Introduction

Alright, let us now get into the subject.

First, let us see how the human mind works. The mind is

the only thing that stands between you and You. If you can drop your mind, You become enlightened!

Before we get into how the mind works, let me explain something about the mind and how the presence of a master can change the entire mental setup of a person:

There are two things in you: hardware and software. Your mind is the software, your brain is the hardware. In the mind itself, that is in the software itself, there are two parts – the conscious zone and the unconscious zone. The conscious zone is the actual software; the unconscious zone is the virus! The conscious zone can be cleansed by teachings. The unconscious zone can be cleansed by meditation. Now the hardware, that is the brain itself needs to be then tuned to hold the changes in the software, that is the new experience that is created through the changed software. This can happen by the blessings of the master, by initiation from him.

When you clean the conscious and unconscious and create an effect, the hardware may not be able to hold and sustain that effect. If the master's initiation happens, the hardware also changes to hold that effect. In the absence of a living master, constant meditation and teaching can change the hardware. Our current hardware is like grooves created out of samskaras (stored past memories) in the brain. Once the new software happens, the hardware will slowly change. But if you wish to immediately change the hardware, the master's presence is the right thing. Straightaway it will change the hardware.

Sometimes, without even changing the software, the hardware can be changed and the person will directly start radiating the correct software! This can happen when a disciple is completely open to the master; if he is in love with the master for no reason. Sometimes a disciple falls in love with the master for no reason. He may not be attracted to his teachings or to his meditation techniques; he simply falls in love, that's all. In that case, straightaway, you can change the hardware. Those kinds of disciples will simply radiate the quality of the teachings and meditation without even going through all of them.

As of now, both hardware and software in you are outgoing, towards the outer world. If you get the right understanding. suddenly the software becomes ingoing; going in, towards spirituality, towards a cleansing process. The conscious portion is cleansed by the teachings and the unconscious portion by meditation. But even if the software turns inside, the hardware will not be able to handle it. Then naturally, the hardware will try its best to retain its current grooves. If the software is very strong and stays in the same tune, the hardware will slowly change. But immediately, if after the teaching and meditation is given, the initiation is also given, the hardware will also change and start holding the new software. It will get prepared to hold on to the new experience. This concept has to be understood clearly so that you may bring in enough awareness to allow the transformation to happen in you.

How does the mind work? Just look at this diagram here. It is a diagram to show how the information that enters through the eye is processed; actually, not just the information through the eye but information through all the fives senses - nose, ears, tongue, touch and eye. As an example, we are taking the eye. Let me explain it to you.

When you see something, first, the eye sees it. There is something called chakshu in Sanskrit, which digitizes the information seen by the eye. It is something like a digital signal processor – the DSP. The signal or the input is converted into a digital file by this chakshu. This conversion happens to the information received through all five senses, not just the eye.

Then the file goes to the memory. In Sanskrit, we call this portion chitta. In the memory, a little more work is done on the file. For example, if you are seeing me now, the file is processed through the chakshu, then taken to the chitta, memory and the memory starts analyzing the information. It does a process of elimination on the file received. It starts saying, 'This is not an animal, this is

not a plant, this is not a rock etc.' The process of elimination is done by the chitta.

Then the file goes to the mind or manas. The mind does the job of identifying the file. It says, 'This is a human being; a human being who is conducting a class.' The mind concludes, 'This is it.'

Next, the whole file takes a quantum leap to the ego and your ego decides based on your past experiences what your next action or decision will be. If you have past experiences with similar classes, say yoga or meditation, and they have been alright for you, if you think that it has helped you, you will decide to sit here, or else you will think it is better to leave!

Just try to understand this process: you are seeing me. The eye passes the information to the chakshu. The chakshu converts it to a digital signal. The memory then does all the elimination on the file – 'This is not…', 'This is not…' Then, the mind does the identification of the file – 'This is it.' Then the whole file takes a quantum leap to the ego. Here, you decide based on your past experiences, whether to sit here or leave the hall.

The process of elimination versus that of identification can be more easily understood by understanding this:

Let us say you want to find the word 'Home' in the dictionary. You start from the letter 'A' and you eliminate: not A, not B, not C, until you come to the letter 'H'. Until you come to the letter 'H', it is only an elimination process. Once you come to 'H', it is an identification process. You start identifying 'HO', then 'HOM', then you come to 'HOME'. Even in the identification process, there is elimination, but that cannot be considered elimination, because your whole attitude is changed during this time. Until you come to 'H', you don't even look at anything; you only eliminate. Once you come to 'H', 'H' becomes a standpoint. Then you start looking for HO, HOM, etc.

So, it is like this: you have thousands of files stored in your mind. Now let us say that you are seeing me. You will first start eliminating: this is not a stone, this is not a tree, this is not an animal. Then you come to the conclusion, 'This is a man.' Once you come to man, you start identifying: saffron clothed, my master, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM etc. So through elimination you find the right classification. In identification you go in-depth into that classification. Elimination is breadth, identification is depth. The elimination process is like handling many files. The identification process is like going deeply into a file.

Now, the process between the eye and the mind is logical and conscious. You are completely aware of this process. It happens with your awareness.

Now, the quantum leap from the mind to the ego is mostly unconscious. That is the time when the actual decisions are made and is mostly an unconscious process for you. It happens without your awareness. During this time, you decide illogically. You make an illogical decision.

Why does this happen? Why do you decide unconsciously and regret it later?

The reason is, this unconscious zone is filled with negative memories and restlessness; all your past memories which we call

samskara in Sanskrit. All your past thought patterns are stored in this zone as files. In the field of psychology they use the word ito denote these stored memories. There are so many files stored in this zone. Without any logical connection between them, these memories or incidents are stored here.

What happens is, when the file takes a quantum leap to this zone, there is so much data stored, which causes so much restlessness in you, that the file does not even reach the ego properly for a decision. These stored engrams simply start playing upon the information received. They just impose themselves and cause havoc in the decision making process.

As a result, the ego just makes a hasty decision - purely at the instinct level, and passes the file back. The decision is taken through an unconscious process.

For example, according to the data that you have collected, you know that smoking is injurious to your health; it is not good for your body or your mind. You hold on to this decision as long as you are in the conscious zone. But once the mind takes the leap to the ego, the engrams just instruct you to smoke; you simply decide to smoke! The conscious process says, 'No, it is not good for health.' But the unconscious process says…actually it doesn't even say, it just takes the decision and you execute it! It is a pure instinct-level decision.

This unconscious area is very powerful. It can be used in three ways – at the instinct level, at the intellect level or at the intuition level. As long as the unconscious is overloaded with negative memories and restlessness, it works at the instinct level, as we just saw. You simply decide instinctively, unconsciously.

When you are at the instinct level, you always end up regretting most of your decisions. You wonder, 'Why did I behave in that fashion? This is not me! How did I allow this to happen? How did I make that decision?' This happens because the unconscious is working at the instinct level. At this level, you just associate things without any logical connection and jump to a conclusion unconsciously.

For example, if you have been disturbed by somebody who was wearing a white dress, the moment you see somebody wearing a white dress, the past memory simply comes up without your knowledge and you feel anger. This is the instinct level. Without your conscious mind, without even you understanding, just like that it happens.

In the mind map diagram, when you have to plough through many files in the quantum leap to the ego, you are at the instinct level. When the file goes to the unconscious, the decision is made with many distortions. You will be continuously passing judgment on the pending decision. Your unconscious will be overloaded with your memory files. When you function this way, you will also feel tired.

It is something like this: when your hard disk is loaded with all high-resolution photographs, there is no scope to work further on your hard disk. In the same way, when your unconscious is loaded with many past thoughts, it becomes inefficient and makes superficial and illogical decisions.

The next is the intellect level. Here, you are conscious; you make decisions logically, but you do not have any extra enthusiasm or energy. You are not creative or innovative; you don't take big steps; you don't grow. You are like a faithful servant. Einstein says, 'The intellect is a faithful servant.' You can be a servant throughout your life. You can be just a servant, but nothing more or big can be done through you.

At this level, you will just be collecting the data, processing it and delivering it; you will be nothing more than a computer. You don't make wrong decisions out of restlessness; you make decisions in a logical and conscious way. You are in a break-even state. At this level, you are still not using your potential to the maximum – the extent to which it can be used.

The next level where you can actualize your entire potential is the intuition level. If you can infuse a deep silence and awareness into the unconscious zone and replace your engraved memories or files with silence and awareness, you can be at the intuition level.

If you can be free from your memories, be empty and blissful in this unconscious zone, if you can be alive and fresh every moment without the burden of your past, without the burden of these engrams, the energy of your being will express itself in its purest form. When this happens, we can say that your intelligence is at its peak, because energy IS Intelligence. Then, you make decisions out of an energy called intuition, where you simply know with tremendous clarity. Understand: The past memories are themselves not the problem. The bondage to them is the problem.

When you are at the intuitive level, you will make decisions from the energy of your intuition, from deep awareness and peace, from bliss!

This concept needs a deep understanding. You need to go deeply into the whole science, only then will you be able to understand what I mean by the word, 'intuition'. Intuition is something which happens in you beyond your intellect.

What is intuition?

Let me explain. Suddenly you know for sure that something is the right thing and you feel that you have enough energy also to do it, but you don't know the steps involved in doing it. You don't know the steps that led you to the conclusion but you know for sure that your conclusion or decision is right. This is intuition.

This energy of intuition is needed when you are faced with a situation with no precedent. When you are stuck with minimum data and you need to make decisions, or you have many choices and you are not able to decide, in such situations, the energy of intuition helps you. Not only in such situations…if you can be in this zone of your being continuously, you will be totally present in every moment and you will give birth to future moments also in the same fashion.

If you try to assimilate what I am telling you now, if you can just spend a few minutes sitting with yourself and feel how your stored engrams are causing havoc in you and burdening you, if

you can just see the truth in what I am saying, you will slowly know the knack of how to get out of this cycle and move to a higher plane of your being.

One more thing with intuition: it gives you the energy not only to make the decision but also to execute what you have decided. When I say this to people, they ask me, 'Swamiji how do I find out whether I am having an intuition or I am just being intellectual.' They tell me, 'Swamiji, I am confused about whether it is intellect or intuition.' I tell them: be very clear: if you are confused, it is only intellect. The very confusion shows that it is only intellect! When you have intuition, you will be so confident and brimming with energy that there will be no room for confusion.

With intuition, the potential power which is inside your being is simply unleashed. You open up and start expressing it, executing it. If you read about scientists and CEOs who have been involved in major breakthroughs in their fields, again and again they say their success came from something beyond their intellect, that something gave them the energy or the guts to make those decisions.

Each and every one of you has the power of intuition in you. Let me ask you: how many of you have experienced at least once in your lives, that when you are thinking of a particular person, the phone rings and that very same person is on the line? Or you enter a place and you feel you have been to the place before? Or similar intuitive things?

You see, these are the moments of intuition that you have experienced accidentally in your lives. During these moments, you are accidentally in a meditative state. In these moments, your being tries to relate with you. But what do you do? You brush these things aside as coincidence and ignore your being. You completely ignore the higher dimensions of your being. How can something that has happened to 80% of you be a coincidence?

Be very clear: these moments of intuition are clear signs of the latent power in you. If you recognize and encourage it, you can express the higher dimensions of your being.

The other day I had an opportunity to have a meal with Dr Charles Townes, Nobel laureate in the field of LASER and MASER. I asked him, 'How did it happen? How were you able to do this?' He answered in a beautiful way. He said, 'I was just sitting in a park in Washington DC and suddenly something happened in me. Suddenly the conclusion was revealed to me. I immediately wrote down what I got. I then realized that I had a difficulty. I had the conclusion but not the steps! I was not able to present it to anybody because I knew only the conclusion; I did not know the steps. Then when I sat down, I was able to get the logical steps.'

Not only with Charles Townes, even Albert Einstein the famous scientist says, 'Whatever new understanding happened in me, came through intuition, not through intellect*.' He says beautifully, 'The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant.*' We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Whether we believe it or not or accept it or not, there is something called intuition in us. Of course, even Einstein calls this a gift because he didn't know whether it could be consistently had. He was not sure when it would happen and whether it would happen or not. But yogis, the great eastern mystics, again and again say that you can very well have it all the time. You don't have to think that intuition is a gift. You can work for it. It can become a part of your life.

When intuition happens beyond your intellect, your whole being is integrated. You are at your peak. When you are at your peak, something opens. You may call it a revelation or an intuition or something else. Yogis have again and again said that it is a science. If you can tune yourself to this energy of intuition which is continuously available in your being, you can use this in your regular life.

Intuition is the energy of your being. When this pure energy starts flowing out from the unconscious level, it also heals you physically, mentally and emotionally. Apart from healing, it reduces stress and helps you to make decisions spontaneously.

Spontaneity has nothing to do with the data that you collect; it is something to do with the way in which you process the data.

The same data, the same information, can be processed in many ways. Intuition is all about how you process data and how you come to conclusions not limited by your intellect. We can prepare ourselves; we can tune ourselves to this energy of intuition through techniques and methods.

These techniques are what we call meditation. In the East, we use the word meditation to tune ourselves with the higher energy which is in our being, and which continuously invites us to experience it.

Whenever you find time, just sit with yourself and observe yourself. We are always ready to give appointments to others, but never to ourselves…! If you just sit with yourself, you can always see that some part of your being wants to express, wants to do something more, but you never give the chance or time to that portion of your being.

We are so caught up with our intellect. We think that our intellect is the ultimate, but again and again yogis have proven that something more than intellect is possible.

If we understand how the mind works, how to unload the deeply engraved memories in our unconscious, how to prevent further loading and how we can awaken the latent power of our being to move into the zone intuition, we can live like a master and not a slave.

Just take a look at this chart here. Here you are able to see a human form with seven markings on it. Are all of you able to see? Yes. These seven markings on this human form are called chakras.

The chakras are the subtle energy centers of our body. They are seven wheels of energy in our body.

We don't have only one body, as we think. We have seven bodies – energy bodies. I will explain the first three bodies now.

The first body – the one in which you have come here, in which you are moving, talking and writing – this is called the jagrat shareera - the physical or waking body.

The next body is the sukshma shareera - the dream body, the one that you use in your dream state. It is the body you use to travel from place to place in your dreams! In your dreams, you see yourself in various places. Sometimes you see yourself in places which you have not even been to in the waking state.

The third body is the kaarana shareera - the causal body, which you use when you are in deep sleep. This body does not move.

Now, the latter two bodies meet the physical body at seven points along the length of the physical body. These seven points are known as the chakras. There are seven major chakras in our body. There are also a number of minor chakras, but these seven are the major ones that are responsible for our physical and mental well-being.

These chakras were discovered a long time ago during the vedic age. In fact, in many of the spiritual chants, you will find reference to the names of these chakras very often. Today science has proved that there is a gland located near each of these chakras that is related to that particular chakra. These seven chakras supply energy to the glands.

These seven major chakras deeply influence our physical, emotional and mental activities. They have great power. They are energy centers and if they are kept in a cleansed and energized condition, they can cause us to live an ecstatic and healthy life.

Dis-ease is only an imbalance in any one of these chakras, because our body and mind are rooted in our inner consciousness. Keeping these chakras in a healthy state, we can see a transformation happening in us at the mental and physical levels.

Let me tell you a small story:

After World War I, a biplane was abandoned near a remote tribal settlement in Asia. The tribal people had never seen an aircraft in all their lives. There was a lot of excitement and commotion about it and a big crowd gathered around it. They wondered what it might be and each one started giving some suggestion about it. They finally concluded that since it had wheels, it must be a bullock cart! News spread in the village about the new bullock cart. There was a lot of celebration in the village and the biplane was taken around the settlement yoked to bullocks, and it served as a bullock cart.

Some weeks later, a young tribal boy who had returned from the city where he was studying, saw the biplane. He got into it and looked around. He saw all the gears and mechanisms in it. He fiddled with the switches and levers. Suddenly, the engine came to life! He managed to taxi the plane on the ground for a short distance and the villagers were shocked at what they saw. The boy had seen tractors being used and declared to the people that the biplane was not a bullock cart but some kind of tractor.

There was great celebration once again and the biplane started being used as a tractor!

Six months passed by and a retired army officer came to the village. He saw the biplane being used as a tractor and was shocked! He told the villagers that it was not a tractor and that the plane could actually fly.

They refused to believe him because the only things they had ever seen flying were birds! The army officer got into the aircraft, flew it for a short while and landed.

The villagers were wonderstruck. Then they understood its true potential.

Understand: man is a wonderful mechanism meant to fly. But we don't know our true potentiality. We have a very limited view of ourselves. Most of us operate only as a bullock cart, at the instinct level, surrendering to our emotions.

When we associate ourselves with mostly external things like a home, a car, a profession, and other basic things, we use our bodies as a bullock cart. We just operate at the instinct level and remain with an over-loaded unconscious mind.

When we additionally move into art, creativity, philosophy and such things involving not just the mind but the heart also, we use our bodies as a tractor. We will find a certain fulfillment in ourselves. A poet who has given birth to a poem will be happier than a woman who has given birth to a child. In the case of the latter, the womb is centered in the stomach whereas in the former it is centered in the heart, and so the fulfillment. These people will be able to operate at the intellectual level.

Finally, the man who enters into spirituality and develops a thirst for true knowledge and realizes that he is the ultimate existential energy in physical form, uses his body as an aircraft! Enlightened masters use their bodies as an aircraft. They are so ecstatic all the time. They rise beyond all the miseries of the bullock cart and tractor and just fly! They operate at the intuitive level.

What should we do to become an aircraft? What was the difference between the villagers and the army officer? The aircraft remained the same. Nothing was added to it or removed from it. No physical changes were made in it. Then what was the difference?

Knowledge. The knowledge of the mechanism of the aircraft. The villagers did not know that the device had such a mechanism that could be operated in a way that it could fly, whereas the army officer knew about it, that's all. The technique with which they handled the aircraft made it first a bullock cart, then a tractor and then finally an aircraft.

Just like this, there are mechanisms or gears inside us, called the chakras, which are boundless energy centers. Each of them is associated with a particular emotion within us. If we understand how to handle the emotion properly, we can function as an aircraft.

When we understand the science behind some of our basic emotions, we can become aware of our present deep unconscious state. Then we can free ourselves from the load of the unconscious and start moving to the higher dimensions of our being.

These chakras are not physical entities in our body. They are metaphysical representations because they belong to the auric body and not the physical body. Kirlian photography has enabled us to capture these chakras and prove their existence on the metaphysical plane.

It has been proven that when a person is locked with a particular negative emotion, the chakra associated with that emotion shrinks to the size of a coat button. It becomes that small. But when the same person experiences the associated positive emotion, the chakra expands to the size of a cartwheel! This is the effect that our emotions have on these energy centers, our chakras.

Our energy flow in these chakras is blocked by our negative emotions and we are totally unaware of it.

Understand: man has not been designed to be a worm that crawls on the ground; he has been designed to fly in the air. Just as the villagers had no idea that the device could fly, man has no idea that he can fly. Man always thinks that enlightened people are gifted people and that he should stand at a distance and look at them with awe and respect. He never aspires to become like them. I tell you now: if you are really interested in achieving in the inner world, you will achieve it, come what may. The problem is, you don't believe that you can achieve. Just as the villagers refused to believe that the device could fly, you refuse to believe that you are actually designed for much higher things.

A small story:

A young girl was learning how to play the piano. She was struggling to cope with the master's lessons. The man next to her was an expert pianist and was playing a song by himself. The little girl walked over and watched him play for sometime. She finally asked, 'Sir, do you by any chance have more fingers than I do?'

We always think that we are not gifted as we should be. The truth is, we have all that we need in us already. We only don't know how to use it effectively. Most of us express our potential like a bullock cart or a tractor. We don't know that it can transform into being an aircraft. The power to fly lies within you, but it can lie latent forever unless you learn the science behind your own emotions.

In these few days, you will get a clear insight into your basic emotions.

A master is one who talks out of his experience of the ultimate truth. He talks with the ultimate authority because he has had the ultimate experience. We are all generally under the impression that only with age and experience, maturity happens and one can flower.

Masters are living examples to show that you don't need time to mature and flower. Let me explain this further to you:

When you were a child, you were very much attached to your toys, were you not? If someone took a toy away from you, how would you have reacted? You would have screamed and cried as if your whole life depended upon it, right? But now that you have grown up, if someone takes a toy away, will it matter to you? Will you feel upset? No! You are no longer attached to the toy. When knowledge descends on you, maturity happens naturally.

This kind of knowledge and maturity, although we feel can come only with age, actually have nothing to do with physical age; they are to do with what is called mental age. Research has found ways of detecting a man's mental age. They have found that the average man's mental age is not more than 14!

With a man's physical age, he needs to go through all possible experiences, make all possible mistakes, and become experienced and mature.

It is something like this:

When we touch the flame of a candle, we get burnt and learn that the candle flame burns. Next we touch the fire on the stove and learn that the stove fire also burns. Next we touch the cigarette butt and learn that, even that burns. Then we touch burning coal and learn that it too burns.

By touching various forms of fire, we learn that all forms of fire burn. By the time we learn this, it becomes time for us to go to the burning ghat ourselves! This is what we call learning by experience; acquiring knowledge with physical age. It takes you a lifetime to learn your lessons. With progressing age, you learn – at your own sweet pace.

On the other hand, just by touching the first fire, if you understand that all forms of fire burn, you are intelligent! This does not require age to learn. It requires only intelligence. This signifies your mental age. That is why we say that wisdom has nothing to do with physical age. It is a question of how intelligent you are, how much you have nurtured your inner intelligence to understand things.

Let me explain with things that happen in your own life:

During student life, when you are in college, you feel that you will be happy when you get a job. Once you get a job, you somehow don't feel the same happiness that you thought, you had expected, but you console yourself saying that you will be happy when you get married.

After marriage you feel that you will be happy when you have children.

You run after each desire thinking that you will be happy only when that desire gets fulfilled. In this way, you run to the end of your life and realize that none of your desires really gives you true happiness. Then you turn towards spirituality and meditation! This is the life of a man who learns with physical age, by experience.

A man with an advanced mental age is one who learns through intelligence; he is the one who clearly understands from his first desire, that no desire when fulfilled will give him true happiness. There lies the difference. He will be able to see through the whole and analyze the whole thing. He will know that real fulfillment comes from inside and not from outer world things.

To attain this wisdom, you need not be aged, you need to be in the present, that's all. When you are in the present, Existence itself will teach you. Existence is the greatest master. When we are not in the present, when we are all the time running behind the past and the future, we take our own sweet time to learn, that's all.

Over the years, if you take the lives of enlightened masters like Buddha, Adi Shankaracharya, Bhagwan Sri Ramana Maharshi and Swami Vivekananda, all the enlightened people who created the history of Bharat, they all attained enlightenment at a very young age. So understand that age is not related to spirituality or learning.

That is also why they say, 'You are as old as you are.' It means, you are as old as your mental age is. You are as old as your maturity is, not as old as your physical age is. You may be 70 years old but have the understanding of only a 20-year old. Or you may be 18 years old and have the maturity and understanding of an 80-year old. So you cannot claim superiority just because you are old by age!

A beautiful story about Swami Brahmananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa:

One day Swami Brahmananda was meditating in Brindavan. A devotee came and placed a costly blanket before him as

an offering. Swami Brahmananda said nothing. He silently observed what was going on.

A couple of hours later, a thief came by, spotted the blanket and took it away.

Still the Swami watched in the same way, silently, with no reaction!

The gaining and losing of the blanket made no difference whatsoever to him!

There is a similar story in the life of Bhagwan Sri Ramana Maharshi:

One day, some thieves entered his ashram. They took whatever little they could find and before leaving, even gave him a blow.

It is said that not only did Bhagwan show no reaction, even the pace of his breathing did not alter during the incident! He was supremely unperturbed by the whole incident.

When we become a mere watcher, our mind becomes just a tool in our hands. We can then use it as we wish to. Otherwise, our mind can simply make us its slave. If you can use your mind when needed, you have learnt to drop it! And you have become a master!

So in these few days, we will see how to handle our emotions and become a watcher of our lives; how to center ourselves well inside us and function in the periphery in an undisturbed fashion. We will see how to create a mental setup which is free from engraved memories that are responsible for our unconscious decision-making. We will see how to harness the energy of intuition in us; how to move from unconscious to conscious to super conscious; how to move from instinct to intellect to intuition; how to bring forth the fountain of bliss from within us!

We will meet for the next session.

Thank you.