Words from the Master

Swamiji, how can we protect our children from developing these kinds of problems?

To be frank, you cannot fully control it. You cannot control all of the child’s interactions with society. But there are some things you can practice at home.

As I said earlier, don’t suppress the child’s other half. Let it freely express and experience itself in different ways. Don’t teach it to be gender conscious.

Just allow the child to be its own natural self, giving it adequate opportunity to explore itself. Children when untouched by social conditioning are by nature so comfortable inside their own boundary.

You might have noticed babies playing with their genitals, or pulling their big toe to their mouth and doing similar other things. These things just show that they are so comfortable and loving inside their own boundary, exploring and enjoying. But we don’t allow them to do these things. We immediately stop them when they do these things. We tell them that it is wrong. It is good to allow them to explore.

And when it comes to their clothing, it is always better to dress them in single-piece clothing instead of two-piece clothing. The latter gives them a sense of dividing their body into two and with time, they forget and become insensitive to the lower half of their body. It is almost a division in their Consciousness. That is why today, if you are asked to visualize yourself, almost always, only your upper half will come to your mind. You simply neglect your lower half.

Just allow the child to be free in its ways, even if it means that you have to take certain risks. Children have with them a certain sense of intuition and instinct. So, you can take the necessary precautionary measures and allow them to explore.

Also, children are so total in their expressions. So don’t suppress them. They don’t know to bring in their mind and exhibit superficial or hypocritical behavior. We have all mastered the art of hypocrisy by allowing our mind to exercise restraint. We never express totally.

And, allow them to use both their hands freely. We all discourage them from using the left hand for various things. Why can’t the child be ambidextrous?! There is nothing wrong in it. Arjuna in the Mahabharatha was ambidextrous. Did you know that? When we hear of these things, we listen with awe but fail to understand that we are also perfectly capable of these things, if only we gave ourselves the chance!

One more thing: If you have noticed, all children enjoy whirling. Whirling is their way of allowing centering of their energy to happen. You can whirl freely only when your Manipuraka chakra around the navel is clean. Children are so innocent and worry-free and hence they are able to whirl effortlessly. But do we allow them to whirl? When we see them whirl, our head starts whirling and so we stop them! We tell them, “Sit in one place! It’s not good for health” and what not. I tell you, just allow them to whirl. Place a blanket beneath them so that even if they fall, they don’t get hurt.

One more thing: Never instill fear in your child! Let him be free; let him climb and fall a few times. If you constantly discourage the child, it can lead to various phobias like height phobia, darkness phobia and what not, which can later turn into fear of climbing, of taking unknown new decisions etc. Just follow these simple things. It will do.

Yes…?

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

One more thing - when you love deeply, there will be no room for jealousy. Jealousy is there because you are afraid that the shallow roots will give way. If the roots are deep, why would you be afraid? Why would you get jealous? Do you understand what I am trying to tell? Trust in your partner feels shaky because of a superficial relationship, a relationship based on fantasy and lust.

Romance is not real romance if you feel it towards only one person. Life itself is romance! Your very Being has to exude romance - towards Existence. When your Being expresses itself through your head, it is intelligence; when it expresses itself through the heart, it is compassion; when it expresses itself through the body, it is Energy and when it does not express itself but just IS, it is Bliss!

When you reach this stage, you will not be dependent on anyone outside for any sort of joy. You will simply resonate with joy all the time inside yourself. Of course, you will be able to multiply it by sharing it with others outside.

When you feel deeply connected to a person, there will be no need for physical proximity to that person. You will feel happy and satisfied with just the feeling of connection with him or her. You will feel complete unto yourself and not look to anything outside for fulfillment. This connection will not suffer separation or anything else.

A relationship is all about feeling connected to someone at a deep level, beyond all things. When you don’t understand this, you bind yourself to people with so many conditions and call it a relationship. It becomes shaky and you work hard at maintaining it and conclude that relationships are a torture!

People tell me, “Swamiji, I want to come and stay in the ashram. I am not happy staying at home.”

I always tell them that if they are not able to be happy with 4 people in their house, they cannot be happy with 100 people at the ashram! Do you think that the ashram is some escapist lodge?

Be very clear: Home is not anything outside of you. Being blissful all the time irrespective of what goes on around you is what is ‘being at home’. If you are not able to be like this, you will not be at home anywhere.

When I stayed for months together in an 8’ x 8’ enclosure, I was as blissful as I am today sitting on this throne. Please try to understand this. The capacity lies in understanding that your happiness has nothing to do with the outer world objects.

A dog is biting a bone and starts bleeding from the mouth. It thinks that the blood is coming from the bone and bites further into it and licks the blood. What will happen to the dog? Only pain will happen. This is what you are also doing. You think that the pleasure or pain is to do with things outside of yourself and indulge further and further in it and become miserable. Do you follow? Yes…

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

We all think that we only need to do rituals and we will get the results. No. Be very clear: When you chant ‘Ram Ram’ a thousand times a day with no intention or inclination to transform yourself, it is as good as chanting ‘coca-cola’ a thousand times a day! The basic idea behind rituals is to understand and imbibe in order to transform yourself and then the material results will happen seamlessly.

Once you are able to show friendliness to the other, have the patience and perseverance to process your transformed emotion and at the end, you will experience the supreme and mutual emotion that is love. The other will also reciprocate your transformed emotion and then you have arrived! Your Being becomes bliss! Then, you have done your meditation properly!

When Love becomes the centre of your Being, Sex becomes a deep union of two Beings. The problem is, true love is lost under the covers and lust has taken over. As a result, the Beings never come together, only the bodies come together. The relationship remains at a very superficial level. Anything superficial can be shaken easily. Anything needs a deep root in order not to be shaken. It is simple logic.

Also, lust always blinds you. It takes you into unconscious intoxication. Love also intoxicates you, but it is an intoxication that takes you into deep awareness. It is such a beautiful state. Lust and love are two ends of the same spectrum. Anything that puts you into deep awareness is a meditation. Anything that puts you in an unconscious state is not conducive. This is the scale to see if what you are experiencing is good for you or not.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Remember: Violence is not the way. We talk of violence in the society, state and country. What about in our own homes and inside our own bodies and minds? I tell you: Violence starts at home.

You may say, “Swamiji, but we are not violent in our day to day lives.” I tell you, you only think you are friendly and not violent. What I mean by the word friendly is different from what you have in your mind for it. Observe yourself closely: When you walk on the street or in your own garden, you unconsciously pluck at trees, leaves, flowers; you kick stones around and pull at creepers and what not. These are all acts of violence.

Just for once, walk into your garden and look closely at a flower or a leaf with utmost awe and love in you. Feel the beauty of it in your heart and look at it lovingly. Connect to the wonders of Existence through it. Handle it like it was a new-born child. Feel the emotion swelling from deep inside you.

Now think of the number of times you have unconsciously plucked at the same flower or leaf while you were walking near it and simply chucked it elsewhere. Do you understand the difference between the two emotions, the two attitudes? Now tell me, are you really being friendly towards everything and everyone around you?

Look at everything with awareness. Now, you are functioning from your unconscious and so you are behaving in a violent fashion towards these things without even knowing that you are violent. If you look at them with awareness, you will see the immense beauty in them and treat them with love.

And then, how much you abuse your own body? You overeat and cause disturbance to the beautiful digestive system functioning inside you. You stay up late in the night and torture your body when it is crying for rest. You smoke and drink despite knowing that is it not good for your body. Are all these acts those of friendliness to your body? Some of you hate your body and therefore neglect it.

So stop talking about the violence outside and start addressing the violence in you. Automatically the violence outside will stop. We are always ready to point out the imperfections of others. What about our own imperfections that are so many in number?

A man once visited me and told me about his family. He said that his wife is a lawyer. I asked, “Oh, she goes to argue in the court?” He said, “No Swamiji, she argues at home!”

We are all ready to point fingers at others and argue. Instead, let us start removing the impurities in us and then automatically, there will be no need to argue outside.

Carry with you words that heal yourself and others. Show friendliness towards the other’s body, mind and Being. This is what is ‘applied spirituality’. Spirituality is not ringing the bell regularly in the pooja room and praying to Goddess Lakshmi for wealth. It is imbibing the qualities of Lakshmi that are grace and goodwill. Wealth will automatically happen.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

If your lust is pure without any of the feelings of guilt or desire, you will go deep into it without any sort of guilt or imagination and flower out of it. It is only when your cerebral layer starts to function, you start bringing in your collected imagination and fantasy and fail to flower out of lust.

Drop your cerebral layer and start feeling love towards your own body as well as to the other’s body. Bliss is happening continuously inside your body but you are not allowing it to surface because you are caught up in your imagination. When you drop your imagination about your body and the other’s body, the impurity in your lust is removed and the first step in the alchemy process that is - removing the impurities, happens.

When you feel comfortable with your body, a certain grace happens to you. Understand: All skin diseases happen mostly because you have a certain hatred towards your body. They happen because you have a low self-esteem and disrespect for your own body.

You don’t understand this and instead go about finding cure for the skin diseases. The root of it lies in your own cerebral layer that you have built over the years. You always look at another person’s body and want to have a body like that. When you love your body, when you feel comfortable with it, you will look and feel beautiful.

In Ramayana written by Tulsidas, it is said that when Sita walks into the court of Janaka, everyone including the great sages and Rishis like Vasishta and Sita’s own father Janaka stood up to pay respect to her. Such was the sublime grace that exuded from her.

In Tantra, there is a technique wherein you wake up every morning and touch your body at every point with deep love, and allow the subtle body to settle down in the gross or physical body upon awakening.

Anyhow, the more images you have collected from outside, the thicker your cerebral layer is. In earlier days, people were not so complex and neurotic, they were simple. The cerebral layer did not exist or it was there as a very thin layer.

Once you drop your imagination about your own body and the other’s body, you will be able to start showing compassion and friendliness towards the other’s body. Friendliness is the component you need to add in the alchemy process to transform lust to love.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

In Indian marriages, there is a beautiful verse which the priests make the couple recite. The wife tells the husband, “Let you be my 11th son” and the husband tells the wife, “Let you be my 11th daughter.” It means, in the 11th year of marriage, they will look upon each other as a son or a daughter; the relationship would have undergone that much of a transformation by then.

When you see your children, you are engulfed with so much of joy, is it not? Your relationship with your wife or husband would have undergone so much of a transformation that you will experience that same joy when you see him or her. The husband will become a son to the woman and the wife will become a daughter to the man.

When you don’t have a clear understanding of your imagination, you suffer. Understanding is the key to get out of this. If you know how to live without suffering, you are leading a spiritual life. If you don’t know how to avoid suffering, you are living a material life. There are only 2 kinds of life – life with understanding and life without understanding; Buddha life and a buddhu life!

You are confused about your desires and fantasies and that is why you are not happy anywhere you are. When you sit on the floor on a mat, you are not happy because you are thinking of a chair. When you get to a chair, you are thinking of a throne. When you get to the throne, you lose the capacity to enjoy it! Do you follow what I am trying to say?

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

What is it that actually happens in the process of alchemy with metals? First, the impurities from the base metal are removed, then some components are added and then it is taken through a process. At the end of it, the base metal becomes a higher metal.

Our animal emotions have to be changed to Divine emotions. We all have lust, which is an animal emotion. One more thing: At least animals have pure lust. They simply forget the whole world when they are having a relationship. But for us, even our lust is not pure. It is there with feelings of guilt and desire all the time.

Either our conditionings from our past make us feel guilty and make us withdraw or intense desire to continue into the future makes us indulge more, only to feel guilty again. It is a vicious cycle of pulling and pushing as a result of which the lust is simply contaminated; it is not pure.

Always if you notice, the moment you fulfill your imagination, you are engulfed by guilt. That is why sex makes you feel guilty. Family instills the first sense of guilt in you when you are a child. Then, you master the art of creating guilt for yourself!

Understand guilt first. Anyone who wants to have a control over you, first instills guilt in you. They make you feel you are inferior in some fashion. Then automatically you follow what they are saying.

Man knows to control only through guilt. I tell you, rules are alright for children. It is good to start with rules. But it is important that you grow and be led by your own intelligence. When you integrate your personality, guilt cannot be instilled in you. Actually, an incident itself does not cause guilt in you. The effect of the incident is what causes the guilt in you.

People blindly pass down rules from one generation to another and with that is passed the guilt also. Like a crown, the guilt is passed down – grandfather to father, father to son, son to grandson and so on.

All the beauty products tell you repeatedly that you are not good enough. You start feeling guilty of your own inadequate body. What do you do? You go and buy their products and use them. You automatically fall under their control. Once you use them, you are engulfed with one more feeling of guilt – ‘did I go into all this trouble for this after all?’ The moment you achieve something, the first feeling that engulfs you is guilt.

Coming back to lust, your fantasy and imagination keeps you immersed in an unproductive cycle. You create a solid cerebral layer with all the imagination collected from all that you have seen in the television, internet, books and so on. You live mentally in this layer all the time. Even when you are in a relationship, you are relating with this layer; you are not relating with the actual wife or husband. The actual wife or husband becomes a poor substitute for the images in your mind. Your lust is then contaminated.

When you indulge in this fashion, you are caught up in a vicious cycle and that is why you don’t go deep into it and eventually come out of it but keep coming back with more and more craving. If you go deep into it, you will flower out of it!

That is why in the earlier days, people were able to drop their lust at the age of 40. They never had such complicated images in them. They related directly with their husband or wife. That is why they flowered out of it at an early age. They were able to move deeper into lust and come out of it. Lust simply dropped from them, they did not have to drop it.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Let me narrate to you something that actually happened to me when I was wandering in the Himalayas:
In the Himalayas, I used to simply walk anywhere I felt like. My belongings were very few and I used to wander and sleep anywhere at nighttime. I met many sages during that period.

On one such occasion, I met a sage, very barely dressed, with matted locks and with a fierce expression. He was a Naga Baba, belonging to the Naga sect of sages.

I was somehow attracted to him and went near him.

At that time I did not know much spoken Hindi, but I managed to talk to him in broken Hindi. I was with him for a few days.

All day long, he would smoke his hookah. I was watching him and was amazed at what he was doing.

He would drop two copper coins in his hookah, smoke for some time and then empty his pipe and two gold coins would drop out!

He would then go to the market, sell the two gold coins and get more copper coins and repeat the process!

I asked him how it happens.

He did not answer but simply gave me the pipe. Somehow, the smell of tobacco or alcohol never agreed with my system at any time, and I just took a few steps backwards.

I told him that I had come to the Himalayas for meditation and enlightenment and I was not interested in smoking or in gold coins.

He looked at me and spoke in Tamil for the first time: “Angam pazhuthaal thangam pazhukkum” which means: When your Being ripens, Gold will ripen.

I was wordless.

He playfully blew smoke rings onto my face.
I was in deep bliss for three days after that.

Changing copper to gold is an alchemy process. It is an alchemy process in the outer world. The alchemy in the inner world is all about changing our base energies to higher spiritual energies. When you master the art of transforming your base energies to spiritual energies, you can transform copper to gold, it is no big deal. When you master the inner alchemy process, the outer alchemies are simply nothing. They are just child’s play in your hands.

I have narrated this incident to you only to make you understand the concept of alchemy and not for you to pursue any outer world alchemies! Understand that. Outer world alchemies are ordinary. The inner world alchemy is the one that makes you a real Master.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Yes…any questions?

Swamiji, how do we drop lust and nurture love?

Yes…You have finally come to the point...

Lust like anger is a tremendous energy. Actually, until such time you understand what lust is and how it can be transformed, any action that you do is lustful. Even if you pick up a pen, it is lustful; even if you are petting a small child, it is lustful; there is a certain animal nature in it because your energy is still ‘base’ and has not transformed into higher energy.

Like how knowledge about anger reduces anger, so also, knowledge about lust reduces lust, because both are the same energy! The problem with lust and sex is, it has been magnified and imagined to be much more than what it is. Because of suppression, it is made out to be much more than what it is. There starts the whole problem. It has been contaminated to a great extent by media.

And when your lust is not accepted by the other, it turns into anger against that person. That is why you read newspaper reports of teenage boys throwing acid on the faces of girls who have rejected them.

See, understand one thing first: Society has always made divisions like lower humans and higher humans. Any one with passion is said to be a lower human; anyone with lust is said to be a lower human. There is no lower or higher; a transformation has to happen, that’s all.

The people who go about setting these moral standards are simply people who pretend to be moralists. Behind each of them, there is so much of hidden lust and passion. They are either frightened to go behind these feelings or guilty to go behind them and so they pass off as moralists. They are the ones who set standards like low and high and cause all the misery in society.

Just understand that there is no low or high. The moment you think that you are low, you start fighting with that feeling and it becomes very difficult for you to overcome it; it becomes very difficult for the transformation to happen.

Anything that you resist persists. Simply allow your Consciousness to transform and it will happen. Just bring in awareness into yourself and you will transform. Never analyze; analysis will only divide. It will divide you into two halves that keep fighting with each other. Society always looks to divide you.

Analysis is for scientists and researchers, not for spiritual growth. You are so used to analysis and dissection that you cannot drop it in any context. When people try to impose the inferior and superior feelings in you, remember: Each one is a part of Existence and no one is inferior or superior to anyone. It is only when you forget this truth, you will use these kinds of words.

Coming to your question about lust, first understand: There can only be Love, never Lust. That is the Truth. Lust is a result of deep ignorance.

The process of changing lust to love is an alchemy process. Alchemy is the process of changing any base metal to a higher metal. Similarly, changing our base emotion that is lust to the highest emotion we are capable of, that is love, is an alchemy process. It is the ultimate alchemy.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

IN THE NEWS: 21 Apr 2009

Nithyananda calls for return to Vedic traditions.
Source: India Post News Service[Link]
Sunday, March 29, 2009.

MONTCLAIR, CA: On Sunday, March 29, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (Swamiji) conducted his first public event in the City of Norwalk in nearly two years.

This landmark event also marked the first time ever that the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) and representatives of various temples and organizations gathered together to welcome an enlightened master and conduct a spiritual event.

At the program, organized by the Indian Community of Southern California, Swamiji was honored by city and state representatives, including Mayor of Artesia Sally Flowers, who presented Swamiji with keys to their city and commended his service around the world, Mayor Pro Tem of Cypress Prakash Narain, who shared his appreciation for Swamiji's message and mission, and CA State Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, who presented him with a proclamation.

Swamiji delivered an engaging and inspiring talk on the importance of the Vedic tradition to Indian communities here in the US and around the globe. Many traditions are born from the Vedic philosophy, but the underlying goal and truth of all of them is "Living Enlightenment."

Living Enlightenment consists of four dimensions: shakti, awakening the energy inside you to change whatever needs to be changed; buddhi, the intelligence to accept what need not be changed; yukti, the clarity that the whole world is a dream; and bhakti, a strong feeling of connection to that what is unchanging (be it the divine, God or your guru).

Swamiji also spoke on the importance of internalizing the Vedic inner software and the Indian dharmic tradition. Living a happy fulfilled life based on these traditions will inspire the younger generation to follow, said Swamiji. Furthermore, temples should become educational centers, and not a place for politics or just for worship.

During the talk, Swamiji also spoke on his unique technique of "unclutching," which he defined as the state of being where you, "relax into the silence from where your thoughts are arising." The constant and intense practice of "unclutching" takes you beyond attachment and detachment. It allows you to evolve into higher consciousness.

Swamiji then explained how the technique of "unclutching" is expressed through the 12th aphorism of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. In the previous discourses, Swamiji elaborated on the five modifications of the mind, which can lead you to pain or joy. They are: right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory. Patanjali is teaching us to continually come back to the source - to the Vedic tradition - through constant remembrance. This intensity is the ultimate technique for achieving the truth.

Words from the Master

The beautiful thing about this Muladhara chakra is, if this one chakra is opened, you will find that 50% of your problems have disappeared! This one chakra manages more than 50% of your life. In whatever you do, you will find a trace of this chakra! Even in your signature, you’ll find a trace of this chakra! When the Muladhara chakra is activated, even your signature will look different. If you pluck a flower, the way you do it will be different.

There are a set of Tamil saints called the Nayanars. There is a song which says about them, that when they pluck a flower, the tree will not feel the pain! What do we mean by that? You become so sensitive and loving, when this chakra is opened. When the energy of this chakra is transformed, it will overflow from you as love!

Sex is carbon, love is diamond. Sex is mud, love is the lotus that blooms in the mud. It is the same substance – the only thing is, you should know how to process it. Just drop your expectations, and you will find a tremendous upsurge of energy.

Today I want you all to try this technique when you go home:
Sit down and concentrate on your Muladhara chakra. If you notice, your Muladhara chakra is always tense. It is always tight.

For five minutes, mentally forgive your husband or wife for anything disturbing that they have done. Really forgive them; go to the root and drop the feeling of resentment. Do it totally. Just accept them as they are. Give them your deep love.

After just five minutes, you will see that the Muladhara chakra is totally relaxed.

If just five minutes can give you this result, just imagine what will happen if you change your entire attitude! What a tremendous energy flow you will experience!

The way you are living now, it’s as if you’ve got one lakh rupees, but you’ve locked away ninety thousand in some place where you can’t recover it. You try to manage your whole life with the remaining ten thousand. Then naturally you will feel that you are poor!

In the same way, all our energy has been invested wrongly, it has been locked away in this chakra – in anger, in sex and what not. We don’t have enough energy even for our day-to-day living! Once this chakra is opened, your life will become rich. You will be able to think better, understand better, plan better. You will feel this energy consciously working in you. It will open a new dimension that you would not have experienced before. You will actually realize that your husband, your wife, and all others are spiritual beings!

Understand: Heaven and hell are not geographical places. You can’t locate them on a map. They exist only psychologically. It’s up to you to transform your life into heaven or hell. When you are full of expectations, you are carrying your own hell inside your head! So wherever you go, you’ll find that your personal package of hell travels with you! Like how a circus troupe carries and spreads its tents everywhere it goes, so too are you carrying this hell with you and living in it any place you go. There is no escape. And when two people meet, there is a great clash of hells, not bells!

Why do you want to carry this load around with you?

Just drop it!

Just think of all the energy you waste in trying to chisel the other person to suit your expectations. Isn’t it much easier to just drop the chisel? If even 10% of that energy is channeled into meditation, your life can be transformed into true living.
Living is ‘life led with awareness, with freedom’.

We have a choice!

We have a chance to become Conscious.

Now it is up to you to decide.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

IN THE NEWS: 20 Apr, 2009

Yoga a spiritual science to swami .
Source: Houston Chronicle [Archives]
Reporter: Barbara Karkabi
Saturday March 28, 2009.

When Enlightened Master Paramahamsa Nithyananda - a Hindu swami - visited Houston to demonstrate his method of yoga and meditation, 310 people signed up for his workshops. He practices yoga as a spiritual science, using poses, breathing and visualization to cope with stresses of every-day life. He took time to talk to Chronicle reporter Barbara Karkabi about his methods.

Q: Tell me what you are doing on this visit to Houston?

A: Teaching yoga and meditation for physical and mental health ... bringing more peace, more emotional balance, happiness and joy to life.

Q: How is your technique different?

A: I try to work with the body, inner breathing and emotions ... the inner chatterings.

Q: What are people here seeking your counsel on?

A: The economy. They are very troubled, very stressed.

Q: What do you tell them?

A: Two things. Whatever can be changed, use your intelligence and change. Whatever can't be changed, accept it and look for the next opportunity. This is life.

Q: So, if you fear you might lose your job?

A: Start looking for the next possibility with spirit and energy. I know it's very simple to say, but it's very difficult to practice. We have to face the reality and move on.

Q: You are 31 - young for a swami. Tell me about your life.

A: I was born in the southern part of India in a place well known for an unbroken lineage of enlightened masters for the last 2,000 years. It has the largest Shiva temple in southern India, built all in granite. At 17 I left home, traveled the length and breadth of India and studied at various monasteries for nine years.

Q: With no money?

A: It's a tradition. We are supposed to do the travel. We call it the sacred pilgrimage.

Q: Can you explain your enlightenment experience?

A: I was meditating and it came over me as a very strong experience. I felt infinite love and compassion for every being.

Q: So your specialty is yoga and meditation. What do other swamis offer?

A: I share knowledge about meditation and enlightenment, but some people specialize in rituals, devotions, yoga and different fields.

Q: You also feed people back in your village in India, correct?

A: Yes, we feed people and we have a school. And we give them one year free program. Whoever comes from all over the world, we give them free food, free stay, clothing and medical care, and give them spiritual knowledge for one year. Then they can go back and live their life happily.

Q: Do people have to call?

A: Yes, they have to call up and fix their entry date, and they need to have a valid visa.

Q: How many people do that?

A: Now, I think more than 400 people are doing it.

Q: Why do they come?

A: They come mainly for physical health and mental well being.

They want to try it out. And people who are really adventurous about spiritual seeking, they also come.

Words from the Master

Yes…

(A lady shares her views) Swamiji, you ask us to be as we are. But how can we live in society just as we are? I think we have to change according to the family, the society.

Yes, everybody faces this problem on a practical level. You say, “Swamiji, I have to act according to the other.” I ask you, why not also make sure that others act according to you? True, in society, we have to be dependent on each other. There is no other way. But be very clear of your limits.
Be independently dependent!

Be very clear, which is your space and which is the other’s. Try your best to enrich your own life, without disturbing one another.

Of course, I can’t give you a foolproof solution… if I could give you a chant that would solve all the problems between husband and wife, I would be the most popular man in the world!

(Loud laughter and applause!)

Swamiji…can’t the other person’s Muladhara chakra be opened, so that he drops his expectations?

(Swamiji laughs!) How will you do that? You can only make sure that your own expectations are dropped – so that from four people sharing one house, you at least come down to three!

How to change the other person...? These days marriage counselors suggest even hypnotism! I think it is gross interference in the other person’s freedom. It is completely wrong.

The other day, I read about a case where a woman wanted to bring down her husband’s anger levels. You may have read - the Chicago University is now performing some research where they implant electrodes in a person’s brain and completely control anger!

When they asked for volunteers to participate in this research, it seems hundreds of women forcibly brought their husbands!

(Laughter!)

After the experiment, 72 women – this is a fact – 72 women came back and told the university, “Please remove these electrodes. I want my old husband back! I want my old angry husband back!”

They say, “Life has lost its taste! Unless we fight, there is no interaction. He pays me no attention!”

Everybody needs attention! Behavioral psychologists say that a normal man can survive without food for up to 90 days, but without attention from others, only for 14 days! He will start going insane.

What has happened is, we have forgotten how to love each other, care for each other. Love is a forgotten language! So the only interaction and attention we can hope to have is by fighting with each other!

I think even the people sitting here and complaining that their husbands or wives are not spiritual – if their spouses become spiritual, they may come back and complain that they want their old partners back!

(Laughter and protests from audience!)

Alright! You say you are different! Let us see!

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult for youngsters to tolerate one another and marriages are breaking up so easily. It is such a pity to see these things happening. An awakening is needed now. Only a deep understanding can bring about this awakening.

We are all ready to point our fingers at another when it comes to relationships. We forget that two hands are needed to clap and make a noise. When you work on yourself, you can make things better for yourself and for others. Don’t worry about the other person also needing to change.

If you read all the love stories written till now, nowhere have the man and woman stayed with each other on a full time basis at a functional level, in reality.

In a story about eternal lovers, written by Rabindranath Tagore, the hero and heroine decide to live as eternal lovers on the two sides of the river Ganga. Once a week, they come by boat, meet each other and get back.

If they do this, obviously they will be at peace during the time they meet. Every time they meet, there will be freshness in the air because they know that they will be together for only a few hours; the moment becomes precious!

All eternal lovers, be they Romeo and Juliet or Laila and Majnu or Ambikapathi and Amaravathi, they never really lived together! If they lived together their eternal love will have to be retold!

The problem is, life doesn’t have background music! When you watch the love stories on television, they all come with background music and so you easily enter into a fantasy world. Music has the power to melt you and take you to a vulnerable state. All the scenes that you see, especially the love scenes, come with background music. You enjoy it so much because of the background music. You are completely mesmerized by the atmosphere created in the television box.

In real life, you search for that music and don’t find it! Writing poetry from imagination is different from writing poetry from visualization. The former is simply imagination; it is like reaching out to the sky. The latter is real.

Remember: Your husband or wife is a creation of God. Your creation cannot compete with God’s creation! His creation will only win!

Today, there is a very large instance of pornography, fantasy, dreams and perversion in society. People have started going to other poor substitutes to fulfill their fantasies. Pornography does not fulfill sexual life; it creates more fantasies and perversion, that’s all. But there is such a compulsion for fantasizing. Understand one thing: Unless you are weak and unintelligent, nothing becomes a compulsion. When you become intelligent, you can drop anything.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Upcoming Event: Little Anandas

IN THE NEWS: 19 Apr 2009

Yoga master aims to unite mind and body.
Source: king5.com
Video: Link
Reporter: Lori Matsukawa
Wednesday April 8, 2009.

An enlightened master of yoga and meditation says yoga is much more than postures on a floor mat.

"The word yoga means 'uniting' – uniting us with the whole cosmos, uniting us with nature," says Paramahamsa Nithyananda. "One part of it is physical postures, helping us to keep our health and mental wellness. Somehow in many countries, yoga is understood just as postures. It is much more than that."

Nithyananda is just 31, but has two million followers around the world. He’s written several books, but most know him through his talks on YouTube.

He teaches meditation to achieve what he calls "no mind" – a super-conscious state where all the world’s most creative thought, including scientific discoveries, come from.

"All the great scientists who invented new things, who created breakthroughs who experienced new openings, experienced that state of consciousness knowingly or unknowingly," he says. "Only from that space are all new things delivered to planet Earth."

Nithyananda says most people don't even know this consciousness is possible.

"From a young age, we are taught how to develop the mind, but we are never taught how to relax or unclutch from it -- even for a few moments. So if we know how to relax from it, we'll know how to use it to its peak potential."

In these stressful times, Nithyananda says the mind must be freed. "If you are stuck, if you're constantly saying, 'Why me?' then we will not have the freedom, we will not have the courage, we will not have the intelligence to think further. So the first thing we need to do to change this situation is to accept it."

Words from the Master

A small story:

A man was walking past a cemetery one day when he heard a loud cry from inside.
He felt obliged to stop by and see if he could offer help. He walked in and saw a man crying loudly near a tombstone.
He was repeatedly saying, “Why did you have to go? Why did you have to go?”
The man felt really sad for the suffering, so he went near him and asked, “Sir, I am sorry, was it your wife?”
The man replied, “No. It is her first husband.”

(Loud laughter!)

Relationships turn out to be a trauma because of a sheer mismatch between one’s own imagination and reality. Still worse, people move from one relationship to another thinking that the next one is going to match their imagination. They go with it for sometime and find out that there is something lacking there also and move onto the next. It never occurs to them that the lacking is actually because of their own imagination and that there is nothing wrong with the other person.

They are so settled in their imaginative world that reality seems like imagination to them! I tell you, this is the starting point of trouble for us. The day we start living in the present, that day we will start experiencing joy; that day we will discover that we were under such heavy doses of imagination all along.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

One man walked into a police station to complain that his wife was missing since three hours.
The policeman asked him, “Can you give me details about her height, weight etc.”
The man said, “Oh! I don’t know.”
The policeman asked, “What was she wearing when she left the house?”
The man said, “I did not notice, Sir. But wait, she took the dog with her. I know that.”
The policeman asked, “What dog is it?”
The man replied, “A dalmation breed with grey spots instead of black; he weighs 50 lbs and has a pure white tail with no spots on them; he wears a brown collar with a silver chain. His name is Spot.”
The policeman said, “That’s enough. We will find them!”

(Laughter!)

A husband and wife live with each other with a certain freshness for probably a few months after marriage. In those few months, they collect judgments about the other. After that, they don’t relate with each other at all. They don’t actually see the other person itself. They relate with the judgments, that’s all.

The husband relates with the judgments that he has collected about his wife and the wife relates with the judgments that she has collected about her husband. The actual husband and actual wife are different! They become four people in one house again.

Just do an honest check: How long is it since you looked into the eye of your husband or wife and spoke to him or her? A very long time I am sure. And we feel that the early days were golden days and that life has become boring. It is your attitude that makes it boring.

You give absolutely no room for a person to evolve. You are in such a hurry to typecast them. You don’t want to take in anything new on their account. I tell you, you don’t even see your wife or husband after a few years of marriage, because you are happy relating with your image of them.

What will happen then? You will land up like this man who was clueless about his own wife’s particulars! Not knowing a wife’s particulars is a very superficial level problem. The concept goes deeper than that. You actually miss the real person who is living with you. You live with your idea about the person, that’s all.

For just 24 hours, make up your mind that you will see your wife or husband as if you are seeing her for the first time. Receive every word or action of hers with a freshness and innocence without jumping to conclusions. Feel lovingness in you towards her. Even if she says things that provoke you, listen to those statements with awareness and respond in a calm and loving way, instead of in the usual argumentative way. You will see that you are actually opening out new avenues for both of you; you are giving the two of you a new space to evolve.

Suddenly, you will realize that all along it was your attitude that made things look miserable. Of course, you might say that the wife too must reciprocate. But I tell you: You have the power to transform yourself and others. With just a change in your mental makeup, you can do much. When you decide to change, your wife will automatically change her ways too.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

One man asked me, “Swamiji can you please tell me a way to find a connection with the eighteen-handed Devi.”

I told him, “First you try to find a connection with your two handed wife and then we will see how to establish a connection with the eighteen-handed Devi!”
(Laughter!)

Another man came to me and asked for blessings for a divorce.

I told him that I will give blessings for marriage but not for divorce.

I asked him what the problem was and if I could sort it out.

He told me, “Swamiji, this morning, I asked for coffee. She came with the coffee with such haste and spilt it on my clothes.”

I was shocked and told him that the incident seemed too trivial to ask for a divorce.
He went on to say, “Swamiji, you don’t know, today she poured coffee, tomorrow she will pour acid.”

I was really shocked. I told him, “Ayyah, why do you want to move from coffee to acid without any reason? All she did was spill coffee in some anger and haste and in any case, she is going to be the one who is going to wash your clothes!”

He continued, “Swamiji, during our marriage, there is a custom wherein three pots of water are kept and the couple are meant to leave their hands in all three of them to try and find a ring which has been dropped in one of them. As early as that time, she scratched my hand with her nail!”

(Laughter!)

In order to zero down the distance between the couple, small games such as these are played during the Indian weddings. The man has been keeping a 10-year track of such trivial incidents!

I told him, “Ayyah, if you maintain such a police track record, how can one live with you!”

You see: There are two things that we do. One is, presenting arguments and looking for a judgment, while the second is forming a judgment and then collecting arguments to support that judgment. The second is what we do 99% of the time.

You see, there are so many things happening around us. But we register only what we want to register, never what is really happening. Because of this, you miss reality. Reality continuously exists but you see only what you want to see. In marriage, within the first few months, the man or woman forms a judgment about the other and from then on, whatever the other does, he or she sees from point of view of the judgment. They search and collect arguments to maintain their judgment.

That is why, if you decide that your wife is a fool, she will always look like a fool to you. If you decide that your husband is the type who controls you, he will always appear in that way to you, whatever he may be doing.

If you do this, you will never be able to see the real aspects of your spouse; you will see only those aspects that feed your judgment. This is like how when you are hungry, only restaurants hit your eye on the road. Before killing a dog what do we do? We call it a mad dog and then kill it.

Drop this attitude. You will then find a certain freshness in every person and thing that you come by.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Swamiji, what you are saying is that we should accept the other person completely, with all his faults?

No!

Even the word accept carries a feeling of condemnation. When you say the words ‘with all his faults’, it is like a silent complaint. It is like saying, “What to do, we have to live with it.” No! I tell you, welcome the other person into your life, just as he or she is. There is a difference between accepting and welcoming. Accepting is like making a compromise. Welcoming is opening out your Being to the other person without any expectation, unconditionally.

Remember: The whole of creation is a gift to you from Existence. Receive it with grace and humility. When you do this, the tremendous energy of the Muladhara chakra is opened to you. To awaken this chakra is to touch a perennial source of energy. The tremendous energy that is now locked in imagination, expectation and greed can be made available for creativity, for business, for life, for reality!

Not only that, you will find your house becoming a kshetra - a shrine of peace. Our houses are meant to be dharmakshetras - abodes of righteousness, but they have become kurukshetras - abodes of war! Am I right? And why have they become abodes of war? Because we are chiseling human beings. If we chisel idols or wood, we can make beautiful forms and furniture, but if we chisel human beings, only trauma will follow.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

Once a sadhu – a wandering mendicant, was passing through a village, when he received a complaint from the villagers about a cobra that was playing havoc with their lives.
The sadhu was known to have the power to communicate with animals, so they begged him to convince the cobra to spare the villagers.
So the sadhu spoke to the cobra, and the cobra promised not to bite any of the villagers anymore.
A few months later, the sadhu was passing through the same village when he came upon the cobra, badly bruised and almost dead.
“What happened to you? Why are you hurt?” Asked the sadhu.
The cobra cried, “O sadhu! It is you who made me promise never to bite the villagers! I have kept my promise to this day. But the villagers, who were earlier in fear of me, took my mildness to be my weakness. Seeing that I don’t bite, they started torturing me everyday. See what a state I have been reduced to!”
The sadhu replied, “My poor foolish friend! I only asked you not to bite the people. Did I ask you not to hiss at them?”

You need to use anger in the right way in the right quantities. Anger is a tremendous energy if we know how to use it rightly.

Knowledge about anger reduces anger.

Many people come to me and tell me, “Swamiji, I love my wife so much, that’s why I want her to change for the better! That’s why I fight with her.”

I tell them, “You don’t love your wife, you love the image that you carry in your mind.”

You love your image and whenever your wife acts as you expect her to act, you love her. Your real love is not for your wife, it is for your mental image. If you really love your wife, you will change your image to suit your wife, but if you love your image, then you will try to change your wife to fit the image.

Most of us love our images. This is the truth. This is the beginning of unrest in our homes. This is the beginning of an intimate war! Honestly I tell you, lovers are intimate enemies. They are intimate but constantly on guard. They are constantly trying to dominate each other. There is a close enmity between them, which they call intimacy. Real intimacy is when you are totally relaxed with the other. That is real intimacy.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

You watch a TV serial and start liking a particular character. The character becomes a solid reality for you. You unconsciously start expecting to see that kind of behavior in the persons associated with you in real life.

Do you know: People even carry the image of the ‘ideal guru’ in their minds? Usually it is the image of an old man, with grey hair and a flowing beard – what you see in books and TV serials! And when they come and see me, they are unable to accept that such a young person can be a real Master! So I too face the same trouble. I too have to free people of their expectations about the Guru before they accept me!

But Swamiji, sometimes we feel that we have to chisel… like when we are handling our employees at work. What do we do then?

Do your chiseling consciously. Be aware of what you do – then you will not do more than necessary. See if your expectations of your employees are realistic. Check if there is any alternate solution. Only when it is absolutely necessary, should you try to mould the other person.

Whatever power has been given to you, learn to use it with awareness! Even anger and lust are great energies given to you by God. When you have respect for that energy, you will not waste it or misuse it.

Do we ever misuse money? You never misuse money, because you respect it. If a person does a job worth ten rupees, will you pay him one penny more? But with anger, you always ‘overpay’. If a person makes a mistake worth ‘ten rupees of anger’, you always pay him with ‘fifty rupees’ worth anger’! Is it not? Why? It is because you use your anger unconsciously, not consciously. If you use your anger consciously, it will pay off and you won’t feel guilty about it also, I assure you.

You should never get disturbed by your own anger. If you get disturbed, it means that you have you have not gone through anger with awareness; you have allowed anger to overtake you. This is the scale to see if you have used anger properly!

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Swamiji, we experience disturbances in other relationships also, like between parents and children…

Yes, in any relationship there are expectations. I don’t think we have any relationship without expectations.

Parents try to chisel children, and children try the same with parents. Parents try to live out their unfulfilled desires through their children. If you deeply analyze the whole thing, you will understand that what I am saying is the truth. Parents dream for their children to become a Doctor or an Engineer. Why not find out from the child what he wants to become and then dream to fulfill that? That would help your child immensely.

The day your child starts back-answering you, that day he has become a man. You have to deal very carefully with him. Spend time with him, talk to him, be a good friend and find out what he really wants to do in life. Guide him with deep love and trust. Then, make his ambition your reality and help him in achieving it.

So many children tell me, “My father wants me to become a doctor or My father wants me to become a lawyer.” Of course, if the child is unable to decide for himself, and he asks you to tell him what to do, you can tell him what he could do based on your observation of his talents and capacity.

You can always suggest, but don’t stuff anything down his throat. Also, make the child understand that you are giving him freedom and maturity in doing this and make it clear to him that there can be no blaming at the end of it. He needs to understand that clearly.

You see, we are always carrying our chisel around and trying to chisel our relatives, friends – even strangers, according to our own imagination. And they in turn are carrying their own chisels, which they are going to try and use on you! What violence!

For homework today, I want you all to note down your ideas on how a perfect husband, a perfect wife, a perfect father, a perfect mother, a perfect child and a perfect friend should be. Choose any five relationships relevant to yourself, and note this down. Do it honestly. I’m sure you’ll find, deep down in your unconscious, all your ideas are drawn from popular media.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Yes…do you all follow what I am trying to say? Anyone wants to clarify anything?

But Swamiji, we don’t even realize that we are carrying an image inside…

Yes. Because we have never looked in. We go everywhere but inwards. Do you know, upto 80% of our energy is locked in this chakra! This chakra doesn’t even need to be energized. It simply needs to be opened and activated, and the flood of energy flowing from it can transform your whole life!

If you look deeply inside yourself, you will understand that you are suffering because you always feel there is some mismatch between what you see and what you want to see. This ‘what you want to see’ is the image that you are carrying inside.

At least from now on, try to watch with awareness, the play of your mind in whatever you see. Try to catch the scenes as they are before your mind steps in and passes judgment on them. You will then see how subtly and seamlessly your mind plays in whatever you see, causing you to believe that there is something always wrong with what you see.

In Sanskrit, there are two phrases that teach us reality: Dhrishti Shrishti and Shrishti Dhrishti. Dhrishti Shrishti means seeing the world as it is, taking it as it comes; to welcome what is, as reality. Shrishti Dhrishti means seeing the world as we would like it to be, through our own colored lens, through our fantasies. The former leads to a peaceful life while the latter leads to suffering.

A small story:
Once a man came to me and said, “Swamiji, we are just two people in our house, my wife and I. Still there is no peace!”

I told him, “Who says there are only two people in your house? You are four people.”
The man was simply shocked.

I told him, “You are you, your inner woman, your wife, and her inner man! That is why I say you are four people. Just learn to drop your inner man or your inner woman – and see what a change will happen in your house!”

The man went away silently. Yes…

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Try your best not to allow children to watch the duets on television. If they simply enjoy the music and dance along with it, it’s alright; but what they do is, they internalize all that they see - the duets, the emotions and what not. This is where the problem starts. Everything will get stored in the Muladhara chakra, the sex chakra. Then a mere suggestion is enough and the Muladhara will be ready.

The sheer load of expectation leads to disturbances in the Muladhara chakra. This is the way this chakra is locked. When you try to fulfill your fantasy through another person or by watching the television, when you try to impose or project your expectation and imagination on another person, this chakra is locked.

It has nothing to do with the outer conditions of life. It has nothing to do with so-called celibacy. It is to do with your inner fragmented self.

What is celibacy?

Celibacy is nothing but not craving for the suppressed half that is inside you, that’s all. If you are a male, you need to experience such fulfillment unto yourself that you no longer miss the suppressed half or female inside you. And if you are a female, you are so enough unto yourself that you don’t look outside to experience this fulfillment.

Once you have achieved this state, you can live with or without the female in the outside world. If this is not achieved, even if you get married, you will continue to be under the torture of your hormones. Your hormonal torture is nothing but a yearning for the fulfillment that you are actually supposed to get from within, not without.

When you achieve this fulfillment, whether you are married or not, there will be peace in your mind. It is then that you can be a celibate even in married life! This is true celibacy.

Instead of this, people go out of their way to become celibates and become more suppressed and neurotic.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

One man was a painter by profession.
He was telling his friend, “You know, one day one girl walked in with a chip that was a kind of blue-black colour and wanted me to paint a model house with the same color. I thought I would give up my profession in trying to match it. Nothing seemed to satisfy her.”
The friend asked, “Did you finally match it?”
He replied, “I was lucky. She got a call on her mobile phone and I quickly painted the chip while she was talking!”

(Laughter!)

All through the day, in every home, just listen carefully to the husband and wife talking to each other, and you can hear the chiseling going on. I think that for marriages, we can gift a chisel and hammer instead of the sacred thread or wedding ring!

Another small story:

One man and his friend were having a cup of tea together one evening.
The man told his friend, “I am planning to divorce my wife. She has not spoken one word to me in the past 6 months.”
The friend said, “Think carefully before taking any such decision. You won’t get another wife like that.”

(Loud laughter!)

In Life, we are constantly trying to match the images inside us with reality outside. We will never find a perfect match. We need to drop these images inside us and we will find endless possibilities!

If you are unmarried, drop your fantasies so that you can choose your life partner and not a dream partner. When you select a person, just remind yourself that you are going to be spending your entire life with him, not just a few months. Don’t think of it as just a fling. It is a life long matter.

As of now, any black jeans or blue T-shirt will fall within your fantasy world and you will be attracted to it. But understand that the black or blue will fade away in just six months’ time!

If you are already married, drop your fantasies; only then can you start a real relationship with anybody. If you enter itself with a chisel and hammer, a real relationship cannot happen.

You see: What happens in chiseling is, you start chiseling and when you think that you have finished chiseling, your imagination has changed; it has become something different and so you have to do more chiseling to match the slightly changed imagination! This becomes a never-ending cycle.

A relationship can never happen as long as you have fantasies. Even if you stay for twenty-four hours in the same house, you don’t look into the other’s eyes, because you live with fantasy and not reality. You don’t actually live with the real person. You see all that the other person does through your imagination and conclude that your life is a punishment to you from God.

If you are unmarried, drop your fantasies and your blood will cool down; you will not be under hormonal torture. If you are a widower, drop your imagination and you will not suffer the pain of loneliness.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

A man gave his friend a puppy as a wedding gift.
Three months later, he met him on the street.
“How is married life?” he asked him.
“Oh, just a few small changes over time, that’s all,” replied the friend.
“What changes?” he asked him.
“In the beginning, your puppy used to bark at me, and my wife used to bring me the newspaper. Now, my wife barks at me, and your puppy brings me the newspaper!” the man replied.

(Laughter!)

Once the honeymoon is over, what happens? No wonder it is called the honeymoon and not honeysun! The happiness takes only a fortnight to wane! I tell you, even if you marry a supermodel, her beauty will fade in just 15 days in your eyes because you are already fantasizing about something else! And you keep on fantasizing because you are actually looking for fulfillment within yourself but not knowing this, you are searching outside for it through various illusions.

One lady was advising her daughter on the subject of marriage: “Listen dear, when you love someone, it should be for life; only then it is real love.”

The daughter was listening to what she was saying.

The lady continued, “Take my words of advice. I know what I am talking about my dear. After all, I have been married thrice.”

(Loud laughter!)

The problem is, everyone is ready to give advice, but there is no one to take it! Everyone is ready to lecture on love, imagination, fantasy and what not. But when it comes to their own life, what happens to everything? It simply remains yet another fantasy, yet another imagination, that’s all!

Anyhow, at least at this point, if we accept reality, there is no problem. But do we keep quiet? No! We take out our brush and paints, and try to paint the white back into green! We try to change the other person to suit our mental image. This is the most damaging thing in any relationship. We try to sculpt each other in the way we have imagined them to be. We try to possess the other and convert them into matter. We degrade energy into matter. Here starts the problem – the unending war of life!

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

A man fell down from the third floor of the building onto the road.
A passerby ran up to him and asked, “The falling must’ve hurt you.”
The man replied, “No. The falling did not hurt me; only the sudden stopping hurt me!”

(Laughter!)

As long as we float and flirt in love, as long as we keep our distances and time short, we are fine; we are in a fantasy world; we are not at the functional level. It is only when the floating stops and the real relationship starts, when the distances reduce and time increases, the problem starts!

The more fantasies you collect, the more is your falling time before you hit the ground, and so more the damage. The lesser fantasies you collect, the lesser the number of things to compare with and lesser the trouble. If you don’t have any fantasy or imagination, you will immediately meet your soul mate. If you don’t have fantasies, anyone you marry will become your soul mate.

We need to understand that no living person can live up to the image we carry in our minds simply because the image is not built from reality! The image is a cut and paste from various quarters of our dream world! No image can be matched with reality - because at the end of the day, it is only an image, a fantasy!

It is alright if you collect your images from real life characters, from the people you see around you. But you collect from media. Media itself is suffering from lust! How then can it provide any sort of guidance or relief to you?

That is why, all the so-called love most often ends in pain. We end up feeling cheated, exploited by the other. Our basic instinct is to blame the other for what has happened.

But is it the other’s fault?

No! The blame always rests with you – because you expected something, and you tried to force your imagination upon the other! Who then is responsible for the failure?

You see, there are some cases where one person starts behaving in an eccentric or irrational way. Those are exceptional cases where you have to decide if you want to continue to live together, with such behavior or not. You cannot apply what I am saying to that. Exceptions are always there.

But what I am saying is what is actually happening in reality in many houses where both the persons are normal and yet there is unrest. But we never try to look into it. We never like to deal with the truth! We always like to sweep things under a beautiful carpet and walk on the carpet cheating ourselves.

When you have a raw wound, isn’t it most logical to treat it immediately and get relief from it? What will happen if instead, you covered it with a gold shield and a silk cloth and believed that you did not have the wound at all? It would be mere foolishness, is it not?

So understand what I am trying to say. Drop your imagination and start living with reality.

______________________
This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

One 90-year old man used to sit every day at the beach from morning to evening, watching the people at the beach.
Another man who noticed this went up to him and asked him, “What do you actually do sitting here everyday?”
The old man replied, “I am searching for a woman to be my wife.”
The man was simply shocked at this reply and asked him, “Why did you not search in your youth?”
The old man replied, “I have been searching since I was 30 years old.”
The man was astonished and asked him, “What sort of a woman are you searching for?”
He replied, “I am searching for a perfect woman.”
“And you haven’t found one?” the man asked.
“I found one woman who matched what I had in mind but it didn’t work out well with her,” replied the old man.
The man asked why.
The old man replied, “She was searching for a perfect man!”

(Loud laughter!)

This is what happens when we try to get a perfect match for the image that we carry inside us.

But after a long search, we suddenly find a person who seems to match our mental image – from a distance. The picture in our mind is green – and the person, the image that we see also seems to be green – and then, all is green! A match seems to be found!

What happens at this point is what is called ‘falling in love’. This is the science behind falling in love. Note that it is always ‘falling’ in love, never ‘raising’ in love! It is nothing more than the mischief of the hormones, masquerading as love. Because what actually happens is, because of our own strong needs and expectations, we see things as we want to see them. We project our mental image upon the other.

So anyway, the world becomes filled with greenery and music. Life becomes poetry. At last, our search is over! This is the stage at which we begin to write poetry, make paintings of each other and what not.

As long as this distance is maintained, things go on smoothly. We continue to project our imagination upon each other. But slowly, the person comes closer and then we feel that what we saw as green is not so green but only a pale green. But it is alright; you move on. After a while, you come still closer and feel that it is not even pale green but actually a sort of yellow.

But, at this stage, we don’t want to accept that our imagination has turned out to be a lie, so we start making excuses for the situation. We say to ourselves, “This is life! Everything can’t be perfect!” and so on. It requires tremendous courage, tremendous intelligence to live with reality. So we use these excuses instead, as a buffer system, to shield ourselves from reality.

Finally, when we get close enough, we find that it is not even yellow, it is just white! What is inside us is green and what is outside is white. Fantasy and Reality are totally different.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

At fourteen, the child attains physical maturity. Naturally, social laws don’t allow them to have the same intimacy as earlier with the parent of the opposite sex and also, their activities become diversified and they don’t spend as much time with their parents.

So at 14, the search continues, but this time in the outer world. These days it is happening much earlier than 14. These days, children are exposed to the television and internet from a very young age. That’s why they grow up faster mentally. It’s not a healthy sign. Anyhow, at about 14 years of age, the search begins in the outside world.

The child now begins to collect images from outsiders and media. The media is perfectly aware of this. That is why you will see that all advertisements always have sexual undertones – an attractive woman or man will be modeling for the product, even if the product has nothing to do with them.

Almost all motorbike ads show women – and how many women ride motorbikes?! Whatever the product may be, you will find a smiling woman recommending it. And when you go to the market, you promptly pick up that product – forgetting that the woman does not come with it! Even a simple ‘Pure Magic cookies’ advertisement shows only women! This is the media’s way of cashing in on your suppressed desires.

All forms of media are nothing but dream sellers. We collect all these dreams and keep running through them in our minds hoping to quench our thirst. Is it possible? Can your thirst for water be quenched by consuming salt? No! If you do this, your thirst will only increase, is it not?

If you are alert and aware, advertisement hoardings can never fool you. Of course, by seeing them, you can always be aware of the latest things in the market, no doubt, but they will not deceive you.

You will not be vulnerable to them. You will be able to see them objectively and leave it at that. You will not feel an instant and unconscious pull towards them. It is only when you allow your ‘reactive’ mind to be your deciding authority, you are in trouble. You need to dissolve the reactive mind and function with your intelligence so that you are with awareness all the time. Of course, meditation will help a lot in achieving this.

And you see, while on one side, the media feeds your imagination, on the other, society tries to suppress you. The more society tries to suppress your imagination and desires, the more they grow, because society aims at suppressing the symptoms without getting down to the root cause. When you just cut off the branches of a tree and leave its roots as they are, what happens? The tree grows in a more flourishing manner, that’s all!

Anyhow, during these years, we collect ideas from all sorts of media and build up an image of the perfect woman or man. From each person, we collect the best nose, the best eyes, the best personality, and create our own ‘ideal person’. We follow a cut and paste method! In your computers, you cut and paste all the time, is it not?!

This stage lasts for around 7 years, till we are 20 or 21. By then the identification with media wears off – but the ideas are already deep-rooted in our minds. Then a fresh search begins – to find that ideal person in our real life. This is the search with the idea of how our ‘would-be’ ‘should-be’. This is where the expectations start.

For the next 7 years, this search continues. Person after person we try out, and get disappointed. A few intelligent people figure out after a while that dreams cannot become reality. Only because dreams cannot become a reality, they are called dreams! But most of the people keep searching.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

Tantra deals beautifully with the whole concept of sex. In the scriptures, Lord Shiva speaks to Devi Parvati on this subject. Those insights recorded over 5000 years ago are found to be relevant in biology today.

In order to be complete, to be whole, it is essential that we are able to accept and express both the masculine and feminine aspects of our nature.

But does it really happen? Are we allowed to express?

Right from the moment of birth, society labels you as either male or female. And it expects you to start behaving accordingly. Society simply does not allow boys to express their feminine side, or girls to express their masculine side. Right from a very young age, one half of our Being is suppressed.

Till the age of seven, till the social conditioning has not taken a deep root inside, the child is not conscious of being male or female. That is why a very young child has a sense of completeness. He is centered and secure. He is so beautiful and joyful to look at! By around seven, the child comes under society’s control.

A male child is not encouraged to play with dolls and kitchen sets. A female child is looked upon disapprovingly when she wants to play with racecars and rockets. Even when it comes to colours of their clothes and other belongings, there is discrimination. You choose blue for boys and pink for girls. Am I right?

In earlier days, the responsibility of parents was only to give birth to the child. At the age of four, they left the child in the Gurukul with the Master. In the Gurukul, the children were taught the Gayatri mantra – an initiation chant to kindle the intelligence - at the age of 7. If by 14 they had a spiritual experience of some kind, they were taught the Brahma Sutra – the greatest book on world philosophies, else, they were taught the Kama Sutra – the science of sex, so that they learnt the art of family life. If before the age of 21 they were enlightened, they were initiated into Sannyas. If not, they were taught the Yoga Sastras. This is how a child was allowed to evolve in its own way under the guidance and love of the Master.

But now, such strong conditioning goes into the child, which is so damaging for it. The child begins to suppress that part of himself which is not approved by society. We don’t realize it, but this period is traumatic for the child. He suddenly feels uprooted, cut off from one half of his Being. He starts searching for this suppressed half outside.

You see: Man’s inherent nature is fulfillment. He came from fulfillment and looks to attain it as well. So he begins, unconsciously, to search for the lost half, the suppressed half. He starts looking to the outside world for a substitute for his own lost half. The male child starts searching for a female presence, and the female child for a male presence.

This is where the whole idea of sex starts. This is how the idea of sex takes root.
In the period from 7 to 14 years, the child is closest to its parents. From them, the child collects images about how the ideal woman or ideal man should be. For the male child, the suppressed half of his own personality is replaced with his mother’s image and for a girl child, the suppressed part of her personality is replaced with her father’s image.

That is why every boy’s first heroine is his mother, and every girl’s first hero is her father. This is the unwritten law! This deep-rooted search is what lies behind the so-called Oedipus and Ophelia complexes of Freudian psychology. A boy expects care from his wife like the care he received from his mother and a girl expects the security and assurance from her husband that she enjoyed with her father.
In broken homes, where the child has been deprived of the mother’s or father’s presence due to death or divorce, the child carries a sense of incompleteness, because the imprint of the parents is the first, and the deepest. Even long after you are an adult, no matter how many differences of opinion you have with your mother or father, you can never remove their imprint from your Being.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

India, over the years, has been looted of vast wealth and land. None of these were great losses to India and after every invasion, it came back and society stood up. Finally, our Gurukul system - the olden days’ system of learning at the feet of the Master - was abolished and Kama Sutra - the science of sex was stopped being taught to children. This was the greatest blow to India. This is when people stopped understanding the meaning of sex and started going behind lust or kama.

Have you watched two people playing a game of chess? When you simply watch the game, very often, the right move suggests itself to you – but somehow it never occurs to the two players! How many of you have observed this? What do you think could be the reason? Tell me...

Because we are not involved in the game, Swamiji?

Yes! Actually, the man who is witnessing is not under pressure to win. Pressure and stress make the mind dull. So, only the man who has come out of the game, who is a mere watcher, can give you the right idea about it. A Master is one who knows the Whole. That is why he becomes the authority on any subject.

So what is sex?

Today, biology has proved that no man is 100% man, and no woman is 100% woman. A man is 51% man and 49% woman. Likewise, a woman is 51% woman, and 49% man; just a difference of 1%.

You have taken birth from the Muladhara of your father and the Muladhara of your mother. Then, how can you be only male or only female? The qualities of both are bound to be there in you! Is it not?

This is the basis behind our symbolic representation of Lord Shiva as Ardhanareeshwar - the figure that is half male and half female. Whether we accept it or not, we are an embodiment of both male and female energies. We are whole, not divided.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

A small story:

A lady received a letter from her son’s schoolteacher.
The teacher had written that the boy was unable to see the board clearly and therefore made mistakes while writing.
The lady promptly took her son to the eye doctor.
The doctor examined the boy and wrote out the prescription.
It read: hair cut!

(Laughter!)

We laugh at this, but I tell you, in our lives if you see: If you go to the right person in the first go, you will get the right solution; else, you will go around in circles following useless patterns advocated by so-called authorities and you will waste your life.

Still worse, you will be advocating these patterns to future generations also. This is how convention sets in. When you allow convention to set in, it becomes a Herculean task to break free from it because convention becomes the truth over the years.

When the Master appears, his first job becomes to undo all that has been done to you. Only then, can he start penetrating you! Only then he can start showing you what you really are. It is a tough job for him because you have advanced so much in your own track. You have advanced so much that you wonder how you could be on the wrong track!

Coming back to the subject: What is sex?

Sex is a tremendous creative Energy. It is a meditative energy. The whole world has arisen out of sex energy.

Our ancient enlightened Masters, the Rishis, have given us great clarity on this subject. Do you know that Vatsyayana - the man who wrote the Kama Sutra, the book on the science of sex – was a sannyasi? He was a celibate!

In fact, he delivered the Kama Sutra to his own mother.

After his enlightenment, he came back to his mother one day.

She told him that if he was enlightened, then he should have insight into any subject on planet Earth.

He agreed and asked what she might like to hear from him.

She told him, “As your mother, I know that you are celibate since birth. There is no chance that you would know anything about the subject of sex. Can you tell me something about it?”

Vatsyayana smiled and delivered the Kama Sutra – the science of sex!

Vatsyayana was questioned once, “What authority do you have to speak on this subject?”

A natural question! I think many of you might be silently putting this question to me also!

The answer that Vatsyayana gave, I am translating into modern language for you, using a modern analogy:
An electrician who visits your home, knows exactly what happens when each electric switch in each room is put on and off.
He knows the entire circuitry hidden beneath the wall.
If there is a problem, he can gauge the possible problem and give a solution for it, is it not?
He understands the science of electricity.

On the other hand, you, who puts these switches on and off fifty times a day, have absolutely no idea what is actually going on behind them! Am I right?

Many of us know nothing more than how to put on and off the switches. That’s why we sometimes get an electric shock! So, understand: We may be fathers, mothers, grandparents – but still, we may know nothing about sex.

We are all under continuous hormonal torture. The television and other forms of media show lust in various forms and we watch this and think we know all about sex and love.

Only an enlightened person, can give you the science of sex.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.

Words from the Master

We will now talk about the Muladhara chakra which is located at the base of the spine.

In Sanskrit, Muladhara means ‘the root and basis of Existence’. Mula means root and adhara means basis.

This chakra is locked by fantasy and imagination and it flowers when you drop your fantasies and welcome reality!

(Meditation Technique: Dukkhaharana Meditation - from Kulaarnava Tantra.)

The Muladhara chakra is concerned with sex, fantasy and imagination.

The most talked about, thought about and written about subject is sex. The most misunderstood, misinterpreted and confusing subject is also sex! We either try to avoid the subject, or we try to indulge in it. Sex is deeply buried in our unconscious minds. Right from the start, we find no one to enlighten us on the truth about sex.

Sex, more than any other subject, needs to be illumined. It needs to be illumined with the light of Consciousness!

Our condition right now is like that of a man walking in a forest on a pitch-dark night.

Somewhere there is a big pit that has been dug and kept.

The man who tries to avoid the subject is in total unawareness; he doesn’t even know where the pit lies – then how can he avoid it?

The man who indulges in the subject is aware of the pit, but can’t see any other way than to jump straight into it.

Can either of these be the solution? What to do?

One should know where the pit lies, and then take the right steps to move around it.
The topic of sex is always swept under the carpet. It is a taboo topic. Parents do not come out and discuss it with children. First of all, the parents themselves don’t know the underlying facts of the subject! On any subject, you need to ask an authority, else you will miss the right understanding and when you miss the right understanding, you mis-understand.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.