Mind over Pain

During my days of parivrajaka, wandering as a sanyasi, I was traveling in Amarkand in Madhya Pradesh, doing a parikrama, circumambulation of the sacred river Narmada.

For a while I lived with the tribal people in that area. They were very simple, honest and sweet people, extremely hospitable. One day in front of the hut I was staying in, across their temple, they erected a new hut. When I enquired they said that this was for a festival.

Later that day, a pregnant woman walked into that hut. Ten minutes later, she walked out smiling, a baby in her arms. No one went in with her. There was not a squeal when she was in that hut. Soon after, they dismantled the hut.

I asked a village elder about the festival that was to take place. He simply said that the birth of that child was the festival. Next week the same exercise was repeated. Another hut, another pregnant lady, another child and another festival!

This time I could not contain my curiosity. I asked the elder, ‘I am amazed at the simplicity with which the ladies deliver their babies; no doctors, no midwife even and no pain. How is this possible?’ In my experience I had never seen something like this. Mothers have so many examinations, check in to hospitals, and scream in pain at delivery; but here it is so different.

The old man said,’ pain, what pain? Why should there be pain while delivering a child? Yes, there is pain if an animal attacks and hurts you or you break an arm or leg; but, at child birth, why?’

In their language there was no word for pain. They had no concept of pain during child birth. They asked, ‘animals deliver their off springs naturally and do not cry, why should humans?’ I had no answer. I could not comprehend what I was seeing.

It was only after meditating upon these incidents I understood that pain is a result of our verbalization. These words such as pain, hurt, and suffering create the feeling of pain in us.

Our mind drives our body. Our mind creates thoughts and concepts and embeds them as verbalized and visualized realities within us. Pain has no reality outside of our mind. The neuro sensors that evoke the pain response cannot create the pain unless our mind accepts the fact that there can be pain. Pain is a matter of conditioning; and you can decondition your mind away from pain.


Nithyananda
www.nithyananda.org

Middle-aged at 136!

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

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

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

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

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

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

What your mind believes, it makes happen.

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

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


Nithyananda
www.nithyananda.org

Losing Fear and Conquering Greed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nithyananda
www.nithyananda.org

Ego or Surrender, which happens first!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Nithyananda
www.nithyananda.org