1. From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali s Yoga Sutras

The desire to liberate oneself by understanding the truth that one too is an integral part o f the Universal Energy, Parasakti, has been the quest of every intelligent person steeped in eastern spirituality.

Many great sages realized this truth; however, not many spoke about it. Of those who spoke, many spoke in riddles, metaphors and parables. In the Hindu tradition, communication of this timeless truth has followed three formats.

The first are the Sastras, the scriptures, some considered of divine origin and others of human origin, the srutis and the smrutis. These Sastras talk in elliptical terms of this truth, in metaphors and riddles, asking the student to delve deep into this knowledge and internalize the truth for oneself. Sastras appeal to the intellect.

Then came the Stotras, devotional songs and kirtans that pour forth from the depths of the singers' hearts carrying the spirit high with the lyrics and the rhythm. Stotras are pure emotion and appeal to the heart as they emanated from the heart.

Finally came the Sutras, the techniques that reveal the mystery of this timeless truth that we too are divine. Sutras help the common person to reach out to this truth and see for himself; Sutras lead to enlightenment.

Amongst the greatest of all Sutras are those of the great sage Patanjali, who lived several thousand years ago. His instructions on the techniques of how to reach the divine led to the science of Yoga. Yoga means Union, union of the Self with the Divine, Atman with the Brahman, and his book of sutras is the path that leads to the realization of the Truth.

In the pages that follow a living enlightened master, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, speaks of Patanjali and his Sutras, in a manner that makes understanding a lot easier for today's conditions. In addition, He talks on related topics that help towards the same truth that Patanjali's Yoga Sutras lead to.

Was it several thousands years ago Said the Sage from the forest to Boys who sat below and listened intently Be sure what you desire since Desire shapes your will and Will your actions Actions your future and What you are and will be Said the boys to Yajnavalka, Master Lead us from illusion to Truth From darkness to Light Death to Cosmic freedom Show us the way so we can follow I too searched for the Master who Trod the sacred path lit by His glow of wisdom that even I half blind can follow And then I found Him A lad under a banyan tree

We shall talk today about an extraordinary scientist, a real scientist of the inner world. His name is Patanjali, a great enlightened master of ancient Bharat. We remember him for his great book, the book of books, and the root for millions of books. He created a formula and aphorism for spiritual philosophy.

All spiritual literature can be classified into 3 categories: one outlining goals of what you wish to achieve, about life, death, what happens after death, what is atman, books o f philosophy, etc. These books speak about the truth beyond life and death, intellectual material. Difficulty is that this philosophy is not a method or technique to transform your life. They are perceptions of individual philosophers. Millions have answered the question of what happens after death, and yet it is a virgin question. We do not know the answer. Each person who tried to answer created one school of philosophy. These books do not give any answers, no solutions. These are called Sastras .

The second level of literature are the songs in praise of God. These are for emotional people; fairy tales to uplift the spirit in devotion. These are called Stotras.

Third kind of spiritual literature is for those seeking solutions, a seeker at the being level, asking for clear cut explanations of spirituality. These are the aphorisms, techniques to provide solutions, and are called Sutras.

A young man asks Socrates: Should I marry? Socrates had a terrible wife, who used to beat him. Socrates said: you should marry. Only two things can happen when you marry. You can either have a good wife leading a happy and contented life, or you will be like me, with a miserable wife and become a philosopher. It will be good for other people.

People who are not happy, who are not down to earth create philosophies. Philosophy means to complicate simple truths, to make people not understand what they should understand; like Psychiatry that is supposed to cure, but never cures. Philosophers only raise questions, never answer, and only postpone answers. You will be happy with one philosopher's answers till you read another philosopher. More philosophy means more confusion.

Devotional literature is equally fruitless. It's very easy to love a person in front of you. You can love god, but not your wife and neighbor. Your love of God is all unfulfilled fantasies. You may feel hurt. Please understand that to most of you God is only a concept. How can you love a concept that you do not even know.

Patanjali from the first word says let us look for truth. Would other literature provide you life solutions? Or are they just entertainment, passing time? You can sing song praising God and spend time. There are millions of songs praising God. In olden days as there was no TV or movies this was good entertainment; something more than philosophy, food for intellect, brain candy and devotional literature is good, but not for the ultimate experience or experiencing reality.

Patanjail's book is called Yoga Sutra: Aphorisms to achieve union with the ultimate energy. His sutras or aphorisms teach you how to achieve this union. Of thousands of books I have read this is the most scientific and most practical. There is a movie called 'What the Bleep do we know?', explaining Quantum Physics, and a book called 'Fabric of Cosmos', both very good and practical. Patanjali is more practical and more scientific than any of these excellent books and movies.

A Scientist has thirst for truth; he analyses data without prejudice; he has the courage to follow the conclusions of his research. One who has all these qualities and one who does not compromise on any of these parameters is a scientist. Patanjali is an extraordinary scientist and is the father of all eastern philosophy and religions. From the teachings of Jesus it appears that he has been influenced by Patanjali. There is a book on the Life of Jesus, Da Vinci Codes, which is controversial, which raises some of these questions seeking answers to the purpose of life. Patanjali has inspired all those who came after him, knowingly or unknowingly.

Patanjali radiates all these qualities with purity. When Galileo said that Earth is not flat and that the Earth follows the Sun, there was so much opposition to make him recant the truth that he understood and propounded. He had to withdraw his views under pressure from religious leaders. He said I have to change my views, but the Sun and earth will not change their nature. But Patanjali does not bend, does not change his views.

Even in modern day research, researchers have to listen to their fund providers; in olden days they were controlled by Kings and religious leaders. A scientist researches and provides a formula to reproduce their results in the outer world. A mystic produces a formula to reproduce experiences in the inner world. Patanjali's sutras are valid even after 5,000 years; they are still fool proof and still produce intended results.

Many produced formulae which suited only specific groups; intellectuals, emotional people, Being level people, men, women etc. There is a book by the name 'Men are from Mars Women are from Venus'. Someone said that this is not correct; they can not be from same universe since the distance between them is too large. Here is a Master who provided techniques to open all doors to all people; Patanjali says these promises are for the whole world.

I was traveling with a Professor on Comparative Religions. I asked him for percentages of different religious groups in the United States. He asked do you want published figures or real figures of those who practice these religious sincerely. These two figures are very different, he said. When I studied statistics at least 25% of all Americans have practiced one form of Yoga or another. At least 10% practice regularly.

Edison discovered light. Once discovered it belonged to the whole world. Patanjali discovered the truth of inner light and made it available to the whole world.

Fortunately, there was no copyright. Patanjali is great because he did not create an organization. Once an organization is created truth is cremated. A real rose is beautiful and God given. A plastic rose is not. The difference between truth and organized religion is the same as between a real rose and a plastic rose.

Another great Master, J Krishnamurthy, said after creating his organization that the organization has only the right to publish his teaching and writings, but not to comment upon them. If Krishna and Jesus meet they will hug each other; but Krishna's cows and Jesus' goats will bicker and fight with each other. Masters are truth, followers are corrupt. Organizations and followers create complications so as to exploit people, to control people.

Some one asked: What is the difference between Sankara's teachings and Buddha's? Sankara talks about atman and brahman, Buddha says there is no self; Sankara says poorna, Buddha says sunya. I said what they say is the same, their experiences are the same, but copyrights are different. A yoga magazine talked about super deluxe Kundalini Yoga. I wondered, where does this title come from? The guy said that the word is his copyright.

Patanjali says when my teachings are no longer true, this book will die; let it live as long as it is the ultimate truth. I want only truth to survive. If I create an organization, my followers will try for the survival of the organization not the truth. If Krishna and Buddha descend today their temples will not welcome them; it will disturb their vested interests.

This openness is what makes me call him a saintist, a saint and a scientist, a mystic and scientist combined in one. He created this book to understand how to reach the ultimate truth and then is ready to stand by and let his book be replaced if some one else comes up with a greater truth. We still can not add a single word to enhance his sayings. Only a person who is so confident can be so open. It is like a money back guarantee, which is possible only if you have absolute confidence in yourself and what you believe in and say.

We shall go into details of his book over the next few days.

Patanjali has created a navigator to guide us in the spiritual inner world of body, mind and spirit. He has solutions, down to earth and practical, for modern day problems. He is neither a philosopher nor a devotional muse. There is not one word or one line that can be disputed or disproved. He is an atheist, because he does not say God exists, he just shows you the way, gives you the techniques to realize divinity; but he is not a fanatic. It is easy to be a believer in the divine, because we do not understand creation, who created it and how. To be an atheist you have to disbelieve what you see around you. You have to deny your senses. You need to be a fanatic.

The first verse of Patanjali is: Yogaha chitta vritti nirodaha. Yoga is the cessation of mind. Where mind drops that is union. When you achieve the ultimate experience mind stops functioning. As long as mind exists you can not experience the union. You will be in dilemma. I always say: Jump before you think, otherwise you will never jump. Mind only creates confusion; it dissects and creates categories. Only when you go beyond mind and logic you can find truth.

There is no gap between you and the divine. You are divine, whether you accept it or not, believe it or not, understand it or not.

A man was told his wife is drowning. He jumped into the river and swam in the opposite direction upstream. People shouted at him asking him: what are you doing. He said you do not know my wife she always goes against the current.

So can you and flounder. When mind stops you experience the divinity within you.

The first line gives you the conclusion.

There are many books on how to present. If you wish to get the attention of your audience you have only 30 seconds to inspire them. Even 30 seconds is too much. You already have evaluated and judged the speaker. Based on this decision you keep collecting data on speaker. These books say that right in the beginning you have to make a powerful statement. Patanjali here gives you all in one: the goal is to experience the divine, the path is to stop the mind and the end result is the Union with the divine. The entire book is a commentary and explanation on this one line.

Let us now see how to drop the mind and reach the divine, Patanjali's techniques, teachings and methods.

Q: Some say Patanjali is 10,000 years or is he only 2000 years old?

A: If my disciple writes a book many years after me, it will be under my name.

Similarly many centuries later other disciples wrote following Patanjali. If you study the language used by Patanjali his works are at least 10000 years old. Unfortunately Hindus are very weak in history, in happenings; we are strong only in content and philosophy. We do not know for certain, dates of birth of any great master, whether Sankara, Buddha or Krishna. History is called puranas, or truths, not facts; there are important di f ferences. Truth is the impact of the incidents, not the chronological or quantitative facts of human life; they preferred to record those truths rather than the facts.

A man goes with his friend to a mango orchard. The friend was calculating the crop size and money realizable while this man was focusing on eating and enjoying the mangoes. Who is more intelligent?

Now we can identify the period based on the evolution of the language. Patanjali lived in Rameshwaram in South Bharat where there is a tomb in his name. They can also fix the age based on the tomb structure.

All Patanjali's disciples are called Patanjali, like Sankara's disciples are called Sankara; after a while you forget which disciple he is. An enlightened Master becomes one with the truth; therefore you remember only the truth.

Patanjali had hidden himself so well; nothing except what he wrote is now available. He kept himself away from his own discoveries, the truths. To use electricity you need to know nothing about Edison, all you have to do switch on and off to enjoy the fruits of his discovery.

Modern day psychologists like Freud and others look too small compared to Patanjali. Freud had only sick people to study, not enlightened Masters. He had no chance. After 35 years of research Freud comes to a conclusion that man can not be healed, that man has to suffer. Patanjali himself was enlightened and was surrounded by other Masters; he could therefore talk about a higher truth of bliss.

Philosophy is right only after your experience, not when you read. Vedanta says everything is God. True. But you can not stand in the middle of the road and say a car will not run me down because both are God.

A great Master teaches his disciples that all is God. While bathing in the river next morning a mad elephant came charging and every body except one disciple ran away. The mahout shouts at him to run away. This disciple stayed on saying that he is God and the elephant is also God. The elephant charged this disciple and he was badly hurt. The master later asked him, after he was injured by the elephant, why did you not run away. The disciple said: I believed what you told me that I am God and the elephant too is God; therefore I did not expect to be attacked by the elephant. Master responded: but the mahout too was God and he warned you to run away.

We understand truths only partly. Unrealized truths, half truths are worse than lies. Vedanta is truth. You have to however realize the vedantic truths before they work for you. Truth before experience is very different from truth after experience. Master speaks from experience. You listen without experience. My words will not have the same meaning in your dictionary.

A lady was trying on a fur coat. Her small daughter watches her curiously as she models the coat. Finally she asks, mom, you are enjoying wearing this fur coat; just imagine how much the animal must have suffered. Mother turns around and snarls, how dare you talk about your father like this?

Dictionaries are different.

Better not believe Vedanta before you experience its truths. Otherwise you will cause confusion for yourself and others. This is true of many preachers who have not experienced the truth. It's not your truth till you experience it. It's only the truth of the sages who have experienced it.

Q: Can there be an organized method to reach the mindless state? How can mind go beyond the mind?

A: When water is at room temperature you can not imagine it becoming steam. To evaporate water you need fire, you need energy. Patanjali infuses energy into the mind to change its state. When the movement of mind stops, it becomes atman, it turns divine. Mind, when it stops can not bind you, only till it has thoughts it can hold you. The deeper you go into the mind, what you think of as qualities of the mind, they disappear. The oscillations stop. Mind is no longer is confusion. It will become a guide, a teacher and will lead you to a no mind state. Instead of moving you away from enlightenment, it will pull you inside. Mind exists in its present form because it does not know that there is bliss in the no mind state. Once it knows, it wants you to stay there, as it is so blissful. Mind is a wonderful servant. It will take you wherever it thinks the truth lies. Once it has a glimpse of the blissful state it won't let it go, and will always take you back there.

Patanjali talks about this. How can one dream take you into another dream, or even a dreamless state? He also gives the answer: if you dream of a lion in your dream, you will wake up and come out of that dream.

yaaogartao vaa Baaogartao vaa sagMartao vaa sagMaivahIna: yasya br*maina rmato icca%tM nandait nandit nand%yoava ||

*yogarato va bhogarato va sangarato va sangavihinaha yasya brahmani ramate cittam nandati nandati nandatyeva*

Let one practice concentration; or let one indulge in sense-enjoyment. Let one find pleasure in company; or in solitude. He alone is happy, happy, verily happy, whose mind revels in Brahman.

*Bhaja Govindam 19*

From stupidity to wisdom; from human nature to divinity; that is what, Patanjali, one of the greatest scientist sages of ancient Bharat describes in his Yoga Sutras, as an eight fold path to achieve Yoga, union of the Self and the Divine.

We shall now look at one part of the first of the eight fold paths. The first part of the eight parts is called Yama. Yama refers to set of moral injunctions to be followed by any serious spiritual aspirant.

The first part of this eight part system, Yama consists of five elements: Ahimsa (non violence), Brahmacharya (living without fantasy), Satya (truth), Asteya (not stealing), and Aparigraha (living with what one has). Now we shall talk about just Satya, Truth.

Satya is just not truth of the words we utter. That's only one dimension. Thinking the truth and living the truth are the other two dimensions. Vedanta says you create what you want, you are the creator of the whole world; it's you who creates suffering and bliss. If we may ask: if we are the creator of the world why would we create suffering? The reason is that either consciously or unconsciously we are not being true to our Being; we are not living, acting, or speaking the truth.

When some one speaks we do not really listen to him, we do not believe him; we are constantly evaluating him, judging him; and we do not allow the words penetrate us, because we ourselves do not speak the truth. When it's against our vested interests, against our judgment we stop listening or ask him to stop if he can. In most cases we have already formed a judgment about that person, and we keep collecting arguments to support our preformed judgment.

If we are creators of our own world why do we create suffering? Continuously we create self contradicting desires. At a deep level, whether we accept it or not, believe it or not, understand it or not, we are God. Therefore we create trouble when we contradict our selves and give power to self contradicting thoughts. When we keep thinking of wanting to get rid of a disease, keep saying that I must not have this headache, or stomach ache or cancer, we are already meditating upon that disease; we give power to the word disease through thoughts, through utterance, we implant this word disease in our Being, and the disease will stay on. We can never get

rid of an ache or pain by constantly wishing it to go away. Instead if we say let me be healthy, and if we bring the concept of health to our mind and Being, the ache and pain will disappear. Self contradicting thoughts such as trying to get rid of pain by thinking of pain are called samskaras and these get power and become real.

A person who speaks truth verbally or speaks only of facts is not established in satya. A person can talk facts and still be a liar.

In Mahabharata Krishna wants Drona to be destroyed. Drona is very attached to his son Aswattama. If he hears that Aswattama has died Krishna knows that Drona will give up fighting. Krishna tells Yudhishtra, the incarnation of Dharma, to say that Aswattama has died. Yudhishtra first refuses. Krishna makes Bhima kill an elephant called Aswattama and make Yudhishtra say that Aswattama has died. They say that till then Yudhishtra's chariot which always rode a few inches above ground came down to earth. Yudhishtra stated a fact, but it was not truth.

Being truthful is something more than being factual. First you need to straighten your inner chatter. When an enlightened Master speaks it comes true, because they live in truth. They do not have self contradicting samskaras. These samskaras suck your energy and make you powerless. The word you repeat within yourself should be true. You give power to disease by just saying disease; being factual does not reduce suffering.

A man wants special powers. He goes to a Master and asks for a technique. When an enlightened Master gets special powers it benefits humanity and universe; but ordinary people getting such powers just cause trouble for themselves and others. The master tries to dissuade him. He does not listen. He says if you can not give tell me, I shall go elsewhere.

Ramana says: who says my devotees are followers. At first they follow. Then they do not listen. They want. They lead. Guru is there to do your homework; if he does not, you will leave him.

Francis of Assisi says: God is great because he answers our prayers. He is much greater because most of the time he does not answer many of our prayers.

We know only 120 degrees. Divine knows 360 degrees. God not only has Shakti to give but also the Buddhi to know when to give, or not to give. He makes us stronger by not giving us what we need.

Guru finally relents out of compassion for the stupid disciple. He gives this disciple a medicine and tells him, drink this and it will give you great powers; but do not remember a monkey when you drink the medicine; then it'll not have any effect. The disciple says that's fine, but what if I do think of a monkey. Master says you must bathe and try again. Every time he tries only moneys come to his mind. While bathing all he could remember were monkeys. He was running in and out of the bathroom. He was in the grip of a self contradicting desire; like thinking of a disease when trying to get rid of a disease.

He ran back to his master and cried: get rid of these monkeys. You can keep this medicine. I do not want any powers. I just want you to free me of these monkeys.

Try and spend hal f an hour a day to straighten your thinking, the same way as you spend in straightening your body and dress. Spend time in straightening out your samskaras, in clearing your thinking.

Satya is what gives peace and bliss to all. You can not speak arrogantly; arrogance creates anger, disturbance, and violence. If you say people are disturbed when you speak the truth, the truth that you express is your ego and arrogance, but not the truth. You can always express truth politely, acceptably without hurting some one; only then it is truth. Pure truth can never be violent, can never hurt some one. At best it will be like a Doctor using a knife to clear some one of a problem, and not like a killer using a knife to harm some one.

Living Satya, living Truth in your life, through your body is essential. Einstein was on his death bed. All his disciples were around him. One asked what would you like to be when reborn, since he knew that Einstein believed in reincarnation. Einstein said: I would like to be born a plumber. They were shocked as they expected him to say many other great things. They asked why. He said: all my life I wanted to be a plumber. Environment made a scientist and I could not stop running the rat race. Whatever society gave me, money, status, and fame, all this is a big failure. I did not live my life. My life became a lie.

When the spirit takes birth again and again, it does that based on your desires. If all your life and till the point of your death you focused on eating, you will take the body of a pig; If only in sleeping, the body becomes that of a buffalo. Based on these you choose what you will be, who your parents will be, what your life will be in the next birth. However, if you have lived a fulfilled life, you will have no desires left when the spirit leaves the body. It's free to choose, whether to return or not; and if it does return it knows where to go.

If you believe that you have lived your life even if you live on a pavement homeless, you have lived your life. Otherwise your life has been a lie. Gita says: You will be in your next life what your last thought in this life is. If you feel fulfilled at the end of your life now, you will be liberated. When your spirit is unfulfilled, your death will be miserable and you will return again and again to run the rat race. The problem with the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat.

A person asks: I wanted to be a cricketer, but my father made me do otherwise. I said: People who do what they really want always excel in what they do though they may not be materially successful. It's too late for you. At least allow your children to do what they wish to. If you are already too old to fix the problem, do not impose the same suffering on others. Even the idea that you wanted to be a cricketer, be sure that it's your own idea, not imposed on you by media and friends.

A person asks: They say, not even a blade of grass moves without God's will. It's also said everything is on free will. There is a dichotomy.

I said: The first statement is from an enlightened person and is true for him not for you. The second statement of free will is true for you. For an enlightened person, he moves in tune with the Universe. If you start saying that every thing depends on God, you will stop working; that is of no use. However, if you believe that statement fully and make your own effort, without bothering about the results, you will move towards enlightenment.

Patanjali therefore says live your life truthfully.

Mahavira Jaina says that when you are born, whatever you want to fulfill in this life upon Earth, your own desires that you wish to fulfill in this birth, you bring with you when you are born. God is so compassionate that he always sends everything you want when he sends you here. Why do we suffer then, why do we feel we are running short of everything. Because after we come down we do not live only our desires, we accumulate every one else's desires. We gather desires. When a neighbor buys an air conditioner the temperature in our house goes up. When we try to live other peoples' desires our live becomes a lie.

How to find out if our desires are truly ours? Till the age of 3 all our desires are genuine. From then on we start picking up other people's desires, as we see them, as we interact with them, as we imitate them. We are mixed up. We are what society wants us to be. We are reacting. Even before we smile we ensure of the other person smiles. We express only when we feel we will be accepted. Meditation is the only way to infuse energy into your desires; infuse consciousness into your desires. What ever your own real desires are will stay; what are not will fall. Those that stay will have the energy to fulfill themselves. There will be no self contradiction. Your true desires will come true. When this happens you feel fulfilled.

Be in Satya, be in Truth: straighten your thoughts so that there is no self contradiction. Express in words without hurting others, with compassion. Live your life based on your own desires; do not accumulate other peoples' desires.

Let God's grace, let the cosmic energy fulfill us in body, mind and spirit to reach eternal bliss.

maUZ jahI ih QanaagamatRYNaaM kuru sad\bauiWM manaisa ivatRYNaMa yallaBasao inajakmaao-pa%tM iva%tM tona ivanaaodya ica%tM ||

*mudha jahihi dhanagamatrushnam kuru sadbuddhim manasi vitrushnam yal-labhase nijakarmopattam vittam tena vinodaya cittam*

O fool! Cast off the desire for accumulation of wealth; create in the mind, thoughts about Reality, devoid of passion. What ever you get, what you have achieved through your past deeds, with that, satisfy your mind.

*Bhaja Govindam 2*

In Patanjali's Yoga, according to me there are eight points, though these are usually referred to as eight steps. Though you need to know all eight at a time for realizing Truth, these points are not sequential.

As long as you are here to understand and transform your lives it is worth spending your time in studying Patanjali's Yoga; not for acquiring knowledge.

Patanjali was a great mystic, a saintist, saint and scientist. He wrote the aphorisms of Yoga. Yoga is union; union of man with God. He laid down eight points to achieve this union, to reach divine consciousness.

Some one asked: all the techniques are practiced only by the mind, which you say is a dream. How can one dream awaken another dream? When you see a lion chasing you in a dream, you wake up. Any thing that inspires deep fear or greed will wake you up; nightmare or fantasy. All Patanjali does is add something to your dreams to wake you up.

Zen story: Disciple asks the master how I can be awakened. Master responds: slap your face, you will wake up.

Patanjali teaches us eight methods to slap ourselves and wake up. The more you practice these eight steps the more the clarity that descends on you. I have not seen any other Master speaking so clearly

Part 2: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras_English_part_2.md

with such perfection in such a straight forward way. He is a scientist, saying 2 plus 2 is 4. Mystics don't speak that way. 2 plus 2 to them may be 4, may not be 4. A plus B may be C or D. if that does not come, wait, may be you did not write A or B clearly. Patanjali guarantees; he is so confident of his product; only he can use money back guarantee offers. In other systems, you may understand 50, 60 or 70 %, here you will get 110%; for past, present and future minds, not just your present mind alone now.

We use pesticides; if we use them continuously the pests get immune and even start using the pesticides as nutrient food to grow upon; so you need to increase the strength and vary the pesticide. Same way our mind learns the art of surviving masters. We all have survived Buddhas, Christs, Krishnas; we have survived the masters since our minds are cunning. Patanjali has created a system that can not be escaped; it's perfect; you have to get enlightened if you follow him. He has inspired more masters than any one else.

The first step is Yama, loosely translated as discipline. This means tuning yourself to the ultimate; it is not a set of dos and don'ts. It is a set of instructions to tune yourself to your Self. Within this Yama are: first is Ahimsa, non violence with understanding; Ahimsa is not a moral condition but a technique.

No morality can be practiced. Morality is great to give as advice, not for practicing yourself; which is good; otherwise you will all become schizophrenics. If you understand and practice Yama you will automatically fall in tune with your higher Self. There is no need to fear heaven or hell. Morality practiced to soothe your conscience is just skin deep, to awaken either fear or greed to make you comply. Morality should be based on consciousness. Otherwise you need cops to enforce moral rules; as soon as cops are out of sight you indulge. Breaking any law gives you pleasure. Kids feel they are grown up when they can say no. If you understand then you will not need to violate. All the violence, all the depression, all the sufferings on planet Earth are because of social and moral rules imposed on us.

You do not commit sins and go to hell. You commit sins because you are in hell. If you are relaxed and happy with yourself you will never be violent and commit sins. Only when you are restless, not at ease with yourself, you feel it necessary to find faults with others and commit violence. You do good things because you are in heaven not the other way around. There is no exchange counter between this world and the next; if you do charity you get no pass to heaven. Do charity for the joy it gives you; that's the heaven on earth when you are still alive. There will be no one at the pearly gates waiting for you with a golden key.

If you are established in non violence, even wild animals, if they face you, will turn peaceful. You will radiate love and compassion. Patanjali says: If a man is established in non violence, in his presence, enemies and animals will drop their animosity and radiate love.

Sankara, the great enlightened master, walked all over Bharat on foot, village to village, begged door to door for food, and lived with the common man, to update himself with what was happening around him. This was required of him as a teacher, as a master. As he went he learnt from various masters, universities, and temples which are spiritual universities. He wanted to create his own University to spread his message of Advaita, where the energy of love will speak. In a forest on a full moon night as it drizzled he saw a frog about to hatch its baby and a cobra spreading its hood to protect the frog from the rain; frogs and cobras are born as natural enemies; when Sankara saw this he decided here's where I should have my University where animals lose their enmity, and pure oneness and love starts happening. Once you experience this love you will never be violent; non violence, ahimsa, will happen to you.

Think: when you see someone falling, even if you rush to help, you have difficulty in suppressing laughter. Socially we express sympathy, but inside we enjoy.

Ananda Pappiah woke up to find himself in the hospital with his friend by his side. Anand asked his friend: What happened? Why am I in hospital, unable to move? Friend said: Last night after a few drinks you wanted to fly down four floors and you did, that's why. Anand shouted angrily: fool, why didn't you stop me? Friend said: at that time I too thought you could do it!

Non violence does not come from practice, only from experience. Whether you believe it not, accept it or not, understand it or not, the whole Universe responds to your thoughts. After my enlightenment I was relaxing in front of a cave, sitting with my self. A few feet away a big Cobra was lying. I was not even aware of it though my eyes were open; my mind was not linked to my senses. After some time I woke up to what was around me.

You come back to reality after sometime. Suddenly the thought of the cobra entered my mind. Only then the cobra realized I was a man. Till then both were comfortable with each other. The next thought was fear. This was reflected in the cobra as well and it raised its head. When I moved back, it moved away.

When we are established in love nothing touches us. We do not need to defend ourselves against anything. Defending is what creates the thought of offending. All countries say that they have armies only to defend themselves. Who then is offending? The more you try to defend you enter into offense. Violence starts. Violence starts with defense. This is what Jesus meant when he said to turn the other cheek when someone slaps you. What he said is not impractical. This can be practiced. What have we achieved by protecting ourselves, except suffering? On the other hand, if you radiate love, you will be a God on planet Earth. Can you defend yourself against death? By defending yourself you may add some years to your life; by trusting, by loving you will add life to your years. What would you like to do, add years to your life or add life to your years?

A great Zen master Suzuki was asked: what was the greatness of your Master? Suzuki replied: the most extraordinary thing I found in him was that he always thought he was very ordinary. It is only people who are very ordinary who think they are special, extraordinary. Even if we are too polite to say I am great, we say our country is great, out language is great, our religion is great etc. Why not come out and say I am great instead of in a round about way? We always think we are extraordinary. When we live in an ordinary we way we become extraordinary.

Some one came to me and asked, Swami, am I enlightened? I have a doubt. I said, as long as you have a doubt be very clear you are not enlightened. The moment you are enlightened, not only will you never have a doubt about it, nor will you even think that you are enlightened. You will not even remember you are enlightened. You don't continuously go on thinking who you are and keep repeating your name. People worship dead masters about whom stories are spun as to how special they are. You do not see anything extraordinary about living masters. We live as you do. I also have rest rooms. No dead master's life talks about his rest rooms. Only their peak experiences are recorded. Their miracles are archived. Enlightened masters radiate ordinariness.

When you experience glimpse of love, you will become non violent and you will not think you are extraordinary.

The second point Patanjali takes up is brahmacharya. You can not stop talking about something you love. When you talk about people you do not like, you will change the subject. I love Patanjali and am so comfortable with him that I can go on and on. Normally brahmacharya is translated as celibacy. This is wrong. Celibacy is suppression, perversion. Brahma means existence, reality; chariya is to walk in it, to live with it; brahmacharya is living with reality.

People ask: to become enlightened, do I need to leave my wife and children? I tell tem: renounce only what you do not have; live comfortably, intensely, happily with what you have. If you have a wife, live fully with her; not with the fantasy of some other woman. Renunciation is Brahmacharya; it is dropping your fantasies. Brahmacharya is accepting reality as it is. When you drop your fantasies and accept your beloved for what she is, your life becomes heaven. If you live with your fantasies, you will be uncomfortable with your real wife, and the same will happen to every one you meet and choose.

The idea of beauty is just an idea. As long as distance is maintained things look beautiful. Close ups are always ugly and flat. Even if you marry the Miss Universe the idea of beauty will not last more than 15 days. The moment you start living together reality comes in. That's why you call it honey moon, not honey sun. When you drop your fantasies you can live with reality for ever. That's why in Sanskrit there is no word for divorce. If you feed your fantasies you can change your partner any number of times and still be unhappy. Only in fairy tales do people live happily for ever. Dropping your fantasies is brahmacharya. Outer world can not disturb you or feed you fantasies; only inner fantasies can. People forcing themselves into celibacy are sitting on a volcano. They can not look into your eyes for fear you will see their suffering. If you meditate and practice celibacy, Hindu mythology says that the gods above send celestial beautiful women to disturb you. Nobody sends women to disturb you; if that's true everyone will start meditating. These meditators start hallucinating because of their suppressions, suppressed fantasies. Brahmacharya can not be practiced as morality, but as an understanding. When you accept your partner as he is or as she is, your fantasies drop, and you start accepting yourself as you are. Your partner then becomes your beloved.

Next is Satya, truthfulness. It's not factual but truthful. Living the truth, not just speaking the truth is what Patanjali talks about. If you want to break a law, all you have to do is follow it verbatim; literally; you will then break the spirit of that law. You will catch the letter of the law not its spirit. That's why people fight in the name of God. Jesus says love thy neighbor as you love yourself. Krishna says see me in everybody. Religious zealots follow the letter not the spirit of what their masters said. People who talk about peace say that they want you to be in peace in the manner that they wish.

A preacher, lawyer and Doctor were in discussion. Doctor said that God must have been a doctor because he made Eve from Adam's ribs. Lawyer said no he was a lawyer because he was passing judgment. Preacher said no, there was chaos first, and who else but a preacher can create chaos. Rama called his capital Ayodhya, which means it is a place without strife. Today it's a city strife torn in the name of Rama.

An enlightened Master lived on the banks of Ganges. He used to read the Bhagavad Gita which was the only possession he had, It had become his life. One day a poor man begged him saying he had not eaten. The master was deeply moved that someone was begging from him, who had nothing. He gave the beggar his book and told the beggar to sell the book in the market place where one of his followers may buy it and give him money. Beggar took the book away. The next morning Master prayed: God, I gave away your words to keep your word. Legend says that God appeared to him and blessed him, as one who believed in the spirit not just the letter.

There is so much corruption because we think Satya is factual, not truthful. You have to live the truth by living through your body language. You have to think, speak and express the truth in your life. You have to observe all these 3 dimensions to be in Satya.

The other two aspects of Yama are Astheya and Aparigraha. Astheya refers to non covetousness; not desiring what belongs to others. Astheya not only refers to material possessions of others as in the case o f the Old Testament's Ten Commandments, but also to not coveting what others desire. Universe provides every one of us with all that we need in this life from the moment we are born; but it is unable to cope with our wants that we covet from others. Our own desires come with the energy that will help fulfill these desires. Once fulfilled, these desires get extinguished leaving behind no hangovers or vasanas. It is these vasanas and samskaras, residual unfulfilled desires that cause suffering in life, as Buddha points out.

Aparigraha is related to Astheya, meaning living within our means, living with our own desires, living with the needs that Universe has provided us the energy to fulfill. Non covetous nature and a simple life focused on the ultimate goal of uniting with our own divine self is the practice of Aparigraha.

The second limb of the eight limbs of the Yoga path that Patanjali describes is the Niyama, the set of rules that he enjoins us to practice daily in our personal lives. Yama refers to discipline as it relates to our interaction with others, whereas niyama refers to discipline within our own mind body system. In the Patanjali Sutras five such rules are referred to under the path of niyama.

Saucha or cleanliness refers to cleanliness of body and mind, both through regular physical cleansing of the body parts, and the inner cleansing of our minds through other practices referred to later on such as pranayama and asanas.

Santosha is being happy with what we are given, to accept things as they are rather than wanting them to be as we expect them to be. It is the mindset of renouncing what we do not have, and not needing to renounce what we already have, in the hope o f seeking something better.

Ultimately this attitude of acceptance leads to surrender and enlightenment. With an attitude of santosha there will never be depression and there will always be peace of mind. With it there is always the attitude that the Universe will provide for us what ever is best.

Tapas, the next niyama, is commonly translated as penance, though rightly it is self restraint in controlling all urges, born out of body and mind. This refers to restraints in desires of the mind and actions of the body, controlling lust, anger and greed as well as sensory functions including eating. Tapas leads to a healthy body and a healthy mind.

Svadhyaya, the fourth niyama, is self enquiry and a search of the inner self. Directing the mind inwards automatically controls the mind. Looking inwards makes it easier to understand and reach the ultimate truth that we are one with the Universe. While the study of the Sastras and the Sutras, as well as the Stotras, help in leading to a practice of Svadhyaya, the grace of a master arising out of one's surrender to him leads to this naturally.

The last niyama is Isvarapranidhana; it is surrender to the Divine, the Ultimate, the Master, Parasakti, and an acceptance that whatever happens as a result will be good for us and for all Universe.

The third limb of the eight limbed Patanjali Yoga Sutra is Asana. This word means position, and this limb or module is also referred to as Hatha yoga.

When ever one talks about yoga, probability is that they talk about Hatha yoga and asanas. Hatha yoga is about physical fitness and consists of a set of physical postures people adopt in order to achieve physical flexibility and tone. Concept of Hatha yoga is based on the assumption that physical fitness is a must for mental concentration and focus. At another and deeper level, Hatha yoga refers to the integration of mind body, allowing one to become aware of the flow of prana or energy in our body system. Hatha yoga asanas when performed with awareness lead to awareness of one's emotions and can help clear blocks leading to a greater awareness in one's action in day to day life.

Hatha Yoga exercises provide physical fitness and flexibility at one level; when done regularly and with awareness they also enhance emotional fitness and flexibility. Patanjali says: Infinite flexibility is the secret to immortality. Like the Tao, Hatha Yoga promotes flexibility to counter stresses of life, mental and physical.

Popularity of various forms of Yoga, all derived from the original Sutra's of Patanjali, have made this one of the most popular forms of physical exercises and raised Yoga to a cult level. Practiced without awareness and focused merely on the body instead of mind body, as in the case of martial arts as well, Hatha Yoga can make the person rigid, arrogant and inflexible.

Pranayama, controlled breath is the fourth limb of Patanjali's yoga system.

Breath is energy and is the core of our life. We inhale for the first time shortly after arriving in the world even before your umbilical cord is cut. From the point of birth we inhale and exhale about seventeen thousand breaths each day, which over a lifetime amounts to 500 million breaths. We inhale and exhale from the last time as we depart from Planet Earth. The last breath marks the end of this life cycle for us. Our breathing supports every experience we have from birth till death, from the first inhalation to that of our last exhalation. Breath is the essence of life.

Prana means breath; more specifically it refers to the energy behind breath that makes our body functional and Ayama means control. Pranayama therefore means the control of Prana and the vital forces of the body. Pranayama begins with the regulation of breath and ends in establishing full and perfect control over the life energy currents or inner vital forces. In other words, Pranayama is the perfect control of the inner life energy currents through regulation of breath.

Prana starts functioning from the very moment the child is conceived. However, senses of the body such as hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching begin to function only when their organs such as the ears and eyes are formed. In the Upanishads, Prana is declared to be the master force within the mind body system. Mind and the five organs unequivocally declare: "O Master! O Prana! Supporter of this universe and the supporter of our very lives, the first-born! Adorations unto thee! Thou art really great. Do not depart from this body. We shall serve thee. We duly acknowledge thy superiority." Prana functions even while the mind is absent during deep sleep.

Prana is primordial life energy that governs all our mental and physical functions. Pranayama is the technique to regulate our prana to calm, balance, cleanse, and invigorate our mind body. Our breath integrates all the physical layers of our mind body system and influences the emotional layer as well.

Regulating our breath helps to regulate and uplift our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. It is the key to a healthy and vibrant life.

Prana is li fe energy. When prana flows smoothly in our mind body system we feel healthy and active. When prana is blocked, fatigue and disease set in.

Pranayama helps to master this life energy. There is an intimate relationship between our breath and our mind. When mind is calm and collected, breath too is calm and collected. When mind is turbulent, breathing becomes disordered. Prana is the life energy that flows throughout nature and the universe. When we are tuned in to the pranic energy o f our body, we become aware of the integral relationship between our individual self and the universal Self. Pranayama helps us into this awareness of the union of self and Self.

Prana connects our physical and astral bodies. When Prana is cut off, the astral body separates from the physical body. Death is the result. The Prana that was working in the physical body is withdrawn into the astral body.

Prana is the universal principle of energy or force. It is vital force. Prana is all-pervading. It may be either in a static or dynamic state. It is found in all forms, from the lowest to the highest, from the ant to the elephant, from the unicellular amoeba to a man, from the elementary form of plant life to the developed form of animal life. It is Prana that shines in your eyes. It is through the power of Prana that the ear hears, the eye sees, the skin feels, the tongue tastes, the nose smells, the brain and the intellect perform their respective functions. The smile on the face of a young lady, the melody in music, the power in the emphatic utterances of an orator, the charm in the words of one's own beloved wife—all these and many more have their origin in Prana. Fire burns through Prana. Wind blows through Prana. Rivers flow through Prana. The steamer and the plane, the train and the car move about only through the power of Prana. Radio waves travel through Prana. Prana is electron. Prana is proton. Prana is force. Prana is magnetism. Prana is electricity. It is Prana that pumps blood from the heart into the arteries. It is Prana again that does digestion, excretion and secretion.

Prana is expended by thinking, willing, acting, moving, talking, writing and all such activities. A strong and healthy man has an abundance of Prana or nerve-force or vitality. The Prana is supplied by food, water, air, solar energy, etc. The supply of Prana is received by the nervous system. The Prana is absorbed in breathing. The excess of Prana is stored up in the brain and nerve centers.

A Yogi stores up enough and more of Prana by regular practice of Pranayama just as the storage battery stores up electricity. That Yogi who has in his store an amazingly large supply of Prana radiates strength and vitality all around. He is a big power house. Those who come in contact with him imbibe Prana from him, and get strength, vigor, vitality and exhilaration of spirits. Just as oil flows from one vessel to another, Prana also actually flows steadily from a developed Yogi towards weak persons. This can be seen actually by the Yogi who has developed his inner Yogic vision.

If you can control the breath or Prana, the mind is also easily controlled. He who has controlled his mind has also controlled his breath. If one is suspended, the other also gets suspended. If the mind and the Prana are both controlled, you get liberated from the cycle of births and deaths and attain Immortality.

As long as you speak, you cannot breathe; then you offer the breath in the speech. As long as you breathe, so long you cannot speak; then you offer the speech in the breath. When you want to hear a faint sound, the breath gets suspended for a while. Any one carrying heavy loads instinctively fills his lungs with air and practices unconscious retention of breath (Pranayama) till the load is lifted on to his back. This retention of breath augments his strength and vitality. It immediately provides him with an abundance of energy. It induces great concentration of mind. When you cross a small rivulet by jumping over, when you practice long jump and high jump and various other exercises at the parallel bar and trapezium, you practice retention of breath instinctively.

If the breath is unsteady, the mind also is unsteady. If the breath is steady and calm, the mind is also steady and calm. A Yogi gets longevity of life by the practice of Pranayama. Therefore the practice of Pranayama is indispensable requisite. Just as it takes a long time, patience and perseverance to tame a lion, an elephant or a tiger, so also you will have to tame this Prana gradually. Then it will come under your perfect control.

Incorrect practice of pranayama can lead to discomfort the same way as incorrectly performed asanas can lead to discomfort. Pranayama performed incorrectly, without the guidance of a master and practiced without awareness can release suppressed negative emotions leading to depression and other mental disorders. However, correctly practiced with awareness, pranayama, along with other limbs of Patanjali's eight path yoga, can help lead to realization of truth.

जैतलो मुंडी लुंछितकेश: काषायांबरबहुकृतवेष: पश्यन्नपि च पश्यति मूढ़: हुदरनिमित्तम् बहुकृतवेष:॥

jatilo mundi lunchitakeshah káshayámbarabahukrutaveshah pasyannapi ca na pasyati müdaha hyundaranimittam bahukrutaveshaha

The ascetic with matted lock, the one with his head shaven, the one with hairs pulled out one by one, the one who disguises himself variously with the ochre-coloured robes - such a one is a fool who, though capable of seeing, does not see. Indeed, this varied disguise is for the sake of the belly.

Let us see how our mind works, and how we work through our minds from three different levels of instinct, intelligence and intuition.

As long as all your decisions are conscious and you are aware why and how you are doing something, why you are thinking this way, you are in the intelligence level. If you are not aware and conscious of your thought process and feel guilty about your actions you are at instinct level. If you are doing or not, and yet you are continuously at blissful level you are at intuition level.

How do we process information? When we see something, we perceive the object through the energy controlling our eyes, called chaksu, which is a digital signal processor. The digital file goes to our memory, called chitta, and from there to our mind, manas. The file then takes a leap into our ego, ahankara.

Chitta, our memory*,* decides what the information is not, to arrive at what it is. For instance, what I see is not a plant, not an animal etc, na iti, na iti, to decide what it is. Manas, our mind later comes into the picture and says this is a man who is conducting a class; it identifies the object as a man. Then the digital file, already processed my memory and mind, leaps into the ego, which based on past experiences decides whether to sit in the class or to go out.

Ego decides and you express and act on that decision. This zone of ego is not under your control. Ego is a collection of impressions, past memories, or samskaras. These samskaras force you to take illogical, unconscious decisions. You decide to smoke knowing logically fully well that it is bad for health. You still go ahead. You have no control. Samskaras come up and confuse you, depress you, disturb you, stress you; they can change the whole course of your life. They can create conflicts and suffering. Samskaras are the sub conscious layer of our mind.

Let us say that the time taken for the digital file to travel from our eye energy to mind, through memory, is Tp. Till this point the process is logical and clear. Time taken for unconscious process, mind to ego, through samskaras, which distort your file and twist your decisions is Tq. As long as Tp is more than Tq you will be more aware of your unconscious. If not, you are unaware and act on instinct. You are restless. You decide without knowing what you are doing. When the samskaras are more, and they move faster without your knowledge, you are in trouble. If time taken for conscious process is more than the time taken for the unconscious, if Tq is greater than Tp, you act instinctively. If Tp equals Tq, you are in Intelligence level. You will live your life without guilt. When Tp is greater than Tq, you are in super conscious level; your unconscious is infused with silence and intuition.

In Patanjali's Yoga system, the fifth limb Pratyahara works on taking your mind from all outward objects. Ahara is food and pratyahara is moving away from that food. This ahara, the food, is taken in not only from your mouth but also from all 5 senses energizing your memory. Pratyahara is moving away from ahara. If you stop this intake of sensory food, memory is given a rest.

Dharana, the sixth limb of Patanjali Yoga*,* is about focusing on one subject only. Then mind rests. Dharana is flow, mind's flow towards one object. The seventh limb of Patanjali Yoga, Dhyana (being witness) is about infusing consciousness, spirit into your unconscious zone; this is spirituality; then this unconscious zone also rests. These three give rest to memory, mind and unconscious zone. All your samskaras disappear. They are burnt away. Your third eye opens when you start witnessing and your awareness happens, and you realize everything is a dream, and you are out of the dream. This is what the puranas talk about when they talk about Shiva burning Manmata with his third eye. He burnt all his samskaras.

When you infuse consciousness and silence into this unconscious zone you burn all your engrams, you become Shiva, and you reach super conscious level. When Tp is less than Tq you are an animal; if equal you are human; if Tp is greater you are divine.

J Krishnamurthy says: Only once if you can witness your emotions without moving your body, with out support or suppression, you will see very clearly that the emotion, the samskara, loses power over you. If you support it, it grows. If you suppress it, it leads to perversions.

Why should you follow spirituality? Why follow a Master? If you do not, you follow your samskaras. You become slaves to something far less uplifting.

Infusing silence, bringing thoughtless awareness to your unconscious zone is your ultimate liberation. You become videhi, one who is outside his body even when he is in his body. When you suddenly remember something that disturbs, you create an energy clot; there is less space in your Being. When you meditate on your inner space you expand. That is possible only when you do not have engrams, no energy clots within you, which disturb you.

From a young age you are taught your samskaras. You accumulate them. When you are attracted to something intensely or hate something intensely you collect files on them. One kind of logic: all men have one head, Socrates is a man; you can conclude Socrates is a man. Another: there are two doors; one door is open, what about the other? You can not say. The second logic is the logic of intelligence. You need to be aware for this logic. Why we collect more and more engrams is because we are not aware, we are not using this logic process.

A: good engrams and bad engrams exist only socially, not in fact; no engram, no samskara is worth maintaining. Start living intuitively, spontaneously. You will be a free soul. You can not be exploited. The whole social structure is based on might is right; it is exploitative. Even a king will be at the feet of an enlightened engram less person. A King can not exist without subjects. An enlightened person exists on his own authority. All chaos is consciously created to keep people in control, to exploit.

Yoga is Chitta vritti nirodaha: thoughts which are created by external inputs and thoughts which are created by samskaras become chitta and need to be eradicated for Yoga. You can not do this unless all samskaras are eliminated.

A: For children, the universe is wonder-filled because they don't have logic. They don't think that this is the same Sun which they saw yesterday. They don't think that this was the same chair which was there yesterday. They don't think that this is the same room which they sat in yesterday. They know the Truth - the Sun is new, this room is new, this chair is new, I am new, you are also new! You are changing continuously; continuously you are getting updated.

A Western philosopher said, 'You can't step into the same river twice.' Why? Because the moment you put the second step, the water has already flown. But I tell you, you can't step into the same river even once, because the moment you put your feet in, by the time you travel from the water level to the ground level, the water has already moved! You can't put your feet even once in a river; where is the question of twice!

Existence is continuously changing. If you trust that Existence changes and you also change, you can never get settled with your ego. Your ego is nothing but a rigid mechanism, a definite pattern. Only a person who is ego less can trust that the universe is changing and he is also changing. The man who sells his time will never understand that the universe is changing because he is caught in a routine. Not being caught in a routine is a basic discipline for enlightenment!

If you are in a routine, you become so unaware that you stop believing, you stop realizing that Existence is changing. I have seen some government servants working for 30 years in the same office. They would not even have moved their table from one place to another and eventually forget that their table can be moved! Even in your house, don't live with the same kind of furniture arrangement for years together. Shuffle it so that your mind does not get stuck with a single attitude. Once in a few months, change the order; create a little bit of chaos! Otherwise you will become dead. I have seen people - they will have ten rooms and because of their habit, they will follow a certain track in their own house and as a result would not have stepped foot on eight rooms for months together. How many of you have not gone to the extreme of your own garden in the last two years? This is because you live on a certain track.

The mind feels comfortable if it has got a definite system. That is why rituals are so popular today. Rituals are so complicated and yet people do them with all difficulty, but when they come out of it, nothing would have changed in them. But in meditation, they are not sure of the outcome. Some personality change may happen. Going into meditation is seen as a risk! People are comfortable seeing Gods in temples because the Gods don't speak; because they don't change your life; but here I will ask you - what are you doing? How is your life? There comes the trouble. Either consciously or unconsciously you might start changing because I am such a solid force and I may start penetrating you.

Be very clear - the most definite thing on planet earth is your tomb, your graveyard! The more you live with definition and security, the more you are dying. That is why, when you live with a definite track in your house, your house will have the vibration of a graveyard. Once in a while, dance in the main hall of your house - the space will be purified. If you live with the same things, you will create a track of memory. You will then have very less access to your own Being. Your mind and your house are one and the same. Your Being and your house are one and the same. If you don't live in your whole house, be very clear, you are not living with your whole memory. Drop your rigid ego, break free from your mental patterns, understand change and discover the reservoir that you have within yourself. Explode in all directions and realize your unlimited potential!

Q: How to be a leader without ego?

A: When you live with the attitude that you are responsible for everything, your whole life will change. When you take up responsibility for everything that happens around you, you will start expanding.

Expansion is the only growth; contraction is death. The more responsibility you take up, the more you will expand and grow. You will become a leader. Most of us wait for the status to descend on us and then take up the responsibility. Be very clear - Only if we take up the responsibility, the status will come! People who wait for the status will not take up responsibility even after they get it. They will simply find another reason or excuse, that's all. An ordinary sweeper in an organization who takes up responsibility and performs his tasks can inspire an entire organization into becoming more responsible. The person who passes the buck and relaxes will never progress significantly in life.

Responsibility is Consciousness. The moment you feel responsible for what is happening around you, that moment the Divine Energy will rush into you! These are all basic secrets of Life that I am giving you.

As long as you are self-centered, you will be nothing more than a blocked bamboo stick that serves only to carry the corpse. When you shed your ego and stand up with responsibility, you will become the hollow bamboo that serves as a flute! Like how the air that enters the flute leaves it as music, the air that enters you will flow as Energy! A cognitive shift will happen in you. Your mental setup will change.

When you work with no feelings of responsibility, you will work and feel like a slave. When you work with responsibility, your capacity will expand and you will flower and radiate Energy. Your worries and sorrows will dissolve and all unfinished work will get finished. Umpteen excuses can be given for dodging responsibility, but they will remain poor excuses.

With responsibility, a new kind of joy will engulf you. You will become a natural leader and life will become a celebration! There is a beautiful story on Buddha: It is said that when Buddha goes to beg, he would appear as a King and the kings who gave him alms would appear as beggars! Seeming like a beggar or a king is not in the property that you hold but in the state that is within you. When you take up responsibility for the entire Cosmos, you will expand and look like a leader!

Feeling that you are responsible is the greatest quality you can possess. When you stand up with a sense of responsibility, a new intelligence will awaken in you!

```sanskrit
pa,aNaayaamaM p,tyaaharM ina%yaaina%ya ivavaok ivacaarM jaaPyasamaot samaidivaQaanaM kuva-vaQaanaM mahdvaQaanaM ||

*pranayamam pratyaharam nityanityavivekavicaram, japyasametasamadhividhanam kurvavadhanam mahadavadhanam.*

The regulation of breath, the withdrawal of the senses from objects, the inquiry consisting in the discrimination between the eternal and the non-eternal, the method of mind-control associated with the chanting of mantras - perform these with great care.

*Bhaja Govindam 30*

One man a Zen master woke up from bed and started weeping. His disciples were perplexed. Zen masters are unpredictable. Their ways of teaching are mysterious, untraditional. One disciple, a chief disciple, asked the master: why are you weeping? Master said last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly and flying in the garden. Disciple asked: it was just a dream, why are you crying. Master said: I do not know whether I dreamt that I became a butterfly or whether the butterfly is dreaming now that it is a master with so many disciples.

Both thoughts were transient, not permanent. But do we understand? We always think that whatever we are is permanent. We try to possess it, identify with it.

We have 4 states: waking, dreaming, deep sleep and one more. If we understand these states we can live more joy fully. There are two states of mind and two states of consciousness overlapping to create 4 states in all. In waking state we are with thoughts and I consciousness. In Sanskrit this is called jagrat. In deep sleep we have no thought; we have no I consciousness. We do not have any identification or thoughts. This is shusupti in Sanskrit. In the dream state, swapna, we have only thoughts but no I consciousness. We may think of ourselves in very many different forms. Once we think of I, we come out of the dream. As soon as you feel you are dreaming you will wake up. There is a fourth state where there are no thoughts but we know who we are. In Sanskrit this state is called turiya or samadhi. This state is unknown to Western philosophers and psychologists and they have no name for it.

Every student of spirituality needs to understand these states. These are different layers of our Being. In jagrat you use the physical body, the sthula sarira. In dream state swapna, you see your subtle body, sukshma sarira. You may be sleeping in LA, but see yourself in Bharat with your parents. You are using your subtle body. The third body is karana sarira that is used in deep sleep. It is conscious, sub conscious and unconscious states in these three states. Whatever is unfulfilled in conscious state, anything you suppress is brought back in your dream or sub conscious state. If you fast while waking, you dream of feasting at night. If you are afraid of snakes, and suppress thoughts of them in the conscious state, you will dream of snakes. If your boss mistreats you and you can not deal with him consciously you will seek revenge in your dreams. Your suppressed anger, hidden fears, violence or sexual desires will come out in dreams. In the unconscious deep sleep or karana sarira state your mind is processing all information you have collected. If you see hundred things you look at only two things, you observe and take in only 2 things consciously. The rest goes into your unconscious.

My driver had been driving me for 6 months between our ashram outside Bangalore to the City Centre and back. I told him one day to go to a place near a mosque. He said he had not seen any mosque where I wanted to go. I explained to him where it was. Still he didn't agree. Finally I took him through each point. He remembered a Hanuman temple, but the mosque which was opposite the temple was at least 5 times bigger. He sees this every day, remembers the small temple but not the much bigger mosque. His Hindu conditioning does not let him consciously record the mosque. His eyes see the mosque but mind does not record it.

All that you see but not record or what your mind thinks is not useful to you goes into the unconscious. What is recorded is based on your mental conditioning. In a house we all live in one place but not together; after honeymoon husband and wife do not live together. They live only with the idea that each one has of the other. Each looks at the other through the mental conditioning one forms of the other and judges through that conditioning. You remember the coffee your wife dropped on you, not all the wonderful meals she cooked for you. It is like reading a 100 page novel you are left with only 2 pages, from which you are made to reconstruct the original novel. Out of 100 observations you record only 2 and judge the other person. How many times do you look into each other's eyes? It is only through the eyes that you see the real person, identify the real person. We are afraid to look into another person's eyes because we want to hide things; we do not want people to know who we are. We prefer to live with the conditioning, the template, the image and not the real person.

Only one state, one body is under your control, the other two are not. That's why you can not enjoy life. I went to the Universal Studio in LA. Some one asked me: what can you, a Swami, enjoy there? I said, fool, sanyas is the ultimate luxury a man can have. When you see a rose, whatever you enjoy, I enjoy many times more; because I live with three bodies, while you live with only one. If I ask you to raise your right hand, you all will, because you can control the physical body. If I ask you to focus on your third eye, can you? You can not because your subtle body is not under your control. You can not sleep whenever you want because that body is not under your control. When I come out in the morning I come out with a lot of written papers. Because the third body is under my control I do not need much time to rest; quantity of sleep can be

Part 3: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras_English_part_3.md

less but quality will be high. God gave you 100 acres but you use only 33 acres; rest is desert. An enlightened man lives all 100 acres.

Unless you are joyful how can you enjoy, whether Universal Studio or anything else? Anything can depress you, since you have mastered the art of worrying. If everything goes well today you will think that tomorrow something bad will happen. The subtle body creates depression if it's not under your control. You do not live and enjoy the present. You worry now about the past and future. You enjoy only from photos, instead of enjoying the scenery. Quality of life becomes so much more when you bring these two bodies under control.

In Zen tea ceremony a cup of tea brings you great joy, when you focus on it. The master brings all 3 bodies under control as you meditate on the pouring of the tea. You do not even have to drink the tea. When you normally eat or drink do you feel the satisfaction? You only feel hunger and thirst. You eat and drink for energy. Do you feel energetic after eating? You feel lazy instead. If you feel darkness when the sun rises there is something wrong. If you understand this you will live life well.

Tantra says: Only a person who has all these three bodies under control can enjoy a relationship, otherwise you can only procreate.

In our ASP we have one session on sex, there is one on muladhara chakra. People ask, you are a sanyasin, how can you talk about sex? If you are sixty and married you can, how can you; you do not even have that experience? I say, you all can only reproduce, not enjoy sex. An ordinary man can switch a light on and off. Only an electrician knows the circuit. Without switching on each light on and off he can diagnose any problems and rectify. It is not necessary for me to go and see; I know the circuit. Before a man enters grihasta in the olden days, he was trained in spiritual ways. Westerner philosophers say that this is reverse; you should first experience and then you turn spiritual. Eastern mystics say that unless you control all these 3 bodies you can not enjoy life fully. Understand your Being before you enter life. Nectar is not something special you will be given; whatever you are given will taste as nectar. Getting these 3 bodies under control allows you lead life fully, you will see what life is.

Tantra says: Only once a man really enters into a relationship; when he goes beyond the relationship.

What is the fourth state where there is no thought but only I consciousness, the awakened state. Each religion has its own different concepts about how to lead one's life; but they all agree on one thing. Man is asleep, all masters agree. What does this mean, what all masters agree upon? It is very difficult to make all masters agree.

Vedas say: if two sages agree on something, be careful, one is a fake. In my birthplace Tiruvannamalai there is a promise from God Shiva that he will appear in 3 forms: as the deity in the temple; as the hill Arunachala; as an enlightened Master from that place. Many enlightened masters have come from there. People say: Ramana was silent but you are going around the world talking. I say that enlightenment possesses me, and expresses the way it wants. Enlightened masters are unique, they blossom in different ways; but they all agree on this.

Buddha says: you dream when you are awake. You don't have to fall asleep to dream. You will day dream even when you are awake. In the night you see stars. In the day they are still there but you can not see, because of the sun. If you get into a deep well without water, you can see stars even in the day. When you are not active you dream. Because of continuous activity you do not notice your dreams, but you dream on. You need to understand. All this is not a ritual. People ask me: please tell me how I can worship and love a 18 handed Kali? I say first start loving your 2 handed wife. First understand your life and then you can go into religion. All your love for God is just a fantasy. That's truth. You dream even when you are awake. That's why master say that we are all asleep.

The great Russian Master Gurdjeef had a disciple who asked him how to be enlightened. He taught him a technique and says you must do this for 3 months continuously without leaving this house. The disciple meditates for 3 months. At the end of 3 months his master takes him for a walk into the town. The disciple says I feel everybody here is asleep even though they are doing something. What has happened? Master says nothing has happened to these people, something has happened to you, you are now awakened.

In olden days a town crier went around waking people beating a drum and shouting. Such a man in the court Janaka, an enlightened monarch said: wake up not only from your sleep and dreams, wake up from your waking state, your desires, and your mind. He cried: jagrat, jagrat, wake up, wake up.

Masters caution you to wake up even from your awakened state. The state where you do not day dream is the awakened state, the enlightened state, the fourth state, where you are in consciousness but without thoughts, dreams and desires. This is like a sky without any clouds or stars, it is pure space. In this state there is pure consciousness. In Sanskrit it is called turiya or Samadhi.

Some people experience this while meditating in our ASP classes as if you have lost all thoughts but still awake. When you reach this state you become Buddha, the awakened one. Ramana says: A man who is not enlightened is like a man in a dream, going in and out of dreams. Till you are enlightened you do not know what really life is. You see till then what you want to see, not what is. You just pick a few things from reality and claim to see reality. This is what Sankara means when he says the whole world is maya. Maya is that which is not there; that which is not real. You are seeing what is not, that's maya.

When I was 10 I was taken to an enlightened Master called Annamalai Swamigal in my home town. He used to give out candies at the end of his discourses and all the children used to go for the candy. He was saying: every thing is maya. You are the self. You are not affected by pain. You are beyond pain and suffering.

I was excited; went home took a knife and cut myself on my thigh to see if I felt pain. Naturally I felt pain, blood came out, I was taken to the Doctor for stitches, and my mother beat me. After 2 days I went to this Swamigal and complained. I was bothered because I did not understand what he meant.

Krishna says to Arjuna: Atman can not be killed by weapons, not burned by fire, not wetted by water and so on. Arjuna was cleverer than me. He tested it by killing other people. I tested it on myself.

Annamalai Swamigal said lovingly: son, now you will not understand what I said. I will teach you a meditation technique. Practice it and you will understand. When I said I will find it difficult, he said just try, that's enough. Whenever you have time, sit down and see where your thoughts are coming from, who you are; focus on Who Am I? He asked me who I was. I said I was Rajasekaran and my grand father was a big landlord. He said: ask yourself who is Rajasekaran? Who says that name? I tried. I did not even know it was meditation.

When I was twelve, one day in the evening when I was sitting on a rock in the Arunachala hillock, I felt something opening within me, something burst within me and I started seeing in all directions even though my eyes were closed, all 360 degrees. I could also feel that everything around me was me. The rock I was sitting on, the sky above. The temple behind me, the hillock before me, all these I could see all at once and then feel that was me.

When Annamalai Swamigal said there would be no pain I did not understand; but after that experience never again I felt any pain or suffering.

If you take up this one technique you too can realize this. Meditation should be done playfully, not seriously with a long face. We find it difficult to laugh. Kids find it difficult to be serious; they can laugh all the time. You tell them to stop, make them like you, idiots. You want to be comfortable. Have you ever see an ugly kid? You never can.

Have you seen a single grown up man who is beautiful or graceful? Seriousness makes you ugly. You disrespect your life when you carry a long face. Don't try to be enlightened in half an hour, like you want to earn a million dollars in one year. You postpone your enlightenment through seriousness. Seriousness is not sincerity. Be sincere but relax. When I say relax, people ask what to do. Doing is natural, but relaxing is unnatural. Don't ask for another technique to relax. Whatever you understand by relaxation you do. Relax from the idea that you should relax.

नालिनदलगतजलमतितरलम् तद्वज्जीवितमतिशयचपलम् । विद्धि व्याध्यभिमानग्रस्तं लोकं शोकहतं च समस्तम् ॥

nalinidalagatajalam atitaralam tadvaj-jivitam aticayacapalam, viddhi vyadhy-abhimana-grastam lokam sokahatam ca samastam

The water on the lotus-leaf is very unsteady; so also is life extremely unstable. Know that the entire world is devoured by disease and conceit, and smitten with sorrow.

Bhaja Govindam 4

I always want to talk about this subject, but people do not want to listen.

Somehow the word Nirvana has acquired a wrong connotation. It just means extinction, extinction of vasanas and karmas. Only when vasanas and karmas die will you start living. As long as they are alive in you they live through you and never let you enjoy life.

Vasana is the hangover of desires or desires not fully lived; samskaras are desires that are lived but those which leave a thread for continued enjoyment of those desires. Karma is fulfillment. Vasana is the seed, samskara is the nourishment and karma is the tree. Nirvana also means moksha, liberation. When all vasanas, samskaras and karmas are finished you reach liberation through their extinction. You see a new kind of space in you, new kind of understanding in you, new kind of living in you.

When you drink or smoke once in a while you enjoy them. As long as you have the freedom to drop them you enjoy them. When you get addicted to them they enjoy you. Addiction is when you do not enjoy the habit but can not do without it. You can get addicted to food, TV, newspaper, gossiping. When you are addicted, food eats you, cigarettes smoke you, and liquor drinks you. When you do not have the freedom you are used.

At a subtler level greed and fear are addictions. Greed, at least you may be able to control, but not fear. Greed or fear work on you, pull you further, pull you down, and overcome you.

You are in a mall and see a shoe. The thought, the vasana takes hold of you to acquire it. You move on. After a week or later you see the shoe again. This time the feeling is stronger. Samskara has logic. It tells you that if you get the shoe you can jog and you will be healthy and so on. Vasana is any seed that falls on ground. Samskara connects the vasana to you with logic. If you are spiritually inclined the samskara will tell you that with healthy jogging you can meditate better. Vasana is blown through samskara into an imprint, deep desires. Then you buy the shoe. This is karma.

For a week you will wear the shoe all the time, perhaps even to bed; after a week, perhaps once a while; after a month rarely. After a few months it will be relegated to your unused cupboard.

In the outside world whatever you thought you would achieve you do not achieve; you do not enjoy. In the inner world you create room for more vasanas, samskaras and karmas. You have created the habit. While losing the capacity to enjoy you have created the habit to desire more. More you have less your sensitivity to enjoy. When you have too many things you can not enjoy these acquisitions. One who has ten clocks will never keep time. Your energies are spent in vasanas, samskaras, and karmas instead of in enjoyment. You have no energy left to enjoy. You take things for granted. You lose the sensitivity to enjoy.

'Mine' is possessiveness. 'I' is capacity to enjoy.

I f 'mine' is too much greater than 'I', power to enjoy will be low. Rich people do not enjoy life. Those who have less have far greater capacity to enjoy. A blind man has more sensitivity in his hands. A poor man enjoys his food far more than any one richer. More the quantity o f your possessions less is the quality of your life. More of possessions lead to a mental set up that asks for more.

Ramana says: The world has enough for every one's needs but not to fulfill even one person's greed. This world is in two groups: one that wants to have, the other that wants to enjoy. You can not do both.

Ramakrishna never blessed any one for material possessions. Once one devotee asked him when he was in deep ecstasy for wealth and Ramakrishna said, yes, you will have wealth, but you will realize what a mistake you have made in asking me for this wealth. The man who asked for wealth was a scrap collector. In ten years after this incident he made enough money to start the first Bengali newspaper, Ananda bazaar Patrika. He however had no children. On his deathbed he said now he understood what Ramakrishna said about his regretting his plea for wealth, which he never enjoyed. He gave away all his wealth to Ramakrishna Ashram.

A young man asked me to give him peace of mind. When I asked him why, he said he wanted a gold medal in his exams and wanted peace of mind to do well. I said: the very idea you want a gold medal is to prove something to society. This it self will never let you have peace. So if you want the gold medal forget about peace of mind. When I asked him when he lost his peace of mind, he said it was when he got obsessed with the idea of the gold medal. I told him: drop the idea of the medal and you will get it.

Someone asked me: you are so young and you do not read. How do you get all this information and how do you remember? If you have the capacity to withdraw from your memory and mind, they work a thousand times more. Unconsciously you know that one day you will disconnect from your mind. Yet you have the urge to connect with your mind. You will live in a dilemma. That's why your memory and mind work on an on off basis. As long as you play a middle game, half and half, you can never enjoy life. You are afraid to engage because you do not know if you can withdraw. Once you realize you can withdraw and relax from you mind, it will become active.

Now your mind is locked into one space, as an engineer, as a Doctor, whatever; you can not touch any other part. All of you are endowed with memory of past life, yet you do not recollect, why; because you are so caught up in this life's memories. If

you can come out of, relax from your mind, you can enter all sections of your mind. You can log in and log out. As of now you can only log in partly since you are afraid to log out.

To log out is Nirvana. To log out o f vasanas, samskaras and karmas. Is it possible to log out, walk out? Says Buddha: when you have the capacity to create, don't you have the capacity to walk out?

Mind is the constant inner chatter. It starts as soon as you wake up. If you record all of it you need a tape to record all your waking hours, say 15 hours. All this chatter creates problems unconsciously. You are comparing yourself unfavorably with others. Of these 15 hours tape, all spoken by you, why don't you convert the chatter to give you positivism and freedom? No man is so poor that he can not create words that create bliss. We are not poor in capacity, only in consciousness. This 15 hour tapes are of our karmic system. 10 hours say I can not, only 5 say I can. Reverse it; let at least 10 hours of tape, chatter create freedom in you to start with. When all 15 hours give you freedom you have reached the dead end of Nirvana.

Unconsciously you invite suffering. When everything is right you look for trouble. A guy living by a train track so used to living by the noise wakes up if he can not hear the sound. You are so habituated to the incessant inner chatter of worry that if it stops you miss it. If your worries are reduced you lose your importance. This world runs not because of us, but in spite of us.

Let us be a little more intelligent and use words that liberate us instead of addicting us. Napoleon on his deathbed told his subordinates: place my hands out in the coffin so that people know that even the great Emperor napoleon carried nothing with him when he left this world.

When you drop the cravings they may get fulfilled. When you keep craving even if they get fulfilled you are not content. Choose between filling and fulfillment.

बालस्तावत् क्रीडासक्त: तरुणस्तावत् तरुणीसक्त: वृद्धस्तावत् चिन्तासक्त: परे ब्रह्मणि कोऽपि न सक्त: ॥

balastavat kridasaktaha tarunastávat tarunisaktaha vriddhastavat cintasaktaha pare brahamani koapi na saktaha

When a boy, one is attached to sport; when a youth, one is attached to a young woman; when old, one is attached to anxiety; no one, alas, is attached to the supreme Brahman!

Bhaja Govindam 7

A housewife has sent all her children to school and is cleaning her house. She hears the door bell and opens the door. Two preachers are at the door and asked her whether they can have a few minutes with her to teach her how to live her li fe eternally. She says no, I don't think I can stand any more of this life, forget about living it eternally, and slams the door shut.

We all feel life is a curse and is a result of our past karma. Again and again people ask why our life is like this; please teach us a way not to have another birth. You feel life is suffering, punishment, an effect of past karma. There are only two groups in this world, wise and otherwise. The wise ones feel that life is ananda, bliss, that their being is bliss, their consciousness is ananda. Thousands of enlightened masters have said this time and again. When you ask them how, each one offers his own method. One says you be a vegetarian, another says you fast, another says you practice this meditation or that, another says you marry; another says do not marry and so on. If two rishis say the same thing, it is said, one is a fake. Each expresses in his own way the path to enlightenment and bliss. But they all concur that consciousness is bliss. If all agree it means that this fact is essential.

In daily life we find that it is misery, it's a punishment. There is a gap between our experience and that of masters, between the wise and otherwise. Somewhere we have lost the essence of life. We have misunderstood the basic principle of how to live.

In science conclusions change, in spirituality conclusions can not change, only expressions can change. One can not rewrite the Upanishads, only add commentaries. In science with a small torch of intellect man searches in nature finding newer and newer things. In spirituality you see things all at once in a flash of lightning. First science said matter and energy exist in each atom. Later they said these two exist in the same space but at different times. A third group proved later that energy and matter exist at the same time and in the same space. Now every one agrees that energy and matter are the same, there are no boundaries in between. Whatever exists is energy. This is what Isavasya Upanishad said 5000 years ago. Isavasyam idam sarvam.

Said Einstein, the last word of science is the first word of spirituality. The latest findings of science were the first verses of the first Upanishad. He said where science ends spirituality starts. Like there is no gap between matter and energy outside, inside us there is no gap between your body and mind. When you see a difference, body is roga mayam (diseased) and mind is soka mayam (suffering). Spiritual seekers suffer more than ordinary people. Ordinary people identify with their body and mind. Spiritual seekers lose this clarity. They know that they suffer through identification with body and mind, and this increases their suffering. There is one more suffering, how to disconnect, how to reach liberation etc.

What is quantum bliss? Not only are you not body and mind, but there is no need to disconnect from body and mind. There is nothing you need to do. Bliss is continuously happening within you without gap of time and space. As long as you associate your bliss with a particular time or a particular space you will lose the bliss. The gap between sufferings becomes bliss for you. As if the gap between two wars becomes peace. In life we seem to experience happiness only in gaps between sufferings; this is just suka, periodic bursts of joy, not eternal bliss.

If you associate pleasure with a particular space, say a fantasy home, you feel happy. Or you associate happiness with an object such as a car or a person who you feel you love, and you feel you are happy. You crave to be around that space, object or person. The moment your unconsciousness feels that association with someone brings you happiness, it takes revenge and initiates a feeling of dislike and hatred. Possession starts, and possession is revenge by owning the object or living being as another object. You reduce energy to matter. Whenever you try to keep someone around you and therefore under you, your mind moves towards hatred. Your unconsciousness knows that you are getting yourself bound by attachment and desire and takes revenge.

Associating bliss with time leads to suffering. When you try to bring back that time you felt happiness to experience the same happiness, you find somehow that happiness is no longer the same. The joy is lacking. After a few attempts and being unsuccessful you feel depressed and sick. You don't feel the energy of happiness.

When you understand that happiness does not depend on time and space you enter the zone of quantum bliss. When you associate happiness with time and space you stay within boundaries of suffering.

You have a great desire to eat a sweet. When you eat that sweet you feel joy. If you associate that feeling of joy you wish to eat more of that sweet. If you keep eating more and more of it, at one point in time after some sweets you feel revulsion not joy, you can not eat any more. Your joy is not associated with the sweet. What is it that gave you joy?

When you feel that you are enjoying an object, the moment that object is near you, number of thoughts in your mind reduces, and a feeling of peace and joy expresses itself. You associate this feeling due to the reduced thoughts in your mind, the subject, instead to the object, the sweet. Whenever frequency of thoughts comes down you experience bliss.

Yoga Sutra says that you never experience joy because of something outside; your prana reaches a rhythm that gives you joy. When you get to reproduce this state of prana, energy within, to this rhythm you feel joy. This is pranayama.

Yoga Sutra says that when a person learns how to produce a prana flow to a particular rhythm he is in continuous bliss; he is liberated from the five senses; he needs no particular space to be happy. This is Pratyahara.

Yoga Sutra says that if a person can maintain this flow continuously he is liberated from time and he is liberated from all outwardly objects. This is Dharana.

You no longer are restricted by time and space to experience bliss.

Scientists are very practical, mystics are poetic. Patanjali is more practical than modern day scientists even though he is a mystic.

Q & A:

Q: Is bliss the same as the movement of prana?

A: Bliss is not movement of prana, but bliss is caused by movement of prana. It's like tuning your TV to receive signals. Same way you need to tune your prana to receive the bliss that is always there. Prana does not create bliss. Proper alignment of prana helps to experience bliss.

Q: When we deal with worldly problems, hundreds of them, can we achieve bliss through pranayama, without solving these problems?

A: Wonderful question. Someone asked me: to achieve bliss do I need to give up everything. I said: just give up what you do not have; there is no need to give up whatever you have.

Suffering is created by desiring what we do not have, through fantasies. You have a hundred problems, how can I be blissful, you ask? Let me ask you, can you solve these problems by suffering. We think that by worrying we can solve problems. Actually more you think, more you worry, you create more problems. 99% of your worries never come true. The 1% that does is good for you.

I asked people to write down all their perceived problems. After 6 months I called them again and asked them to say which of them came true. Less than 30% come true.

If you look around there is continuous intelligence and energy that is there to solve your problems. If you have lived for 50 years and still have problems, in spite of the experience you have, you are just disturbing yourself. You can live another 50 years based on your experience without worrying.

Prana, when regulated, creates bliss, and makes your intelligence work much more powerfully. Research shows that chemicals such as dopamines are released while you are in bliss, with or without reason and you come out of depression and rejuvenate yourself. Bliss provides energy to face and solve problems.

First when you are not blissful your energy is used to create more problems. When you are blissful you disconnect from worries and also use the energy to solve problems. When dopamine is released, the frontal lobe which is responsible for decisions, mind body wisdom starts working far more efficiently.

Boss has a meeting. Staff is preparing a farewell. He says this is an employee who does not know the meaning of disloyalty and tiredness. What should we give him? Someone said give him a dictionary.

If you want to solve problems you can try with logic. If you wish to dissolve problems for all times you need intuition. If you associate bliss with time and space you are in pravritti (bound). When you are outside of it, you are in nivritti (unbound). For 48 hours get out of pravritti. Don't think of your problems. Relax. I have worked with people over the last two years and seen this to be so. You will see a new understanding come up within you. You have never given a chance for bliss to enter your life.

Bliss attracts fortune says Tantra. When you are really blissful you work in intuition, with higher intelligence. Decide you are not going to think about any problems, and not work on solving any problems, and you will see that a higher intelligence comes into play. Just do this for the next 48 hours. One lesson you will learn: without your awareness existence comes in to take over and help you. You will take a quantum leap in your awareness that you do not need to work on your problems to dissolve your problems.

Your question arises from the assumption that you do not have enough intelligence to solve your problems spontaneously, that you do not have the capacity to produce that spontaneity. However much you try with your intellect instead of intuition you will still struggle. Drop your intellect.

People come to me for support and consolation, not for solution. I now offer you a permanent solution. I ask: have you felt disturbed that you have lost your toys? Not now, you do not need them anymore. But when you were 4 or 5 years old you would have seriously suffered. Similarly you can drop all other desires as well.

Q: By being blissful can body be healed and how?

A: Ramana was asked when he was suffering from cancer: do you have suffering? Bhagwan said: I have pain, but no suffering.

When you feel bliss, your mind relaxes and allows your energy to fill your body and mind. When the energy fills you, you get recharged. We have seven energy centers accepted by many cultures, Sufis, Chinese, early Christians. These are proved by Kirlian photography. Chakras expand 60 to 70 times more with positive emotions. It can predict disease through diminished aura. There are also seven glands in our body that regulate our health. When chakras are disturbed through negative emotions that abuse our chakras they give rise to disease. Fantasies lock the muladhara. Fears lock Swadishtana. Worries lock Manipuraka. When you get shocking news your stomach gets a blow. Anahata chakra is related to love and so on. Uneasiness between you and your chakra causes diseasiness and then disease. When you are blissful your chakras are energized and heal you.

Q: I heard an Upanishad explanation linking cosmos with collective thought?

A: That is upassana. Upassana is worshipping something outside; vipassana is worshipping inside. I link bliss with vipassana. When you create an ideal and worship it is upassana. If you consider that ideal as a root within and go inside it is vipassana. The idea that you and God are one and the same is a technique; if you say that you and god are different that's also a technique. Both are techniques, not truths. The truth is beyond your understanding now.

Q: Are happiness and bliss different? How can we differentiate? Can one stay in bliss forever? Have you attained blissful state?

A: yes, I have attained blissful state. If bliss is contained between two sufferings it is only happiness. Happiness is momentary, it is fenced in bliss. It is a difference in time not space. Bliss bound in time is happiness. Not all benefits of bliss happen with happiness. If your headache is cured through happiness it can return tomorrow. In bliss it will not.

Man asks two questions, and when I finish answering his first question, he forgets his second question. Arjuna asks Krishna a series of questions. Krishna says you do not want the answer; without getting the first answer you can not ask the next question.

As long as you do not try to hold bliss it will continue. If you hold it, it will only be momentary happiness. It's like keeping your hand in flowing water. If you close your hand the water runs out. If you try to retain bliss it will disappear. Bliss is choicelessness. The moment you choose it will go. Bliss is a process. It's not a noun it's a verb. It happens. If you try to possess it, it will go.

I have experienced bliss. I have created a formula to reproduce that bliss. A scientist creates a formula to reproduce an external phenomenon. A mystic creates a formula to reproduce an inner world phenomenon. These formulae are meditations. The formula is important not my personality. Drop THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. Hold onto nithya ananda.

A: Man stays in the seven chakras. If you are in the lowest level, that is the muladhara chakra, you are caught in lust and desire. You worship a God who can grant all your boons. That is why God is understood as a giver of boons throughout the world and is very popular. People are caught up in fantasy, expectations and desires and whoever fulfils these becomes their God. The moment they miss giving a single boon, the Gods will get dethroned!

Next is the person who is caught in the Swadhisthana chakra (fear). You worship the God who gives confidence, who you believe will take care of you - you go behind the idols that have many weapons and many hands. You experience God as a protector.

The third level person stays in the Manipuraka chakra (worry). You continuously worry and remain confused. You worship the God who gives clarity and peace. You will want idols that radiate peace.

Next is the person who lives in the Anahata chakra (attention need). Here, you are attracted towards the God which showers love on you. You worship the God who gives emotional fulfilment.

Next, if you are raised to the level of the Vishuddhi chakra (the urge to be unique), the God of creativity or Energy appeals to you. You experience God as the creator.

If you are centred in the Ajna chakra (Ego), you are locked in ego. Somebody in the egoless state attracts you – Rishis, Seers, Sages, Prophets and Masters attract you. The egoless man becomes your idol.

That is why I say - Man creates God in his own mould! You simply relate to God or the Masters from these six levels; a relationship doesn't happen - you simply reduce them to mere mortals. You have a concept in your mind and you are demanding from them that concept - it is simply a monologue.

In the Ajna chakra, the dialogue starts. Only in the Sahasrara chakra (gratitude), the communion happens! If you understand that you are actually relating to your Gods and Masters from these chakras and that you need to go beyond this and catch the transcendental expression of the Divine, all your problems will dissolve!

When you are in the Muladhara chakra, the Master drills into you, like a crowbar. At a little higher level, he is like a knife penetrating you. At the level of the Sahasrara chakra, he is like a fragrance! If you are alert and aware, the Master can transform you. Allow me to enter into you like a fragrance when you are established in the Sahasrara chakra. You just need to be passive for the alchemy to happen. I am not going to give you any rules or restrictions. I am going to radiate ecstasy, bliss and fragrance. If you are alert and aware, you can catch the smell and experience it!

sa%saMga%vao inassaMga%vaM inassaMga%vao inamaao-h%vaM inamaao-h%vao inascailat%vaM inascailat%vao jaIvanamaui@t:

Satsangatve nissangatvam nissangatve nirmohatvam nirmohatve nischalitatvam nischalitatve jivanmuktihi

Through the company of the good, there arises non-attachment; through nonattachment, there arises freedom from delusion; through absence of delusion, there arises steadfastness; through steadfastness, there arises liberation in life.

It is easier to explain what meditation is not, rather than defining what meditation is.

When we ask - 'what is meditation?' all of us immediately imagine an old man with a long beard on the banks of a river, sitting crosslegged with eyes closed and moving his lips in recitation of mantras. Today, if we tell you to sit in silence and control your mind, if we tell you to calm down your mind and remain blissful, what will happen? People tell us 'when we sit for meditation, so many thoughts gush out. We don't know their source and don't know how to control them. We feel we are mad.'

Meditation is not sitting in a corner, alone, in a cross legged position, with back pain, knee pain, neck pain, complaints, saying - I am not able to control my mind - all these things! Meditation is all about making a shift in your Consciousness. The moment you bring yourself to the present, you feel enthusiastic, alive, joyful and blissful. So the cognitive shift or shift in your Energy is what I call meditation

The condition of a man who tries to calm his mind by mantras today is most likely to be like the person who was told to meditate not thinking about a monkey; all that he could see were monkeys whenever he sat down to meditate. During the age of Patanjali, man was able to calm his mind by meditating with mantras. At that time, Man was simple with no complex cerebral layers, hence these techniques worked. Today, methods adopting silence will not help. Man has become neurotic and complicated. Neurosis has become the normal state of man. With the growth of Science and Consumerism, all of us have become neurotic. Like how the bullock cart is outdated, so also are the bullock cart techniques. With those techniques, you will be able to travel at the speed of a bullock cart. This is the jet age. You should be able to travel at jet speed in your inner space with techniques designed by Modern day Masters and Mystics.

Spiritual practices or sadhanas in the Hindu tradition usually follow one of three paths: the first, one of puja or rituals which require extensive preparation, and which is physical; the second is mantra japa, repetition of a word constantly; the third is dhyana, the silent contemplation.

In puja or ritualistic sadhanas which may also include practices of yoga the process has the danger of becoming mechanical losing its original objective. How many times have we seen priests intoning slokas and sutras mechanically during a puja or a yagna, their mind far away focused on other mundane matters? Mothers and grandmothers chanting ashtotras and sahasranamas (108 and 1008 names of the Lord chanted in prayer), more worried about what number they are on and keen to finish and get it over with. It requires great dedication, discipline and fixity of purpose to practice the ritualistic routes to progress spiritually. Moreover these practices are gross in nature, verbalized and full of physical interventions that continuously keep the mind occupied with thoughts and with forms.

With mantra japa the physical grossness is reduced and the possibility to focus intensely is increased. However, the very fact that the mind is focused on a word, which is what a mantra is, means that, there is constant verbalization and visualization following the word. The mind is engaged in the form and in thoughts. This limits the spiritual progress that can be made using this process. As long as we are in the form we are limited.

Part 4: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

All sages agree that in the final analysis Truth is formless. Whether it is Sankara who propounded Advaita, or Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who was constantly with the form of Mother Kali, or Ramana Maharishi with his self enquiry process for liberation, all these enlightened Masters unanimously agree that the Absolute Brahman is formless. The formless Truth is not possible to achieve with any process involving words and physical activity.

Dhyana or Meditation is a non verbal technique that is subtle and is focused on awareness and the present. Dhyana is the path to shed Maya, our illusions and fantasies and to reach enlightenment.

Patanjali's yoga sutras define various steps to enlightenment. The first step yama alone comprises five steps, all quite strenuous: celibacy, truth, non violence, not stealing, not possessing. Only after you practice all these steps and master them, are you qualified to move up to the next step in yogic accomplishment. In the present day world Patanjali's techniques take a lot of time. To realize Truth through yoga of any form would probably take many births, and you will forget what you started in this birth, when you start your next!

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

We are all part of the cosmic energy. Atman and Brahman are cosmic energy at different planes; one at the cosmic level and the other at the individual level; both are of infinite potential.

Says the Taittreya Upanishad: From the Atman came Akasha; from Akasha came Vayu; from Vayu came Agni; from Agni came Apa (water); from Apa came Prithvi; from Prithvi Aushada (herbs); from Aushada came Anna (food); from Anna came the human, the man.

Man can access four out of the five elemental energies listed above directly; from the earth he gets food; from water he quenches thirst; from agni he derives warmth; through vayu he breathes; however he has no means to abstract energy from akasha which is the subtlest, and the most expansive of the five elemental energies. The only way he can do this is through dhyana, meditation.

Cosmic energy is not just power. Power or bala is animal strength; energy or Shakti is power with consciousness; energy is intelligent. Humans are the only species on planet earth who have this potential for Shakti, as they alone have consciousness. For them to be in this energy field, they need to meditate.

Meditation is the greatest art or science to make your Being beautiful and blissful. It is not a faith system or a religious belief. It is something that can directly touch your life and transform your Being. Meditation is a science to transform your life.

A simple meditation technique that you can practice straight away is a Buddhist technique called Vipassana. Vipassana is to look inwards as opposed to Upassana which is looking outwards. Puja and mantra are all Upassana techniques.

You have to inhale and exhale is it not? Am I right? That is enough! Start witnessing you breath, your inhalation and exhalation; start observing that, it will lead you to bliss. Actually nothing more needs to be done to search for bliss. Just bring yourself more to the present. Whatever else you do, work, bathe, dance or sleep, you will surely have time to inhale or exhale? When you do the inhaling and exhaling, just add awareness also to it, it will put you straight away in the present moment. The present moment leads you to bliss. Living in the present, the power of NOW straight away leads you to bliss.

This is Vipassana, a very powerful meditation technique that all can use safely.

See, when you start searching things from outside, you are searching for the impossible. It can never happen. It is like trying to do housekeeping in your dreams! You buy a big house in your dreams, try to keep it clean and neat and suddenly you wake up and everything is lost. Like that, we have so many fantasies about the future and the past and suddenly we wake up and there is nothing. On Planet Earth, whenever you hang behind the past and the future, you are wasting the present moment, the precious present moment in which you can live, which you can just en joy, where you can just feel the Existence. Instead we make ourselves continuously dull. Whenever we are drowned in the past or in the future, we again and again miss the present - the life, the Life Force. If you bring yourself to the present, even your inhaling and exhaling quality will be different. The moment the Energy shift happens in your Being, that energy shift is what I call meditation. Meditation is not sitting in a corner, alone, in a cross legged position, with back pain, knee pain, neck pain, complaints, saying - I am not able to control my mind - all these things! Meditation is all about making a shift in your Consciousness. The moment you bring yourself to the present, you feel enthusiastic, alive, joyful and blissful. So the cognitive shift or shift in your Energy is what I call meditation.

Just consciously inhale and exhale as long a possible, whenever you remember. The moment you consciously start breathing, you start witnessing your thoughts. No thought can escape from your Being. Usually, we continuously create negative inner chattering. We create negative thoughts about ourselves. We create guilt; we create negative patterns of thinking. Our thought structure is very powerful. Your life is nothing but your thinking structure. You can create or destroy anything just by your thoughts. So, the moment you are aware of your breathing, you will be aware of your thoughts. The moment you are aware of your thoughts, you simply alter it to a positive thinking structure. You don't have to waste time in correcting or altering it. The moment you are aware, automatically it gets corrected by itself. The power of awareness simply transforms your thinking structure into positive Energy.

What we do not realize is that even our thoughts have power. Brihadaranya Upanishad says: as our thoughts are so are our will; as our will is so is our action; as we act, we become. Our lives are driven by our thoughts. Thoughts are energy.

Cosmic energy is linked to individual energy. The separation we see is only our illusion. It is possible for us to tap into the inexhaustible cosmic energy, instead of which we choose to live in shackled compartments of depleted energy.

There are a number of other meditation techniques that we teach in our courses; each will have a specific objective. In the Ananda Spurana Program we take you through meditation techniques to energize the chakras, the energy centres in the body. We take you through meditations that are joyous and fun; they are dynamic and easy to follow. These techniques are eclectic drawn from all major spiritual practices of the world. These have been practiced for thousands of years by generations of our ancestors; they are foolproof in execution and have no side effects. All you lose if you do not practice the meditation for a day is the loss of that day's experience. Once you have picked up this magical fruit and tasted it, you never want to put it down.

Meditation techniques that we teach you in ASP are the know-how that the pilot has to have, to fly the machine of your mind body system, using the chakras which are the engine and the transmission system. Even if we do not wish to utilize the full potential of the powerful machine that we are, for even reasonable performance of our well being we need to keep the chakras in good order. Most o f our ailments, physical and mental are a result of blocked chakras.

All it takes is a few minutes each day once you know how to energize your chakras through meditation.

Sleep provides rest to our system by lowering the metabolic rate by 8%, which is enough to rejuvenate you for about 16 hours. In contrast, meditation lowers the metabolic rate by 24%. Effects of even simple meditation techniques, on overall body and mind health has been well established.

These techniques make Bliss flower in you by throwing out cerebral layers. What exactly are these cerebral layers? They are the complications in the mind created by media that include the television, the radio, the newspapers and the billboards. Consumerist ideas are continuously being injected into your Being. You are hypnotized and mesmerized. You read and see the same things everywhere you go. In a half-dazed condition, you go to the shop and ask for the same thing as well. You need to unload these suppressions and desires in order to be able to sit calmly. Be very clear that I am trying to force out the insanity in you and not trying to force in sanity in you. You are already THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM (Eternal Bliss). That is your natural state. We just need to cut the layers of emotional bocks covering this bliss, so that you realize the state that you are already in.

AngaM gailatM pailatM mauNDM dSanaivahInaM jaatM tuNDM vaRWao yaait gaRih%vaa dNDM tdip na mauHca%yaaSaapiNDM ||

*angam gallitam palitam mundam dasanavihinam játam tundam vruddho yáti gruhitvá dandam tadapi na muchyaty-áshapindam*

The body has become decrepit; the head has turned grey; the mouth has been rendered toothless; grasping a stick, the old man moves about. Even then, the mass of desires does not go.

*Bhaja Govindam 15*

This title really implies Eastern mysticism and Western philosophy. I have reduced the title to mysticism and philosophy. We have a general concept, mysticism means it is east and philosophy means it is west. It is not true. There are many mystics, many enlightened persons born in the West and many dull philosophers, dry intellects, born in the East. So both the East and West have contributed to mysticism and philosophy.

What is mysticism and what is philosophy? Philosophy is intellectual; the knowledge; the information; verbalization of experience; memories of the past; assumptions about the future; all these are philosophy. This is more based on logic; collecting and analyzing the information and coming to conclusion.

Mysticism is transforming your life. It is alchemy which happens in your being. The word 'alchemy' is something you need to understand. It is the science of transforming the lower metals into higher metals; copper into gold; mercury can be solidified. The lower metals are raised to higher level metals. Alchemy is the process which makes metals pure. The transformation of the inner being is what I call the ultimate alchemy; this is the alchemy which happens in your inner being. Man becomes God; Devil becomes Divine; Words become realizations. This process is what I call alchemy. Mysticism is more to do with alchemy than philosophy is.

Enlightened persons' philosophies are called darshanas. Darshanas do not mean philosophy or logical theory. It is just a recording of what they have seen. It is philosium. Philosophy is born out of mind. Philosium or mysticism is born out of nomind. Philosophy is born out of matter. Mind is nothing but matter, bio-computer. Philosophy is born out of bio-computer. Mysticism is born out o f bio-energy. Philosophy is an outcome of intellect. Mysticism is the outcome of enlightenment. Philosophy comes from intellect, Mysticism comes from intuition. Philosophy can see only 120 degrees. But mysticism can see all the 360 degrees. That is why the photos or statues of mystics, Buddha, Shiva, Jesus… all the mystics are shown with a third eye. Third eye means 360 degrees; the power of seeing in all angles. It is the complete vision.

With intellect you can touch only the level of head. Intellect is communication. Philosophy is communication between student and teacher. To learn philosophy, just your head is more than enough. If you are little bit attentive, that is enough. If your logic is sharp you can learn philosophy.

But to learn mysticism - it is not even learning, it is picking up, picking up the mystical experiences from the master. Mysticism is communion between master and disciple. It needs your being. You have to experience. Just an intellectual understanding is not enough.

Philosophy is the outcome of conflict. If you are in a conflict, if you are confused even as to whether you are an intellectual or mystical, be very sure you are still intellectual not mystical. The danger is, people think themselves as mystics, or they are in mysticism but still they are philosophers. As long as you have confusion, as long as you are in conflict, be very clear you are still intellectual. Once, I was speaking on different meditation techniques, meditation for intellectuals and meditations for emotional people, one person asked me, "Swamiji, how I can know whether I am intellectual or emotional". I told him, 'the very question shows you are an intellectual. The very doubt shows you are intellectual'; because, only intellectual people have doubts. Emotional people will never have doubts. They are very clear from the day one. Mysticism is an outcome of love.

Philosophy cuts and analyzes; Mysticism unites and heals. That is why mysticism is always represented by the word 'Yoga'. Yoga means union. Mysticism always unites and heals.

Of course, philosophy has got its own use, utility. That is why philosophy is still alive. In the outer world, in the material world, doubt is the language; philosophy is the language; logic is the language; this is what can win; this is what can bring you bread and butter. But unfortunately man cannot live only with bread and butter. If man can live only with bread and butter, just philosophy can win. But unfortunately man cannot live only with bread and butter. In the Bible, Mathew 4:4 reads 'Man cannot live by bread alone. He needs the words of the creator also'. If philosophy can satisfy, libraries are more than enough. There will be no need for temples, churches, and monasteries. If philosophy can satisfy, libraries are sufficient. But philosophy doesn't satisfy. The language of outer world is philosophy; if you want material success, if you want to succeed in the material world, you should know philosophy. You should know logic. You should know how to cut and analyze.

In the inner world, the very language is different. For the inner world you need only mysticism or the help of a mystic. If you try to test the rose flower with a touch stone, what will happen?

Once, a gold smith went to a friend's house. The friend showed him a rose flower. This man being philosophical had a doubt. He wanted to test the flower whether it is a real one or a plastic flower. His friend told him, 'Go ahead, touch it, smell it, feel it.". But the Gold smith refused. He told, "We know how to test only by the touch stone, never by touching or feeling." He started testing the flower with the touch stone. You know what will happen.

Touch stone is useful to find the quality, the originality of the gold but not for flowers. Philosophy or logic is like touch stone. It is useful for the outer world, for the gold, but not for the inner world, the inner lotus. The language of the inner world is totally different. Life is totally different.

Mysticism can be learnt only by body language. That is why in schools of mysticism, called 'gurukulams' in Sanskrit, it is recommended that the disciple should stay with the master, throughout the day. From dawn to dusk and even round the clock. They should live with the master. They have to pick up the master's nonverbal communication. Here the verbal language is not useful. You learn by body language. It is more of communion than mere communication. Communication becomes useless in the presence of the Master.

In an ancient literature named 'Taitreya Upanishad' written 5000 years ago, there is a small incident. One student of mysticism, by name 'Brigu' asks his Master, 'Please tell me about God'.

Master replies, 'See, my son, everything including food, the breath, eyes, ears, mind, speech, everything is God.' and adds, 'The one who has created everything, by whom, everything exists, in whom every thing is going to merge, he is God. You meditate and experience it for yoursel f.' Brigu meditates and then comes with the answer 'Food is God'. Master tells him to continue meditation. Brigu after a strenuous meditation comes up with the answer 'Prana or breath is God'. Master instructs him to go into further meditation. Brigu finally comes up with the answer 'Bliss – the unending joy is God' and by now he is enlightened. Mysticism is more an experience.

On the other hand, if you want to learn philosophy you can learn verbally, words are sufficient. To learn something verbally you need not stay with the teacher. In schools, you learn philosophy; you learn words from the teacher. Whatever be the character, the li fe-style o f the teacher, you are not bothered. You are not worried. The concept is totally different. If the teacher can explain the contents of the book, it is enough. You learn and come out. That is why schools are and can be part time.

A small story: Once an American was caught by cannibals in an African forest. The

American was in search of ways and means to escape. He was taken to their leader. By the side of the leader, there was a young man neatly dressed in American style. The American saw a ray of hope. If at all he knows a little English, he thought. I may have a chance. Just at that moment, that young man asked in a clear Oxford accent 'Tell me your last wishes, if any. I shall try to fulfil. These guys don't know the formalities.' The American was shocked. He asked. "You seem to be educated. Having lived in the most civilized society, haven't you changed even a little?" The African immediately responded indignantly 'Why not?' he added, 'Even now, when they have you roasted, I will use only fork and spoon.' The outer look may change by intellectual education, but the inner flowering cannot happen.

If you feel you have understood something from the Master's words, be very clear you have misunderstood. If you feel satisfied with the understanding of the master's words, you are misled. Somebody asked me, Swamiji, I do not know English, can I come to your discourses. I said, 'you are the right person to come and sit.' Because at least you know that you don't know. But where people know the language, they think they know but they don't even know that they don't know.

Most of the time if you think you are getting something by attending my discourses, be very sure, you are missing something. You are here to listen to my silence. If you listen to words, you will miss the silence. Then what is the purpose of a satsang? (meeting of group of followers to communicate, sing devotional songs, indulge in spiritual activities) My speech is not for you to hear. It is for stopping your inner speech. If I speak, at least your mind will stop speaking, you will start listening. I am speaking so that you may stop speaking within yourself. If you watch thoroughly, you may observe unnecessary gaps in my speech. A good orator will never leave gaps between his flow of words; but I am giving gaps purposefully. I am not here to orate; I am not here to teach you something. I want to give you something. The gaps are for creating vacuum. While hearing my speech, your mind will continuously yearn for the next word. A sudden gap will create a vacuum. This is totally different. If you know how to be aware of the gaps you will be able to feel my presence. You are here to have my presence. You will see something more; something more than just hearing the words, is happening. If you think you are learning you are missing.

If you attend 2 or 3 satsangs, you will know I am just speaking the same thing in different words; the same message in different angles and words. The message has not changed. The main message can never change. It is the same thing I speak about. Why I am speaking every day? My speech is a technique. It is not philosophy or teaching. It is a technique. It is a technique to do something to undo what you have learnt; because, with the process of learning you have lost much.

Till the age of 7 children think by visualization. Not by verbalization. You need to understand the difference between verbalization and visualization. Children see the scenes, they just visualize. But once in school visualization is reduced to verbalization. Visualization is killed. The intuition is reduced to intellect.

There was a great mathematician from Bharat by name Ramanujam. In his time, nobody was able to match his skills. Ramanujam was able to solve any problem in seconds. Tell him the problem; he will give the solution in a minute. He had no logical way of arriving at the solution. Others are concerned by the logic, logical steps; but he was in visualization. First scene is the problem. The very next scene is the solution. Ramanujam was in visualization and others were in

verbalization. That is the difference between Ramanujam and others. Ramanujam never had formal education till 8; therefore he could retain his power of visualization. His thinking was more intuitive than intellectual. Every kid, when they come to earth, they visualize. That is why the eyes of the kids are so alive.

That is why they say the eyes are the index of the mind. Not only mind but being. Whatever is inside is shown by eyes. We never look into others' eyes. We dare not to be exposed. In words we can play, we can hide. You can think one thing and tell one thing. But you can't play in visualization. You can't hide anything in your eyes. That is why we dare not look at each other through the eyes. If you are courageous, you can gaze through eyes. It is a meditation to see through eyes.

Kids visualize. Up to the age of 7, as long as the visualization capacity is there the kids' eyes are vibrant. As soon as his visualization capacity is reduced to verbalization, the tongue becomes vibrant. At least till the age of 7 they should be allowed to learn from nature. They have an inbuilt mechanism to learn from the nature, from the trees, from persons around them. Their capacity to visualize will be retained. But in school, visualization is reduced to verbalization. After being in school they are forced to write and read. The mind starts working with words. With words, the length of time is more. In visualization the process is simpler. The solution is more or less immediate. But with verbalization the process is very long. It has to go through the logical steps to arrive at a solution. This is the difference between Ramanujam and others. Ramanujam thought by visualization and others moved through logic.

The society, from time immemorial, is just against visualization. That is why, invariably all the enlightened masters, let it be Jesus, Krishna, or Buddha, all were poisoned, cruci fied or stoned by the society. The entire society is in verbalization and it can not tolerate anyone beyond words, beyond verbalization.

Parents, as they themselves are in philosophical line, are unable to bear the energy of their children. They start conditioning. They go on conditioning till the kid learns logic, learns verbalization. Once the kid is dull, dry, just like the parents, they are satisfied that their heir is okay.

Let us see, how philosophy deals with a problem and how mysticism deals with a problem; physical, mental, and spiritual. If we look at it, we will be able to understand what mysticism is and what philosophy is, the angle of philosophy and the angle of mysticism.

How do mysticism and philosophy deal with your problem; with your physical problem such as disease?

The healing system born out of philosophy or logic, takes the human body for a bio-

mechanism. It deals the body in parts. For these healing methods, the body and mind are two different things. But unfortunately, it is not so. If you have a disease, pain in some part of the body, all the medication systems born out of philosophy try to attend only to the particular part, by some chemical treatment, operation or replacement of the part.

For example, if one half of a mango is decayed. Do you say, it is part decayed mango; no, you will discard the entire fruit; but if one part of the human body is affected, philosophy says it is handicapped. Only that part is attended; but then, what happens? Pills taken for headache, for example, create stomach ache. After some time, there is knee pain. In other words, the pills transfer the pain from head to stomach. Moreover, there is no assurance that the pain will not recur. The time gap, the gap between pain in one part and the other is called 'healthy period'.

The philosophical view of the body as a bio mechanism is not right. The human body, as such is not a bio-machine. It is something more. The same energy is circulated all over the body. It can not be that some energy is there in the affected part and other parts are with some other energy. No. Even physically, the whole body is circulated with the same blood. The affected part is not getting a different type of blood. That is why these healing methods are able only to postpone the pain or transfer the pain.

On the other hand, the very view of the healing systems of Mysticism towards the human body is different. They see the human body as a whole. As they see the body as a whole, they are holy. Mysticism recognizes only two levels, healthy and diseased. There is no percentage problem. They see the root cause of the disease. It is not trying to heal the affected part alone. It is not trying to put off the symptom.

For example, if you want to destroy the thorny bushes, you have to pull them out at the root depth. If you go on cutting the branches, what will happen? The bush will not die. It may even spread out with new branches. (Crowd bursts into laughter) The same is the case of diseases.

Mysticism deals with only two things; high energy and low energy. If the energy level is low, the mind-body relationship, coordination is not at ease. It is un-eased. It is diseased. In mysticism there are no names for different diseases; it is not many diseases. It is simply one thing: low energy level.

Once, somebody asked me, 'Swamiji, what are all the diseases you can heal?' I simply replied them, 'I can heal the diseases you can name and diseases that you can't name.'

This is because the same healing technique is able to handle different diseases at the same time. In some cases, if certain chemical balance inside the body is disturbed, Ayurveda medicines are given and for the negativity to be thrown away from inside, meditation is prescribed.

Next is the level of mind. According to philosophy, you are a mature person if you are aware of facts and figures; it's enough if your mind is full of information. They speak only of collection of information, of memory techniques. They speak of analytical skills. They want your head to be full and your mind to expand.

One interesting point; there was a poll survey conducted on the standard of living of the gold medallists in the universities. They enquired about the life of gold medallists after a period of ten years after graduation. The purpose is to expose the effect and importance of education in society. The result was indeed shocking. About 70% of the gold medallists were found to live below poverty line or with broken relationship.

The reason is simple. They have become dry philosophers. You can never have a smooth relationship with a philosopher. Philosophy and logic make them dream. They seldom face the ground reality. They lose the wonderful moment of the present. The common man cannot relate with these gold medallists.

No philosopher can have pet animals. They can't play with kids. They are the worst perfectionists; because, to have a pet or to play with a kid, you should be spontaneous. You should have a sense of humour. You should at least have a smile in your face. But these are too much for a philosopher. They can't laugh. Even if you tell them a joke, they will start analyzing it.

One word of caution; by the name philosopher, I am not only referring to the students of philosophy, but to every one who are all conditioned to the rules in their respective profession and every moment of life.

Have you seen the philosopher's walk? It will be strict to rules. It mostly resembles the army march, that too dull and dry. They are always concerned about the head. They try to expand the head continuously. Their whole life is spent in collection, recall and analysis of the facts and figures. Mostly the later part of their life is full of frustration.

A small story: Once, there was a cat in a philosopher's house (of course, his wife's pet). It gave birth to a kitten. Both made noise at the door step trying to enter the philosopher's room. This sound irritated him. He called a carpenter and instructed to make two holes in the door, one for the cat and the other for the kitten. The carpenter was surprised. He said, 'Sir, one hole is more than enough'. The philosopher shouted, 'Fool, Can't you think logically. How one hole will be enough if the cat and the kitten is to enter at the same time.' (The whole crowd roars in laughter)

Philosophy tends to fill your brain and expand your mind. But common sense becomes uncommon. For them, mind is the ultimate. They can't go beyond it.

But on the other hand, the Ashrams, the mysticism school, trains to switch off the mind whenever not required. For them, mind is one of the parts and there is something more. They deal at the being level and train to handle the mind as you do with your limbs. For them, being is the ultimate. Mind or no-mind is an option. You can toggle between the two.

A mystic lives entirely in the present. He enjoys every moment to the fullest. He is always spontaneous and joy-filled. He merges completely with the nature. His walk is mostly floating. His walk is like dancing.

See, if you are learning driving, driving a car, the first thing you learn is to stop the car; to applying the brakes. Philosophers fuel the car, drive it, monitor the speed, but they are unable to stop the car. If you are in a speeding car, in the driver's seat, does it mean that you are driving the car? It is the car driving you. Only mysticism trains you to apply brakes. It shows you to be in no-mind state.

Next, let us take the problems of the spirit, spiritual plane. For this philosophy offers psychoanalysis. Collecting, cutting and analyzing the other man's mind. For a philosopher, psychoanalysis is the end. They make you talk and talk. There will be a curtain between you and the doctor. You can' t see the doctor. Once, you are exhausted, they will start analyzing your words and inject some new words.

Sitting after sitting, time roles by; one fine morning, the doctor may become psychic and you may be all right. You might have recovered due to the fear of going to the same doctor, repeating the same words; out of sheer boredom of speaking the same words again and again.

With philosophy your head is filled up. Your mind has become a dustbin. What else can you do? You have to vomit. You expect somebody to hear what you vomit. That is why you pay your psycho analyst. Once, they asked me, 'Swamiji, can you see any ma jor problem in psychoanalysis'. The analysis itself is a problem. After so many years of research, continuous analysis, no solution is arrived.

If you should attend to a problem in a vehicle, you should stop it and then try to set it right. But philosophers know of no brakes. They just keep the vehicle moving; of course, they even accelerate it and try to attend to its problem. It won't work.

I think, in a busy hour, one doctor may even attend to more than one patient at the same time. Sometimes, if he is too busy, he may even have the sounds "mmm… yes; go ahead…okay" recorded and played behind the curtain and move out from the treatment room. No harm, even if the patient happens to know that only a tape recorder hears him; because, at the most, the patient requires only a silent hearing for his speech.

What else you think is our 'listening' in our daily conversations? Just a contract; you hear what I speak, so that I will hear while you speak. That is all; nothing else. All we need are only ears before us; even deaf ears will do; just silent hearers. We are least bothered even if it is really a deaf ear.

A survey was conducted among various professionals as to which profession is vulnerable to mental disorders. After a careful survey, they came out with the result; the most vulnerable profession is psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Through his entire life, as the Psychiatrist goes on gathering problems after problems, finally, he falls prey to one.

On an average, it is said that one third of the US population is under depression and one third is in the borderline. This indeed is a shocking fact in a society, where the psychoanalysis is a roaring profession, and the society is considered 'mature, civilized and cultured'. In US alone, in one year (2003), the number of depression medication prescription touches the figure 103 million.

For depression, philosophy can only analyze, no solution is given. In mysticism, enlightenment is given as the solution. Mystics give enlightenment as a solution for the being level problems, spiritual problems. Enlightenment is not analysis. It is dropping. Say, you want to clean your house. Your dustbin is full. Will you sit and analyze the contents of the dustbin? Will you study your dustbin? If you do, will it help in cleaning your house? In the same way, if your being is in a fix, be very clear, analyzing the mind, psychoanalysis can never help you. You have to drop your mind. You should experience the no-mind state. You should become enlightened.

So, whether the problem is of physical, mental or spiritual level, the solution given by the mystics is total; it is holistic. The solutions given by the philosophers are temporary.

If you see superficially, philosophy seems to be good; philosophers' approach to the problems of the body, mind and the spirit seem to be okay. Their medication makes you feel good. Their education makes them earn a living. Their psycho-consultation feels nice. They have become established. They are mass oriented. Mysticism is not for the masses. It is only for the daring few. For the mystical solutions you require more time. You have to wait. You have to be patient. Nothing is instant. But mind is restless. It is a monkey. It always looks for instant solutions.

A small story: once three monkeys found one mango in a forest. They wanted to share it. They went to a man near by and asked him to help them to share the fruit. That man told the monkeys not to share the fruit but to plant it. He said, 'if you plant it, water it regularly, put some manure, it will become a big tree and you can have more mangoes." The monkeys agreed. Time passed by. The fruit had not sprouted. The monkeys again had a quarrel. They came to the same man. He started enquiring. The first monkey said, 'I was watering it regularly'. The second one said, 'I was feeding it with manure' the third one said, 'I was watching it carefully. Daily I pulled it out to see whether it has sprouted.' This will not work. You have to wait for some time. You have to wait for your being to sprout into bliss. If you need a plastic rose, you can have it ready

made. If your need is a natural rose from the plant, you have to wait for some time. But we have no patience. Everything should be instant. That is why we run behind the solutions given by the philosophers. The ways of the mystics not only solves the problem from the base, they dissolve you in the eternal bliss.

I wish you all the power to solve and dissolve your problems in the mystical way and to be, in, and experience the eternal bliss, Nithyanandam.

Baja gaaoivandM Baja gaaoivandM Baja gaaoivandM maUZmato saMpaPto sainnaihto kalao / naih naih rxait DukRHkrNao ||

Bhaja Govindam Bhaja Govindam Bhaja Govindam Mudhamathe Samprapte sannihite kale Nai nahi rakshati dukrunkarane

Lift the heart up to Govinda, the Lord, again and again, foolish mind! When death beckons the rules of grammar that you are so studiously swatting will not save you!!

Bhaja Govindam 1

What is a Miracle? What ever happens in the Universe has a reason, has a cause, nothing happens by accident. If something happens in one side of the Universe something else happens somewhere else. If there is a big bang in one place there is a black hole somewhere else in the Universe.

When you do not understand the cause and effect relationship you call it a miracle. If it is obvious, you call it an incident. When the relationship is too deep for you to understand, for your logic to penetrate you call it a miracle. There is no such thing as a miracle. Everything happens only with a cause.

Einstein is a super scientist. It is because of Einstein that scientists started respecting mystics. Otherwise scientists had a prejudiced idea of all spiritual things. They felt that what they knew of the universe was correct. Einstein was the first to state that the end of science is the beginning of spirituality. Einstein says: There are only two ways of living; either as if everything is a miracle, including all with relationships of cause and effect; or live as though nothing is a miracle.

I am trying to make you understand that nothing is a miracle; then I want you to understand everything is a miracle. How does a lotus seed change mud into a lotus? How does a piece of bread become your blood? You may explain scientifically your understanding, but your knowing how does not change anything, the process is still a miracle.

For children, the universe is wonder-filled because they don't have logic. They don't

think that this is the same Sun that they saw yesterday. They don't think that this was the same chair that was there yesterday. They don't think that this is the same room that they sat in yesterday. They know the Truth the Sun is new, this room is new, this chair is new, I am new, you are also new! You are changing continuously; continuously you are getting updated.

An enlightened Master had a stomach problem and his Doctor advised him to stick to the same bland diet every day. He had no problem. But the disciple cooking for him got fed up cooking the same food every day, and complained. Master said: I don't eat the same food every day. How can I do that? How can I eat the same food every day? I eat different food every day.

We label things, we take them for granted.

Like the master, for a child every thing is new every time it looks at it. Children

never wait for your answer, they are not bothered about your answer, and they keep asking new questions. We try to either shut them up or make them intellectuals. By questioning they explain to you that they are growing. They don't want you to answer. They don't take things for granted; they don't take people for granted; they don't take situations for granted. When they look at things they do not verbalize. When you look at a rose you start associating it with your memories, you don't see the real rose in front of you. By verbalizing you miss reality. Only children see reality.

Freud says: all your thinking is association. If you see a dog in the street, you start thinking about all the dogs you have seen from childhood. Then you remember your childhood, you remember a teacher when you were a child. There is no logical connection. When you start verbalizing you miss reality. Every day sun rises; every day sun sets; every day something new

happens. To you it's one more Friday, one more Saturday, and another Sunday. What do you know? The moment you label it as Friday, you think you know everything about that day. You just take it for granted. Because you take people for granted you don't enjoy your relationships. You judge people first and collect arguments to support your judgment. You can never step into the same river twice, because by that time the river has moved. People also move, they change, and they are not the same as the persons you met before. By the time you meet them again your husband or wife has changed; something is added to them; either intelligence or foolishness. But you don't agree. You hold on to the same mental set up.

Sushruta wrote 5000 years ago. He talks about open heart surgeries and transplants. He was a great enlightened Master. He said: every six months your liver replaces itsel f completely. Not even one part is same. Once in 21 days your intestine replaces itself. Modern day physiologists agree. Every cell is replaced continuously.

Sushruta says: your mental structure plays a major role when these changes take place. A disciple asks him: why do we carry diseases over a number of years? Why does the new liver carry the same disease? Sushruta replies: You don't believe you have changed, that's why. You carry the same mental frame despite body change. That mental frame retains the disease. You don't let go that frame, you don't let go that disease. You don't let go your samskara. Samskara is the powerful mental root that drags you to travel the same path. Like Pavlov's dogs which came running and salivated even when no food was served but the bell was rung. Whenever you remember that past situation or person you react the same way, you move in the same rut. In the morning you worry about office, by evening you worry about you wife and children, unconsciously, without reason. The mood remains low

Part 5: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras_English_part_5.md

even if you do not realize why. You do not live based on intelligence, you live based on information.

Ability to respond spontaneously is responsibility. Responsibility is not name and fame or status. Only those who have spontaneity can survive in this world. You may have had education, money yet you may not be successful. Intelligence is not based on information that you have or received. That's only intellect, Intelligence is about how you can let go, be spontaneous, be without prejudice. It is not the totality of your experiences, it is the lessons learnt from experiences; difference between anubhava which is experience and anubhuti which is intelligence is this: anubhuti is the sum total of the lessons from anubhava. You do not need to touch many different types of fire, from a match stick to a blazing fire, to know that fire burns; even one experience will do. You need the lesson of just one experience. But we trust only experience, not intelligence. Our entire education system is based on evaluation of information, not intelligence; only intellect and verbalization, not visualization. When you try to move on information you lose the ability to be intelligent. If you are logically logical you will understand that logic itself is not logical. Life is not logical.

Day by day you underestimate yourself, because you underestimate others. Past is always a golden past. There was never a golden past. Hinduism says there was a Satya yuga; Christianity says there was an age of Adam and Eve; all these are only ideas; ideas for you to escape from the present. They also give hope for the future; The Gods will come down to redeem you; incarnations and avatars will come again and again to save the world. They give you these ideas about the past and present to escape. You do not want to live in the present, that's why you wish always to escape to the past and future. These ideas about yourself that you do not let go, which is your ego, which are not true, all these false experiences, which are not real, therefore you miss reality. When you miss reality you feel nothing is a miracle. You take everything for granted.

There are so many miracles happening to you every day. We are watching TV and suddenly you feel that the character you're watching is about to say something, and sure enough she obliges. You are about to sit down for dinner, the doorbell chimes, and you know who is at the door; sure enough, it's the old school mate you haven't seen in years.

I find that in my discourses often over 50% of the audience responds positively when I ask if they had experienced a similar phenomenon at any point of their lives. When this happens, most of the time we brush it off saying that it's a coincidence. When to some this happens repetitively we attach the tag of a 'gifted' person, similar to those who see auras and sense the vibrational energy of people and places.

When the magnitude of the experience is far greater we no longer term it a coincidence. Some one predicts disasters rightly time and again, and forecasts deaths. Others heal people given up as lost cases by doctors. Some produce substances out of thin air. We then call them miracles. When you do not take everything for granted everything is a miracle. That you are alive is a miracle. Thousands of miracles keep happening within you.

There are no miracles in life. It is just that we do not yet understand the laws that govern occurrence of such incidents that seem to defy 'scientific' laws. Once we understand that this universe supports laws that go beyond the 'scientific' laws that have been so far discovered by humans, we start understanding the cause and effect linkages behind many of these inexplicable happenings and start appreciating the mysteries of our Universe.

Astrophysicists talk now about the parallel universe. They have discovered that each time a star system dies as a black hole another start system is born in a big bang somewhere else in the universe. Every action produces a reaction.

Chaos Theory now says that action and reaction do not need to be proportionate. There is no linearity in nature. A butterfly fluttering its wings in China causes a tornado in Mexico! This is science, not imagination.

Matter and energy were totally different entities till Einstein established their linkage. Even after Einstein, it was either matter or energy, never both in the same time and space. It is only recently that the principle of 'singularity' that allows matter and energy to exist simultaneously in a common time and space framework has

been understood. 'Singularity' is the common universal platform the Universal Consciousness that we call Brahman.

Making contact with Brahman is not impossible, once you know how. With thoughts crowding our mind, all that we normally do is to flit from one zone to another, from regrets to speculations, with no time to ground ourselves in the present. However, once we allow ourselves to settle in the here and now, in the present, thoughts gradually disappear. When thoughts disappear there is an expansion of our ability to expand in time and space, which allows us to traverse the past, present and future simultaneously.

Once we are the present miracles become common place, and we do know that they are no longer miracles but a natural flow of the universe.

If some one complains that he cannot change, I say change is your nature; I am surprised that you are holding on to the same character. Let go and you will change. Your body is changing. Your mind is changing. You are becoming more mature. You just have to let go, relax, allow yourself to change. Existence will change you. Life will change you. Trust yourself and relax. When they don't listen and insist I give them advice to confuse them. If you let it, your heart will transform you. The air you inhale and exhale will potentially change you. If your body, which is so gross and matter can change, don't you think your mind, which is subtle, and energy can not change? If you trust your intelligence you will be transformed immediately. You will be enlightened when you drop your mental setup, like dropping a fire pot. But you can not believe so easily. You say give me a technique. It's so difficult. The word difficulty is the greatest difficulty. When you know fire burns drop the fire. Where is the difficulty? Be a little more intelligent. Drop what hurts. When you understand that the mental setup causes you trouble, drop it. You will then transform your being.

You ask, how will I survive if I drop? The seed always wonders what will I do if I break? Unless it breaks the plant can not grow. Trust and open, trust and break, you will grow. If you make mistakes it's worth making mistakes. Perfectionism is madness. The more you are far from perfect the more God has grace for you. Search for perfection is search for madness. Graveyard is the perfectly secure place. But it's not the place to live; it is only for the dead. A ship is secure in the harbor, but it has to move out to function.

As you move from ego to spontaneity you will undergo pain, transition, that's your penance, your tapas; that's the price you pay for a better life. Everything will be a miracle. When you take life for granted, what results is boredom and depression. You seek to acquire not to enjoy. You can increase the height of your bed not the depth of your sleep.

Meditation is the key to spontaneity. Do not keep track of what you have undergone. It's better to let go and grow without worrying about what happens. Enlightenment is not a step by step growth process, it is a quantum phenomenon. Living moment to moment, in the present, without worrying about past and present is meditation. It's a quality to be added to your life, not a quantity to be added to your life.

A Zen master is sentenced to death by his king. He is unconcerned. Disciples ask are you not bothered you are going to die tomorrow. He says, how can I worry about a day later, even the next moment is a new miracle for me.

When you live in the present all your fantasies drop, all your fears drop. If result is exciting you call it a miracle; if you do not like the result you call it a coincidence; if it's average you call it an incident.

When your ego is rooted in one place it does not get rejuvenated. If some one is

always worrying he is centered in his navel chakra; if he begs attention he is rooted in his heart chakra; if on sex, on his muladhara. These centers do not rejuvenate if you get rooted in them; they get blocked by your emotions, your experiences. It is important that you get uprooted or derooted so that you can grow. You get to clear these blocks and energize the chakras, which are the centers of your energy. Meditation techniques will help remove these rooted emotions and blockages so that you can let go and grow.

vayaisa gato k: kamaivakar: SauYko naIro k: kasaar: xaINao iva%to k:pirvarao &ato t%vao k: samsara: ||

vayasi gate kā kamavichāraha sushke nīre kā kasaraha ksheene vitthe kā parivāraha gnyāte thatve kā samsāraha

When youth is gone where is lust? When water is gone where is the lake? When wealth is gone, where are thee kinsmen? When Truth is known, where is the wordly bondage?

Bhaja Govindam 10

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

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

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

Ananda Yoga is the path of ecstasy, not the path to ecstasy. The very path, the very travel is ecstasy, not just the goal. Life has no goal, it has only purpose. It is not something you find at the end, you find it all along the way. Living has a purpose. If life is a goal it's a rat race; even when you win this race you are still a rat. The very living is bliss when you go without a goal, only with a purpose of enjoying the path.

You can not look at God as a goal. You can not run towards God. In inner world, logic is very different. Goals are not reached by running towards them. Vivekananda says: Arise, awake, and do not stop till the goal is reached. I say: arise, awake, stop; goal is reached. Zen masters say when you stop seeking you will find it. Seeking makes you tense, it makes you miss your purpose. In a relaxation course you are so tense that you lose the purpose.

I say accept all guilt, all mistakes, and all failures; even if you can not accept, accept that you can not accept. You will then relax; guilt will drop from your mind. Yoga is cessation of the mind. If your mind is tense it can never stop. Only when you relax it can cease. You have to drop goal orientation. If you accept what you are, what is, mind will lose its roots. Mind and bliss are like a daughter in law and mother in law; they can not stay together. When you come and say that Swami, my mother in law does not understand your teaching, be very sure that you have not understood. When mind is, bliss is not. It is either mind or bliss.

In path of Ecstasy the very living is ecstasy. What is bliss path? What is the goal? What is to be achieved? Why are there so many religions, so many cults, so many sects, so many masters, and so many teachings? There are many masters, very few disciples. What is the purpose? It is Satchitananda. Sat is that truth which always exists; chit is consciousness; ananda is bliss. All meditators search for the Truth, that which is permanent. Path of Consciousness is when you surrender yourself to the Master, to the Divine. In the path of ananda, bliss, the start, the path and the end, all are bliss. When your consciousness is surrendered to the ultimate truth the path is blissful, the travel is bliss, and its end is also bliss.

Religion, which is dull and dry, is a punishment. After a long dry sermon the priest announced that there would be a congregation of the Church Board in the next room; soon after when people assembled in the next room, there was a stranger and the priest asked why he was there since it was a meeting of the Board, and only for members of the Board. The stranger replied that he thought it was a meeting for the bored, and since he was bored by the sermon he also came in. That's what mostly religion is; boring.

Religion has become a ceremony, and a ritual forced on people through greed and fear; greed of heaven and fear of hell. Its objective is anti life.

In an ashram in Bharat the Master had a pet cat, which every day came for the puja and played and disturbed the puja. So the Master ordered that the cat be covered in a basket during puja. This practice continued. One day the cat died. Disciples went and got another cat because they thought puja can not happen without a cat. Even after the master's death the practice continued. It became a standard operating procedure. If one day they could not get a cat, there was no puja.

There is a yoga group where the practice takes months to open the chakras through long dry techniques. Those people who practice this yoga, when they came to attend an ASP with me were surprised that chakras can be opened in 2 days. I said these old techniques were designed in olden days of bullock carts; but Ananda Yoga is a jet age technique where things happen at the speed of light.

The very beginning of Ananda Yoga is bliss. All mystics say God is Satchidananda. Even Jesus says: Be still and know that I am God; he is talking about Truth, the Christ consciousness within Jesus, not about himself. When Masters talk about I, they mean their spirit, not their body. A fanatic group of Krishna devotees called me to a meeting. They asked, do you believe in Gita. I said, of course, it is the ultimate book. They then asked why do you then worship Shiva instead of Krishna. I have a temple to Dakshinamurti in the ashram. Sankara says in Dakshinamurti Stotram: What a surprise, under the big banyan tree a small boy is sitting as a guru, and people who are sitting in front of him are as old as his grandfather; the very presence of the guru destroys all their doubts and negativities. This is true of many Masters like Sankara, Vivekananda, Ramana and others.

I said Krishna and Shiva are the same energy. They said in Gita Krishna says: I am God. I said no, when Krishna says I, he does not refer to the body, the son of Vasudeva, but his super consciousness. I told them to read Anagita, which follows Gita. After the Mahabharata war, Krishna and Arjuna went out together. Arjuna says: I have forgotten all you said earlier, can you repeat. Krishna says: you forgot, oh, but I also forgot. Arjuna says how is that possible? Krishna says the person who spoke to you then was not the Vasudeva Krishna but Parabrahma Krishna. I spoke as the Parabrahman then. Now I am in the normal state. I am now in the Form. Then I was Formless. Gita was delivered as energy.

A disciple asked sometimes you look divine, unfathomable, other times you look like an innocent child. There are two dimensions. Enlightened Masters keep a small thread to keep them selves in the human form. They can come and go. Krishna when he opened his mouth showed the universe to Yashoda. When he closed it he starts eating mud.

Krishna said I shall go back and bring back that memory. That memory is Anagita. When I explained it to the Krishna fanatics they finally accepted that Shiva and Krishna are the same.

When the path is Truth, it is all beyond form. Koran says: I am the Truth. Upanishads say: Aham Brahmasmi. Zen: Very being is Buddha. Everywhere concept of truth is accepted. In this path untruth has to be renounced. No one follows it these days.

In the path of consciousness you have to be devoted. You have to sing songs, be very devoted to practices; these too are difficult for many.

In the path of ananda there are no restrictions, nothing to renounce. Your living, every moment of your life, has to be ananda, bliss.

I was sitting with kids today (this was in a city in the USA). None laughed. I told them a few stories. They never laughed. They behave in such a matured way that I thought I will grow old if I spend more time with them. Every one was talking like an adult. In the US they have forgotten to be kids. I want to take them to Bharat and show how kids laugh and enjoy themselves. I was shocked that they did not laugh. I was bored. In Bharat I went to attend a meeting with kids and I was asked to speak. One kid did not understand what I was saying: he came and pulled my dhoti; he made me stop and pay attention to him. He was clear what he wanted; he acted like a child should. Here in the US they are too cultured. They will become depressed. Depression is the gift of logic to the educated. You even measure your laughter. You start talking to someone only after you have verified who that person is. It is sad. They were all expressionless; they think they are Buddhas; they are Buddhus. They were all asking philosophical questions. Nothing was practical. They learn from adults. They learn from our body language.

I shall give you now three small keys from Tantra to make your life blissful. Forget all your ASP, NSP and Healers' Initiation techniques and meditations; just carry these three keys, that's enough.

First key is acceptance of life; never grudge, grumble. If you accept you will have intelligence to accept life. This is 'Thatata' which is ease, ease of acceptance. A middle aged lady went to Buddha with her son's dead body one early morning, and pleaded: Lord please revive him. Buddha knew what ever he could say would be unacceptable to her. He said go and get a handful of mustard seed from a house where no one has died. She goes from house to house, without finding even one such house. What she is suffering from every one else has suffered too. There is no house in this world where someone has not died.

We worry because we feel others do not worry. If we realize every one has worries we won't worry. We need to see others unhappy to reduce our unhappiness.

When this lady understood this truth she became a nun, a bikku. She said even if you had given my child life, my life would have gone on as usual. Now I am transformed.

Giving life is not a miracle, transforming a person is the miracle.

A boy became a Sanyasi. His elder brother came to take him back. Whenever some one wants to take up spiritual life there will always be problems. If there is no problem then being a renunciate won't suit you. Husband grumbles about wife spending time at ashram. Wife thinks husband will become a sanyasi. Only when there is a problem, you come without telling the other person, only then it is worth it. In Bharat husband and wife both come separately without telling each other and meet at the ashram. Some people do not want to show publicly that they go to ashram, since people may think that they have a problem; they will want to make sure that some other persons they know will not be there; then they will meet them there; that's life.

The elder brother kept insisting that the younger come back. The younger brother said: what will happen if I come back. We will fight for father's property after sometime. I shall give you all that property now. Take it and go away. The elder brother understood, accepted and went away.

If you do not accept, are things going to change? No. Nothing will change. Wherever you can change you will change.

Here's a Su fi story. The great master Abdullah was always happy, in laughter, in bliss. Some one asked him how you are so joyful. Please teach us. Every day when I get up I ask Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah, what do you want today? Joy or Suffering? Mind says I want bliss. I say have bliss. That's all. Disciple says but there is so much suffering. Abdullah said so what? If you suffer does it help? No. If you live in bliss miracles happen in your life.

Never decide for two days; decide only for one day; that day; the next twenty four hours. You know almost always what is happening in the next 24 hours. For most people it is the same thing that happens for the next 24 years; same wife, same house, same children. It is like the radio that is tuned to a particular station. You get what you are tuned to. If you are tuned to bliss you will get bliss.

Next 24 hours accept what ever happens. if some one calls you a dog , bark and show you are a dog. That's Thatata.

The third is this. Abdullah is asked what if the mind chooses suffering instead of bliss. Abdullah says if your mind wants suffering, enjoy the suffering. The problem is the conflict that you have when you want something and you can not enjoy when you get what you wanted. It's like ordering food in a restaurant and not wanting to pay the bill. You do not like the consequences of what you desire. You forget that there will be pain after pleasure.

Follow these three techniques, and your path will be bliss and your goal will be bliss.

Paunarip jananaM paunarip marNaM Paunarip jananaI jazro SayanaM [h saMsaaro bahudustaro kRpyaaparo paihmauraro ||

punarapi jananam punarapi maranam punarabi janani-jataare sayanam, iha samsáre bahu-dustáre krupaya' páre páhi muráre.

Repeated birth, repeated death, and repeated lying in mother's womb - this transmigratory process is extensive and difficult to cross; save me, O Destroyer of Mura, through your grace!

Bhaja Govindam 21

This article is not an article transcribed from a discourse

Many of us Ananda Healers had taken the process of healing for granted. We had been initiated by an enlightened Master. The Master had told us: "Go forth and heal!" People healed when we worked with them. No other explanation seemed necessary.

Till one afternoon, when one of our most experienced Healers asked a few of us:

What is disease? How is it caused? How is it cured? How does spiritual healing work? What is ananda healing? How does meditation help healing?

Answers were not that obvious as we felt they were. We had to search within ourselves for answers. We talked and through the process we Ananda Healers have consulted our Master, who was possibly sleeping 5000 miles away. Let us tell you what we learnt.

We salute our Master and the Healer who made us think. May their tribes increase!

The human body is like a river. On the surface the river looks the same always. It is sometimes calm and sometimes turbulent, but essentially the same. The water that is in the river is however never the same; it changes every instant.

Our body looks the same from outside. It does grow, but after a point it is always recognizable as the individual. Yet, within the body, the cells, the building blocks that make up the body die and are born every instant. There is no cell that remains the same within our body after six months. We are all rivers, rivers of energy.

Our bones, muscles, tissues and all limbs are made of cells. Our cells are made of DNA structure. These living elements of cells and DNA are intelligent. Our intelligence does not reside in our brains alone; they are distributed in every single cell of our mind body system. The intelligence of our cells is their living energy. Not just the cells, but even our thoughts carry our energy.

No learned person will dispute these points; they are proven facts.

When our energy system is disrupted we are not at ease; we feel dis-eased. Each system of medical healing tackles our diseases in its own unique way. Western allopathic medicine believes in working on specific symptom individually at each body part. If heart is diseased the heart is carefully examined. It is then treated based on tested and tried out empirical methods. Allopathic medicines are all chemicals. These drugs are developed by noticing the effects of plant or herbal cures for similar diseases or by formulating new chemical drugs which are then extensively tested upon symptoms. Even if our diseases are cured by this approach, we are left with the residue of chemicals in our body. These residues may give rise to other diseases.

Other forms of medicine such as Homeopathy, Ayurveda etc. are more holistic. They take the individual personality into account, instead of treating all of us like a collection of body parts. Very few systems such as the Traditional Chinese Medicine as well ancient kalaripayattu techniques of Bharat go further to look at the body as an energy system. They try to cure the body by unblocking energy pathways and activating them. In some of the more advanced techniques of these systems the mind is addressed as well.

Recently many spiritual healing techniques such as Reiki and Pranic Healing have become popular. They are also effective. These techniques rightly establish a connection between the energy of the Universe that surrounds us and the energy system within us. They attempt to heal by energizing the human body by using the Universe energy through the contact of an initiated healer. Many of these techniques can affect the healer negatively unless precautions are taken. Pranic Healers are told to wash their hands in salt water after healing so that the diseases of the healed do not affect them. Many others involve processes and rituals that divert the mind.

Hindu scriptures talk about the five elements of nature: earth, water, fire, air and ether. Energy of the Universe is etheric energy, the subtlest, most powerful and the most abundant of all energy. We are all an inherent part of these five elements. These five elements are an integral part of us.

Through spiritual healing we recoup energy from own elements back into us. Because of this spiritual healing can never harm us.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM initiates seekers into Ananda Healing System. Ananda healing system is essentially a spiritual healing system. Ananda Healing uses the Universe energy to empower the human energy system to heal itself. As in all the spiritual energy healing methods here also the healer is a conduit for the energy to flow through. However, Ananda Healing has a few major differences from other commonly practiced spiritual healing techniques.

• Ananda healing has no negative impact on the Healer. It has no side effects on the healed. This is the only system we know where the healer is simultaneously healed during the healing. At another level there is a continuous input into one's spiritual path.
• Ananda Healing works at the highest energy level possible, at the nirvanic level, which is the level of cosmic energy. It is possible for the ananda healer to reach this level because the meditation on anada gandha is wordless upon the formless. Other energy healing practices which use symbols and words reach only up to the lower etheric layer of energy and therefore are limited in effectiveness
• Ananda healing has no symbols or rituals to follow. Once initiated just the intent to heal with a focus on one's ananda gandha starts the healing process. Since healing energy is intelligent it does not have to be applied at any specific point. The energy flow stops when what is required for the healing has been received.
• The person getting healed is advised to practice a mahamantra meditation

practice. This meditation connects the mind of the healed person with the healing process and makes it very effective. Meditation moves the mind to a near no thought state so that there is no block to the body system receiving the cosmic energy. In addition the positive energy of the meditation reinforces the cosmic energy that is received by the body. Our body in turn uses this energy to heal itself.

Experiments have been conducted upon THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM at Oklahoma University, USA and at St.Louis, USA recently. These show that during the healing process extraordinary changes take place both in Swami's brain and in the brain of the person being healed. The connection between the Healer, the Healed and the Cosmic Energy is gradually being demystified and explained in modern scientific terms. All spiritual healing, including Ananda Healing, should be used only as a complement to a main stream healing such as allopathy. The Doctor must decide when traditional medicine should be discontinued based on his observation of patient's progress.

Initiation into Ananda Healing is very simple at one level. It is also very complex at another. Ananda Healing capability can only be bestowed upon the Healer by a direct touch of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM initiates the Healer subject to certain conditions of service to others and one's own life style. Healers must agree to heal anyone who approaches them, friend or foe, free of cost. Healers must be vegetarians, non smokers and use no alcohol or other drugs. Ananda Healers are not only initiated into healing, but also into a spiritual path.

Ananda Healing initiation by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM opens the seeker's Ananda Gandha. Ananda Gandha is the point at which all chakras merge finally. Ananda Gandha is in the heart region and is the seat of bliss. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM awakens the Ananda Gandha of the seeker to allow the body to receive and give cosmic energy without any block. This is an experience that is severely limited by words. No Ananda Healer whom we know has remained the same after initiation. A major personal transformation is initiated as well. It is then the choice of the individual to make use of this transformation. At the most passive level one is still a powerful healer. With active practice the healer progresses on one's own spiritual path.

Swami Says:

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

The system of healing was created by Patanjali thousands of years ago, out of the practices of thousands of great masters who expressed their energies by healing others. According to him there are seven energy centers in our body that control our physical, mental, psychological, intellectual and Being level activities. These centers, also called chakras, are also someway related to our glandular functions. Techniques such as Kirlian photography have established the existence of chakras by photographing the aura or subtle energy field of our body. Diagnostically this technique predicts the onset of diseases six months ahead of other common medical tests. If a person is emotionally affected, depressed, the chakras are very small, size of a button. If the person is happy, chakras expand 60 times or more. Mind is shown to play a major role on the chakras.

Attitude of prayer and meditation create positive energy vibrations that in turn positively enhance energy of the chakras. Each chakra is associated with an emotion. The Heart chakra or Anahata chakra is related to love. Heart signifies love in almost all languages. This is not a coincidence. When you see a loved one after years you feel an emotion at your heart region. Emotion wells up in the heart region. The navel chakra, Manipuraka, is related to worry. Any shocking news affects your stomach first. Ambitious people and perfectionists develop ulcers. If an emotion is abused the chakra gets blocked and creates disease and illness. Discomfort between body and mind creates dis-ease.

Meditation creates healing energy. When a person for whatever reason is unable to meditate, someone else can meditate, create the energy and transfer the energy to the person who is ill.

Einstein says matter creates energy. Scriptures go further and say energy creates matter. Scientists now affirm that energy particles that constitute matter are simultaneously static and moving, and that matter and energy are the same in time and space. If matter, such as a piece of cloth, can be given to another, why not energy? All you need to know is how. Energy can be given and taken. Healing is the science of giving such energy to the ill.

Who can give energy? A person who has realized something beyond body and mind and has realized energy is one who can radiate and give energy. He should have experienced energy within himself. Whether you understand or not, believe or not, experience or not, you are in energy. Who can receive energy? Any one in need can. People with an open mind and heart receive it better. A person who has not experienced his emotional side, whose EQ is low, who does not trust some one would find it more difficult to be healed. People in Hindu villages worship stone idols on the road side or rivers or natural powers with great faith and trust, and get healed.

US University researched 100 patients on the same disease and gave them colored water as placebo; not only the patients but even the doctors were not aware that these were not drugs. At the end of a week a number of patients were cured completely, a number were cured at least 50%. This experiment was repeated in 11 other locations with similar results. They concluded that faith alone with no medical intervention cures a significant number of people.

Imagine, more than one third can be cured by faith and trust. Problem is that all our education denies this; it works on our intellect and starves our emotions. This is actually harmful. Intellectual growth without emotional growth is harmful, dangerous.

Mahabharata: There are three strengths: physical, mental and spiritual. If man has only physical strength or power he will become a thug. If he has only intellectual strength he will be a criminal. Only when a man has spiritual strength in addition, can a person become useful to society. Atomic weapons stored in our planet can destroy the planet earth 700 times. It is because we have developed our physical and intellectual aspects without any inputs to our spiritual side. In Hindu villages temples are the centre point; this was to develop the emotional and holistic development of people.

Sarada Devi says: Live with deep faith, deep trust and deep love. Even if you get cheated you would still live like a God. Without them even if you prosper you do not live your life.

People ask: our ancestors wasted energy by building big temples. Western countries build universities and infrastructure. I said: you do not understand yourself. These temples are the root of our emotional development. They keep us relatively safe from emotional disorders. Only 1% in Bharat is affected by mental disorders. In most western countries 2 out 3 are affected.

If you are open to the cosmic energy you will be healed physically, emotionally.

kuruto gaga^a saagargamanama\ vrtpairpalanaM Atvaa danama\ &anaivaihna sava-matona maui@tM na Bajait janmasatona ||

kurute gangasagaragamanam vrataparipalnam athava danam, jnanavihina sarvamatena muktim na bhajati janmasatena

One goes on pilgrimage to the place where the Ganga joins the sea; or observe the religious vows with care; or offers gifts. But if he be devoid of knowledge, he does not gain release-according to all schools of thought-even in a hundred lives.

Who does not want to be enlightened? Who does not want to be another Buddha?

All of us wish we are transformed. Yet, the wish remains a wish, because the moment the opportunity arrives to convert the wish into reality, most of us draw back, fearful of what the transformation may bring to us.

Enlightenment is not for the fearful. It is for the few who struggle without relenting, with an urgent urge, with a desperation borne out of a passion from the deepest recesses of one's spirit. When the struggle becomes that desperate when there is no other support system that sustains us, when it is a free fall into the unknown, then enlightenment happens.

Enlightenment is not surrender. When we decide to surrender we always surrender to a known entity in whom we have tremendous faith and trust. When we go past that stage when that faith and trust is breached, and we start questioning the validity of those who have thus far blindly believed in; then the struggle is truly desperate and we are ready to be enlightened. There is nothing to hold us back, and we are ready to begin another journey.

I reached a point in my quest when I started questioning the teachings and beliefs

Part 6: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras_English_part_6.md

of my masters, Bhagwan Ramana and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. I felt that they were liars and what ever they had said that they had experienced was all false. There was no place for me to turn to. I had reached a point of no return and no future.

Then it happened. In a flash I grasped what my masters had said, it was all true, and I was now part of that Truth.

Enlightenment is never an evolution. It is never gradual. It is sudden, instantaneous and irreversible. It happens when nothing else seems to work. You need to reach desperation before you become enlightened.

Enlightenment is not a goal. It is the beginning o f another journey. It is a gateway, not a resting place.

Enlightenment happens when the mind is empty, never when it is full and overflowing.

Once there was a very learned American scholar who went in search of enlightenment. He was referred to a Zen Master. The Master asked him to sit for a cup of tea, and started pouring the tea into a small cup. He kept pouring and the cup overflowed. Asked the Scholar, "What are you doing? Can't see that the cup is full and nothing can go in?"

Said the wise Master: 'Of course, your mind too is full; therefore nothing can go in. Empty your mind and come back.'

I say to those who come for my meditation classes, 'leave your shoes and your mind at the door, before you come in.'

Only then is there even a possibility for you understand the Truth.

All our questions come from words (from the manipuraka chakra or the navel center). To answer them, we seek words again. Words can never solve words, like how blood cannot clean blood. In asking or answering questions, people simply want to either show that they are knowledgeable or that they are seekers – their 'seeker ego' surfaces.

One man came to the ashram and had a long conversation with me. He went back and told everyone that I am a very good orator. Trust me; I did not speak to him at all. He spoke all the time and I simply listened. He is happy that I heard him, that's all! When your wife comes to you with a problem, don't give her any solution. Just listen to her problem; she wants somebody to listen to her, that's all. She knows the solution herself. She simply wants attention. It is the same with males too. No one wants answers.

Anu! Try to pick up that book. Just try to pick up the book. Don't pick it up but try to pick it up! This is exactly how people try to get enlightened. They keep attempting to get enlightened. These seekers are actually deceiving themselves. Either they should pick up or drop it. There is nothing called trying to pick up. You are cheating yourself when you say, 'I am trying.' You are actually playing, but it is a costly game. In the end you will say, 'I was a seeker throughout my life.'

Sastras talk of the goal. Stotras are an expression of the experience. Sastras say that the goal is there. Stotras say, "Oh, so beautiful the goal is!" Sastras say, "Go to the mountain." Stotras sing the beauty of nature from the mountain top. But how to reach the mountain? This link is given by Shiva – as the ultimate enlightenment meditation, as a wonderful book - The Vignanabairava Tantra. Tantra means technique. It was given by Shiva to His consort Ishwari, to clear Her doubts. It doesn't belong to any religion, creed, caste or sect. It is simply techniques to reach the Ultimate. Anyone who wants inner light can get through it a life solution. It connects the sastras and stotras. It fulfils the sastras

and stotras. It gives ultimate fulfilment. It is the technique that leads you to the Ultimate Being. Here only one question is asked and that is - How? By answering this question, it puts you directly into the Experience where the questions and the questioner dissolve into the Experience or Eternal Bliss!

Amongst the spiritual seekers, there are the window shoppers! They go from Master to Master seeking. Going from Master to Master is not wrong, but not learning from any Master is what is wrong! I always tell people to go to as many gardens, pluck flowers and make a beautiful garland. Many people go to many gardens, but they don't pluck any flowers from any garden. They just want to satisfy themselves that they are seekers. They want to have spirituality as a showcase item in their homes.

As long as your questions have not become a quest and your urge has not become urgent, you cannot call yourself a seeker. Enlightenment should become a basic necessity in you; only then the real alchemy will start happening. In order to clear your doubts, a deep passive waiting without knowing what is going to happen is required. This is what passive surrender is; it is total surrender.

Two types of people come to me. The first category of people are those who have a problem and think they know the solution, but want my support and help to get the solution. In the second category of people are the ones who have a problem ,they don't know the solution and they request my help to get the solution. The former think that they have buddhi (intelligence) but not shakthi (powers). The latter understand that they have neither shakthi nor buddhi. The moment you think that God has powers but no intelligence you start guiding Him! When you guide, it only means that your ego is not mature enough to fully surrender. If you know the solutions for your problems, why are you still suffering? They tell me a problem and give the solution along with it! When you start believing that God has got powers, religion starts. When you start believing that He has got intelligence, spirituality starts. With the former, you do all the rituals to bribe Him to get His powers.

The moment you decide to wait forever, things will simply start happening. When you are in a hurry for the lotus to bloom, you open out its petals. Can this be called 'lotus flowering?' No! You need to give it some space and it will happen. You have to wait till you decide to wait! The moment you decide to wait, you don't have to wait anymore.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, I decided to wait but it is not happening!' How can you say that you have decided to wait when you are already asking the second half of the statement! An utter, clear and total decision to wait is what the basic necessity to become enlightened is.

Either have the urgency or forget the urge itself. Don't play the in-between game. You will end up in depression. As long as the blood is hot, you will pull along; the moment the blood becomes cool, you will fall into depression, because all along you were playing the game of 'hide and seeking', not real seeking. You were on a mud horse while entering the river. Be very clear - see if you are really seeking or playing the game of 'hide and seeking'. The deep quest has to happen in you for it to become a tremendous waiting - for Enlightenment!

Enlightenment is nothing but breaking all our conditionings and getting in touch with the innocence that we have lost in the process of growing up. The path to Enlightenment or to the Divine is not difficult like how it is made out to be. First of all, the Divine is not a goal as is understood by most of us. If we look at it as a goal, we are in effect robbing it of its joy. The path itself is Divine!

There are several meditation techniques to fall in tune with the Divine. One such technique is Dance, in the literal sense of the word and even otherwise! Quantum physics has proven that the atom is made up of elements that are static and moving at the same time. A picture taken of this phenomenon reveals the resemblance it bears to the dancing deity - Nataraja. The whole of Cosmos is actually dancing with joy! Enjoying and celebrating every moment! Only man is still holding on to his prestige and ego, which are nothing but the labels stuck on him by society. Dance is the ultimate technique to break free of the ego, to break free from the identity that man holds close to his heart. Dance is the outward expression of the inner joy when you fall into the joyous path. Just like when you clap your hands and the birds fly off from the trees, so also, when you sing and dance in the name of the Divine, your karmas (past unfulfilled actions) fly away from you; you are liberated from them.

Children need not be taught to dance, they already are that way! Their inner intelligence knows how to balance their Energy on the centre of their Being and that is why they are so joyful all the time. But we are unable to handle them in that state and so we suppress them and make them dull.

Society tries you to put you either on the path of fear or on the path of greed. When in fear, you walk your way to God; when in greed, you drive or run your way to God; when in joy or bliss, you dance your way to God! The path becomes ecstatic. Every moment and every breath becomes a joyful meditation. Don't forego the path for the goal! Music and dance are the simplest meditation techniques that take you to the state of Eternal Bliss.

bhagavadgita kincitadhita gangajialalavakanika pita, sakritaapi yena murari-samarca kriyate tasya yamena na carca

He, who has studied the Bhagavadgita even a little, he who has drunk a drop of the Ganga water, and he who has performed the worship of the Destroyer of the demon Mura, Krishna, at least once, he will have no quarrel with Yama, the lord of death.

From form to formless We transit in surrender; Master moves in with Love.

There are many ways to enlightenment.

Ritualistic approach such as puja, yoga, and pranayama take a lot of time, perhaps many births. Puja and Yoga happen at the physical layer of one's mind body system, while pranayama happens at the next level of pranic layer.

At the next subtler level is mantra japa; while a mantra initiated by a realized Master would be very effective, chanting a mantra as in mechanically chanting the Vedas, sahasranamas and ashtotras do not have much efficacy unless fully internalized. Mantra japas work at the mental layer, the third layer. When visualization is used as technique one can go up to the subtle etheric layer at best. Any form can only take a person up to the etheric layer. The most subtle and therefore the most powerful form of approach to enlightenment is dhyana, silent meditation, especially one initiated by a realized Master. Meditation upon the formless can take one to the final nirvanic layer, when one becomes one with the Universe. There is no surer way to enlightenment.

Attitude of the seeker determines the speed of progress. Surrender to the Master is essential for spiritual progress. Surrender has three levels. Initial surrender is that of the intellect, leading to understanding and acceptance of what the Master stands for and says. This is not too difficult for most seekers, who become the Master's disciples. At the next level is devotion, surrender of emotions; the Master moves you in many ways; you can not bear to be without him and so on. At this level surrender to the form needs to be given up in favor of surrender to the formless. This is the block most devotees face. At the highest level is surrender of one's senses to the Master.

A bank manager used to take all the cash to his home everyday and bring it back with him the next day morning. He did this for a month and could not do it any more. He found himself trembling all the way while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with all the money in his custody. He finally wrote a letter to his boss asking to be relieved of the job explaining why. His boss told him that even if the money was lost, he would not be blamed and that he could continue with his job. The manager slept peacefully from that day onwards.

What is the difference in him now? He is doing the same job, but why is the fear and the sorrow not there any more? It is because responsibility has shifted to the higher authority, that's all. This is what Surrender is. Do your duty, leaving the responsibility to Existence.

You need not surrender to God or to any Guru. There is a Life Force conducting this world. It is this Life Force that is causing the breath that goes into you to come out and the food that you eat to digest in your system. Simply surrender to this Life Force. The work that you do in your lifetime for your survival is lesser than the work required to convert a handful of food into blood inside your body. A research was once conducted to simulate the conversion of 'one piece of bread into blood'. They found that the machinery required for it led the industry to extend to 3 kilometers! Now do you understand the kind of mechanism inside you? Do you think that the Life Force that sustains this mechanism cannot sustain your life? It very well can. Only we don't have faith.

A seed has to surrender to the soil to blossom as a tree. It has to have faith in the soil and allow itself to die or to rupture in order to blossom as a tree. In the same way, we have to place our faith in Existence and surrender ourselves so that a new life, a life of Eternal Bliss with good health can blossom. How do we do it? Should we spend long hours at the temple? No. Every time you feel heavy in the heart or mind, just tell yourself that the Life Force that runs the world will take care of you also and move on, that's enough. You will see that all your depression and worries disappear and creativity blossoms in you. Surrender is your shortcut to God! It is the ultimate technique to merge with Existence.

Krishna tells Arjuna, as they walk: Arjuna, look, there is a green crow near that tree! Says Arjuna: yes, Krishna, I see that green crow. A little later Krishna says: Arjuna, look, look at that black crow! Responds Arjuna: yes, Krishna, I see the black crow. Krishna exclaims: Arjuna, you are an idiot, how can there be a green crow? Why did you say you saw a green crow? Says Arjuna without hesitation: Krishna, when you told me to look at that green crow, all I saw was that green crow.

This is surrender of senses, the most difficult to do. Your eyes see, your ears hear, your senses feel what the Master says, not what they experience. Truth is the Master, not the maya that one's senses see externally. When one reaches this level of surrender of senses to the Master, enlightenment follows naturally.

Sitting in front of the Master, drinking in his form, swaying to his energy, being immersed in his words are all easy. There

is no effort involved in recognizing the divinity of a realized Master and accepting it. Merit in this is also limited. The enlightened Master is not on an election trip to get people vote as to whether he is enlightened. He knows, whether you and I know or not. All that the devotee does is doing himself a favor.

At the intellectual level, there is nothing impractical about what the Master says. All I say is practical. Just to understand and accept is not enough; you have to live those sayings. There in lies the problem.

The surrender I seek from you is not to my form but to my institution, the Dhyanapeetam. I shall live in those of you who live for Dhyanapeetam. All those of you who seek enlightenment actively and work for the movement of your own and others' enlightenment, will find me following you, whether you like it not, whether you wish for it or not; I shall dwell in your hearts.

Buddha created enlightened disciples in the 40 years that he preached, without even a mike. Today, with the media support that I have, with the internet, TV, books and tapes, I should create at least more enlightened beings in my life time. The more active my movement is, the stronger Dhyanapeetam becomes, the stronger I am, and the longer my physical body would last. Just some years ago I used to say I would live to 42; now as the movement gains momentum I feel I shall live to 123!

A Master does not take birth to fulfill his karma. He is born out of compassion to uplift people. Longevity of his physical body is determined by the speed and intensity of his mission.

Buddha said: Buddham saranam gachami; Dhammam saranam gachami; Sangam saranam gachami.

Buddha lived in his Dhammam and Sangam, more than his body. So do I. Only one third of my energy is in my body; the remaining two thirds are in my sayings and my institution. I live in my words and my institution; not in my body. The more powerfully you spread my sayings and the more powerful you make Dhyanapeetam, the more powerful you make me.

It's important that I'm with you; far more important that you are physically with me or near me. When you look at me, when you listen to me, you are physically with me. When you speak my words, when you spread my mission, I am with you. This is the difference between how a monkey carries its infant and a cat does; the infant monkey clings to the mother; this is very fragile, as fragile as the infant's strength. That's what you do when you cling to me. Be like the cat; the mother carries the infant; there is no way she will let go; not even upon threat to her life; that's the way I shall carry you when you speak my words and spread my mission. I shall live in you. I shall live in your words and actions.

When you look after Swami's work, Swami has no choice but to look after your welfare, both material and spiritual. Go and inspire people; that's the greatest service you can do to me and to yourself. The Ananda Sabha that you build must be in your Ananda Gandha! That's the greatest surrender you can make.

gurucaranambuja-nirbhara-bhaktaha samsarad-acirad-bhava muktaha sendriya-manasa-niyamad-evam drakshyasi nijahridayasthvam devam.

Being devoted completely to the lotus-feet of the Master, you, the disciple become released soon from the cycle of life and death process. By disciplining the senses and controlling the mind, you will behold the Deity that resides in your heart.

Grace Ramana said shall flow from the crimson Hill That He became one with, many years ago All He taught was to be still And shed the I, one's ego. Many times He said: Question deeply and submit fully Neither question nor answer to me made sense Struggle as I did meditating daily Even as my ego formed a wall of defense. Years later when I sat where He once taught in silence Locked into his unseeing unfocussed brilliant eyes Drilling through my Heart with his radiance Leaving behind wisps of paradise. Then I reached the Banyan tree Where sat my Master, in form and formless Setting with His grace my spirit free Into that space of eternal bliss. There is still much I need, to engage and disengage For Now I am glad to bask in the Grace of my Sage.

Appendix

Swamiji works with doctors and scientists across the world to record and analyze the mystic phenomena through modern technology. He is continuing to intrigue the world of medical science with results from the study of His own neurological system. From the results recorded, scientists feel that the potential for altering the rates and progression of many diseases like heart ailments, cancer, arthritis, alcoholism etc. is beginning to look achievable. They are compelled to declare that there continues to be indications that the human mind can choose to heal the human body...

For centuries, science and spirituality have been battling it out on these issues of perennial importance for humanity. Although spiritual leaders have always maintained that the no-mind state is a 'real' phenomenon, and a perfectly realizable goal for all of us, the scientific community has naturally been unwilling to accept this without solid proof.

For the first time in our century, science has hopefully found a key to supernormal and paranormal phenomena, with sound medical evidence that explains why the spiritually super-evolved are blessed with 'powers' that the rest of us can only dream about. The following few pages are summaries of various types of research conducted on Swamiji's neurological system during His visits to the United States of America.

A report by Dr. R. Murali Krishna, President COO, INTEGRIS Mental Heath & James L. Hall, Jr. Center for Mind, Body and Spirit, Oklahoma

A Mind Matters Column™ The Mind of a Mystic By R. Murali Krishna, M.D. President COO, INTEGRIS Mental Health & James L. Hall, Jr. Center for Mind, Body and Spirit

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is a trim, healthy-looking young man with dark, shoulder-length hair. Handsome and polite, possessing an open manner and a wealth of curiosity, he could be any ordinary American college student.

The difference is that ordinary American college students do not wear saffron robes and turbans, have not experienced spiritual enlightenment and are not regarded as a teacher, healer and mystic by millions of people in all corners of the world.

A mystic? The term is not a bad fit for 'Swami', as he is known. Mystics, popular culture tells us, have direct communion with God. Through means not understood or measurable, mystics are thought to have access to ultimate realities or truths. Picture a mystic and you'll probably picture someone full of bliss, someone gifted with lofty thoughts and insights that the rest of us do not possess.

The very presence of a mystic is thought to bring peace and healing to others.

That's an apt description of Swami, a 27 year-old from South Bharat. He is approached by thousands of people every year seeking relief from diseases and ailments that conventional medical approaches have not cured. Swami's background lends him the air of a mystic, too. He left his home as a teen, visited ashrams across Bharat, immersed himself in philosophy, read extensively and mastered the art of meditation.

When Swami passed through Oklahoma City recently as one stop in his world travels, I asked him if he would let me use some of modern medicine's newest technology to peer into his brain while he meditated. My goal: to understand, measure and demystify what happens during the mystic phenomena. Swami, who believes that meditation has a scientific basis, happily agreed.

The procedures Swami went through were administered by some of Oklahoma City's finest and most experienced physicians,

neuropsychologists and researchers: Drs. Fordyce, Ruwe and Higgins of the Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation Center Neuropsychology Department and Dr. Chacko of the PET Center of Oklahoma. These doctors were using technology they use with patients on a routine basis. When they look at images obtained by their technology, they know what's normal and what's not.

The results from testing Swami? Decidedly not normal!

Our first look into Swami's brain was achieved with the help of a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) device. Unlike traditional diagnostic techniques that produce images of the body's structure or anatomy, such as Xrays, CT scans or MRI, PET produces images of the function of the brain through the metabolic activity of cells. An analog of glucose is attached to a radioactive PET tracer. The PET scanner then images the metabolically active brain areas at any given time.

In the case of Swami, the drug was intended to identify highly active areas of the brain in an alert and conscious state, in the early stages of meditation and during deep meditation.

The results of the PET scan tests were stunning. To begin with, the activity in the frontal lobes of Swami's brain were significantly heightened, even in early meditation stages. The level of activity was several times higher than would be seen in the average human brain under any conditions. The frontal lobes are associated with the functions of intelligence, attention, wisdom and judgment.

When we then asked Swami to go into the deepest meditation state, there were two more remarkable findings.

First, the dominant hemisphere of Swami's brain was more than 90 percent shut down. It was as if Swami's brain had packed up and gone on vacation. It was quiet and still, completely at peace … and Swami had made it so at will.

A second amazing aspect of Swami's deep meditation was that the lower portion of his mesial frontal areas lighted up in a very signi ficant way. This area roughly corresponds to the reputed location of the mystical 'Third Eye'.

When we later asked Swami what he was doing when the mesial frontal areas lighted up, he said he was opening his Third Eye.

Associated with both cosmic and inner knowledge, and thought to be a place of clarity and peace, the Third Eye is considered by many to be the seat of the soul. Were we seeing an indication that deep meditation can open an area of the brain responsible for communicating with the divine, looking deep into the mysteries of Self or creation? I believe the PET scan revealed what I call the brain's 'D-spot'. Whether you consider the 'D' in D-spot to stand for Delight, the Divine or even Dopamine (the chemical through which our bodies experience pleasure), initial indications are that meditation can stimulate it.

The second procedure we used to look into Swami's brain is known as Quantitative Electroencephalography, or QEEG. QEEG measures electrical patterns in the brain, patterns commonly referred to as brainwaves.

There are four bandwidths of brainwaves, each different in speed, and each associated with a different state of mind. For instance, beta brainwaves are small and fast and linked with an awake, alert state of mind. Alpha brainwaves are slower and larger and are connected to feelings of well-being. Theta waves represent a state of consciousness that is close to sleep, a stage in which there is a sense of calmness and serenity without active thought.

In a day's time, most people will experience all four types of brainwaves. The progression from one bandwidth to another, though, is not so easily in their control.

From Swami's QEEG, though, we can see that he has complete control over his brainwaves. When in deep meditation, his brain smoothly shifted from one state to another, like a talented pianist playing the scales. There was no hesitation and no retreating, just continuous, fluid shifts from one type of brainwave to the next. Because the QEEG represents the five brainwave bandwidths as colors, it was as if we were watching Swami float from color to color within a rainbow!

The brain is the body's most complex organ, containing more than 100 billion neurons, each of them in chemical and electrical conversation with upto 10,000 other neurons. Its sheer capacity to process information is astonishing.

Remarkably, that complexity presents little difficulty for Swami in managing his brain activity. Swami's mind – his thoughts, emotions and intellect – control his brain. He can, in a very fluid, easy way, shift his brain function and alter his brainwaves.

More than answering questions, the voyage we took into the mind of a mystic brings intriguing questions for study.

Are there techniques we can learn and teach that will bring balance and peace into people's lives?

Can we invoke a healing response or accelerate healing through specific training? Can we learn techniques that will allow us to control pain or alter the course of a disease?

Can we learn to activate what I call our Dspot, thus putting us in instant connection to delight or the divine?

The results from our study of Swami are new pages in our world's growing book of research on the brain. There continue to be indications that the human mind may be able to choose to heal the body. We're now looking at the possibility of people learning and acquiring these healing capabilities, an event of immense benefit for humankind. The potential for altering the rates and progression of many diseases – heart disease, cancer, arthritis, alcoholism and many others – is beginning to look achievable.

Swami is a bridge between the invisible, ancient world of mysticism and the modern, visible world of science and discovery. As brain research continues on a widespread basis, and as we appropriately bring the phenomena of mysticism into the realm of science for further study, we are taking strides on a path of hope and health**.**

Swami ji met with Dr. Collins a leading Researcher and a practicing Neurofeedback in St. Louis, on 14 April 2005 in St.Louis, USA.

Dr. Collins requested to measure and analyze the brain activity of Swamiji and a patient at the time when Swamiji was healing the latter. Swamiji readily agreed to his request. The patient was David, who was injured in a car accident 10 years ago thereby suffering from affected motor nerves.

There were 4 main states in which the brain readings of Swamiji and David were recorded and compared: (a) both just sitting normally, (b) Swamiji meditating, (c) Swamiji healing David and (d) Swamiji radiating healing energy, without directing it specifically towards David.

• 1. Swamiji's brain was unusually quiet (especially the right side of his brain). Brain metabolism was 1/20th of normal people. This is significantly lesser that what he has seen even in very calm persons
  • o This implies there is an enormous conservation of energy.
• o Oxygen and other chemicals consumed by the brain to process information is greatly conserved.
• 2. The activity was a minimum; only the energy required to run vital body functions were being consumed.
• 3. The readings of brain activity and metabolism were at such low levels that Dr. Collins changed electrodes to more sensitive ones and even adjusted them a few times to make sure he was getting the readings. Despite the adjustments, the readings continued to show unusually low levels!
• 4. The left and right sides of his brain were working simultaneously. Strength of Alpha waves, which is generally high for people who are stressed, was significantly lower than normal.

Dr. Collins could not believe that Swamiji was in His normal state with this level of activity in the brain. He remarked, "There is no such thing as normal state for you!" Swamiji replied that he was right, because even during normal state Swamiji is really in Samadhi.

• 1. Higher frequency brain waves increased. This was found only in people who had meditated for 20 yrs or so.
• 2. Lower frequency waves decreased in strength. This was the reverse of what is normally observed in average persons, where lower frequency waves become more prominent during meditation.

The reason for this unusual reading is, as Swamiji pointed out, that when average persons meditate they concentrate, but Swamiji simply enters into awareness.

• 1. Swami's brain readings were dramatically different.
• 2. The right side of His brain became much more active. The difference between the right side and the left side was dramatic!
  • o Right hemisphere does global thinking and rapid processing.

• o Whatever takes the left brain several minutes to process, the right brain will process in half a sec (i.e. the right is 100s of times faster than left brain)!

• o Swami's right brain was much more active compared to the left.

• o The right brain was also in the timeless zone (no concept of time).

• 3. The strength of the waves implied a tremendous level of metabolic activity.

Dr. Collins stated "If I had done this, I'd be fatigued and sleeping by the time its over!" But of course, Swami felt refreshed after healing, and this was unbelievable for the doctor.

• 1. Certain high frequencies that we don't normally produce, were being produced by his brain.
  • o These high frequencies are generally produced when we integrate information, or an epiphany happens.
  • o If and when they are produced, they occur for a very short duration (about one second) and are easy to miss.
• 2. In David's brain, not only were these waves being produced, but they were maintained during the entire healing period!
• 3. Dr. Collins commented, "The world is not going to believe this! This is extremely unusual….its seems as if his brain was changing and 100s of 1000s of neurons/ nerves in the brain was being re-wired!"
• 4. The sustained levels of high frequency waves also meant a very high metabolism of the brain.
  • o Dr. Collins described it as equivalent to running at your fastest speed for 20 minutes.
  • o Based on that, he concluded that David will be exhausted after the healing.
  • o On the contrary David didn't feel tired, and instead he was refreshed and he wanted to walk!

• 1. The high freq. waves continued to occur in David's brain (i.e. re-wiring of the brain continued to occur).
• 2. There was still a significant difference in the strength of the high frequency waves in David's brain.
• 3. Both sides of David's brain became like the right brain of Swamiji.
• 4. Swamiji's brain activity was quite similar to the levels during one-to-one healing.

Swamiji explained, "In the normal state, myself, the person getting healed and the Cosmic Energy are all different, but during healing, all 3 get connected. That could be the reason why David's brain behaved like Swamiji's brain."

On 29 April 2005, Dr. Juan Acosta-Urquidi and his associate, Ann Trechak from Sound Health Designs, LLC, Wichita, KS, had the unique opportunity to

record an EEG (Electroencephalography) session with Swamiji.

The observations showed Swamiji switching his brainwave patterns as He transited through different altered states of Consciousness. Another aspect of the research involved Heart Rate Variability

(HRV) analysis, which is a useful tool to explore the energetic transactions between two subjects.

(Refer Acosta-Urquidi, JACM, 2004, vol. 10(4); Acosta-Urquidi and Trechak, 15th ISSSEEM Con fer.'05; see also www.heartmath.org).

The Heart Rate Variability (HRV) from Swamiji and a volunteer subject were simultaneously recorded while the subject received healing from Swamiji. The HRV measurements obtained before (the control baseline) and during the healing session were then compared. Shifts in the power spectra signal were recorded in the receiving subject during the healing by Swamiji and also when Swamiji was sending healing energy into the room, not specifically directed at the subject.

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Part 7: From Ignorance To Enlightenment - Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras_English_part_7.md

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THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM turns our questions about life into a quest to seek the Truth and our urge for this Truth to one of great urgency. He helps us move from pain to bliss, from worrying to wondering, from lust to love, from thinking to knowing, from praying to becoming. He gives us a formula for practical living, to furnish the outer world with the ultimate luxury and to keep the inner space in ultimate bliss.

The word Yoga has entered the mainstream of English and every other language of the World. Today there are many forms of Yoga advertised from every street corner, from dynamic yoga and hot yoga, to kundalini yoga and enlightenment yoga. Very few remember the great saint scientist Patanjali, whom THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM calls the 'Saintist', who wrote the Sutras, the techniques to liberate the human and to reunite him with the divine that he is rightfully part of.

This book is not a traditional translation or commentary of Patanjali. This is an enlightened Master's answers to the questions that many spiritual seekers have even after going through the aphorisms of Patanjali; for instance, why the common interpretation of a brahmachari as a celibate is so wrong and how it leads to corruption of the mind.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM says: if one is to sequentially follow the eight steps that Patanjali outlined 10,000 years ago, one life time is not enough in this modern age to reach what Patanjali taught can be reached. For the modern age a different approach is needed, to cope with the cerebral pollution which people of Patanjali's age were not subjected to.

Read this book to find out an enlightened Master's solution to reach enlightenment!

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

From Ignorance

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, an

us through the

Sutra. It needs an enlightened Master to explain and comment these timeless Truths contained in Patanjali's magnum opus, which THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM describes as the greatest book ever

written.

enlightened Master, takes

complexities of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Sutras by definition are epigrams, which mean a lot by saying very little. There are many layers of meanings in each

To

Enlightenment

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Talks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

From Ignorance to

CMYK

Enlightenment

CMYK

Speaks on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras