form, a body with a set boundary. This is not so. It is a difficult idea to grasp initially. As a result of this even if we think of something as formless, we will again be giving it a form, may be a sky or ocean, something vast, but again it is going to be one more form.

If you say the formless just IS, it’s an experience. If you experience it then it’s alright. You don’t need anything. But many cannot start with that experience. We can only start from where we are. I have seen many people who want to start straight away with the formless but they don’t feel totally connected.

That is why in Eastern religions we have the initial step as worship through idols as a way of relating and connecting. Once we master that, we can feel it everywhere. At least I can say from my experience, a person in the initial level cannot relate to the formless directly. It is because it takes some maturity to relate to the formless.

May we all begin with the form and become the formless!

Faith is beyond intelligence!

It is easy to acquire intelligence. If we work continuously using our intellect, it matures into intelligence. There are a number of meditation techniques that can help us sharpen our intellect. The peak of intellect is intelligence.

Emotions arise from the heart. Ancient masters have taught us many meditation techniques and methods to work on our emotions. Any of these meditation techniques will change our emotion to faith. The peak of emotion is faith.

Our thoughts have lot of power. Be clear about one thing: if you believe in a particular God or Guru, believe it with all your might. Do not bother about whether he has power or not. Your faith has the power.

Ramakrishna used to narrate this beautiful parable to his devotees.

A learned scholar, a great pundit, had his home on one bank of a river. All provisions for his home used to come from the other bank. A milkmaid used to bring him fresh milk every morning.

One morning she was late, very late. The pundit was very angry with her. ‘My morning prayers have been delayed because of you’ he ranted, ‘don’t you have any responsibility?’

She apologized profusely. ‘Master, the river was in spate and the boats refused to ply. That’s why I was late.’

‘Don’t give me excuses’ roared the pundit, ‘if the boats couldn’t come you should have walked on water. How can you make the Gods wait? Have faith and cross the river.’

The milkmaid meekly listened and went away. She was never late gain. A month later it rained profusely for a week and no boats could ply. Yet, the milkmaid came on time and delivered the milk.

The pundit asked the milkmaid how she managed to come at all. She simply said, ‘you told me how to do it. I believed in you and walked on the water ever since that day!’

The pundit was shocked. Disbelieving her, he took her to the riverbank and told her to cross the river, which she did with ease. ‘If this milkmaid can do it believing in me, I should have greater powers’ thought the pundit. Lifting his dhoti with one hand he stepped into the water and promptly sank.

‘Oh! Master! What faith do you have? How can you cross the river if you believe your dhoti would get wet?’

You do not need an enlightened master to liberate you. All you need is absolute trust. A stone can liberate you. Ramakrishna was enlightened through his unshakeable faith in the statue of Mother Kali.

When you live with such trust and surrender your mind, body and senses to the entity you trust in, you are automatically enlightened!

If you are alive, you are qualified!

A man came to Ramana Maharishi, an enlightened Master, and asked: Bhagavan, when will I be qualified to be able to follow the spiritual path?

Ramana looked at him silently for a while and asked: Are you alive?

The questioner said: Yes, of course I am alive.

Ramana calmly replied: You are then fully qualified.

If we keep questioning our qualification even after decades of rigorous spiritual practice, we will feel unqualified. The concept of qualification is brought in to exploit and bind us mentally; to keep us in guilt. We need to drop this guilt and feeling of inadequacy to progress in life.

It is the confusion between religion and spirituality that also leads to this question in us, of whether we are qualified. We are constantly told that we are sinners and as such incompetent to enter the doorway of the Divine. We are told to take refuge in religion to wash away our sins.

A small Zen story:

A disciple asks a Master: Master, am I qualified for spiritual progress? I feel there are many obstructions.

The Master replies: The word obstruction is the only obstruction, nothing else.

Spirituality is about discovering who we are. It is the search for the ultimate Truth about us and our connection with Existence.

There is no room for qualification here. And let me tell you: It is not any option for you. It is a basic necessity to be able to connect with Existence, to be spiritual.

This Truth can be realized through many ways like yoga and meticulous practices like idol worship; but all these would take many births, and you will forget the purpose behind these activities and cling on to the rituals instead. That is the danger.

Dhyana or meditation is the shortcut to the Truth. It is foolproof and without side effects. The only side effect is bliss and realization of your own Self. To start meditation, all you need to be is a human being, nothing more. A Being with consciousness is the only requirement to embark upon a spiritual path. The very desire that you wish to start on this path is a true indication that you are qualified.

It is said in Tao: A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

Take that step now! You are qualified!

Truth is stronger than fact!

West has always focused on facts, while the East has focused on truth. As a consequence the West moved forward in science while the East moved forward in spirituality.

When the great sages of the East looked inwards and realized the truth of their existence, they expressed these in the form of scriptures, the sruti and sastra. In order that the common man could understand these spiritual truths, some of these masters wrote the purana, the epics.

These epics created role models who exemplified these truths that they had experienced in a form that anyone could understand. The purana had characters like Rama and Krishna who the ordinary person could identify with and follow. These characters were based on truth not on fact. When Valmiki talks about the monkeys that occupied Kishkinda, the numbers he uses are so large that Kishkinda could not have physically held so many monkeys. What he is referring to is the impact of those monkeys upon Rama and his mission. When Krishna as a child killed monsters and when Hanuman lifted a mountain, the incidents were meant to convey the truth and impact of the incident upon human consciousness.

Incidents as recorded in the purana are metaphysical, not physical. They are not factual history but truthful experiences. Our sages recorded not day-to-day history, but only those incidents that impacted upon the collective consciousness.

When a scientist conducts an experiment to prove his theory, he does so in three dimensions. These are the easily understood dimensions of length, breadth and depth. A master goes beyond these in his inner experiments to discover truth. He travels in space and time as well. He experiences, expresses and records what is permanent in different space and time dimensions. It may be difficult for you to grasp and accept this, but this is the truth. That is why our scriptures have withstood the test of time and cultures.

Expressions of the experiences of our great masters were recorded as sruti. The rules and regulations that they recommended based on these experiences for societal organization were the smruti. Sruti was the truth and permanent. Smruti were facts that needed to change over time and space.

Spirituality is based on sruti. Religion is based on smruti. Both need to be used for every day life, as theory and practice. However, one needs to understand the difference between truth and facts. Truth transcends facts; spirituality transcends religions.

Winner of a rat race is still a rat!

Hear yourself when you speak. When I ask people who they are, they tell me they are doctors, spouses of someone or another, or friends of someone or another.

These tags, doctor, engineer, husband, wife, father, daughter and friend, are labels given to you by the society. These tags are not you. ‘Who am I’ is a deeper question beneath all these labels.

These labels serve well in the outside world. They mean nothing internally. Let us ask ourselves how to succeed in the outside world. You will say, ‘it is hard, Master’; you will advice me, ‘we should be ahead of the crowd in ideas, information, possessions, and even relationships.’

I will ask you again, ‘Are you happy with everything you have?’
You will say, ‘Master, there is no such thing as a happy state. We have to keep moving to be the leader in the pack.’

You are living and describing a rat race. The problem of winning a rat race is that even after winning you are no better than a rat.

People are concerned that they haven’t yet reaped the benefit of success. Sometimes failure is better than success. Look at the other side of failure. With failure you have still hope that you can succeed; but if you are successful you have nowhere to go, if you are still dissatisfied.

You may have climbed very fast but the climb would have led you to no place in particular. In fact, you might be stuck in a place where it makes no sense to you at all. You are totally disconnected from your inner being.

This kind of success brings depression. Depression of success is worse than the depression of failure. People ask me, ‘what will meditation do to help achieve what I want?’ They want to know whether it will give them what they want.

I say to them, may be not, meditation may not give you the power, the Sakti, to make your dreams reality, but will certainly give you the wisdom, the buddhi, to know that your entire reality is only a dream. Let this be clear.

Meditation creates a space for the inner being to flower. It creates peace amidst the chaos that rules your life. Meditation creates the space where you have neither answers nor questions. You will simply be aware. This awareness is precious. Where there is pure awareness, there is enlightenment. This is true freedom.

This inner being, the inner intelligence, the inner energy, guides us in our path. Vivekananda says: till inner intelligence is awakened no book will help you; once it is awakened you do not need any books.

Healing your way into Bliss!

A man went to a doctor for relief from wheezing. The doctor asked him to have a coldwater shower for an hour, sit in front of an air conditioner for another hour and come back to him for treatment.

The patient got frightened and said that if he did that his wheezing will be full blown into asthma.

The doctor said, ‘that is exactly what I want. I know how to treat asthma, but not wheezing!”

When healing turns into a business proposition, it can lead to great danger, both to the healer and the healed!

All religions and all Masters have shown that they have healing powers. Healing is not any miracle; it is simply playing with Energy. With any religion or Master, the first sign that one looks for is healing.

In fact, no Master is accepted as a Master if he cannot heal people and restore health in his followers in some form or the other. Spirituality itself is only a ‘pickle’ for most people. They take a bit of it when they feel like it. It is never a main meal!

Buddha says: Healing is expression your compassion and care you extend towards someone to help them is healing. Healing is restoring physical, mental and emotional well being. Healing can happen at any of these levels.

Healing of the spirit takes care of all these three levels physical, mental and emotional well being. Healing energy for the spirit comes from the Cosmic energy.

We are all part of the Cosmic energy. This Cosmic energy created us; it nourishes us; it energizes us and keeps us healthy. Unlike other forms of elemental energy such as earth, water, fire and air which are tangible and are available to us for direct absorption, cosmic energy is intangible. In order to absorb this energy of which we are part, the only route is meditation.

Within our body system, energy of the Cosmos is reflected through energy centers or chakra. When these energy centers are blocked by our negative emotions, we tend to become ill. Meditation can energize these energy centers by dissolving our negativities. Our health, physical, mental and emotional, is restored. Meditation heals!

Healing makes the body at ease. Healing the mind leads to happiness and well being. Healing the spirit liberates you into bliss. This is the path of meditation.

What you express gets expressed in others!

Your emotions are very powerful. They change you and influence other people’s behavior towards you.

Whenever some emotions arise in your system, it is like rain. The emotion is poured; like rain, it happens inside your system, in your Being. It floods you. Scientists support this view.

These emotions are generated in your brain as chemicals, neuro-peptides. So, an emotion is nothing but a chemical ultimately. There are particular cells which catch those emotions. For example, if you think about anger, there are particular cells which catch that anger emotion. Not only do they just catch and stay, they will start reproducing. This cell will create at least four or five more cells that can receive this emotion.

These cells that catch the anger emotion start reproducing and each cell creates five or six more cells. Next time, when the anger shower happens, when the anger rain happens, all these cells will also catch the same emotion. They become the size of the original cells. They come to this same original size. Now, these cells also start reproducing. The third time, when the shower happens, all these cells grasp and store the emotion.

That is why, every time when you are showered with the same emotion, it becomes stronger. You get addicted to that emotion; you are unable to control that emotion.

First time, if anger is showered on you, if you are affected for 10 minutes, then the next time, it will surely become 20 minutes. Third time, it will naturally become half an hour. That is how the emotion becomes stronger and stronger.

In your being, again and again, when you cooperate with these negative emotions, you create the same type of mood, the same type of that lifestyle in you.

One more thing: not only will this emotion get recorded into you, the big problem is that you will express the same thing on others. What you have is what gets reproduced in others.

If you are working to strengthen your greed, you will be caught by the emotion of greed and you will radiate that emotion of greed. You will throw that emotion of greed on others. You will torture others also with that same emotion.

So, if you learn to generate calmness and radiate calmness, you will generate calmness around you. Over time, calmness will be built into you and around you. You will be walking bliss!

Please express what you wish others to express towards you!

The world is not your enemy, it is You!

Usually, as an individual ego, we always see the World around as our enemy.

We are all like small waves in a big ocean. However, suddenly, the wave starts thinking that the ocean is its enemy. When it is created, when it exists or when it drops, the wave is always connected to the ocean. But, the wave starts thinking that it is in some way different from the ocean. Not only that, the wave starts fighting with the ocean.

For the wave to realize that it is fully connected with the ocean, it has to be consumed by the ocean. The ego has to dissolve. The individual identity of the wave has to disappear. This is the first and last step to enlightenment.

We all live in the illusion of our own self-created identities. Each adopts another wave as its father, mother, wife or child and relates with these. However, ultimately, each one of these related waves disappears just like the wave itself.

Yet, the impermanence of its own existence as a wave as well as that of other waves around it, to whom it feels related, does not sink in easily. You have to rise beyond the individuality of your existence as a wave to be able to see that you are part of the larger whole of the ocean of this world.

If you look at the human body itself, you can see this oneness so beautifully exemplified. The human body consists of trillions of cells living in total harmony. If you look at the individual cell itself though, it has intelligence by itself.

However, when it is a part of the larger whole, the body, it is not the intelligence of the individual cell only at work but it is the collective intelligence of the body mind system that governs.

An enlightened master, Suzuki lived in Japan. When his master passed away, he started weeping profusely. One person asked him, ‘You are an enlightened person; you shouldn’t be crying on your master’s death.’

Suzuki replied, ‘My master was the most extraordinary man on planet earth.’ The person asked him, ‘What was so extraordinary about him?’

Suzuki replied, ‘I have never seen such an extraordinary person who thought he was the most ordinary man.’

In ordinary life, every average person thinks he is extraordinary. When you feel that you have undergone the maximum suffering, your ego feels good. Only when your enemy is big, you feel big. When your enemy is small, you feel small.

When Time Stands Still

Hindu mythology of creation talks about how the Universe is created each time the Creator Brahma blinks!

Sages of ancient India measured time through the concept of kshana. Kshana is not chronological time. It was not measured as the amplitude of a pendulum or the frequency of an electronic chip. Kshana was not generic time, but individual time. Kshana is the time between two thoughts. My kshana and your kshana are different.

In the case of the average person, in whom the mind is constantly active, desires and thoughts pour out without a stop, the time between two thoughts is very small, very very small. In the case of an enlightened being, who is a no mind state, in whom there are no thoughts, kshana is infinite.

Kshana is the time between two thoughts. It is the space between two thoughts. This is the time and space that Buddha referred to as sunya, and that which Sankara referred to as purna. It is the no mind zone, the mindful zone, in which you touch base with yourself.

Kshana is that present moment in which you come face to face with the divinity within yourself, recognize the cosmic energy that you are part of.

When you are in that kshana, you are truly aware; you are energized and refreshed. Meditation takes you into that awareness.

When you are in front of an enlightened Master who is in a no mind state without thoughts your own thought level comes down, and kshana becomes longer. Without even trying you become calmer, more peaceful, and more aware.

The same experience occurs when you are in the energy field of an enlightened master who is no longer in body, as in a Jiva Samadhi, where the master’s body has been buried. Many of our great temples such as Tirupati, Tiruvannamalai, Mantralaya and Palani are built around the burial spots of enlightened masters and that is the reason why we feel the sanctity and peace giving properties of these locations.

Contrary to what Western philosophers say the idle mind, if it silent, is not the devil’s workshop. It is God’s workshop! It is the busy mind that is truly the devil’s workshop.

Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am’. That is a mere fact; an irrelevant one. Vedanta says, ‘When you stop thinking, you are.’ This is truth; the cosmic truth.

Be still and you will be God.

Heaven is now, don’t lose it!

As we go through our daily life, we expect better things to come our way. We dream that when that better thing, or person, or event comes along, we will renounce all our old habits and possessions and move on.

Some people take this foolishness to great heights. Let us say one is tempted to consume alcoholic drinks. That person may suppress that desire feeling that drinking alcohol is a sin and that it would lead him to hell. He believes that if he stops taking alcohol on earth he will ascend into heaven. He will then be entitled to his share of the divine nectar of gods. Based on what we have been led to believe will happen after our death, many of us lead our lives today.

Even as we lead our life on earth, facing its everyday challenges, we are constantly worrying about what will happen after we die. We think that by suppression of our desires, through some form of penance, we shall get a better after life.

I say to such people: ‘Don’t be foolish. Who can tell us if the drink in heaven is better than on earth? Who knows that? Who knows if we will get a drink in heaven at all? And who can say if it is of the same quality or quantity?’

Please understand that I am not encouraging you to drink. I am asking you to examine your intentions.

This is the state of our life. We lead our lives expecting something better to come from somewhere, sometime, and through someone. The simplest and most profound problem this habit brings is that it stops us from living in the present. It completely obliterates our living here, now, upon earth.

We are setting ourselves up for a life of disappointment and stress. We think that we are going to get something better elsewhere. We keep hoping that an event of great significance will happen in a place far removed from where we are.

Drop these thoughts. Don’t suppress what you wish to do now with the anticipation of getting something better, something more, elsewhere. If we believe that we are giving up something for a better thing, or exchange it for more than what we had, we are merely speculating.

Instead, let us enjoy what we have now without worrying about what may happen in the distant future. Let us cultivate the practice of living in the here and now. Let us remain in the present. When we are totally in the present moment, it expands filling itself with endless possibilities. Living in present keeps us in Bliss, Nithyanandam.

The Cosmic Mother

The Vedic rishis have created different kinds of techniques, methods and paths to connect with the Cosmic Consciousness/Cosmic Energy. I can say the sweetest, most authentic and beautiful path for connecting to the Divine is Maatru Bhava, as a mother.

Our Masters have done so much research in the inner world that they have created millions of paths. The variety of Gods in Hinduism reflects this abundant research and development in the inner world. In the West there had been tremendous energy spent in the research and development in the outer world. Our Masters have so much of thirst for inner fulfillment and ultimate experience. The Vedic tradition offers millions of paths to achieve the ultimate experience.

The path of relating with Existence in the form of mother is such a sweet divine path, I can say that this is the easiest path and straightaway you can start connecting. Everyone can connect. Even if you have not lived with your mother, you will carry the feeling, the beautiful memory or the idea of mother child relationship.

Even if you have never lived with your mother, you would have enough ideas about mother-child relationship. We can connect with the Divine in the form of mother and child relationship. This is called as Maatru Bhava in Sanskrit.

The first strong relationship any human experiences is mother. This is the first strong relationship and stays forever. Turning these samskaras, that relationship, that mood towards the ultimate is the Maatru Bhava, connecting with the ultimate by relationship as a mother.

There are so many other bhavas such as dasa bhava, maatru bhava, vatsalya bhava etc.But the maatru bhava is such a powerful method. It is the complete path. It can lead you to the enlightenment or the ultimate experience by itself. So first enter into the Maatru Bhava. Then whatever you chant, whatever you do, will take you to the deeper and deeper spaces where you can experience the true divine energy, the true mother energy.

You have 3 levels of mother. One is the physical mother who gave you the body. The second is the mothers of your mental set-up. The mental set-up you carry is given to you by many like your friends and family. Ultimately, the mother of your being, Parashakti and the Master lead you towards enlightenment.

The Master who leads you to enlightenment and the cosmic energy is your ultimate mother.

First connect with Mother who has given you this body and then you will connect to the mother who has given you the space to sit,energy to see, and above all the energy to celebrate that you exist.

Happiness is here and now

We want to be happy all the time. We worry all the time about being happy. Our obsession with happiness prevents us from being happy. A New York investment banker needed a vacation badly. His psychiatrist recommended that he take a break or he will break down. The banker went to a fishing spot in a remote mountain location. He bought himself the best of designer fishing clothes and gear including designer bait. He went to a spot recommended by his resort concierge. As he relaxed with his fishing rod in his hand and a pipe in his mouth, he saw a local old man settling down some distance away. The banker struggled to catch a fish. But, the old man was reeling them in at regular intervals and releasing them back into the river.

The old man saw the perplexed look of the banker. He cheerily invited him over to where he sat and showed him where the fish were. The banker was very impressed and asked the old man what he did for a living. The old man replied that he did nothing. He just fished and relaxed. The banker was incredulous. He told the old man all the things he was missing in life by not being a professional, like him, in the great city.

The old man asked the banker: what are your plans for future? The banker said: I will make lots of money, marry, and have children.

What comes after that? asked the old man. Oh, I shall relax and spend all my time fishing, the banker said. Can’t you see that’s what I’m doing now, the old man responded, why do I need to struggle like you.

We all have a long laundry list of worries. We have them all our lives. Can we predict what will bring us joy and when? It is very difficult for us to predict when we are likely to be happy. On the other hand, it is very easy for us to say when we shall be worried, which is almost all the time.

We worry when we have no money. We also worry when we have money. We worry if we have no children; we also worry when we have children. Our wealth and children are quite often the cause of many of our problems. Our worries multiply when our children emulate us.

Worry follows desires just as night follows day. Just as desires have no end, worries too are endless. Do these worries have a purpose? No. We forget to enjoy our life now. We never get to enjoy life later. Either we enjoy it here and now, or never. Find happiness being in the present. Be conscious, completely aware of what is happening at the moment. Be happy with whatever you do. Happiness will be yours to keep.