From Words To Silence

A musician plays the piano and sings:

How could anyone ever tell you, that you're anything less than beautiful How could anyone ever tell you, you are less than whole How could anyone fail to notice, that your loving is a miracle How deeply you're connected to my soul (Repeat)

I love myself the way I am There's nothing I need to change I'll always be the perfect me There's nothing to rearrange

I'm beautiful and capable Of being the best me I can And I love myself Just the way I am

I love you just the way you are There's nothing you need to do

Don't Worry, Be Happy

When I feel love inside myself It's easy to love you

Behind your fears Your rage and tears I see a shining star And I love you just the way you are

I love the world the way it is 'Cause I can clearly see That all the things I judge are men Are people just like me

So till the birth of peace on Earth That only love can bring I'll help it grow By loving everything

I love myself the way I am And I still want to grow And change outside will only come When deep inside I know

I'm beautiful and capable Of being the best me I can And I love myself Just the way I am

I love myself Just the way I am

Actually, we can't talk about silence. The moment we speak, we disturb the silence! I'll try to say a few words about how to create that silence within us.

It is vibrant and living. We should understand one thing; when I use the word silence, I don't mean soundlessness. Soundlessness is negative silence. When I use the word silence, I mean a living, vibrant silence, not the silence of a graveyard; it is the silence of an enlightened Master. The silence of a graveyard is totally different from the silence of an enlightened Master. An enlightened person's silence is vibrant, living and alive. When Jesus says, 'Be still and know that I am God,' he means only this silence, the silence of enlightenment. Be still and know that I am Truth.

When you are really still, you will know that you are the truth. And you will know that you and He are not two different things; you are just one and the same. You merge with Him; real unity happens in you. You start experiencing the same energy inside your being. You start experiencing the Christ Consciousness in you.

• -A small story: Aperson goes to a great enlightened Master of Zen Buddhism and the disciple asks him, 'Master, do enlightened people speak?' The Master says, 'No, enlightened ones never speak. If they speak, be very clear, they don't know.'

The disciple asks, 'Oh, that means they keep silent; they remain silent? They won't speak?' The Master says, 'No, they will not be in silence. They can't keep quiet. If they are not talking, be very clear, they don't know.'

The disciple was puzzled, just like all of you now! 'What will they be doing then? You say they will neither talk nor keep quiet. What will they do?' he asks. The Master beautifully says, 'They just sing.'

Their silence will be so vibrant, so alive, that the very silence will be like a song. It will be radiating. Wordlessness cannot be silence. Soundlessness cannot be silence. It is negative silence. It is okay once in a while. It is good to be silent.

The silence of an enlightened Master is totally different. To enter into that, you need to go beyond words. Going beyond words and silence, crossing both, should help you realize that silence of an enlightened Master.

An ordinary silence which we understand, which is wordlessness, is not enough. The wordlessness should happen in our being. When we enter into that silence, our whole being starts radiating; we start singing.

When I say 'start singing,' not only through your mouth, your whole being starts singing. You radiate a different grace. Your very walking will be like a dance. Your very movements will be graceful.

Your presence will be a blessing. When you enter into that silence, your very presence on planet Earth will be a blessing. Your air, your space, will heal. That itself will radiate so much energy, so much life and so much light. You can touch and feel God in the presence of the man who has experienced God.

When we go deep into that silence, we experience what Christ meant by the words, 'Be still and know that I am God.' We enter into that Christ Consciousness. I'll try to explain what the obstacles are.

One, we are not able to experience that silence. The reason being, we don't trust that we, too, can experience that silence. We always think, 'This is not for me. I am not able to have it.' Again and again we postpone, by thinking that it is not for us, that we may not be able to achieve it. I have seen people making up their own reasons for it, also! We are experts in creating statements to support our conclusions.

Someone came to me the other day and told me, 'I was born and brought up in the West. How can I become enlightened?' I asked, 'Who said that enlightenment is the copyright of Easterners? You can have a copyright for pizza; you can have a copyright for food; you can have a copyright for commerce; you can have a copyright for light but not for enlightenment!'

It is the property of the whole universe. It is our birthright. Please be very clear, it is our birthright. The silence I speak of, the enlightenment which I express, is our birthright. We don't need any qualification for it!

In the East, again and again, women come and ask me, 'Oh we are women. How can we become enlightened?' Again, it is a very wrong idea created by society over years. Actually, for women there is a stronger chance to become enlightened because, by nature, they are more passive; by their very nature they are loving and caring. For them to receive, express and radiate that silence and energy is a far greater possibility.

Somebody went to a great enlightened Master in South Bharat. That Master's name was Ramana Maharishi. I was born and brought up in his place, Tiruvannamalai. This man went and asked him, 'Bhagavan (Bhagavan means Godlike), can I become enlightened?' Bhagavan said, 'Yes, surely you can.' The disciple asked, 'What is the qualification?' Bhagavan said, 'Are you alive?' The man said, 'Yes, I am alive; that's how I am here.' Bhagavan said, 'That is enough. That is the qualification.'

So you, too, can become enlightened. If you are alive, that is enough; you have all the qualifications to become enlightened. No other qualification is necessary.

Next, we always have guilt about ourselves. We don't respect ourselves. Jesus says beautifully, 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself,' but the problem is we don't even love

ourselves! How can we love our neighbours when we don't even respect ourselves!

The musician sang, 'Let us accept ourselves as we are; let us love ourselves as we are,' but we neither respect ourselves nor love ourselves. That is the reason why we think this silence or this enlightenment experience is not for us. We postpone and postpone. We have deep guilt about ourselves.

We have some idea about how life should be and we try to recreate or reproduce that imagination or idea into reality. When we are not able to, we create guilt. It goes on and on. It is a vicious cycle. We continuously disrespect ourselves.

When you want to measure the strength of a chain, you always measure based on the weakest link, the strength of the weakest link. Based on that, we know the strength of the chain.

When we try to measure the strength of our life, of our being, again we try to use the same logic. We try to measure ourselves based on our weakest moments. That is not the way it should be done.

When we measure the strength of our life, being and mind, based on our weakest link, we commit a big mistake. We should never measure ourselves based on our failures, on our low energy moments, our low energy moods, or our wrong decisions. We should measure ourselves with the highest moments of our lives, because we have already touched those high moments! It is a clear assurance that we can touch those heights. We have already touched them!

But what do we do? Whenever we are going to take a new step, we remember only our past mistakes and wrong decisions. We want to be careful, so we weigh and measure ourselves only based on our past mistakes. The good things we have done or the right decisions we have made don't even surface in our minds.

The more we remember the negative decisions or our mistakes, the more we create guilt within ourselves. One thing that we should understand is, guilt will, again and again, attract the same negative instances in our life. It's like pain will attract pain. Money will attract money. Joy will attract joy.

If we are joyful, we attract joyful people around us; we create a beautiful community around us and we create a blissful group around us. If we are in suffering, if we have some depression, naturally, we attract only that type of people around us. We attract people who will abuse us, who will give us pain, who will torture us.

When we conclude that we are an inferior person, when we create a deep guilt in ourselves, naturally, we attract only those types of incidents, those types of people, those types of situations in our lives that support our view. If we turn

on the television to watch the CNN channel, we will see CNN news. If we tune our television to watch cartoons, we will see cartoons. In the same way, if we tune our mind to a positive attitude, to positive things, we will start seeing positive people and incidents. We will start meeting blissful friends; we will start facing blissful situations and we will start creating a blissful life. When we do it the other way around, we will be continuously seeing people who create more depression in us, who abuse us, who disturb us, who create more and more bondage in our life.

It is we who decide. So don't think that the silence of enlightenment is not possible for you in life. People always come and ask me, 'What you say is really beautiful; it makes sense but tell me some practical method.'

The moment you ask, the moment you say 'practical', you have already decided what I am saying is impractical.

Be very clear, the very understanding and the courage to think, 'What he says is practical; I will express it with my life,' is more than enough. Usually we neither respect ourselves nor trust that we can have the experience of that silence and enlightenment. Just have faith in what you hear from me. I talk from my own experience, not from anything else. And that is more than enough for you. You don't need anything else.

First thing, understand that you can, you are eligible. Everyone is entitled to enter into the Kingdom of God, to enter into the divine space. Every one of us is eligible. God cannot send us out. Be very clear.

-A beautiful story:

There was a king in Bharat, who was self-centered and very egotistic. His ego had grown to such a great extent that he started saying, 'I can do everything God does. I am greater than God.' If someone objected to his view, immediately, he would order, 'Kill him!'

There was one enlightened Master in that kingdom, in a nearby village. He visited the capital, heard the whole story and wanted to teach the king a lesson. He went to the court and started praising the king, 'O king, you are equal to God; you are God.'

The king was delighted. He said, 'You are the right person. Come, come on; teach us all the truth, whatever you have realized.' The Master said, 'I have to tell you one important thing. There are some things you can do, that even God cannot do.'

Now, the king was just floating. He said, 'Come on, tell me what it is that I can do that even God cannot do.'

The Master continued, 'If you are angry with somebody you can send him out of your kingdom but God cannot!'

The king was shocked. The scope of the statement hit him suddenly and he realized how foolish he had been.

So be very clear, God cannot send us out of his kingdom! The whole universe is His! And the Kingdom of God, enlightenment, the vibrant silence, is our birthright.

The second thing we need to understand is, we have wrong ideas about this enlightenment. People come and ask me, 'If I become enlightened, will all my desires be fulfilled? Will whatever I think come true?'

Be very clear, that would be a big punishment. Really, I tell you, just because of his compassion, God never fulfills our prayers. If he fulfilled all our prayers, our whole life would become a mess. It is out of his compassion that he fulfills only a few prayers, and out of his greater compassion that he leaves most of our prayers unfulfilled.

Please be very clear, it is out of his great compassion, sometimes, that he never fulfils our desires. We don't even know the after-effect or side-effect of many of our desires. Without even knowing the after-effects or side-effects of those desires, we start hankering after them. We start asking for them. We believe God can give them but we don't believe God has the little intelligence to know when to give, and whether to give, some of those things, even. That is where the problem starts. If we trust in God's intelligence, first of all, we won't even ask. Even if we ask, we should know that God intelligently fulfills some desires and leaves the rest, for our own good.

• -A small story: One pseudo Master (pseudo Master means one who is not enlightened; just an intellectual who starts preaching) was claiming that he was enlightened and tried to create disciples. Of course, pseudo persons can imitate beautifully. Original Masters will never really match our concept of a Master. That's why they are continuously crucified, stoned and poisoned. Original Masters will just be. They will be original; they will not be acting or imitating anybody. They will be themselves.

It is very difficult to recognize somebody original but somebody pseudo, you can easily think is a Master because he will be imitating; he will be following; he will give you an image, a clear-cut idea. The original person, on the other hand, will be so rebellious; he will be such a live energy that it will be very difficult to understand him.

This guy, a pseudo person, started attracting many disciples. Many disciples gathered around him. One day, suddenly, he died. His closest two disciples thought, 'How can we live without our Master?' They committed suicide.

All three of them reached the other world and stood at the big beautiful gates. The pseudo Master said, 'See I promised you all heaven. Now I have brought you here. I deliver the things that I promise. Come on; let us go inside.'

He knocked on the door. The security person opened the gates and all three entered inside. It was a beautiful place, such a wonderful place. Whatever they wanted, was there. Then again, the Master said, 'Look at this, I promised you paradise; now I've delivered. You can see that I do what I say.'

They went around. The security person said, 'Sir, whatever you want, you can have here. You just have to order.' They started ordering. Whatever they wanted, immediately it was delivered. There was no gap between the thought and result, between desire and reality. They just had to wish and the wish was fulfilled.

All three started living a kingly life, the best palaces, the best food, beautiful women, whatever they wanted. They had everything. Anything they asked for was immediately delivered but we don't usually understand one important thing. If we get everything, whatever we want immediately, we enter into a space called 'depression of success'.

As long as we have hope, as long as our hopes are not completely fulfilled, we have hope! The moment our hopes are fulfilled, we become hopeless. We enter into the space of hopelessness.

For these three people, whatever they wanted was given and all desires were fulfilled. After one week, they got fed up, tired and bored, because they had everything. What to do now? They lost their taste for life.

They went to the security staff and asked, 'Please do us one small favor. Just open the window to the world, our old world. We wish to see that world so that we gain some more taste and develop some more desire. We can then come back and enjoy this world, because now we are fed up.'

The security guard said, 'Okay, welcome. Please come.' He opened the window and they looked at the world. They saw the suffering, how the world was going on and becoming worse; how people were struggling to achieve even small things. Now, again, they got renewed interest about life, about things. They got new desires and started living again.

This went on and on and on for some time. After one month, again they were fed up. Now they were lost in confusion. They went to the security guard again and asked, 'Sir, can you do us one favor? Can you open the door of Hell, so that we can see how the people are suffering there? Based on what we have seen, we will have some more desires and we can once again start enjoying what is here.'

First they saw the world, so they got some more desire, and they started enjoying where they were. Now they wanted to see Hell, so they would have a little more inspiration to enjoy. The security guard laughed and said, 'Where do you think you are? You are in Hell!'

The three of them experientially understood what hell was. In life, what we think of as heaven is actually hell for us

but, if we are told that in the beginning, we will not believe it. We have to experience it ourselves!

So please be very clear, if all our desires are answered, if all our desires are fulfilled, we are in Hell, because we will neither get fulfilled nor will we move beyond desires. We will not be able to experience the bliss of desirelessness. A person who thinks enlightenment is about fulfilling all his desires is mistaken.

Enlightenment is about going beyond desires, not about fulfilling all our desires. Fulfilling all our desires is again nothing but Hell. When we become enlightened, we go beyond desires. The bliss of 'desirelessness' happens in us.

By fulfilling all our desires, we will never achieve the state of desirelessness. We can achieve the state where we are not able to desire anymore, depression, but, by working towards enlightenment, we can experience the bliss of desirelessness.

First thing, we should start trusting, trusting that we can achieve, that we are qualified. Next thing, we have to drop all our wrong ideas about enlightenment. First, we have to drop all wrong ideas about ourselves, that we are not qualified. We have to drop that wrong idea. Next, we have to drop all the wrong ideas about enlightenment; if this happens that will be; if that happens this will be.

Now, if we can drop the wrong ideas about ourselves and enlightenment, then both will become one and the same. Our Self will become enlightened! As long as we have wrong ideas about ourselves and about enlightenment, we will keep both at a distance from one another.

The moment we drop the wrong ideas about ourselves and the wrong ideas about enlightenment, we can start experiencing that we are enlightened. We are in that silence. We are in that experience. The silence of enlightenment is a living, vibrant silence, a living, vibrant energy. It is the heartbeat of the absolute, the heartbeat of Existence.

When I say the word 'silence', I mean it is the heartbeat of the spiritual being: the ultimate, the Divine, what we call God. I pray to that Ultimate Energy, God, to shower his blessings upon you and to make you experience the silence, to lead you from words to silence. Let him give you the ultimate experience of that living silence, Eternal Bliss, nithyananda.

We will spend a few minutes with your questions. If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask them now.