Life is not logical!

People again and again tell me, ‘Master, my son is not taking care of me.’

In traditional societies as in India and other Asian countries children, especially sons, are still expected to take care of their parents in their old age/ Logic of parents is that they took acre of their children when they needed care and therefore, children should take care of them when they need support.

Of course, this may have been the case in the West in the past, but certainly no longer. After 18, connection between parents and children seems to get severed. As yet, this is not so true in Asian countries. Tradition seems to survive.

Be very clear, your son may be the first enemy for you. You are also the first enemy for him. You have given him so many rules, so many regulations. You had given him so many laws, so you were almost the master for him when he was young. Naturally, in one part of his mind he will have respect; the other part will always rebel against you. The other part will be just waiting to take revenge on you. Because you imposed rules and regulations on him, it is a basic rule that naturally he will be against you.

This reality holds good in our relationship with any rule giver, whether societal or religious. All these institutions try to impose their rules in us in subtle ways. They exploit our fear and greed by showing, talking, and convincing us about hell and heaven. They make us aspire and desire for heaven and develop a fear of hell.

They create so many concepts of hell and heaven in us. They say, ‘If you practice these types of teachings you will be rewarded with heaven; if you practice other type of teachings you can only go to hell.’

This concept of heaven and hell is a subtle way of exploiting our being. When we are given some rules based on the greed and fear, we start creating a deep guilt in you.

And one more thing! There is one law which is difficult to understand but it is one of the ultimate laws. The law states, ‘Nobody can live their life based on any law.’

When I say nobody, I mean NOBODY. When I say any law, I mean ANY LAW. Life is far superior to laws. All the laws, rules, regulations are based on some, partial understanding of life.

People ask me, “Why is this life created at all?” I tell them, this WHY can never be answered. Because this WHY is based on logic.

Logic is not truth. With logic one can only travel as long as reasoning has power. Life is beyond that. Life is expansive and beyond logic and reason.

Stop seeking, you will find your God!

All around us, we come across people who are running towards God. Or who they think God is!

They spend so much time and effort in seeking God in all kinds of places. Often, after they believe they have found Him in one place of worship, they will again begin their search in some other new place. They become professional seekers.

Even those who deny God, the atheists, are seekers. They too are seeking their own version of God!

In reality, seekers do not ever truly find God. This is because in the inner world, the logic is very different. The process of seeking is not the same as in the material world, where things exist in separate physical forms. In the spiritual realm, God is not at the end of a journey, He is not the achievement – He is just in the Awareness.

God is already in each one of us, only we have lost the sensitivity to know His presence! When God is all around us, and inside us – it means that we cannot run towards Him, for in which direction shall we choose to run? He is everywhere! This is the Awareness we need to have to reach God.

This is in fact true of all goals. Goals are not reached by frantically running towards them. That makes us tense and creates barriers in the quest. The path should be the quest, not the destination. If we move towards the destination without expectations, if we work towards goals with no attachments to failure or success, we will find that that we become far more productive. We would then work with no stress at all, completely focussed on the journey, the process, and the present.

To work in the present in our daily life we need to trust life itself; we need to trust existence or God. This abiding trust in existence is actually the path to God. But we spoil this path by judging all events against goals set by our minds.

When we sincerely make efforts, immersing ourselves in trust, whatever happens will be good for us. This is what I mean by saying that you actually achieve your goals when you stop running towards them.

Zen masters say: When you see Buddha on the road, kill Him!

If you see Him, or think you see Him, he is not real. When you stop seeking, you will find Him. Seeking makes you tense. It makes you miss your real purpose.

Present is your very presence

Many masters have spoken of being in the present. They teach you how to be in the present. Many of you have many ideas of what it is to be in the present.

When you are in the present, there should be no need for you to announce that you are in the now or in the present. If the need arises to announce this fact then be sure that you are not in the present. Your very presence will disturb others, will confuse others and will threaten them. Your inner chatter will be so loud that though you cannot hear it, others will want to run away.

You may become like some meditators who insist on everything around them being silent and undisturbed. They create chaos around them so that they can be centered and be in order. This does not work. It is your own mind that you need to bring to order, not other people’s minds.

People should smell you if you are in the present. They should be able to smell and feel your very presence. If they don’t you are not. Your very presence will center them, calm them and move them into their present moment when you are yourself in the present moment. You have no need to advertise that fact.

If you are one of those who constantly have to keep telling people how much in the present moment you are, be sure you are not where you think you are. You are caught in your own inner chatter. You are caught in the greed of your speculative future and the regrets of your unlived past.

The more you are caught in your past and future, the higher the frequencies of your thoughts are and the louder and faster your inner chatter is. You have read about being in the present. You wish to be in the present. You feel guilty that you are not. So, you need to announce to the world that you have arrived, though you have not even started.

Presence and being in the present does not happen through seeking. It just happens. It happens when you do not seek, when you do not try, when you relax into it, when you let go. Understand that your thoughts are not logical or connected as you think. No one thought leads to another. Each is independent. We connect one thought with another and create shafts of pain and pleasure, of fear and greed. Instead of witnessing the thought in the present moment and letting it go, we extend it to either the past or the future.

Once you understand this truth you move naturally into the present. I call this being in the unclutched state, the state of nithyananda, eternal bliss.

Move from Words to Silence!

We can’t speak about silence. The moment we speak we disturb the silence.

Let me try and explain how to create that silence in us.

When I use the word silence I don’t mean soundlessness. Soundlessness is negative silence. When I use the word silence, I mean a living, vibrant silence.

It is not the silence of a graveyard. It is the silence of an enlightened Master. The silence of a graveyard is totally different from silence of an enlightened Master. An enlightened person’s silence is vibrant and alive.

When Jesus says ‘Be still and know that I am truth’, he means this silence, the silence of enlightenment.

To enter into that you need to go beyond words. Words and silence, you should cross both these to realize that silence of an enlightened Master.

When we enter into that silence, our whole being radiates, we start singing. When I say we start singing, not only through our mouth, our whole being starts singing. Our very movements will be graceful. Our very presence on the planet earth will be a blessing. Our air, our space will heal. That itself will radiate so much energy, so much life, and so much light. We can touch and feel God in the presence of that person who has experienced God.

What is keeping us from experiencing this silence?

The first thing we don’t have the trust that we can also experience that silence. We always think this is not for us. It is the property of the whole universe. It is our birthright. Being alive is the only qualification to experience this silence and be enlightened.

One more obstacle is that we always have guilt about ourselves. We don’t respect ourselves. We always measure ourselves only based on our failures. We don’t even remember the good things we have done or the right decisions we made. The strength of our being should be measured only on the positive decisions we make, not on the negative decisions we made.

Also we have to drop the wrong ideas about enlightenment. Enlightenment is very simply going beyond desires; it’s going beyond thoughts and words.

The moment we drop the wrong ideas about ourselves, the wrong ideas about enlightenment, we start experiencing enlightenment. We are in that silence. The silence of enlightenment is a living, vibrant silence, a living, vibrant energy. It is the heartbeat of existence.

Don’t be angry, be aware

Watch someone who gets angry very quickly. The more he gets angry, the more he seems addicted to being angry. Getting angry does not resolve problems.

Biologists tell us that repeated behavior actually rewires the brain. Neural networks get established with repeated behavior pattern. What this means is that anger breeds anger.

The emotions not only rewire your brain, but they also rewire your body. In their efforts to accommodate these repeated and debilitating emotions, the cells lose the capacity to absorb nutrients. They grow less and they rejuvenate less. These changes affect you and more importantly affect your progeny as well, as your entire cellular and DNA structure can be changed by your behavior.

Biology tells us that your emotions are chemicals, and these chemicals are released by the brain. We control these chemicals. However, over time, these chemicals can change you and control you.

Watch yourself getting angry the next time. What are you angry at? Are you angry at some one or are you angry about something? If you say that you are angry at some thing, at some behavior, watch yourself as someone else repeats that behavior. Do you get equally angry? Do you allow some people to get away with such behavior, or even humor such behavior in some people that would make you blow up at another person? Therefore, are you angry with a person because you have made up your mind to be angry with that person?

You will find that 90% of the time you are angry at a person and not a behavior or an issue. If you are angry with an issue you can learn to use that anger as energy and do something with that energy. If it is a behavior you can learn to laugh at it. However, if it is a person, you have a deeper problem. You have already made a judgment about that person and all that you do is to collect evidence to support your judgment. Nothing that person does can be right for you.

With awareness you can drop these judgments. Awareness makes you realize the truth that you and another person and every other person are the same at a deep level. If you are getting angry with someone, you are in fact getting angry with yourself. It is your negativities that make you see others negatively. It is possible to drop these negativities through meditation.

Don’t get angry, become aware.

Transform your knowledge into Wisdom

Long time ago in China, a metal worker fashioned a mirror for the first time ever. Looking at his reflection in the mirror, this man said: Oh, my God! My father has descended from the heavens.

On seeing her husband talking to himself, his wife peeped into the mirror. She saw her own face and screamed: why are you talking to another woman?

The husband replied: I was not talking to a woman, I was talking to my father!

His wife was furious. She shouted: Not only are you talking with other women behind my back, but you are also lying about it. You must be having an affair!

A preacher, who was passing by, heard the noise, stopped and looked at the mirror which started the quarrel. On looking at the mirror he was shocked. He shouted with fury: I am the only preacher in this area. Where did this monk come from?

He flung the mirror on the ground and it broke into many pieces.

If he were a wise man, this would not have happened.

What is wisdom?

Wisdom is not Knowledge.

Knowledge is accumulated information. Wisdom is knowledge processed through experience and found to be true. Knowledge is mere fact; wisdom is truth.

Fireflies emit light so that the male and female fireflies can locate each other, mate and multiply. That is the truth and wisdom. If someone observes fireflies emitting light, and from that observation concludes that the purpose is to light the way in the night, it is useless and misleading knowledge, as most of our knowledge is.

It is easy to gather knowledge. We fill our mind with knowledge by reading, watching TV, and listening to people. It is so easy. Most of such knowledge and information is useless. They only add to your ego.

Experience is born out of real hard labor. We cannot change knowledge into experience, as there is no connection between worldly knowledge and life experience! Knowledge is merely the map; experience is the territory. You cannot reach your destination by reading a map!

Understand that the accumulation of knowledge only increases the ego. Instead, internalize the knowledge of information and relate it to experiential wisdom. Let the breeze of joy blow in your life.

Meditation helps us to internalize our experience, and process that into wisdom. It is an alchemy that happens internally, an alchemy that can transform our lives.

Possess Nothing, enjoy Everything

Do you respect a beggar? Do you disrespect a rich man?

In today’s world, people are evaluated only on the basis of their possessions and status. A person’s worth in society is decided on the basis of how much he or she owns. Apart from his physical wealth, his power and influence become important. Success in life is related to ownership of assets and extent of influence.

In reality, nothing can be more damaging to a person’s real success in the world than possessions and status. The desire to possess rises from comparison and jealousy. If your neighbor buys a new refrigerator your house gets warmer. From early childhood we are conditioned to desire what others have.

When we are not able to possess something, we are unhappy and consider it a failure. We become happy when we do acquire what we want. This happiness, however, lasts for a brief period. It lasts till we find one more thing to covet. Happiness seems to be in the acquisition, in the chase rather than through enjoyment of what we have.

Ramana Maharishi says: Till you get something you want, it looks as big as a mountain. Once you get it, the same thing becomes the size of a mustard seed!

Greed drives us. Greed and envy are the root cause of all our sorrow. Gautama Buddha said that all suffering is caused by human desire. Buddha was not referring to genuine need based desires when he said this; he was referring to the unending stream of wants that we develop based on comparison.

Joy is the natural state of a human being. Joy happens when there is no comparison. Joy happens when there is no attachment to an acquisition. It gives rise to sorrow when the desire for possessions imprisons us within the boundaries of time and space. When we recall a happy time, we keep trying to possess that time again. A desire rooted in the past becomes the driver of our present state of mind.

Stop wanting to acquire more and more. Enjoy what you have. I keep saying this: Enjoy what you have; there is no need to renounce what you already possess. Renounce only what you do not have. You do not have to move into a forest as a monk or sanyasi to find happiness. You can find it in the middle of your worldly comforts

All you have to do is to renounce your fantasies. That is the gateway to Bliss!

Non-violence and wellness

Ideally, we should all be masters of free will. When arising from free will, our actions and decisions would be independent of the idea of punishment or reward. I call this morality from within. This value springs from the depths of our being, from the core of our own consciousness. This doesn’t feel artificial or forced. However, if we try to follow the rules and regulations for social life, we will feel constrained and bound by them. We simply want to try and escape from them.

In spirituality, nothing can be labelled as good or bad. There is no thumb rule that distinguishes between what is good and what is bad. There is also no rule that dictates what is good and what is bad. We as individuals make that judgement between good and bad based on our conditioning. Yet, when we live in a society, we all follow certain rules to have a peaceful and happy social life. We have an unspoken agreement amongst ourselves. The agreement is something like, don’t try to kill me and I will not try to kill you. That is the social law.

However, things begin to change when we do not feel accountable or responsible. For instance, if we know that we are not going to be punished for killing someone, will we start killing others? No! If we do so, then we are no better than animals; we have not grown! In such a case, what would govern us are the social codes and not the inner voice of awareness.

What usually happens is that we have two sets of standards based on societal requirements. It is ok if one kills on behalf of one’s country. It is then labelled as patriotism and one is decorated. However, even killing to protect oneself may not be a good enough defence depending on who you are and where you are. Intention, not the action becomes important.

Ahimsa or nonviolence is one of the best universal principles. This principle lets us live harmoniously with others. The principle of ahimsa can be applied to the food we eat. In my opinion, the idea of vegetarian food must have developed from Buddha’s time. He was so compassionate and believed strongly in Ahimsa.

In the Vedic culture meat eating was not taboo. It was restricted for some people at some times. The concept of vegetarianism came into vogue only after Buddha’s time. Right from my birth, I have always been a vegetarian. Vegetarian food increases the joy and sensitivity in your energy flow. You feel light and ecstatic. I recommend vegetarian food for reasons of energy and wellness, not morality.

Many bodies, more joy!

We are all interconnected through our bodies and thoughts. Each of us influences another and one another.

The moment we understand how deeply, totally, and intensely connected we are interconnected, we’ll open many new dimensions of living. We experience bliss. This is the ultimate spiritual experience.

Every day in our life we are stressed. We are continuously disturbed. We think that we have too much to do. We think that we have one body, one small body, to think or enjoy. And the troubles and trials the body faces everyday is too much for some of us. All our troubles melt away when we disappear into the Collective Consciousness.

When we disappear into the Collective Consciousness, we’ll have so many dimensions, so many possibilities. These are unimaginable now. Sometimes we have so much fun, so much joy bubbling within our body. Suppose we have two bodies, imagine how much joy can pour forth from it. Being in the Collective Consciousness, disappearing into the Collective Consciousness, is simply multiplying that joy many fold.

It is something like having three different bodies in three different continents living in three different cultures. The bliss or joy of living in the Collective Consciousness is beyond all of these.

When we completely experience that we’re consciousness without boundaries, it is an inexplicable experience. It’s an unbelievable experience. It’s difficult to imagine or visualize or express this experience.

At the end of the programs I conduct, I’ve seen people filled with ecstasy. In their exalted state of ecstasy they forget their name, identity, social status, education, qualifications, wealth, and religion. They forget everything. They forget what they are and they have. They simply begin to respect another person. In fact, they respect everyone. They fall at each other’s feet.

I’ve seen a father in law falling at the feet of his daughter in law. In India this never happens. It’s too much to ask for from the traditional people. But this has happened at the end of the programs. He did it because he glimpsed the divinity in her. A grandparent touches the feet of a granddaughter. The bosses touch the feet of their staff.

We need to go layer by layer, level by level, to realize that we are a part of Collective Consciousness. We’ll realize that we’re more than a part of the Collective Consciousness. We’re the Collective Consciousness.

We are not what we think we are!

We are not labels. We are all beings living inside the labels. We are not doctor, husband, friend, or anything. We are more than that. We are a total of all that.

We are so deeply attached to the labels. We wear labels very proudly. When people don’t notice and appreciate our labels we feel slighted, neglected, and annoyed. Our labels say things such as ‘I am a manager’ or that ‘I am a big businessman’ or that ‘I own many cars.’

When we associate ourselves with these well-known labels, it makes us feel part of the world. It makes us feel successful. We are no longer alone. We feel pride in the fact that we are somebody well known.

We are continuously partying, shopping or watching TV. We are constantly busy. Why? We are afraid to face ourselves. Our chief entertainment is running away from ourselves.

We believe that all this activity is the path to joy. We have always believed that we will be joyful at some point or other. We think it is only a matter of time. By the time we are about forty we may get everything we have always wanted.

What we don’t understand is what for we wanted all this. This question haunts us because we continue to be deeply unhappy. This is the ‘depression of success.’

This is a peculiar disease of the rich and successful. The more affluent we are, greater are the chances of being afflicted with this kind of depression.

The depression of success is the greatest illness in developed Western countries. Material success fails to make people happy. We are restless. We need to keep experimenting in search of happiness. So, we tend to change or acquire new possessions. We change cars every year, we change houses every second year, and we change wives every third year. Still, we stay deeply unhappy.

At some point in the journey we have forgotten that we are not the labels. If we are a parcel traveling from USA to India, various stamps and identification marks will be placed on it to route and speed it on its way. The parcel may think that these external stamps are its true identity. The parcel is wrong. It is not what is outside, but the stuff inside that makes the parcel what it is.

Dive within. Let go of the labels and seek the inner being. This is the way to bliss.

Shift the doors of perception

All our thoughts are centered on our own ideas of life.

We only see what we wish to see. Most often we have already made up our minds about what we wish to see and we see things only how we want them to be.

When we meet a person, we form a judgment about the person and then we collect facts in support of our judgment; facts in support are retained, others are rejected. We modify facts of our observation to suit our perception.

Our preconceived notions of life distort our actual vision of what life is about. This leads to suffering.

Children on the other hand have no fixed ideas about life or how it ought to be. They are therefore full of joy. They never take things for granted; everything is new for them; each sunrise, each tree and each flower. They are spontaneous, living fully in the moment. They see life as it is.

A Zen master had to choose his successor. He called all his disciples together and drew a small black dot on a white board. He then asked his disciples to tell him what they saw. Almost all saw only the black dot. One disciple alone said: What I see is a huge expanse of white, in which there is a small black dot. He was chosen as the successor.

The disciple chosen as the successor saw the whole picture as it was. The rest saw just the black dot. They saw only the dot because of their preconception.

We need to drop all our prejudices of others and ourselves, of events, time and places and live and enjoy life as it is. As long as happiness is bound by time and space, it does not last.

Our perceptions limit us or liberate us based on whether we perceive things as they are or as we want them to be. All we need to do is to deal with things as they are. What we need is an internal cognitive shift: from seeing things as we want them to be seen to seeing things as they are, and enjoying life as it is. For this transformation to happen, we need to be in awareness all the time.

If we are conscious of our thoughts and actions every moment, we will never slip into forming judgments. Meditation can bring tremendous awareness into us causing the cognitive shift to happen.

Be blissful!

Don’t let rules ruin your life!

A small story:

A man was addicted to smoking cigarettes. He asked for my help. ‘Master, please help me to quit smoking. I don’t know how I became addicted. Please help me.’

I asked him, ‘How did you start smoking?’

‘Master, I never wanted to smoke. In fact, I hated that smell,’ he said.
‘One day I was talking to my friend on the street. My friend was smoking a cigarette. My father saw us from a distance. He thought I too was smoking. When I went home, he started yelling and shouting at me. He did not listen to me. Then I decided, how does it matter if I smoke now? I have already been punished for it. So, I started to smoke.’

We all get a thrill, a feeling of adventure, satisfaction in doing what we are not allowed to do. When we are asked not to do something, we feel strong urge provoking us into doing it. We feel a kind of joy and satisfaction doing it. This is the basic tendency of every human being.

When there is a strict rule, we always try to work around it and go beyond it. How many of us over speed until we see a cop? We say no to our parents to prove that we are now grownup. We think that we become a man, an adult when we say no. Adults have the power and authority to veto anything by saying no. By saying no, we assume that we also have become adults.

We feel that as long as we say yes, we are children. We feel that we are not mature. When we say no, we think, we assume, that we have become adults. We think that we have matured. This is the basic tendency of every human being.

In western countries, that is why there are so many rebellious groups, gangs, and other problems. These people develop a deep satisfaction and taste in saying no. They think it is an expression of self esteem. It is not; it is an emotional illness.

Saying no is also an addiction. It is an addiction to one’s identity. It is an addiction to rebelling without reason. It is another way of expressing your ego.

In the Seventies in United States and many other Western countries a counter culture developed. That counter culture such as the hippie movement in Western USA was a rebellion against society. So long as you are working against something you are likely to get nowhere. You need to work towards something to get somewhere.

Go beyond rebelling against rules. Understand why the rule was created. Work towards that understanding. Then you can either follow the rule or bend the rule or break the rule without guilt, fear or anger.

Bliss is another name for Yoga

Twisting body into pretzel-like poses is simply that. It is not yoga.

People often think that yoga is all about physical exercise and breath control. They can be concluding this from the poses that a Yogi, practitioner of Yoga, maintains. The expertise with which a yogi performs and maintains the positions appears to them as yet another kind of kind of physical activity.

But this is the last thing Yoga was meant to be! It is a far cry from what yoga is all about. Yoga has many deeper levels. At every level, a marvelous and almost miraculous blending of the mind and the body takes place.

Let us watch our mind at work. It does not move in a linear progression. The thoughts are not connected to each other logically or sequentially. Thoughts jump from one idea to the next. One thought keeps us in the present, while the successive thought can be in future.

In an advanced yoga practitioner, the mind and the body are in balance and harmony. The regular practice of yoga leads us from the body into our mind. Intense practice of yoga leads us beyond the mind. It will lead us beyond the body and mind into a sate of our spirit where we become aware of the truth of our Existence.

Yoga, a Sanskrit word, is understood to mean Union. This union refers to the melting of human self with the divine or the Cosmic Power.

Truly speaking, Yoga does not mean Union, it means Uniting. Yoga is the process of Uniting, not the end result of Union.

The process of Uniting helps transcend one’s identification with the mind body system. A Yogi transcends the body and mind identification through a process of meditation, into a true awareness of his spiritual identity. His mind and body are perfectly in-tune with the vibrations and energies of the cosmos.

This awareness brings another welcome side effect—bliss! We now walk the path of bliss or Ananda while doing our Yoga. The ever blissful union of the cosmic energy with a human mind is Ananda Yoga.

The bliss that results from practice of Yoga is not a goal or end result that is aimed at. It is an experience of just walking the path of Yoga. When the path is right, the Yogi says, the destination you reach is always right, it is always blissful.

This is what we teach in our Nithya Yoga programs.

We are part of the universal Hologram

We need to learn to be in tune with nature. We need to be in tune with our very existence.

We can learn to witness events around us. We can begin with where we sit; sit without resistance; sit and be one with nature. Just say to yourself ‘I will not resist nature. I am not going to resist the temperature. I am not going to resist existence. Let me relax.’

We immediately question if we can extend this experiment to extreme conditions. We want to check whether we can apply this in snow and ice. This is our mind. The mind always likes to think of extremes.

If we do it completely, totally, we can do it. Our problem is that we don’t have perfect totality, that depth or clarity. If we can fall totally in tune with nature, we can certainly be comfortable even in extreme conditions. Many human beings simply do that. So can we. When we think we are different from nature, we are disturbed by nature.

There is another fear. Air is full of life. There are all kinds of bacteria and viruses living there. At any moment, a single virus or bacteria can cause disease in us. When we’re entirely in tune with nature, the viruses or bacteria that enter inside can cause no harm. They simply leave us alone. We will not be disturbed.

Our troubles start the moment we start thinking that we’re an individual body that has a separate existence. Then our entire body becomes an enemy.

What we fail to see is that we are a part and everything else is the whole. When we fall in tune with the whole, the whole becomes our face. The moment we start thinking, discriminating or resisting the whole, the whole seems to become an enemy. Let us be very clear. The whole, the universe, isn’t here to kill us or destroy us.

The whole, the universe, is a hologram of which we’re a part. It is like a giant puzzle. Every piece is important for a puzzle. Every single part of the hologram reflects the entirety of that hologram. Each one of us reflects that totality. This is the totality of the whole, the entirety of which is the universe.

We should think we’re a part of the whole. We should relate ourselves with nature.

Laughter, the spiritual medicine!

When was the last time you had a really good laugh?

Most of us have forgotten how to laugh. Our laughter is only an extended smile, a social necessity. We are usually laughing at someone, or simply fulfilling a duty. And laughter has been replaced by giggles and sniggers.

In an office, the boss tells a joke. The whole team starts roaring with laughter, except one lady who sits looking bored.

The boss asks: What’s the matter? Why aren’t you laughing?

She replies: I don’t have to. I am quitting next week!

Laughter has tremendous potential that we have forgotten how to use. It is an excellent way of connecting with people.

In fact, the most radical ideas, when presented in a humorous manner, can easily be got across to people.

Most of us are afraid to laugh, especially when we are with strangers, because laughter exposes us. Laughter exposes the innocent, vulnerable You hidden inside you.

Those who find it difficult to laugh have no idea what a gift they’ve lost. Believe me, there is no business more serious than the business of laughter. It is seriously important to be able to laugh!

Learn to laugh at your problems. At least you’ll have something to laugh about!

People who can laugh at themselves are truly blessed, because they have found a way to go beyond the ego.

Laughter is simply an overflowing of health, of abundant energy. It blossoms as a natural result of being at ease with our self and surroundings. That’s why happy, smiling people are usually the most spontaneous.

Laughter has great therapeutic value. Today, the healing effects of laughter are being acknowledged by doctors and psychiatrists worldwide. And that is why so many laughter clubs have mushroomed worldwide; to teach us how to laugh!

The deep, chaotic breathing induced by laughter produces positive vibrations in our body, relaxes the belly and improves digestion. Laughing also cleanses the manipuraka chakra, the subtle energy center in our navel area, which is the seat of worry and depression. The simple act of laughing has the power to unlock deep-rooted psychological suppressions. Laughter is a natural healing power that nature has gifted to us.

Laughter is the highest spiritual path. It is the royal route to enlightenment. It is the easiest and most powerful way of connecting with the boundless energy of Existence.

Ignorance cannot lead to liberation!

Again and again we confuse spirituality with religion. As I have said before, at the very basic level, spirituality is flowering of internal awareness. Religion is a very poor external tool that pretends to achieve this.

Religions, as they evolve, can converge towards spirituality. But this happens at the individual level, through individual effort, and not through any institutional support. The institutional support may help, if you see many others moving in the same path with the right qualities, but it can never substitute individual effort that we call sadhana or tapas, practice and penance.

At the lowest level, religions can be based on ignorance. Unfortunately, many religions are. They force you into believing what they say without questioning. They say this is what God said. They do not give you the freedom to approach God.

Ignorance based religions subjugate you. Their only purpose is to control you. The problem with unquestioning faith is that there is no awareness behind it and it can be destroyed in a second. Secondly, there is no God who is interested in laying down dos and don’ts for you. That is the job of control-freak humans, not an all seeing compassionate God. Neither He has time to lay down regulations for you nor the inclination to watch over your movements to check whether you are doing right or wrong.

Unquestioning beliefs, based on regulations, can only lead to bondage. Such bondage leads to intolerance of others and beliefs of others. It leads to the fanatic belief that I am alone right. That is what leads to terrorism and all other negative acts against humanity.

Shedding of this ignorance and moving to a greater level of awareness about ourselves and all that exists around us helps to move to higher planes of existence. This can only be done at the plane of aloneness, the plane when you are all in one. When the ‘I’ merges into a compassionate embrace with the ‘all’ in this universe, you move up and you are liberated. Yes, it can and will happen.

Institutions cannot do this for you. They create boundaries, whereas liberation is breaking down boundaries. Institutions fragment so that they can control, but spirituality is about integration. Question your beliefs? If those beliefs do not work in this time and space, you have nothing to lose by losing them.

That will be your first step in moving towards Nithyananda, eternal bliss.

Choose Joy over Worry!

If I were to tell you that you choose the your worries that make you suffer, you will disbelieve me. That is the truth!

Each one of us carries our personalized version of worry. Undoubtedly, the commonality of this worry is that we each have our personalized laundry list. Our worries are not the same as our neighbor’s. Our worry is completely based on our perceptions. Worries are based on individual desires.

Sarah was moving to a new house. She watched over the movers pack her household articles in preparation of her move. One man was handling her antique vase and she warned him, ‘Please be careful, that is over a hundred years old’” The man looked at her and said, ‘Don’t worry ma’am, I will handle it like it is brand new’.

Possessions and desire to possess bring about most of our suffering. Greed fuels many of our worries. We are bothered when our neighbors and friends possess things we do not have. If a neighbor has bought a new refrigerator it increases the temperature in our kitchen! When a friend buys the latest model automobile, we immediately feel that our last year model looks like a vintage car.

Our desires are plenty. When these desires are unfulfilled, we begin to worry. Our worries do not arise from a genuine need for what we really require. We create and invent new wants by comparing ourselves with others.

Desires, by themselves, aren’t harmful. If our desires are deep and pure, then they become true. Such a deep, true desire has power. Desire is energy.

We all have a problem here. Our desires are borrowed. They arise out of jealousy and greed. We develop the desires by comparing with others. Our desires have no connection with our true needs.

Ramana Maharishi, a realized master, explained the nature of desires with clarity: The Universe can cater to the needs of every single inhabitant. However, it cannot fulfill the wants of even a single person.

We worry about everything. We are trapped in a circuit that leads from desires, to worry, to greed. Every time we are worried or stressed about something, we are generating an energy block.

Look within instead of around. Stop craving for what others have. There is no need to renounce what you have to reach spiritual freedom. It is enough if you renounce what you do not have.

Renounce your fantasies to possess what others have. Enjoy what you already have. This is the path to eternal joy, Nithyanandam.

What do you do when you do?

Do you know that when you sleep, you are actually not sleeping? You will not know how to sleep well until you learn to live in the present.

Psychologists say that a person living in Western countries never sleeps for more than 14 minutes at a stretch- more often it is less. After 14 minutes he comes back to the dream state or wakeful consciousness or just floats in the dream level. Again he goes back to sleep for a maximum of 14 minutes. Then he is comes back to the dream level. Again he goes back to sleep. They call this the rapid eye movement or REM sleep pattern.

You never sleep totally even when you sleep. There are levels of mind in which you will never have dreams. You never need to have any dreams. You can directly enter into deep sleep, if you know how to live in the now, the present moment.

If you know how to live in now, you will know the art of eating, the art of sleeping, and the art of doing everything. That is the art of living.

Can you try to remember one incident from your day in complete detail? You are more dead than alive even when you are awake. You almost live like a man in half sleep. You do things without fully knowing what you do. You do recall brushing your teeth; but do you remember the sensation of cold water in your mouth? Do you remember the feel of the taste of the toothpaste in your mouth or the pressure of your toothbrush upon your gums? And how did you feel after brushing?

Or how was the water being poured on your body in the shower? How did the whole thing happen? What is happening after you have eaten your food?

Look at your life; look at your face; you are all almost bored. Somehow you are pulling along. Life is just a drag. Why? Because, all you do, all that you know to do for everything is how to postpone. Your mind never sits with your being. Your mind never lives in the same moment that you are in. You are always in the space of tomorrow or in the space of yesterday. It is never in the space of today, now, the present.

Live in the present. This is the secret art of living.

It’s true that truth hurts

A western philosopher wrote beautifully: Please don’t take lies away. Let man live on them, live with them.

Truth is too much for us to bear. Our lies become deep-seated in life. Lies turn out to be the base on which we live and further lie.

We cannot handle too much truth. If truth is say up to 30 to 40%, we can take it well. Beyond that, the truth starts transforming us. We feel that the ground upon which we are standing is giving way.

To be honest, none of us really want to know the truth. If truth and nothing but truth is given, no one would listen, except, perhaps, a few teachers.

When truth is spoken people get frightened. Truth frightens both the speaker and the listener.

In our life, we don’t want to see the truth. Why else would we wear make up, dye the hair, or dress up? We cannot accept the truth of our ageing. We pretend, fantasize, and lie. We dress up colorfully to hide from the true self within ourselves. We know that we are not what we show ourselves to be.

There are many other ways in which we try to hide the truth. Why do you think we have so many formal, social courtesies? We respect each other. We are taught, from childhood, to say please and thank you, irrespective of whether we mean it or not, and whether the situation demands it or not. We say it because social etiquette demands so.

Whenever we meet someone, we say ‘Nice to meet you’, even though we may not like that person.

When we really feel nice, our whole body, our being will show it. We don’t need to say ‘nice to meet you’ for the other person to understand that you are happy to meet him or her. Our body language, smile, and our sheer pleasure of meeting that person will be obvious.

We dare not face the truth in any language. We know that the truth is usually something else. Neither verbally nor in the body language do we feel comfortable being truthful.

But, the moment we imbibe a single point or any single dimension of truth in any way, if we catch an idea and imbibe it honestly, truthfully, it can do wonders. Truth gives us enlightenment; it transforms us.

When we meditate we rise in truth. We become aware of our true Self.

You are not Equal, you are Unique!

A monastery is not an ashram.

In a monastery there is hierarchy; there is order; there are rules, regulations, and how much work each person has to do.

In an ashram, there are no man made rules and regulations. No one measures how much one does and how much another does. There is chaos, outwardly. There is no equality on terms of responsibility or duties in an ashram; but there is uniqueness. Each person in an ashram does what he or she is best suited for.

In an ashram, an inmate does not work out of fear, greed, motivation or necessity. An ashramite, a resident of an ashram, works out of gratitude. Once people start measuring what they are doing and what others are doing in comparison, you create a political organization, not a spiritual organization.

People mostly work out of fear and greed; all organizations control people out of fear and greed. A few graduate out of fear and greed and then get caught in the need for attention, or jealousy and comparison to prove that they are some way superior to others. Even those who shed all these negativities retain their ego, need for an identity. When all these are shed, one moves up in surrender, working out of sheer gratitude.

A cook in a monastery cooked for the inmates for thirty years. He never bothered to be around the master, rarely attended the master’s discourses. When it was time for the master to leave the planet earth, he called every one to announce who would be the next heir to his seat in that monastery. All of them were expecting one of the disciples very close to the master would succeed him as the master. The master, however, appointed the cook as his successor. He said to his disciples, you have been listening to my discourses all these years, but this cook just lived my teachings. Just with these words, the master made the cook enlightened and capable of being his true successor.

People are not equal. Each one comes with one’s karma and with different attitude. As long as the Master is around, He will take care of every thing. When Master is not there, the whole thing will become dharma, set procedures. When the Master is there every thing will become moksha, liberation. That is the difference between dharma and moksha. Work for moksha. That is the difference between an ashram and a monastery.

Mountains become mustard seeds!

We cringe when questions come our way. We try to avoid searching questions that cause us to look within. Only questions that lead us towards the experience of peace will give us bliss.

Bliss or joy is grossly misunderstood. We equate it with the excitement of a new acquisition. Think of the excitement we have when we acquire something new: like a car or house. How long does it last? Not for long. Once we achieve the goal, the excitement and happiness disappear. This is not the joy or bliss that spiritual masters refer to.

Ramana Maharishi, a realized master, who lived in the 20th century, defines this condition beautifully. He says: before you get it, even a mustard seed looks like a mountain; after you acquire it even a mountain looks like a mustard seed.

Do we know what we want? Unfortunately, none of us does. We think we know. Are we happy with our success? We can’t be. We will never be. Till we know what we want we will never be satisfied with whatever we achieve and acquire. Otherwise at the end we will find that whatever we have acquired is of no value to us.

We are chasing desires. This chasing leads us into an endless cycle of desires and wants. Most of these desires are not our own. They are borrowed from others. The possessive feeling and labeling of things and relationships, as ‘mine’ is the most dangerous trap that mind can set for us. It is never ending, never fulfilling and always leading to suffering.

Why are we so uncomfortable asking ourselves why we seek something? We run without resting in order to fulfill desires based on comparison with what others have. Once we get what we are running for, we do not understand what we have been running for. So, the discontent stays.

How can we end this confusion or suffering? We will continue to suffer and be disillusioned until we know who we are, the question of what we want cannot be answered.

The smallest but greatest book I have ever read is a book of sayings by Ramana Maharishi titled ‘Who Am I’. Let us dare to ask this question. This question, will lead us into a long journey. Our question transforms itself into a quest. Our urge becomes urgent.

We often think answers will end our questions or problems. Any question that is directional and leads to an answer will only add to our confusion. Only when the question leads us towards experience will we experience bliss.

Awaken this intelligence, this bliss, this joy that is undiminished. Watching our mind is one way to awaken it.

When Love turns to Violence

What is lust? The truth is that we don’t know. Humans know only how to reproduce. We do not know what lust is.

When animals mate they experience pure lust. They enjoy themselves. But humans are different. Our lust is born from imagination. It’s built on fantasies from movies and books. It is borrowed from others ideas. It is not natural for us.

Our struggles with lust begin from early childhood. From a young age onwards we begin to form ideas about how our ‘would be’ partner ‘should be’. This idea about ideal partner contaminates every relationship we have.

We begin to compare and contrast a real partner sitting next to us with the person who lives in our imagination. When we do this, the real partner becomes a poor substitute to the person in our mind. The partner, who lives in our cerebral layer, leaves us with a feeling of being cheated in the present.

Men feel they are being deprived. Women feel exploited, used, disrespected. Men operate from their Muladhara, root chakra, contaminated with lust and greed. Women receive the energy through their Swadishthana, spleen chakra with fear and insecurity.

Our lust and sex are contaminated with the dirt of our imagination. We can only mentally relate to another. Even when our partners are sitting next to us, we take the permission of the mental picture to live.

The Hindu scripture Shiva Sutra has a profound way of illustrating this. A verse says: If you are a couple in bed, there are four of you in bed together. Each of you is accompanied by the other’s fantasy of yourself; the man sees the woman and his fantasy about her; the woman sees her mate and her fantasy about him.

Fantasy, imagination, mental picture, these are the words we use to describe lust. The lust isn’t pure. It is tainted by our imagination; it is built on our fantasies and thrives on the hope of finding that person to match the one in mind.

Likewise, our love is tainted by this imagination. We love someone as long as that person does what we say and obeys us. A mother says: I loved my daughter deeply until she married someone, who was not my choice.

We don’t know love. Our love is a desire to possess. What we think as love is actually violence. Only when you let go the need to control and possess can you really love.

What Yoga is not!

Many translate Yoga as ‘union’.

Please understand, Yoga is not ‘union’. It is ‘uniting’. Yoga is not a noun. Yoga is a verb. Yoga is not an end result. Yoga is a process. It is a process of intense enthusiasm.

Krishna says in the Gita clearly that Yoga is what you have to be, without expectations and without attachments. It is not doing but being.

There is nothing to achieve by practicing Yoga. You will be shocked to hear this. Many people have told you that Yoga will cure you of asthma, it will cure you of chronic pain, it will cure you of high blood pressure and so on. Perhaps it does; but not because of what you practice, but because you believe.

Especially in the West, Yoga is sold as a product; either a cheap or expensive product depending on where the teacher is located. If you practice this asana they say you will be cured of this and that. It has become a prescription medicine.

I saw an advertisement for an Instant Super-luxury Kundalini Yoga offered at thousands of dollars. Patanjali, who formulated the technique of Yoga, will roll in his samadhi if he comes to know! The only person who benefits is the advertiser, not the user!

It is the process of Yoga, the practice of Yoga that unites the mind body spirit system. What unites is not the exercises that you perform. This again will shock you. It is the intention. You create a memory in your muscles and that gets embedded.

It is essential to start any Yoga practice with a clear intention of what you wish; it may be health, it may be enlightenment; whatever it is make a positive intention. Before you perform the asana, the exercise, with full awareness of that intent visualize the posture you plan to adopt. Go through in your mind every single step of that asana. Then practice that asana.

Just be sitting comfortably in any position with your spine erect to allow energy flow you can derive the result of any asana through intention and visualization. This is the truth. However, this is too simple for you to believe. You need something more tangible, more strenuous to prove to yourself that Yoga works.

Then, practice Surya Namaskar, the most integrated of all Yogasana. Start with a clear intent, visualize all steps and the do the process. You need nothing more. This is what we teach in our Nithya Yoga programs. Be in Bliss!

Hero or Zero, choice is ours!

If we think ourselves as heroes, we are heroes. If we take ourselves for mediocre persons, we are mediocre. If we condemn ourselves for being a failure, we are failures.

Hero or Zero, the choice is ours.

Thinking of ourselves as heroes, taking responsibility for our own selves, is what we call as liberation. Whatever level we take responsibility at; we are liberated to such extent. Taking responsibility cuts the mental path of going continuously towards suffering.

In whatever position we may be, strongly be conscious of the fact that only we are responsible for our position.

People often complain of lack of time to meditate. It is not lack of time. It is lack of responsibility. If we strongly feel that we are responsible for our present position and consciously be aware that meditation will change our life for the better, then we will find sufficient time to meditate.

You may ask: How can I be responsible for accidents in my life?

Be sure, every effect has a cause. If we are unable to have a logical cause, we name it as an accident. At some point in time we may have attracted these accidents with our unconscious thoughts of fear for accidents or with some other negative thoughts. As hard as it is to believe it is the truth. What you sow, you reap. So be sure, only we are responsible for the accidents occurring to us.

By feeling responsible, we will start enjoying the happening. Without waiting for the result, the happening itself will be enjoyable. We will start bubbling with joy. We will start radiating bliss.

Once we feel responsible, we will stop thinking about the external factors as being responsible for our suffering. We will slowly move towards realizing that only our own actions are responsible for our suffering. We will start yearning for a way to come out of it. This way we are liberated; liberated from the vicious cycle of mithya, unreality, untruth and illusion.

Then the cognitive shift happens, and we turn towards nithya, understanding of Truth, reality.

Just for the next 24 hours let us feel responsible for each and everything. Let this be our meditation. Let us feel responsible for our existence, for the boons we enjoy and for the accidents that happen to us. Let this ‘responsibility feeling’ solidify in us. May the cognitive shift happen in us and may we be liberated.

When you are aware, your mind needs no script!

Let us say your friend left a message for you. He wants you to call him back immediately. Won’t the suspense kill you?

Slow down. Watch your mind. Before you pick up the phone to return the call, how many thoughts come into your mind? How many fears does it rise? How many expectations does your mind build up?

If you watch your mind with awareness, you will notice a rush of thoughts, events, and imaginations in your mind. Do you want to know why this happens?

The truth is, no matter what the situation is, you create your own script. Your mind projects only what you want to hear or see. You want to be projected only how your mind wants to be projected. You dare not present yourself as you really are.

The rush of thoughts, the reactions are all creating a script written by your mind. The mind continuously creates scripts, and when you are there in the play, you don’t remember the script. Sometimes your mind changes the script instantly.

Even before going to the friend’s house, you have a complete mental rehearsal about what should happen. Your mind prepares you for what you should speak and if she asks something, how should you reply. You decide how to evade questions, or answer them cleverly or smartly. This is your friend your mind is planning about.

If you are scared about speaking to your friend, then imagine how much your mind will spin when you have to talk to your boss, manager, or colleagues.

The truth is that you are afraid to face your friend. You fear to express truth because it keeps you out in the open. You are afraid that every time you express truth, you are expressing yourself. By speaking the truth you are exposing your true nature, your core, your being, and your true self.

When you speak lies, you have a big problem in your hands. Because everything has to be carefully woven into the web of lies and a single truth can disrupt all your lies. You need to remember the whole thing that you have said so far or plan to utter.

So if you live with the truth there will be no need for any more activity of the mind. There will be no need for any more hide and seek games. You will be relaxed. You can be total. You don’t need a script anymore.

Stop chasing your thoughts!

Society, in the form of political or religious institutions, controls you through fear and greed.

These institutions believe that unless you are prodded by fear and greed, you cannot be effective, productive and valuable; productive effective and valuable to whom? It is certainly not for any advantage to your own Self, but perhaps to the benefit to these institutions.

Fear and greed make you seek the external world for fulfillment. You seek to act on your thoughts and words. These as you would have experienced throughout your life can never be fulfilled. The same fear, the same greed reappears however many times you may have experienced them before.

You are in rajas, the mode of aggression when you act on your thoughts. People question, how can I live without acting on my thoughts, who will pay my bills?

Please understand, if nature provided within you a system that converts bread in blood, can it not take care of providing you with bread as well. Nature does not trust you with anything that is critical to your living. That is why all your essential activities such as breathing, growing, digesting etc happen without your involvement.

I say to you, stop acting on your thoughts. Stop looking for their meaning. Instead seek the source of thoughts. For instance, if you feel hungry, ignore that thought. When your body feels that desperate hunger, it will by itself seek and procure the food to fulfill its needs.

When you do this, when you stop acting on the meaning of words, you will fall into tamas, into inaction. That is what you are afraid of. There is nothing to fear. You will stay in that inaction till all your hatred against your restlessness and greed get worked out. Once that happens, you will come out of that inaction, that tamasic state, purified.

Please understand you do not move from tamas into rajas and then into satva as you may think. You do not as you think move in sequence from inaction to aggression and then to peace. You start with rajas, which is the state of your day to activity, when you are in the mode of doership, seeking to fulfill the meaning of your thoughts and words.

When you stop seeking meaning you will fall into inaction, tamas, for a brief period, till you start seeking the source of your thoughts and move into satva. You will feel the effect of inner healing, and you will understand that the universe does take care of you.

Comparison, the green-eyed monster!

We always compare ourselves with others. And more often than not we feel what others have, or have achieved, is more than what we have and start feeling jealous.

When we are not able to bear others’ excellence, we get jealous. Comparison is the seed and jealousy is the fruit.

We cannot deal with jealousy directly. Even if we tell ourselves repeatedly not to compare ourselves with others and not to feel jealous, we cannot overcome it. Even if we keep telling ourselves not to feel inferior because we are less wealthy than a neighbor, less handsome than a colleague, less intelligent than an acquaintance, we still feel inferior. And the jealousy that comes out of it is a very powerful emotion.

In reality, comparison does not have positive existence; it has negative existence. It only exists in our minds.

An object that has positive existence can be moved from one place to another place.
Let’s take the example of darkness. Can darkness be moved from one room to another? No! because it does not have a positive existence. But by bringing light into the room, it can be made to disappear.

Same way, comparison that has negative existence cannot be removed. But it can be made to overcome by bringing understanding and awareness into our minds.

Comparison results in low self-esteem or high self-esteem.

With low self-esteem, we attack other persons whom we are jealous of and we suppress ourselves. With high self-esteem, we try to suppress others if they do not support our active ego. This is the way seeds of violence and misery are sown in us.

We continuously run our life based on comparison. In consequence, we pick up the attitude of violence; we pull other people down; we learn methods to stop their progress. When we start to compare, it means we are picking up desires from other people. We try to work out others’ desires instead of living our own desires and trying to fulfill them.

We need to realize that each one of us is unique. God is an artist not a machinist. He sculpts each one of us with his own hands lovingly, uniquely. Therefore each one of us is different.

If this is understood clearly, there will be no scope for comparison. We will enjoy our own uniqueness and blossom with it, unparalleled in our own way.

Be blissful!

When we are aware, our energy flows!

Two years after her marriage, one woman went to a lawyer and told him:

‘I want a divorce; please work on it.’

Lawyer: ‘Divorce? You must have some reason for it.’

The woman replied: ‘Oh! Reason! What sort of reason?’

Lawyer: ‘For instance he doesn’t give you enough money.’

The woman said: ‘Money? I give him money.’

Lawyer: ‘Perhaps he abuses you continuously and tortures you.’

Woman: ‘Beating me! No, I am the one who beats him.’

Lawyer: ‘What about the fidelity? What about being truthful? Is he truthful to you in love?’

Lady: ‘In love? Yes. Now we have got him. This is the right reason. He is not the father of our 3rd child!’

When we try to give reasons, when we try our best to dig up reasons, we end up in with this type of logic and faultfinding.

When we do not live the reality of life, we live with the lies. Our mind will travel one way; we will be going in another way. If we don't live truthfully, we create a new energy field around us called pain body.

In real life we are so busy trying to live in the past or live in the future. We are not available in the present to our bodies. We are not in our system. When you are not present, the energy flow inside our system can’t happen totally and properly.

Blood flow has nothing to do with energy flow. Energy flow is far deeper. It is like this: if we are present, the energy flow will be present. If our presence is not there, then the energy flow will not be there. If the energy flow is perfect, our intelligence will be perfect. We will be spontaneous. We will have the ability to respond spontaneously. The energy flow creates a tremendous awareness on spontaneity.

Whenever we live outside our body continuously, some portion of our body does not get enough attention. So it just begs us saying I am not attended. Please attend to me. That begging is created in the form of pain. When you give your attention you will see that the pain simply disappears. We suffer from all kinds of pain, physical, emotional, and psychological due to inattentiveness.

Learn to create and respond to your awareness. Discover how to build your attention, and create your presence on the place where you have pain. Awareness can transform everything.

Idol worship is not an idle ritual!

Clay images have been used in many tribal cultures to infuse health and illness, even death and life, into animate and inanimate beings.

This is not a voodoo myth, but documented by eminent scholars, who studied these phenomena without bias. On the other hand pseudo scholars from the West, followed by imitators from the East condemn what they call as idol worship.

In our Vedic culture we do not worship idols, we worship the universal energy through idols. If clay images of men and material can have so much power as demonstrated by the tribal societies, how much energy would there be in images of the Divine?

Our Vedic Seers created temples as repositories of truth and energy. They are batteries of cosmic energy that radiate this energy for thousands of years. This requires intelligence to understand not intellectual knowledge.

Western scholars have denigrated our culture through misinterpretation. Some scholars have gone on record to say that they translated our scriptures to prove that there was nothing of value in them. Many Indians celebrate such people as great scholars who provided invaluable service by translating our scriptures. These same Indians, many of them with scholarly credentials, have no depth of understanding of their own culture, and condemn temples and rituals.

There are two problems. One is that all our sacred scriptures need understanding at different levels of energy, actually seven. Very few are able to understand beyond the gross physical energy level. It is not a matter of learning Sanskrit words. Anyone can look up a dictionary and translate; it is a matter of rising in energy to the required level of understanding.

The second is the loss of connection between our sacred scriptures and the rituals that followed from them; between the sruti and smruti. Without this connection, rituals seem meaningless and are performed without meaning. It is the duty of spiritual masters to reestablish this connection.

Temples have been created not for idle worship. Most of our great temples are built upon or created by enlightened Masters who imbued them with their own energy. When you pray in an energy field like that, your prayers do come true.

It is like a projector that magnifies a slide onto a screen. The same way your prayers are projected into reality through the energy of the temples and the energized idols. The energy enables your body mind spirit to be focused on what you sincerely wish for resulting in fulfillment.

Do you wish to be a leader?

WE ARE built upon our identities. We are lost without them. As long as we feel we’re a separate entity, a unique individual, we’ll hold on to that distinction. We’re all, each one of us, a part of the Collective Consciousness that unifies the entire universe. Holding on to the individual identity simply compounds our problems. When we cling to the idea of being separate, we bring many problems.

At the physical level, if we think we’re separate from nature or universe, we’ll be inviting diseases. In our mind, at the mental level, if we think that we’re unconnected then we’re sowing the seeds of violence. We turn selfish, dogmatic, and violent. We become terrorists.

We can unite only when we work within the spirit of Collective Consciousness. When we work from the level of individual consciousness, we begin to dissect. We examine these bits and pieces. Logic always breaks. Intuition always unites. At the level of spirit, or the spiritual level, the Collective Consciousness operates to unite. If we think we each are individuals, there is no possibility of any spiritual growth. Spiritually, we can’t even take the first baby steps.

Let us look at ourselves this way. At the physical level, we’re not individuals. Our body and nature are much closer than we think possible. For instance, the sun and our body are deeply interconnected. A small change in the sun triggers changes in our body. Logically, we might not be able to relate to it. This is true.

We’re connected by thoughts, our mind. A thought from somebody’s mind comes and touches us. Similarly, a thought created in someone’s mind travels to touch another mind. A thought, sowed by someone else, can touch us. The thoughts have power to affect us. Thoughts are like ripples on the waters of a lake.

If our ripples are strong, like a wave, we create a strong wave. We’ll create an impression with our thoughts. We’ll be leading and inspiring others by our thoughts. If our thoughts aren’t from our depth, other thought waves will impress upon us.

We can be a leader or a follower. There is nothing in between. We always think, ‘I’ll not be a leader. I can’t do that much. I’ll not be a follower either. I’ll maintain my own stand.’ This is impractical. Lead or follow. You cannot stay in between. But, why would you want to be a follower when you can just easily be a leader?

Be a leader. Think of yourself as the leader. Influence others with your thoughts. People will follow. It is that simple.