Interaction

I welcome you all with my love and respect.

You have all come here with some expectation, some hope, to enhance your knowledge; to get a new perspective of life; to see if you can live your life in a better way.

I want to tell you a few things before we get into the subject so that you can get the maximum benefit from your stay here.

You might have gone to many other places, listened to many other lectures, practiced many other techniques before coming here. All that is alright. Just one thing: when you are here, just be totally here, that's all.

Leave behind all the knowledge that you have gathered in other places and then come in here. You would have seen a board outside that said, 'Leave your shoes and mind outside'. You might have wondered what it meant. It means: when you leave your shoes outside, just decide and leave your mind also! Leave all your gathered knowledge next to your shoes and come in. You can take it back when you go out. Don't worry, no one will take it away. It will be perfectly safe. At least your shoes, people might take, but your mind, people will not touch; I will guarantee you that! People are unable to handle their own minds; they will surely not touch yours!

When you come in with an empty mind, with no prejudice, you can absorb what I am saying in its totality. If you come in with your knowledge, you will be constantly comparing every word of mine with what you know about it, with what you have heard about it from someone else earlier, and you will simply miss what I am trying to tell. You can absorb me only if there is some space in you. If you are already full, you cannot take me in.

A small story:

A learned professor from the West went to meet a Zen master in the East, in Japan.

The professor had done a lot of research in many areas of study.

He went to meet the master to get some spiritual knowledge, to understand spirituality in a better fashion.

He arrived at the master's place and found the master brewing tea.

The master saw him and gestured to sit, and continued to brew tea.

The professor sat down and after a while, started talking of his background, of all his studies, his discoveries, his travels around the world, his experiences with different people, his conclusions on various subjects and what not.

The master finished brewing the tea and placed two cups between them.

He began pouring tea into the professor's cup.

He poured and poured and slowly the cup started overflowing. The tea spilt over the saucer and flowed onto the table. The professor was watching what was happening. He could not contain himself any more. He screamed out, 'Master, what are you doing? Stop pouring! The cup is overflowing!' The master stopped and calmly said, 'So are you.'

The professor was shocked but understood what the master was trying to tell him.

The professor was so full like the teacup! Anything that the master might tell him would only overflow outside, not into him. The professor understood from that one word of the master, what he meant, what he was trying to tell him.

So understand: if you really want to gain something, just be like an empty cup here. Be totally open and receptive. Be like a child, innocent and curious; like a sponge, ready to absorb; that is enough.

You see: there are three types of knowledge. The first is intellectual knowledge – the knowledge of the mind. For this, you need only your mind, nothing else. If you are attentive and have a good memory, it is enough. If you can apply logic well, if you have a little common sense to connect things and understand, it is enough. This is the kind of knowledge that you gain in school, with your books. To learn mathematics and science, your mind is enough. You can become a great mathematician or a great scientist.

The second type of knowledge is knowledge of the heart. Here, you need to use your heart also, not just your mind. Art, music, poetry, dance – all these come under this category. If you use only your mind, nothing will happen. You have to use your heart also. To paint, to write poems, to sing, you need to emote. All these are creations. They are expressions from your heart. Can you write a poem with no feelings at all? Can an artist draw and paint with just his mind? No! He needs to connect with his heart, then he will simply flow.

With only the mind, you can pick up certain points, certain techniques about writing poems or about painting, but ultimately the stuff will come from only your heart.

The third type of knowledge is spiritual knowledge – knowledge that is neither of the mind nor of the heart, but of your being! Actually, we can't even call it knowledge; it is just a deep understanding beyond your logic. It can neither be taught nor picked up. It can happen simply out of a deep communion - at the being level.

I always tell people: I cannot teach you spirituality, but you can learn! You can learn by just absorbing these words at the being level – like energy. The energy behind the master's words is so powerful that if you allow it, it can penetrate you and touch you at the being level. It can bring about a transformation that cannot happen with just words of the mind and feelings of the heart.

When I talk, I talk from my experience of the ultimate truth; from my being. So when you listen, listen totally, from your being. Only then can you get a glimpse of the experience behind these words. I am not here to give you just words. I am here to take you beyond words. If you are here with acute awareness and silence, you can go beyond words and get a glimpse of your own being.

Alright, let us alter the seating arrangement a little. When you sit, don't sit with your relatives or friends or people known to you. Sit at random, next to anyone whom you don't know much, with whom you are not very familiar. When you sit with familiar people, you will be compelled to exchange glances, exchange words while I am talking. If you sit with strangers, you can absorb me better, by yourself.

One more thing: When the session is happening, there will be a beautiful flow, there will be an energy that is created and vibrating in the room, a deep communion between you and me. Don't interrupt it by coming in late. The flow will be broken. It is just like encountering a speed breaker when you are going smoothly on the highway. The speed breaker is only a small interruption, but to cross it, you have to slow down, go over it and pick up speed again. The smooth flow will be broken.

And please switch off your mobile phones. They are another very common speed breaker today! In fact they can cause the journey to be totally bumpy, one speed breaker after another! I am sure each of you has a cell phone here!

Next, when you are here, don't be serious and heavy. Be sincere in listening and listen with an open mind. Don't expect that in the very first session, you will experience God! Just be with a light and easy mood, without expectations, you will be able to receive much more.

The next thing: decide and leave your social ego outside and try to be an ordinary person while you are here. The ashram and the presence of the master is the best laboratory for you to experiment with yourself, to let go of your ego, to shed your illusions, and understand that you are just a beautiful part of Existence. So even if you are somebody in society, try to be ordinary here and mix with everyone from your heart. Not only my words, but every moment of interaction, every moment of just being here, can cause a transformation in you. You just need to be aware, that's all.

A small story:

There was a great Zen Buddhist monk, an enlightened master.

One day, the Governor of Japan came to visit him.

The Governor sent in his visiting card to the master.

It had the words, 'Zak-San - Governor of Japan'.

The master took one look at the card and said, 'I have no business with this idiot!

Ask him to leave this very minute!'

Zen masters can be very harsh when they want to break somebody's mind, somebody's ego. They will never hesitate to use harsh words. The energy behind their words can simply pierce and transform a person.

The disciple came back to the governor, gave back his card and repeated what the master had told him. The Governor saw the card and understood. He was an intelligent man…not just intellectual, but intelligent also! He quietly struck out the words, 'Governor of Japan', and gave back the card to the disciple, who took it inside again. The master took one look and said, 'Show him in!'

All our titles, our designations, are mere labels pasted on us by society. And we go about thinking that we are these labels. We forget that we are not the labels but the stuff inside! We feel great about the labels. But you can never approach a master with these labels. You can never know Existence with your labels! A master is Existence in human form.

What the Governor did cannot be called wrong. It might have been the right way to approach society, to be in accordance with the social protocols, but with a master, awareness must step in and you must leave your ego behind!

Something transpires between the master and the seeker. They share something of the inner world. When this happens, labels of the outer world will stand in the way. Forgetting your personality is spirituality, because personality is societal. We are here to find our individuality – our inherent nature, our aloneness that we enjoyed in our mother's womb, our connection with Existence – the only connection we need to find and celebrate!

When you listen to whatever I say, there are two ways in which your mind will work. One is with doubt and the other is with belief*.*

Doubt is the way of the intellectual mind. With doubt, too much logic and reason will come in the way of receiving. When this happens, you will miss the whole thing.

With belief also, if you straightaway believe, you will miss. Understand: you don't need to believe in anybody, let alone in me. The so-called believers are the weakest people, because it takes great courage to live without beliefs. When you don't have a belief, you don't have a fall-back system to support your actions. You don't have a readymade idea to tell you what to think and how to act. To be without a belief requires great courage, because then you have to depend on your own intelligence for everything and this makes you feel unsure and insecure.

Both doubt and faith are two sides of the same coin – that is your mind. At a very deep level, your greatest doubt will carry some faith and your greatest faith will have some doubt in it. I can assure you that!

Then what should you do? How should you listen?

Just listen with an open mind, with a readiness to experiment, that's all*.* When you are ready to experiment, you are ready to translate teachings into practical life. When I tell you, 'The sun rises in the east', you neither need to believe nor doubt; just get up the next morning and see for yourself – as an experiment!

That is the right way. Just take in everything with an open mind and experience what I am saying every moment. There is no need to have faith. Just the willingness to experiment is enough. Take what I say as a hypothesis, integrate it into your life and see for yourself whether it works or not. To know that an apple is tasty, you don't have to believe or doubt. Just take a bite and you will know!

Time and again, ancient rishis and masters have said that man's true nature is bliss. Over the years, so many masters have happened on planet earth. Whether it was Buddha or Christ or Krishna or Mahavir, the core of their message was the same. They all said that man's true nature is bliss and they all gave techniques to connect to that bliss.

Their expressions might have been different, but their message was the same. Of course, again and again people miss the message because they cling on to the master instead of the message. This is the reason for fanaticism, religious wars and other such things that are happening on planet Earth.

Anyhow, all these masters had the same message, that man's core is bliss, and that all of man's effort is in seeking this inner space, this space of bliss within him. But due to social conditioning and distractions, man forgets his purpose and starts seeking this bliss in outer world things - in material things, in names, in forms, in labels given to him by society, in relationships, in careers and what not.

A small story:

An old man went with his family to watch a movie in a theatre.

The movie had just started when the man suddenly started groping about in the darkness on the floor.

His grand-daughter who was sitting next to him got annoyed and asked him what he was doing on the floor.

He said, 'Dear, I have lost my chewing gum. It has fallen out.'

The child got irritated and said, 'Grandpa, it's alright, leave it. We will buy some more chewing gum. Now watch the movie.'

The old man said, 'I want only that chewing gum.'

The child said, 'Grandpa, don't behave like a baby. We will get more chewing gum.'

The old man said, 'But dear, my teeth are in it.'

You see: what we are really seeking is something, but we are seeking it in the name of something else! We seek in the name of so many things. And at the end of it, even after achieving all those things, we feel that something is missing. There is a certain yearning in us. Understand: this yearning is because we are actually searching for bliss, but we search for it in the name of other things. That is why we never feel fulfilled. Our being calls out but we never listen. We ignore our being completely because we are so immersed in the outer world.

Unless we are centered upon our being, we will not experience a totality; we will not experience fulfillment. In our outer world achievements, we might be filled, but not fulfilled. And because we are not fulfilled, the yearning will remain. And we start searching again in the outer world. When we are centered within, we will have fulfillment every minute whatever we may be doing in the outer world, because the fulfillment does not come from what we are doing; it comes from the being, within.

So we need to look deep into what the masters have been saying time and time again. There is no use simply seeking without stopping to get one glimpse of the truth in the master's words. Then you will remain a traveler, that's all.

This concept of traveling is like 'trying to pick up a book but not picking it up!' Can there be anything such as trying to pick up a book? You either pick it or not. How can you try to pick it? When you say that you are trying to pick it up, you are cheating yourself! You can't cheat others because they know it is not possible.

It is something like this: people who don't have the capacity to make money, claim that because they are very honest, they are unable to make money. Actually, they don't have the capacity, that is the truth; but they justify it with reasons.

In the same way, when we are unable to take a leap into real spirituality, and at the same time we are not ready to confess that we don't know anything about it, we create our own philosophies and go around saying, 'Short of enlightenment, I know everything about spirituality!' We just keep our ego alive. We use the 'seeker ego' as a buffer between the truth and us.

In the same way as the car has shock absorbers to keep us from getting hurt on the road, the seeker ego keeps us away from reality. It serves as the buffer between the truth and us. In the comfort of this buffer, we happily conclude that we were seekers all our lives!

Whatever I may be telling you these few days, just listen with complete awareness and try to catch the central chord, the composite thread that runs in the whole thing. Then, you will create a space in you for the transformation to happen. Otherwise, you will simply be collecting words and seeking all the time. Unless a transformation happens in you, all words are useless. You have to look with deep awareness, only then transformation is possible.

And be very clear: even if you are thousand people in this hall, I am talking to you. When I say you, I mean Y O U. There is a thread running with each of you; so don't ever apply what I am saying to others; you will simply miss the whole thing yourself.

Generally, when we hear anything about health, we will immediately apply it to ourselves and see where we stand; we will see whether we have any of the symptoms being discussed. If I talk about the skin, you will feel your skin and see; if I talk about the heart, you will feel your heart beat and see. But when we hear anything about spirituality, somehow, we always apply it to others! Our family, our friends, our neighbours, but never to ourselves! The problem is, whatever I say, you think, 'Ah! I know myself well. This message is for my husband. Master is saying this so that my husband can change his ways. I hope he has got the message.'

When I talk about worries, you will immediately think of how much your mother worries. You forget how much you worry! I am telling you because you also worry. Probably your mother worries more than you, but that is not the point.

Understand that every word is for you. It will come like an arrow bringing with it the energy of transformation. Don't dodge it. Just allow it to go in and transform you. Don't keep looking at other people to see if they are showing signs of understanding.

If you have really understood everything, then you should not have any worries or discontentment or pain or fear or lust or jealousy or ego, am I right? But you have all of this in you. That itself shows that you have not internalized completely. First of all, know that you don't know. Then at least you know that you don't know! If you don't even know that you don't know, then you don't even know that you don't know!

Let me tell you one thing: in a deep spiritual experience, there will be no traveling. It is a moment's experience, that's all. All our so-called knowing is only creating a space inside us towards fully knowing. But ultimately, in the deeper sense, either we know or we don't know. But when we know more and more, we become clear that we don't know! That is enough. That will motivate us to really knowing.

In the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna Vishaada Yoga, which is the Yoga of Arjuna's grief, Arjuna talks throughout and Krishna remains silent. It is only when Arjuna finally surrenders saying, 'I know nothing!' that he is at last ready to receive Krishna's message.

Although Krishna and Arjuna were friends, though there might have been hundreds of other more relaxed situations, the Bhagavad Gita was not delivered to Arjuna anytime earlier.

Why?

Because until then, Arjuna was not ripe enough to receive the Gita! It is only when he utters the words, 'I don't know' that he becomes qualified to know. The basic condition for spiritual progress is to know very clearly that you don't know. This is the first step towards really knowing.

So ask questions and make things clear for yourself and for others. Only if you ask questions, things can be worked out in a more practical way, in a way more adaptable to your life.

Some of you may think that you may look like a fool if you ask some of your questions. I tell you: if you ask questions, you will only look like a fool; if you don't ask questions, you will remain a fool! So if there is any concept that you don't agree with, please raise your hand and clarify.

Understand: there can be no destruction on planet earth. There is always only transformation. All your so-called negative emotions like anger, jealousy and lust can be transformed into positive emotions like pure love, gratitude and compassion.

Society always teaches you to divide and destroy yourself. It never teaches you to become integrated. It places a wedge inside you between you and you, so that it can take control of you. It always talks to you in the language of lower and higher. It makes you think that you are inferior and makes you fight with yourself.

Society can rule you only if you are made to feel chaotic inside yourself. So it first makes you feel that you are no good and then comes up with remedies for it. That is why you start talking in this kind of inferior language.

A small story:

A man was suffering from a common cold.

He visited the doctor and asked for medicine.

It was just an ordinary cold. The doctor looked at him for awhile and said, 'Do one thing. Just go out for some time in the night and get the chill wind to touch you. Then come back.'

The patient was shocked. He said, 'But Doctor! I will catch pneumonia if I do that.'

The doctor said, 'Yes. I can cure pneumonia in no time.'

Society makes you become something and then teaches you ways to come out of it. Understand: there is no higher or lower; there is no good or bad. There is only transformation. When you learn to look in with awareness, automatically you will be transformed. This is always the master's approach. He never divides you; he always integrates you. He teaches you to look in and integrate.

The master never tells you that you are negative. There is no negative. What you call negative and positive are just two extremes of the same spectrum. Negative is not any physical entity for you to destroy. If you transform, you move in the spectrum towards higher positive energies, that's all.

As I said earlier, this transformation is possible if you are just open and receptive to what is happening here.

The famous question about maya is asked one more time! First thing: don't confuse yourself with complicated reading. Second thing: understand very clearly that there is nothing to be understood with the mind. The mystery of life cannot be solved with your mind. You cannot know the purpose of your life with your mind. That is why they say that your mind is an illusion.

The first step to solving the mystery of our life is 'dropping your mind'. If you allow your mind to play, you will continue to play, that's all. Life after life, you will play. Your deep inner thirst will remain unquenched. Probably your seeker ego will get fulfilled, but that is of no use. You become only more confused inside you.

Try to move your centre of operation from your mind to your heart or being. If you operate with your mind as the centre, questions and more questions will follow. With questions, you cannot know. Only with awareness you can know.

If you operate with your heart, awareness and understanding will happen in you and then automatically your questions will start dissolving; like when the sun rises, the darkness simply disappears. When awareness happens in you, understanding will happen and your questions will dissolve.

You will start understanding things even before you come to the question! In this way, the questions will dissolve. It is difficult to understand this, but once you get an experience of it, you will know exactly what I mean by awareness. Questions will disappear and understanding will continuously engulf you.

If you understand this much, you need not worry about maya or illusion. In addition to intellectual understanding from my words, meditation can help you switch to the mode of awareness easily. We can talk for hours about maya and illusion, but you will only get more confused.

Instead, it is worthwhile learning the solutions that will help us to live intelligently; that is enough. One thing I want to tell you: maya or illusion is everything that your mind projects, so that is why I say, don't bother about knowing maya. Instead start living with more awareness, more consciously. Then the question of maya itself will not be relevant.

As I said earlier, bliss is continuously happening in us. This is the actual truth. But we continuously stop the flow of bliss, and as a result, we suffer. Bliss is not something that you can get from outside and keep inside yourself. No. It is your inherent nature. When you arrive in this world, you are in a state of bliss. As society conditions you, you move far away from it. Then you start searching for ways outside of yourself to get it back.

We will see how to stop the stopping of bliss. When I say bliss, I don't mean the ordinary happiness that we feel in our everyday lives. Ordinary happiness is a result of something that happens outside: some happy occasion, some material benefit, some happy news, some relationship that worked out, something to do with a person or thing in the outside world. This kind of happiness is purely dependent on the people and circumstances outside of us. And this kind of happiness is what leads us to sadness also, because people and circumstances keep changing. They are not the same. Their behaviour is different at different times. And when their behaviour changes, our happiness too changes!

The bliss that we are talking about is different. It is purely a state inside yourself, which is in no way connected to outer world incidents. It is your core, your permanent state. When you find this, you will become a blissful watcher of the outer world. You will participate in it fully but without losing your bliss.

There was an old man in a family who could not be pleased at any cost.

He remained stubborn and grumpy, no matter how much his family tried to keep him in good spirits.

His children and grandchildren would come and visit him and try to cheer him up, but he would remain grumpy.

Suddenly one day, he became very gentle and cheerful.

His family was surprised at the sudden transformation.

His grand daughter asked him, 'Grandpa, how come you have changed so suddenly?'

The old man replied, 'All my life, I tried my best to get a contented mind, but never succeeded. So I have decided to be contented with it now.'

Everything is a projection of our mind! We can decide how we want to be. It is all in the mind. With the help of our mind, we have stopped the flow of bliss from within. That is the truth.

Understand: there is a universal consciousness that fills the entire cosmos and there is an individual consciousness that fills us. Man's whole purpose is to establish a connection between these two. When this connection happens, man is said to be enlightened or in eternal bliss or in THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM means eternal bliss.

Through listening to all the great masters' words and practicing all the meditation techniques, we become more and more aware of this connection and try to experience it. Because once the connection happens, everything becomes easy in the inner and outer world!

There are two types of people: those who fight with others and win and those who fight with themselves and win. It is easy to fight with others. It is not a big deal. But it is difficult to fight with yourself. When you are courageous, you will fight with yourself and win. You will destroy what you are not and emerge as a blissful being; you will flower.

The greatest challenge for man is to realize his entire potentiality. This can be done only when he moves inwards and keeps purifying himself again and again until he becomes intelligent enough not to gather more.

Actually, the word swami means one who has realized his full potential. All our difficulties on planet earth are because we are not able to realize our potentiality. There is a saying that goes: the lion that is not allowed to be a lion will become a fox. If we are not allowed to realize our true potential energy, we will start expressing it in a wrong way – either self-destructive or destroying others.

So the creative energy, the potential energy, should be allowed to express itself in a free-flowing way. Society should allow us, that is one thing, and we should also know the technique to express it. Swami means a man who has realized his potential power, who is expressing himself as he is; who is completely in tune with his being; who is blissful!

You have tremendous potential in you. Time and again psychologists and mystics have said that man is not living up to his full potential. Where are we missing it? Where are we stuck? Why are we not able to realize our full potentiality?

We need the courage to let go and explore, that's all. We will then know the answers to all these questions. When you start exploring sincerely, you will experience a shift in consciousness and this shift will open a space in you where you flower.

When you flower, you become a king. You will live like a lord on this planet. People may have all the possible comforts, money, knowledge and what not. But they will remain beggars if they have not found their inner space. To find your being is to become rich. Inner richness is real richness.

We have become so engaged with what goes on outside that we remain completely ignorant of our inner space. We are so caught up in the outer world adventure that we miss the wonderful adventures of the inner world. We miss what the great rishis and masters experienced in their lives. This experience is what I want to share with all of you.

Spirituality is nothing but the flowering of four things in you: physical health, mental health, smooth inter-personal relationships and the ability to respond spontaneously (what I call responsibility).

Physical health is being free from disease. When you visit a doctor, he should give you a report saying that you are clinically alright.

The second – mental health, is being free from all subconscious and deeply engraved negative thought patterns and being free from worries, pain, jealousy, discontentment, ego, lust etc.

The third – interpersonal relationships, is having a smooth relationship with everyone around you. It is not enough if you are just cordial with everyone. You should be able to go through any amount of interaction with any kind of person, without feeling pressure or pain! The moment you feel pressure or pain, it means that there is some block inside you, some block in your mental health.

The fourth – The ability to respond spontaneously, what I call responsibility. When you are able to take on responsibility, when you are able to say 'yes' to anything spontaneously, you will expand that very moment and energy will flow through you to accomplish it! Of course, it is up to you to use that energy to accomplish that task. When you keep doing this, you keep expanding.

So if these four things flower in you, then you are spiritual. And when this happens, it does not matter which profession you are in or whether you are married or unmarried or whether you are young or old.

First, don't go around telling others not to eat non-vegetarian food. In departments unknown, it is better not to involve yourself and get into trouble! Certain issues cannot be resolved by logical reasoning. If we tell people not to eat non-vegetarian food, they will ask you that like animals, plants also have life and why are we eating plants? What will you tell them? There is no end to this subject.

This much I can tell you: The human body right from the teeth is designed for chewing and digesting only vegetarian food. I am a pure vegetarian. I eat vegetarian food because it is conducive to my body. There have been many masters who ate non-vegetarian food. Of course, when enlightened masters do certain things, we cannot pass judgment on them because their actions cannot be interpreted by our common dictionary. We will be misconstruing and missing the whole thing.

Just one thing: don't categorize people based on their eating habits and don't force people to give up eating non-vegetarian food.

A small story:

At the time the television was introduced in Bharat, a new television was bought in a certain house of mendicants.

All except one person used to watch the programs on the television.

The who never watched the television used to go to the president of the house and complain about how the others were watching television for so many hours.

After he complained a few times, the president told him, 'You too should watch television from tomorrow.'

The man was shocked and asked why.

The president replied, 'You are not happy not watching and so you are grumbling about them. You have the desire to watch but you don't watch it because you want to feel solid inside yourself. But this suppression is causing you to complain!'

You see: if you are not completely happy abstaining from eating non-vegetarian food, you will land up compelling others to become vegetarians. Only when you are into something totally, you will never force another person to do it. When you are doing it with a doubt or half-heartedly, you will pull other people also into it. This is the scale to see if you are in something totally or not. When you are total, you are enough unto yourself with no regrets. So you will not trouble anyone else. You will allow them to have their freedom.

In fact, I would go on to say that those who eat non-vegetarian food for one hour a day and forget about it, are better off than those who eat vegetarian food and think about non-vegetarian food 24 hours a day!

A small story:

A Zen master was walking with his disciple towards his city.

On the way, there was a river and a beautiful woman was standing near it.

When she saw them, she requested the master to help her cross the river.

The master promptly carried her to the other side of the river, left her there and returned.

The disciple was totally disturbed by what he saw. He was burning inside.

As they walked along towards the city, he couldn't resist asking, 'Master, how can you as a master touch and carry a young girl?'

The master replied, 'I left her there long back, why are you still carrying her?'

Masters always answer the questioner who is asking the question, never the question itself. In this story, the master could have as well explained to the disciple that to an enlightened person is beyond gender. But he did not do that. He made the disciple understand that the block was in the disciple's mind, not the master's act!

If you feel you cannot give up non-vegetarian food without craving for it, eat until it drops on its own. Please understand, this does not mean that I am advocating non-vegetarian food. For my own life, body and mind, vegetarian food is conducive and so I eat it. If you wish to adopt my way of life, become vegetarian, that's all!

But don't give it up and crave for it, and torture other people also to give it up. We all take up small issues like vegetarianism and contemplate on it for hours together; that is the problem.

There are three categories under which you can fall:

First would be, not to eat non-vegetarian food and not to think about it. The second category would be, to eat it and forget about it. The third category would be, not to eat it yourself, but feel deprived and hence torture people around not to eat it as well! Please don't fall in the third category!

You see, when you take in something with your mind, something that has been told to you from outside, you don't see its benefits clearly and deeply, although you understand it at the intellectual level. But when you experience something deeply yourself, it becomes your own understanding and so you stand by it without any problem.

The cigarette has merged with your being. You have experienced it yourself. It is not through someone else's preaching; it is your own experience. So your heart accepts it.

But the happiness that you get by offering your seat to someone on the bus is something that you have not experienced deeply. You have been told by people that it is good to offer your seat to an elderly person in the bus, that's all. At the most, you will feel a certain satisfaction at having followed social etiquette, that's all. In the case of the cigarette, you have become the experience itself!

What you have not experienced for yourself will not attract or pull you to it. If you had really experienced the joy of helping others, you would have offered the seat to the old man.

For true experience to happen, meditation is the way. When we meditate, our heart, which is as hard as a stone, will flower and become as soft and sensitive as cotton, and we will feel the compassion towards others.

At present, we either read in some magazine or we are told by elders that it is good to give our seat to older people in the bus, that's all. Instead, what should happen is, that feeling of helping should flower within us and we should offer help.

Sensitivity will become a way of life only if meditation has happened in you, or else it will remain just skin deep. Meditation is like a drill that pushes the teachings received through the head to the heart. Then, justice, honesty and similar virtues will become a way of life. Otherwise, all these virtues will remain as intellectual knowledge without turning into experiential knowledge.

Thank you.