Drop The Ego

Seriousness is nothing but paying undue importance to something, at the cost of everything else. It stems from the inability to see that all of life is just a drama that is unfolding every minute. Seriousness is the result of over-expectation from life.

A small story:

Two boys were building sand castles on the beach.

They suddenly had a quarrel and one of the boys got angry and kicked the sand castle.

The other boy went and complained to the king about it.

The king began to laugh at him for making so much out of just sand castles.

But the king's advisor, a Zen monk, started laughing at the king.

He asked, 'When you can fight battles and lose sleep over stone castles, why do you laugh at these boys for fighting over sand castles?'

If you really go to see, all our seriousness is just about sandcastles! For the child, at that young age, sand castles seem

precious, whereas for us at our age, stone castles seem precious, that's all. Whether it is a sand castle or stone castle, the seriousness behind it is the same; just the object of seriousness is different. So don't laugh when children fight over sand castles.

Seriousness closes your mind to the openness and freedom of life. It makes you dull and dead. It curbs your thinking and makes you stick to the familiar patterns that you know all the time. It makes you egoistic.

In a Zen monastery, there was a competition among disciples as to who had the best garden. One disciple was a very serious sort. He took the competition also very seriously. He kept his garden always neat and clean, and well-swept. All the grass was of the same height. All the bushes were neatly trimmed. He was sure that he would get the first prize. On the day of the competition, the master went around all the gardens. Then he came back and ranked the gardens. This disciple's garden got the lowest ranking. Everyone was shocked. The disciple went and questioned the master about it. He asked, 'Master, what is wrong with my garden? Why did you rank me the lowest?' The master looked at him and asked, 'Where are all the dead leaves?'

A garden maintained in such a way is no longer alive! It is dead.

Seriousness kills creativity. It destroys spontaneity.

Science has proved that when you perform a task in a relaxed and light manner, your thinking and decision-making capacity is automatically enhanced. The same task when performed in a serious manner dulls your mind.

All our seriousness is just sickness. When I say all, I mean ALL. And all our sickness originates from seriousness. Seriousness begets sickness and sickness begets seriousness.

One night, a man called me on the phone and started crying.

He said, 'I fall at your feet, Swamiji! Please help me. I'm so depressed! I am going to end my life!' and so on.

I tried to calm him down, and finally said, 'Why don't you come to the ashram tomorrow morning and spend a few days with me? Let us see what can be done.'

He replied, 'Tomorrow Swamiji? Oh… tomorrow I have to go to the office… shall I come next weekend?'

Most of us are like this: getting unnecessarily tense about our socalled problems. Just one jolt is enough and our seriousness will drop. When we wake up to reality, we see how insignificant our problems really are.

When you do something too seriously, when you are too concerned about the result, you are actually not allowing yourself to perform at the optimum level.

Of course, you need to make plans, you need to think ahead, but with sincerity, not with seriousness. Seriousness is not the same as sincerity. Sincerity is focusing on the task with enthusiasm and youthfulness. Sincerity is giving the task your best without worrying excessively about the result.

When you are serious, you don't enjoy; you don't laugh. How can you laugh when you are serious? Either you are serious or you are laughing. You can't be both at the same time because the very definition of seriousness is such.

But when you are sincere, you can be laughing and playful. You can continue to do in a playful and joyful way, and because you have finished the job, you have been sincere!

With sincerity, there is no worry, there is only enthusiasm.

When you are serious, you are egoistic, because you fail to see that the whole thing is only a cosmic drama. You feel that you are a separate entity… too much of 'I' and so you are serious. If you understand that the whole thing is only a drama, you can never be serious. When this understanding happens at a deep level, you will do things for the sheer joy of moving in tune with the cosmic drama or Existence.

You see, there are two types of planning: chronological planning and psychological planning.

Chronological planning is planning on a timescale. You decide that you will get up at such and such a time, finish your morning routine by a particular time, reach the office at a particular time, and get certain tasks done that day at the office. This is alright. It is a practical way to organize your work in order to get the best results. This kind of planning with sincere action will take you from happiness to more happiness.

Psychological planning on the other hand, is planning in your head with no relevance to time or space. It is just constant serious planning going on in your head, over and above the chronological planning. It is actually nothing but complex negativity being applied to the chronological planning that has already been done. It keeps you thinking that you are serious and dutiful. But you get into a dull state because all your energy is going into analyzing the plan again and again.

Psychological planning boosts your ego. It makes you feel great and worthy. It makes you feel that you are handling things of a great magnitude. It makes you feel that it is wholly in your hands to worry about it and make it happen. This is psychological planning.

This is actually a way of postponing happiness, postponing life, waiting for something particular to happen to start enjoying life.

We always think, If I get married, my life will be settled. So let me work towards getting married.

It is the attitude of: now I'll be serious; later I'll be happy!

In the end, you will be happy neither now nor then. You will lose your capacity to be happy at any time.

Just live with simplicity, with spontaneity and with innocence; that will itself do the job.

Don't harp too much on perfectionism. I tell you: Perfectionism can make you neurotic. Whatever you do, do it wholly, totally. Then automatically, you will never worry about perfectionism.

Perfectionism is always something from your mind. It becomes a goal for you. You work towards it as a goal. And when you work towards it as a goal, it becomes dead and mundane. But when you are total, you are established in your heart, and it becomes a deep experience. The outcome then has to be beautiful and it will give you joy also. Then, whatever you do, you will be in tune with Existence.

Perfectionism never gives you joy; it only fulfills your ego. Even if you feel fulfilled at the end of it, it is only a fulfillment of your ego, never a fulfillment of your being. Be very clear that perfectionists are the biggest egoists. They miss the dimension of being total. Totality is possible when you enter into it deeply from your being. Perfectionism is never possible because it is in your mind and your mind keeps changing its definition of perfection.

Also, have the courage to make mistakes. Serious people are always afraid to make mistakes. They take themselves too seriously. They think too much about themselves. It is too much to make mistakes and have someone point it out to them. Actually I tell you, these people who are afraid of making small mistakes, end up making big blunders!

What is wrong in making mistakes? You will say, 'Swamiji, I can't afford to make mistakes in my work; that is why I am so serious.' What you say might be true; your work may not permit you to make mistakes, but that is not the point I am trying to make here. When you make a mistake, people will point it out and you will not be able to bear it. Your ego is bound to get hurt and you are very sensitive to this; you know this. So to avoid getting your ego hurt, you try your best not to make mistakes!

You plan so unconsciously and continuously to keep guarding your ego. But the reasons you give are all different. It is not that you are lying. It is just that you are not aware of the subtle way in which your system works. But if you deeply analyze and see, you will understand what I am saying.

There is nothing wrong in making mistakes. In fact, by making a few mistakes, you come to know clearly how to avoid making mistakes. The more you learn from mistakes, the more you know about how not to make mistakes.

Knowing how not to make mistakes is a very important thing. Only then you have seen both sides of it; only then you have explored the two sides experientially. Else, there is always the danger of falling into the unknown side at a critical time when you really can't afford to.

However, don't make the same mistakes again! Your mind always repeats patterns. Don't do it with mistakes also. Make new mistakes! And move on to better and better understanding!

I am not saying to deliberately make mistakes. That is foolishness again. I am only saying, do things to the best of your intelligence and enthusiasm but without worrying about whether it might be a mistake. The moment you are worried that it might be a mistake, you are worried about your ego getting hurt.

When you are not so concerned about your ego getting hurt, you will have the courage to take any jump. All your so-called worry is actually about your ego getting hurt. When you are free from it, you will act with more freedom and courage. You will be more willing to experiment.

A small story:

In a clubhouse, one man had finished his round of playing cards and was leaving.

He went to the coat stand and was putting on his coat, when suddenly a meek voice spoke behind him, 'Sir, are you Mr. Philippe?'

The man turned around and replied, 'No, I am not.'

The voice said, 'Thank God. I am Philippe and that coat is mine.'

We are so afraid that we might make a mistake and hurt our ego. So we move cautiously, with cordiality, just to be sure. These are nothing but passive forms of ego. You are so terrified of your ego getting hurt and so you behave in these ways. Drop all your guard of your ego and move about freely.

Move away from seriousness. Somehow, we always associate spirituality with seriousness. It is a big misconception. Seriousness can never be religion or spirituality.

Why do you think I keep telling you so many jokes and small stories? If I don't tell you all these things, you will start becoming very serious and when you become serious, you become dead and heavy. You will not be alive and light. I am not here to make you heavy.

I am here to unload you and make you light. I am here to show you that your seriousness is nothing but a form of your ego.

People who are loaded with the past and the future are always serious. They don't know how to laugh spontaneously. They feel that it is their duty to shoulder the past and future and be immersed in it in all seriousness. This is a very highly egoistic attitude. They feel that if they don't do it, there is no one to take care of it.

There is no need to shoulder the past and future. Just be in the present; that is enough. These people are completely missing the present. They are missing the laughter in their lives.

Laugh and let go your ego

Laughter is that which brings in a ray of energy from your being to your body. It totally rejuvenates your whole self. It can heal like nothing else can. It gives you such wonderful glimpses of the present, which you try to achieve through other difficult meditation techniques. Laughter is the most powerful meditation technique.

Laughter is the greatest spiritual quality. Sincerity and laughter always go together. As I said earlier, seriousness can never coexist with laughter. Either you are serious or you are laughing. When you are sincere, you can laugh and do your duty sincerely.

How many of us can laugh with all our heart? Even in laughter we manage restrain! The so-called social etiquette has taught us to laugh in a polite way. When kids laugh, we condition them. We are a spray of cold water on their laughter. We tell them, 'Now that is enough!' We try to condition even their laughter.

I have heard mothers telling their daughters, 'Don't laugh like a man; laugh like a lady.' How can you culture laughter? Laughter is something that comes from your being. I tell you, all the conditioning of your children is just to make replicas of your own dull and dead self. Until you replicate yourself completely, you will not rest.

I spent some time with a few children during my visit to America this year. I spent about an hour interacting with them. I was so shocked when I saw that they simply did not laugh however much I tried joking with them. Children these days take on pseudo maturity and manage to exclude laughter from their system. If they cannot laugh as kids, what will they do when they grow up? It was too much for me to see them.

People tell me that my laughter is infectious. With those kids, for the first time, my laughter seemed non-infectious! They were just looking at me with the same mature look on their faces. I left them afraid that they may make me serious!

You see, maturity does not have anything to do with how you laugh. But somehow, we feel that when we are mature, we should automatically laugh less.

Laughter is such strength because it brings in energy from your core to your periphery. If you sit through my sessions, most of the time there will only be laughter. Some joke will be cracked or some story told and everyone will be laughing. I never allow seriousness to set in. Even with people who live in the ashram, I never allow seriousness to set in.

A small story:

One very humorous speaker was invited to a town to deliver a speech.

He came to the program with a big group of people.

The organizers were surprised when they saw the number of people with the speaker.

The speaker saw their surprised look and explained, 'It is becoming difficult to get people to laugh these days, so I carry my own audience.'

In the so-called elite circles, people will be laughing, but in a very cultured and well-mannered way! This is not real laughter; this is dead laughter. Laughter can never be conditioned. If it is conditioned, it is not laughter; it is not the meditative laughter that we are talking about. It is simply an expression of the ego inside, that's all.

If you analyze why you laugh when a joke is cracked, you will understand: A set of logically connected statements is first told to you. When you are clinging on to that built-up logic, the punch line is delivered and your logic is shattered! At the moment your logic is shattered, your mind is also shattered and you are in a state of no-mind or satori. You are Buddha!

When you are in no-mind, you are in the present. When you laugh, you are in the present because when you laugh you are in no-mind. When you are thoughtless, you are in the present. When you are with thoughts, you are either in the past or in the future.

Laughter is total and it can simply heal and transform you. It is the best and most easily available medicine for humanity.

Life is so precious that it is not worth spending it on dull and lethargic moments. Laugh and infuse your life with energy and bliss. Just decide to enjoy continuously, whatever the job may be that you are doing. Be sincere, not serious.

When you laugh, you radiate energy around you; it is infectious; you radiate a therapeutic bliss around you. This is also why, when a person in a bad mood walks in, he radiates the same mood around him and there is every chance that the people around him will be affected by it. I always tell doctors to do some kind of cleansing meditation because they are continuously in touch with patients who come to them with a lot of negative thoughts and diseases.

We always think that we need a comedian or a joke to make us laugh. When you start living in the present moment, your very existence will be beautiful and light. Your inhalation and exhalation of breath, the process of bread getting converted to blood in your body, the synchronous happenings of events in Existence; everything will be so beautiful. You will feel so much bliss and you will be ever smiling and laughing. Your whole being will exude laughter and bliss.

Laughing at a joke is alright, but when you fall in tune with Existence, you simply enjoy the big cosmic drama that is happening and you laugh at everything. Then there is no place for seriousness, no place for ego. You are no more solid. You are porous and playful. You develop a deep understanding of the Existential game and so you laugh.

You are able to see that everyone is only a player who has become so serious with their role, and you laugh at that. You laugh at how each one is deceiving the other when playing the game. You laugh at the thought that you are playing a game! When you are able to laugh, you have become the watcher, and when you have become the watcher, you are separate from the 'I' and 'mine' - the ego.

A small story:

Once there was a conference of Buddhist monks on the meaning of true spirituality. Each monk went onto the stage and gave a long speech. Finally, it was the turn of a Zen monk to speak. He went onto the stage and simply started laughing! He laughed and laughed…from his being.

The laughter just rose from his belly. He started shaking uncontrollably with laughter.

His laughter was so infectious that soon all the others in the room started laughing, without even knowing why!

The laughter of all the monks produced a huge wave of positive energy in the room.

The monks reached a state of tremendous elevation.

Their thinking was shattered and their being was filled with bliss.

The Zen monk finally spoke, 'This is true spirituality.'

Laughter is the highest spiritual quality. It can lead you to enlightenment! Laughing is a great healing energy. If you laugh at your sickness, you will become healthy. Laughter is a beautiful way of connecting with the energy of Existence, which is pure healing energy.

In our meditation programs, we always include laughter and dance. They are the easiest ways to becoming a Buddha! Dance can make you simple and light. Dance, like laughter, is another easy and enjoyable meditation. When you can dance without a care, you become the dance itself. Energy will then gush from you.

You can dance without a care only if you are free from all your pseudo identities. As long as you think you are someone, you can't dance in joy. Dance is an outward expression of inner joy. And I am not talking about programmed dance where you know which step is going to come next. I am talking about letting go of your so-called identities and feeling the oneness with Existence and dancing with that joy.

The self-conscious ones are the egoistic ones. They are so bothered about what others will say about their dance and so they sit quietly. Again, they are guarding their ego and they are missing the joy of life like anything.

Once in a while at least, in your home, play some music and dance. Simply decide to let go. It can become an intense meditation that can take you beyond your mind and transform you in a way that words cannot. Be natural. Be original. The people who comment on your dance are simply missing out on the joy of dance. Don't bother about them. Just dissolve and become the dance itself. Laughter and dance are the easiest techniques to shed your ego and merge with Existence.

Simply put, when you no longer feel yourself as a separate entity, ego has dissolved. When you become enlightened, your ego has ripened and ruptured. When your ego drops, the resistance you posed earlier will disappear and Existence will simply flow through you.

Whether you know it or not, accept it or not, like it or not, Existence is trying to flow through you every minute, but you are so full of ego that you are unable to allow it. You miss the miracles of Existence because of your ego. You are unable to connect to Existence and so you continue to live in ego, ignorance and misery.

You are so full of ego that you are living far away from your own being. There is so much of accumulated stuff inside you that you need to get rid of, the stuff that you have accumulated over many lives; not just this one life. There is no space for even yourself inside yourself! And because of this, you are operating from your periphery all the time instead of from your inner being.

When your ego dissolves, you cease to exist separately, and you simply merge with Existence! This is the state of enlightened masters. I often tell people, 'Destroy what you are not.' People look at me with shock. When I say this, what I mean is, you are your inner being. That being is now contaminated with all that it is not - the various active and passive forms of ego. These are what you need to destroy and that is what I mean when I say, 'Destroy what you are not and you have arrived!'

You are a part of Existence, and whatever causes you to think otherwise, is ego. A fish, whether it likes it or not, whether it accepts it or not, whether it believes it or not, is a part of the ocean. It has two choices. It either lives happily in the ocean, or fights with the ocean and still continues to live in it, making its life miserable.

If you flow with Existence, you will enjoy every moment of your life. You will become, sensitive, creative and fluid.

A small story:

A teacher took her students out for a picnic. They played games, ate their snack and enjoyed themselves. Suddenly, the teacher drew their attention to a beautiful rainbow that had formed in the sky. The children looked up at it with awe. The teacher watched them and said, 'Alright now, let us give a clap to the artist behind it!' The students were for a moment confused, but quickly understood and broke into applause!

Children need to be taught to appreciate the Existential beauty surrounding them or else they will lose the connection with Existence very quickly and become egoistic. They should not be allowed to become mechanical and egoistic. They should be brought up to be porous and sensitive.

When you can appreciate Existence, you have come closer to it. The whole of Existence is creativity. A creative person is closer to his heart than his mind. When you create, you are close to God. God is the creator, the created and the creation. When you create, you express your being, the quality of Existence. When you create, you are showing your love and appreciation towards Existence; you are adding a little more beauty to Existence.

When you are full of wonder for Existence, you can create. On the other hand, when you are full of ego, you cannot create; and even if you create, your creation will be a dead creation. It will be like a plastic rose, which looks perfect but lacks the fragrance and life. When an artist creates out of love, he can give a special quality to the creation. If he creates out of ego, the creation is dead in a way.

When you are not in tune with Existence, you will miss the fragrance of Existence. It is as if, when a beautiful fragrance surrounds you, you are closing your nose with stinking fingers. This is ego. When you experience the fragrance of Existence, you will start experiencing the synchronicity in it also.

You will be able to resonate with the whole of Existence. You will be able to see that every single leaf and twig are orchestrations of Existence or God. When you are in this state, whatever you seek, you will find, because you are moving in tune with Existence. Life then becomes a miracle! This is what we call the synchronicity of Existence.

And understand one thing: When you are resonating with Existence, you will not seek greedily. Simply, Existence will keep giving you what you need for the moment – even before you seek it. This is what I mean when I say, 'Whatever you seek, you will find.'

The problem is, we have distanced ourselves very much from Existence, from our source, which lies deep within us. So we need constant reminders about it. You can start shedding your ego by first admiring and appreciating the beauty surrounding you. That itself will start sowing the seed of transformation in you. It will cause you to understand that there is a life force mightier than your ego, which is conducting this universe.

The more you lose yourself to Existence, the more egoless you become. The more egoless you become, the more you lose yourself to Existence!

You see, man never wants to let go in totality. He wants to cling on to something all the time and that something is his ego. Your ego is your very strength. You have guarded it so well over the years. It is the basis of your very existence.

You don't know that there is a world beyond your ego which is much more blissful than what you are feeling now. Your ego is a life-sustaining element for you. But the simple truth is – you have to let go of it!

It is like this: Imagine that there is a seed that is sown. The seed has to rupture for the tree to grow, is it not? If the seed thinks that it will wait for the tree to grow and then rupture, is it possible? No! Like this, man's ego has to rupture for him to blossom. The longer he guards his ego, the more he is postponing his own flowering.

Until man meets his master, he might not even know where his blockages are, where his ego is hindering. But once he meets his master, he will know! He can transform. The master's sole purpose is to remove the ego of each of his disciples.

The words and actions of a master will seem abrupt and inappropriate when you see it from your logic. But it is pregnant with the truth; it is pregnant with the single intention of destroying your ego. A master himself descends out of sheer compassion for mankind. He has no vested interest in anything or anybody. He is beyond the treacherous ocean of desire. He is here simply to lift you to the state he is in; the state of eternal bliss; the state where only consciousness exists without the 'I'.

In the Chandi recitation, which is a recitation of 700 Sanskrit verses on Devi, the female energy principle, it talks about how Chandi Devi kills the various evil demons. It is not that She killed real humans. If She had killed real humans, we would not be worshipping Her through the recital!

The demons symbolically represent the various kinds of evils or ego inside man and it is this ego that is slain by Devi to liberate man from them. We have to understand that. One of the demons is a buffalo-headed demon! This is to make us understand that some of us are so thick skinned that no matter how many times the master awakens us to his path, we firmly stick to our path! We are not sensitive to the master's call. Understand, arguing with the master is the greatest punishment that you give to yourself. I tell you honestly, when you are caught in arguing with the master, no one can do anything more to harm you. You harm yourself enough.

Anyway, the master knows how to make each one flower in his or her own way and the least that one can do is open up to him with faith and courage.

The very fact that you have come out with this statement means that you want to overcome your fear. You have decided to take the leap.

Let me explain. Your being has clearly identified me; but your mind is fighting. If your being has not identified me, you would not keep coming to me again and again. You face a lot of trouble at home for coming here, do you not? The easiest thing for you to do is stay at home and do your work. That would have made your family happy.

Why is it that you again and again want to come to the ashram and see me? Why do you want to again and again face the arguments at home for coming here? Is it not easier to just stay at home and make the others happy? The reason is, the pull that you feel is at the being level. It will not allow you to go back, once it has recognized me. Try as you might, you can't escape!

Your being now knows me. But your mind seems to be the hindrance. Remember to always follow your heart. That is exactly what you need to do here. When you follow your heart, you will reach me. When you follow your mind, you will keep missing me.

You are so afraid of losing yourself to me. That is your problem. Your ego comes under threat. You feel insecure about losing your identity. You start wondering where you are heading without an identity for yourself. Your ego faces a grave crisis when you come near me.

The ego immediately demands its food and the only way to provide it, is by running away from me. Your mind sways like the elephant's trunk, from one side of intense love for me to the other side of intense fear.

Remember, love is from your heart while fear is from your mind. Always, always, follow your heart. Love is natural; fear is societal. Fear and doubt are deeply related and are mere conditionings that have gone into you.

Understand very clearly that there is nothing wrong in doubting either. Doubt is your torch to enlightenment. It is very difficult for your mind to proceed without doubts. But your doubts should be ultimately transformed to trust. Only then you are progressing. As you move inwards, this will happen.

Just fall totally in love, that's all! Falling totally in love is falling totally into the egoless state. That is why a master who is in the egoless state is capable of only love and compassion. All other emotions like anger, irritation etc. are pseudo manifestations of his infinite love. He pretends to be angry and irritated. He comes down to your level, emotes at your level, and takes you through one more phase of understanding, that's all. He talks in your language until you understand his language - the language of Existence!

The first thing is to flood awareness into every action of yours. Become the watcher. You will start feeling that the whole thing is a drama and you are only watching it while playing a role yourself incidentally. The second thing is to stop being judgmental about everything that you see. When you stop being judgmental, you will simply love everyone and everything with total innocence.

When you are judgmental, you don't see what IS, you see what you want to see. Most of us have already formed our judgments in advance. They are the foundation stones for us. Then, we simply act using them as a base. Anything we see, the first thing we do is, view it through these judgments.

If we act in this fashion, how will we see things as they are? How will we ever fall in love? You can fall in love only if you welcome everything with freshness, with innocence. But what do you do? You start analyzing the pros and cons for even loving. When you start analyzing, you miss it. When you finally decide to do it, it may be too late.

See, the master-disciple relationship is there only for you to lose your ego. When you are alone, you cannot lose your ego. The master becomes the device, the support, for you to lose your ego. The more you dissolve into him, the more you will be ready to open up and lose your ego. When do you know that your ego is dissolving? When you start experiencing a certain joy that you have not experienced before.

You will start feeling joy for no reason at all. Just existing will make you happy. Of course, with the master, you are always undergoing a surgery of your ego and there will be moments of suffering as your ego is getting slashed. But when you emerge out of those moments, you would have taken many steps forward in your growth and you will feel boundless joy for no reason at all. Just look at young children. They are so enthusiastic towards life. They are so loving. Have you ever wondered why you are not as enthusiastic as them? You were like them once upon a time, were you not? Then, where have we lost this enthusiasm and innocence?

Experienced at what? Boredom? Be very clear: We all think that we are more mature than children and that we have the right attitude towards life while children need to go through life and acquire this maturity.

The truth is, we have become so intellectual, that we have lost our connection with our heart. We operate purely from our minds. Even our emotions are dictated by our minds. We have stopped emoting from our being. We have lost touch with our core.

When we arrived in this world, we were in a state of celebration and spontaneity. Over years, society conditioned us and created the mind for us. The mind then solidified itself and started dictating terms to us. The spontaneity in us got lost.

Let me tell you, in this whole process of shedding our ego, we are trying to rediscover the child in us. When we were young, we were closer to realizing God. As we grew and became so-called mature, our social conditionings marred the child in us.

So many people ask me, 'Swamiji, how is it that although you speak about the ultimate truth, you appear to be so childlike?' Now you tell me, am I childlike because I have not grown up and become mature? No! You simply interpret things in your own convenient ways, in your own philosophical ways; that is the problem.

But for societal conditioning, we have the ability to swim and fly without any training. It may sound absurd to you, but it is true. We have these abilities in us. We can swim and fly, until people start telling us that we are not capable of swimming and flying. If you place a new-born baby in a swimming pool, it will stay afloat without drowning.

The ego manifests itself in so many ways and we live according to it every minute of our lives. We all actually use masks in our day-to-day lives. We use one mask when we deal with our mother; we use a different mask when we deal with our father; we use a different one for our boss and so on. As long as we use the right masks with the right people, it is alright. The moment we use the wrong mask with a person, it means the ego has stepped in. All you have to do is switch masks efficiently and enjoy the show. Then you are a watcher and not involved in the game as a solid entity.

You can enjoy only when you know that you are something beyond the mask. Otherwise, you will get carried away by the mask and lose the whole charm of living. When you know that you are only using masks, your desires will drop.

It is like this: When you grow up, you automatically drop your toys. The toys don't interest you any more. In the same way, when you look at these masks intelligently, you don't have any desire for them; you simply use them and keep moving.

The ego manifests itself in many cunning ways. That is why all these explanations are needed about it. All these will help you see where you are standing as a blockage in your own journey inwards.

The fewer blockages you have inside you, the more fluid and flowing you become. When you have fewer blocks, you are more porous and vulnerable. When you have many blocks, you are solid and difficult to penetrate. Your ego poses such a solid barrier to everything.

For example, whenever someone says something to you, what is your first reaction to it? Your first reaction is a certain resistance, a 'No'. When you say 'No', it is so ego fulfilling. You feel solid and firm inside yourself. When you say 'Yes', you feel liquid and vulnerable. Your ego feels submissive. So you say 'No'.

This is also why you feel good when you break rules at home or school or workplace or anywhere. Actually, the moment you defy a rule, you will have a great feeling about yourself. School and college students feel good when they cut classes. Why? Because they feel good in breaking the rule. With small children, the moment you say they are not meant to have certain things, they will ask only for that. Grown ups also enjoy defying each other in so many ways.

Husband and wife rarely concur in the first instance about any suggestion! Take for example our own devotees. If the husband gets attached to me first, the wife's first reaction will be only resistance to me. She might even read my books secretly and like them, but in front of the husband, she will not be willing to embrace me. The same holds good for the wives who get attached to me first. Their husbands will do all that they can to make it difficult for them, before finally falling in tune with me.

Such is the play of ego. Saying 'Yes' keeps you flowing naturally in a liquid state with no blocks. This does not mean that you should blindly say 'Yes' to everything. No! It means, make a decision trusting your spontaneity without the influence of your ego, that's all. Automatically, you will fall in tune with the right things.

Understand that saying 'No' is not a cautious move or any protective force that is going to be your guardian angel. Just be open without resistance and preconceptions; that is enough.

No! Ego comes in various forms: active and passive, which we have been discussing until now. That is why it is such a tricky element to discern.

The active ego is easy to recognize. People with active ego will behave in a highhanded fashion; they will claim self-importance openly; they will not bend down to people; they will be haughty. This ego is actually easy to deal with, for a master. He just needs to bang on it a few times and it will break!

A small story:

A man lost all his wealth in gambling and got reduced to almost a pauper.

One day, he went to a roadside hotel and sat at the table for breakfast.

The waiter came to take orders.

The man was surprised. The waiter was his old friend who had been as rich as he had been earlier.

He looked at him and said, 'You serve as a waiter in this sort of a hotel!'

The man replied, 'I'm only a waiter. I don't eat here.'

Active ego is very easy to recognize! A person with an active ego will not be willing to let go of it even if all his other defenses like money, wealth etc. are taken away from him. Active ego can be easily pruned.

But passive ego is very subtle and cunning. People who have passive ego will pose to be very humble, lacking courage to face people, shying away from taking credit etc. The worst part of this is, they think they are like this because they are not egoistic! The truth is, they are more egoistic than the other lot! They are so carefully guarding their ego from getting hurt by doing all these humble things.

When you are in deep awareness and understanding, you will be a mere watcher of your ego and in this state, you will automatically be neither humble nor egoistic; you will neither take credit nor shy away from it. And you will not even think or claim that you are

neither of these; you simply will be, that's all. When anyone appreciates you or gives you credit, you will simply resonate with Existence and leave it at that, that's all. And there will be no need for any comparison or claim.

So be very clear: Most often, people think that active ego is the only kind of ego ever present. No. There is something called passive ego, which is more difficult to deal with.

People with active ego are like a dried and hard twig. If you bang, they will break. People with passive ego are like a fresh and green twig. Each time their ego is hit, they will bend but they will not break! Their ego is so well safeguarded that it becomes difficult to deal with it. Actually, they work very hard to safeguard it, but in a sweet and passive way. Passive ego is more dangerous than active ego.

For example, you are now with me in this class. So many questions must be arising in you. But do you spontaneously voice all of them? No. You manipulate them inside yourself and finally repress them. You manipulate because you are afraid you will look foolish. You don't want to appear foolish and so you don't ask. You are shielding your ego. If your questions dissolve in my presence, it is a different matter. But here, you are suppressing your questions.

You care so much for other's reactions and opinions about you. This ego is your very anchor point. If it is jolted, you will feel anchorless. So under the pretext of being submissive, you keep quiet. You miss one more opportunity of exposing your ego in the master's presence. You miss one more opportunity in taking a step towards flowering.

Let me tell you one thing: All questions are foolish at the end of the day. Don't for a moment think that some questions and therefore some questioners are wiser than the rest. When deep understanding happens, the questions will dissolve on their own. This is real wisdom. Anyhow, we all play so cautiously to safeguard our ego.

There is another, one more play of ego which we all nurture well – what is called social ego.

What is this social ego?

You feel that your life is highly private to yourself and that no one should be exposed to it. Also, there is a social image that you have created for yourself which you safeguard.

For example, people come to me to discuss their child's erratic ways. But they are not comfortable when there are others around. You don't want others to know about these things because you have this built up 'image' in the eyes of society for yourself and your family members. If you let people in on your family matters, you feel like you are exposing your whole self to them. You are afraid that your image might come crashing down and there will be nothing to prop you up in society. This is social ego.

The image that you have so painstakingly built, the image which has become the identity with which you identify yourself in society, is at stake. It is more of an identity for yourself than for others! If you can show yourself and your family just as you are, you will be more relaxed because then there will be no pressure to cover up anything.

Of course, you might say, 'Swamiji, the only reason we want to keep these things a secret is, we don't want people to start gossiping about it.' Let me tell you: No one is qualified to talk about another. If they talk, they are fools. Remember this and automatically the power you give to them and their talk will simply disappear. It is you who have given them the power to affect you, is it not? Now, that power will disappear.

Just decide and live like an open book, that's all. By seeing your courage and body language, people will automatically understand that it is not going to help gossiping about you! Drop your social ego and live without any privacy. It is a great liberation.

Because of our social ego, we are all the time so self-conscious also. We are self-conscious because we think that people are looking and talking about us all the time. Be very clear: When you are self-conscious, you are very egoistic. You think that you are a big entity and that everyone's eyes are on you all the time. People actually have better things to do!

If you thought that you were a 'nobody', would you be selfconscious? Only because you think you are a 'somebody' you are self-conscious. And on top of it, you think that you are exhibiting humility by being self-conscious. That is the danger!

When you become self-conscious, you are living and yet not living. It is like a barrier to your beauty and grace. Your beauty does not come forth freely because of this. Look at animals and nature. They flow so beautifully and freely. Why is it so? Because they are not self-conscious. They are simply happy just being one with Existence. The moment you start thinking that people are watching you, ego has stepped in and you lose your natural beauty.

Children are not as self conscious as adults are. If you watch them play, you will see: There will be so much beauty and innocence in the whole thing. Even when you take pictures of yourself, you will notice that pictures taken without you being aware that you are being photographed look much better than the ones taken asking you to pose for the camera!

The moment you are asked to pose, you become self-conscious. Your ego is afraid as to how the picture might come out. The self-conscious ego is all the time calculating the pros and cons in everything. It is all the time weighing others' eyes and opinions and losing out on its own freedom.

Even in our meditation classes, if you see, I tell you to tie your eyes with the eye bands given to you before starting the meditation techniques. But what do you do first? You first see if the other person is tying his eyes properly! Some of you don't do the meditation properly because you are self-conscious of the volunteers and me who have our eyes open! You do the meditation in a restrained fashion and end up losing the very purpose of coming to the meditation camp.

When you stop calculating and start being innocent and open, you will be filled with wonder and freshness all the time. Life will never become dull and restrained for you.

Also, the innocent person never does any harm to anyone because to do harm, they need to calculate. Even if they do harm unknowingly, people will not get hurt because they know that they didn't really mean it. Their very body language will speak out their innocence and stand by them.

Let us move to another important form of ego – the ego that comes with knowledge.

As you grow, you collect judgments and data about several things by reading books and talking to people. These two together make up your knowledge, your whole mental set-up. Anything that you see, you see through this mental set-up.

Anything that you see becomes merely a support to your already formed conclusions. There is no scope for any growth. You are all the time looking through a glass of a particular colour – a colour that you have painted! You miss a lot in this wonder filled world because of this.

A small story:

A man was telling his friend, 'Do you know, I really made a fool of myself.'

The friend asked, 'Why, what happened?'

The man said, 'I replaced ten cracked windows in my house and then discovered that I had a crack in my glasses!'

If we just look inward for one moment, we will understand that we are the common factor in all that we see. But somehow, we never look in. We never doubt our own mind. We feel we know everything; there starts the problem. Our mundane knowledge doesn't give us a chance to evolve.

The most dangerous thing in this is, you feel you are solidified with just your knowledge. You feel you have become a solid character by virtue of your knowledge. Little do you know that you have only become a burden on your being.

Your being is a river and you have made it stagnate with the socalled knowledge. Real knowledge is in knowing how to drop the knowledge that comes your way and live like a child, flowing with spontaneity. You need to move from ego to spontaneity.

We are ready to categorize and label all that we see in our lives. In the event, we simply rob life of its beauty. We categorize people, places, situations, everything that comes our way.

A small story:

A man once went to a movie theatre to watch a film.

The film started with the caption of a famous international studio, which had produced that film.

The man said to himself, 'Oh! I've seen this movie before!' and got up and walked away.

Every movie of that production comes with the stamp of that particular studio and the man concluded that he had seen the movie before! He missed it, that's all.

This is how we all are; grown-ups especially. Children are not like that. They see everything with freshness. They are so full of life; they are not dead like us.

When you go to the beach, just watch the children, how excited they are. Whereas when you go to the beach, you feel you know the beach already. The incomparable freshness and beauty of nature comes through your tinted eyeglass. The beach simply becomes yet another place. Understand, if at all you feel you are not enjoying life, it is because of your mind, because of your solid ego; not because life is not beautiful.

A man went to Switzerland for a holiday and returned after a month.

He met his friend one evening and decided to go out for a meal.

The friend asked him, 'So did you enjoy the beautiful scenery in Switzerland?'

The man replied, 'Yes, kind of. But the mountains kept coming in the way.'

We are so insensitive to Nature! And we complain that there is nothing to enjoy.

The capacity to enjoy is within you. As a child, you enjoyed everything around you. What happened after that? You became

serious and forgot how to enjoy. You got dulled by your so-called knowledge.

As I told you earlier, people often ask me, 'Swamiji, how is it that with all your knowledge you seem like a child. Every time you crack a joke, you laugh so spontaneously and we look at you with awe! When you start telling a joke, sometimes we've heard you say it before and so we don't laugh, but you enjoy it so much as if someone else were telling you the joke for the first time!'

You see, this is exactly what I mean when I say you've lost your spontaneity and capacity to enjoy. You acquire a 'know-all' attitude with your knowledge.

Now that I have told you this, let me tell you a story that I repeat very often in my talks and which makes me laugh every time I narrate it!

In my native place Tiruvannamalai in South Bharat, during the yearly temple festivals, there will be a temporary stage constructed in the open, where famous drama troupes will enact plays, mostly scenes from the great Hindu epics like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

I used to go and watch those plays.

On one such occasion, they were enacting the scene from Mahabharata where Dusshasana attempts to disrobe Draupadi and she is ultimately saved by Lord Krishna.

The Draupadi character was played by a man dressed in a saree¸an Hindu costume.

As per their plan, he would wear seven sarees, one on top of the other and Dusshasana would pull them out one after the other keeping a count.

When the seventh saree was reached, Draupadi would scream to Lord Krishna for help and Krishna would appear. Somehow…the Draupadi character missed out one saree while getting dressed, and wore only 6 sarees.

On stage, Dusshasana started pulling and suddenly when the 6th saree was being pulled, Draupadi realized the mistake!

He started screaming, 'Hey leave it! Hey leave it!'

Dusshasana thought that Draupadi was playing her role so beautifully and continued to pull!

Finally, Draupadi was standing on the stage with just half trousers and a blouse, with make-up of a woman!

But he had good presence of mind, and he screamed, 'Oh Krishna! How gracious you are; you changed my gender to save me from shame!'

Even now if I think of that scene, I can't stop laughing!

So understand that having knowledge is alright, but don't use it to solidify yourself. Just encounter every moment with openness. Don't have any preconceived notions. If you live with this openness, nothing will be mundane to you. You will then see that even your own wife with whom you have been living every day is fresh and enjoyable!

When this becomes your attitude, there is every possibility that the other person feels the openness in you and he or she also opens out to you in more enjoyable ways. It then becomes a positive cycle where you move from freshness to freshness every moment. Then there is only freshness everywhere; nothing is stale!

When you live with ego, you need some paraphernalia, some support, some people around you all the time. This support is what gives you your identity. Without that, you are nobody. A king is a king only when he has his kingdom. On the other hand, a Paramahamsa, an egoless being, is a king unto himself. He needs no kingdom! He sleeps when he stretches his leg and eats when he stretches his hand! He simply follows the flow of Existence. He is a realized soul.

But when you become a Paramahamsa, a great kingdom will automatically form around you, and you will be neither touched nor tainted by it. Only the weak ones create a kingdom for themselves and derive their support and strength from it. Only the weak need the status to support them, their ego to support them. For a Paramahamsa, his 'state' will do everything for him; he will be untouched by the status that surrounds him.

You search for paraphernalia because you feel life is too empty and mundane otherwise. And you feel life is mundane because you are searching for miracles all the time. The greatest miracles of Existence are happening every moment in front of your eyes. But you are so pre-occupied with your ego that you are missing it!

Your own body is a miracle. It is greater than any supercomputer that can ever be invented. The millions of cells and the thousands of synchronized activities that happen in your body is the greatest miracle on planet earth. If you know how to drop your mind and live in tune with Existence, you will understand that what you search for in the name of miracles is nothing but the natural synchronous events that happen in Existence. Your ego simply makes these things look ordinary, that's all. Your knowledge reduces it to mundane logic.

This is a nice question! When we have the choice to live happily, why do we choose suffering?

You see, you don't know your Self, your being, which is actually your real identity. Over time, you start relating with the outer world and create a pseudo identity for yourself. With this pseudo identity, you can relate with the outer world. This pseudo identity is your ego. It is purely made up of the labels that others paste on you. You don't know who you really are.

Suppose I ask you who you are, what will you say? You will say, 'I am the father of so and so,' or 'I am the sister of so and so,' or 'I am a doctor,' or something else similar. But what are all these identities? They are only your relationships and professions. You are daughter to your father, wife to your husband, mother to your children. But what are you to yourself?

You currently exist only in relationships and professions. Your ego is built up on this. Your identity is only through this. That is why there is always a danger of losing your identity. It is a man-made fragile thing and so it may break at any time. That is why you need to work so hard in maintaining it.

Your inherent nature is actually 'being alone'. When you were in your mother's womb, you were alone. You are actually enough unto yourself. This is your individuality. Over time, this individuality is taken over by what you call personality. Individuality is natural; personality is societal.

It is like this: A parcel moves from one place to another and at every place, it starts getting stamped with various details. The parcel is actually not these stamps but the stuff inside it, is it not? In the same way, you are not the stamps that people put on you; you are the stuff inside yourself.

With time, your ego is built on these stamps and you need more and more people to feed it. That is why you will observe that you are totally unable to be alone, with yourself. When you are with yourself, you don't hear the voices of the others feeding your ego. Your ego goes unfed. So what do you do? You at least turn on the television and watch!

A small story:

A man belonging to a long-standing political party was dying.

His friends came to know that he had switched his loyalties to the opposition party at the time of his impending death. They were astonished and asked him why he did that. The man replied, 'Oh! I'd rather one of them die!'

So strong is our pseudo-identification! It has become such a solid reality to us that it blinds us from seeing anything else. Even at the time of death, we find it difficult to drop our prestige! We live and die unconsciously.

The fear of losing your personality, which is your only anchor point, causes you to behave in the ways that you behave. That is why we say your ego is playing up. The whole of spirituality is all about losing this personality, this pseudo identification.

This can happen when you start watching. When you start watching, you will understand that you are the stuff inside the parcel and not the labels on it. When this awareness happens, you need no lecture, no sermon, no teaching or preaching.

First of all, if you really surrender, you will become enlightened. There is no question of 'when I surrender' etc. But for argument sake, if you decide to allow me to work on you, I will prune your ego and keep it like a bonsai tree until such time you totally lose it and become enlightened.

You will have enough ego to run your business, and do your daily activities, not to hurt other people and yourself. Your ego will be like roasted seeds that do not grow any more.

Understand that a man who is not yet enlightened has ego in him in some form or the other. But whether you have active ego or passive ego, the more you start being the observer, the more your ego will dissolve. That's enough understanding for now.

With ordinary people, you can easily shield your ego and get away with it. With a master, you can never deceive him. You can only deceive yourself into thinking that you have deceived him. However deeply hidden and well covered you keep your ego and cunningness, they will be simply bare under the master's gaze. While you struggle to shield it, the master tries to heal it. Only he knows what a cancerous disease ego is.

Let me tell you a few things from the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita was Lord Krishna's teaching to the world.

When the Bhagavad Gita starts, Arjuna is confused.

He says, 'Oh Lord! I don't know what to do in life. Please guide me.'

Krishna explains to him the Sankhya Yoga – the way to reach the soul.

He then explains the Karma Yoga, then the Bhakti Yoga, then the Karma Sannyasa Yoga, then the Gnana Karma Sannyasa Yoga, then the Raja Vidya Yoga and so on.

He explains different meditation techniques through 700 verses in 18 chapters.

At the end of it Arjuna says, 'Krishna, I am more confused than what I was when you started explaining. Which technique do I follow? Which is the technique that is best and the quickest? Which is the shortcut method, the ultimate technique?'

Krishna replies to this in the concluding 18th chapter.

With any master, the words that he concludes with, are the final, firm and ultimate truth.

Krishna says, Sarva dharman parithyajya mamekam sharanam vraja, aham thva sarvapapebhyo mokshayishyami ma suchaha.

This line that he says is such that if we imagine all the religions, philosophies and spiritual books to be a pot of milk, this is the butter extracted from it all.

He says, 'I have explained all the forms of justice to you. Simply surrender everything to Me. Surrender to Me and I will take care of you. I will free you from all your sins and lift you to liberation.'

Krishna is actually making a beautiful promise in this stanza.

Through this stanza, Krishna shows the world that surrender, is the final, firm and ultimate technique – the shortcut to the egoless state, to liberation.

Another beautiful story about Krishna and Arjuna:

One evening, Krishna and Arjuna were spending time together.

Krishna suddenly pointed out to a crow and said, 'Arjuna, look at that green crow!'

Arjuna looked in that direction and said, 'Yes Krishna, I see it!'

A few minutes later, Krishna exclaimed, 'Arjuna, see that black crow!'

Arjuna said, 'Yes Krishna, I see it!'

Krishna asked just to test Arjuna, 'Arjuna, how idiotic you are! There is no green crow ever. How could you have seen it in the first place?'

Arjuna replied, 'Krishna, when you said it was a green crow, I saw it as a green crow.'

Arjuna's very senses had surrendered to Krishna. Surrendering the senses to the master is the most difficult surrender ever. The master is Existence itself; he is the formless in form. When your senses perceive only what the master says, you have reached the highest point in surrender.

What is surrender? The word surrender has a very deep meaning. If we don't understand it correctly, we will misunderstand it! We will be committing a grave mistake. We will be misunderstanding deep truths.

A small story:

One night, 2 drunkards were walking down a street past a halogen lamp.

One of them saw it and exclaimed, 'Look, the sun has come out for us!'

The other replied, 'No, it is nighttime; it is the moon.'

The first one continued, 'It is yellow in colour and therefore it is the sun.'

A third man who was drunk, walked past them.

They asked him, 'Sir, please tell us whether this is the sun or the moon.'

The man replied, 'I am new to this neighborhood; I do not know.'

So, when you ask someone who does not know, you will either not get an answer or you will get the wrong answer.

Only those who have experienced can explain clearly. If you ask the meaning of surrender to a person who has not experienced it, he will say, 'Just give everything to God, that's all.'

That is not surrender.

One man came to me and asked, 'If I surrender everything to God, will everything be alright?'

I replied, 'Yes, if you truly surrender everything to God, everything will be alright.'

He returned after 3 days and told me, 'Swamiji, I have surrendered everything to God.'

I was happy and asked him, 'Where are you going now?'

He replied, 'To the bar.'

He continued, 'Whatever I do, God is only responsible from now on.'

This is actually a method of fooling oneself. If he has really surrendered, he would have surrendered the drinking habit also. He would not have even been able to drink any further.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the enlightened master from Bharat beautifully says, 'When real surrender comes from your heart, God will guide you in every step of your life and you can never do wrong.' When surrender does not blossom from inside you and is only at the lip level, you will fool yourself and others.

Surrender will keep you thinking of Existence all the time. You will slowly lose your own identity, your own ego. In the Bhagavatam, an ancient Hindu epic, there is a verse wherein a Gopi (name given to a group of ardent female devotees of Krishna) says, 'I am not able to think of anything other than Krishna. I have surrendered my mind to Him. If I have to think of anything else, I will have to take back my mind from Him. How can I?'

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa suffered from cancer during his last days.

He had healed many people of many diseases.

Someone asked him, 'Why can't you keep your mind on your own disease for a moment and heal it?'

He replied, 'I have surrendered my mind to the infinite energy. How can I take it back to keep it on my disease!'

This is true surrender.

The cosmic energy will take care of us. You might ask, 'Will this cosmic energy take care of all my problems if I surrender?' In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna beautifully answers or rather promises, 'Without any other thought, when a man thinks only of Me, I will take care of his gifts as well as retention or enjoying of them. For those who surrender with commitment to Me, I will take care of their income as well as their prosperity. Their problems will dissolve.'

Commitment and maturity of mind are needed for real surrender to happen. You need not surrender to God or any master. You can surrender to anything. Surrender itself is a virtue and has a great power in itself. When you surrender, you are acknowledging that there is a life force greater than your ego, that's all.

Actually, God is only an excuse for you to surrender. The act of surrendering is what is important. God is not the goal; surrender is the real goal. When you surrender or when you lose your ego, you are no longer a separate entity from Existence; you merge with Existence or God. You will then understand that there is no God sitting above. There is only Existence that fills everything in this universe including you!

A small story:

A man decided that he was going to surrender but did not know to whom to surrender.

He decided that he would go to the forest and surrender to the first person who came his way.

He went and waited in the forest.

The first person to appear was a burglar who was escaping from policemen.

The man caught his feet and declared that the burglar was his guru and that he had surrendered to him.

The burglar was perplexed and did not know what to do.

He replied hastily, 'Alright, if it is so, then close your eyes and remain here until I come back,' and he ran away.

The man was a very committed person and remained there without food or sleep for a very long time.

The story goes that just by seeing his commitment, the Lord appeared before him and gave him liberation!

It is not important to whom you surrender; it is the thought of total surrender that has the power to change your life into a blissful one. When you surrender, you become a possessor of the inexhaustible energy that is Existence, and you handle anything that comes your way.

You become strong and unshakeable, come what may. People around you will find you to be a pillar of strength. They will be able to feel the invisible hand of Existence through you.

If you have not surrendered, it means that your ego is still holding you back from merging into the infinite and you automatically become finite in your resources and energy.

A master is a device to help you surrender. Surrender does not mean that you are dependent on someone. It simply means that you are taking that person's help in dissolving your own ego, that's all.

Yes, but let me first tell you how and why meditation techniques came into being.

Man, ever since his creation, has wondered about and researched what it is that has created this beautiful universe; what it is that has created this beautiful earth and rolled it into space; what it is that makes the rivers flow and the mountains grow. He concluded that there is a force or energy that is conducting all this. He concluded that there was some tremendous energy that is running the whole show. He then started wondering about how to establish a connection with that energy.

The first people to come to this conclusion, and do research and establish a connection with this energy, were the rishis or realised souls or enlightened masters. Once they attained enlightenment, they created many ways for future generations also to realize this energy. The ways that each of them gave are the various meditation techniques and religions.

Each of them realized God through a different way, through a different technique, and recorded their way independently. This is just like how scientists create research reports on their discoveries and inventions. Each rishi gave a report on his enlightenment and this became a religion or a meditation technique.

These early realized souls formed different religions to establish these ideas on the life force that is conducting this world. We call this life force Jesus, Allah, Shiva and so on. You don't even have to believe in any God. Atheists don't believe in any God, but they have to believe in their own existence, is it not? If we believe in our own existence and search for an answer to the question 'Who am I?' that becomes a meditation technique, and we can realize God. Anyhow, these different ways or meditation techniques became different religions over time.

But what happened after that? People left this basic idea behind all the religions and started fighting in the name of religion.

A small story:

A Tamilian, an Englishman, a North Hindu and a Bengali were traveling together.

They saw a lake from a distance.

The Tamilian saw it from the south and called it thanneer, which is the Tamil word for water.

The Englishman saw it from the west and called it 'water'. The North Hindu saw it from the north and called it 'paani'.

The Bengali saw it from the east and called it 'jal'.

All four of them were referring to the same thing, 'water'. But they started fighting over it saying that what each of them was saying was the correct thing.

None of the four people attempted to get into the lake and see for themselves what water exactly is. The Tamilian was holding on to what his grandfather told him; the Englishman claimed that his grandfather told him it was 'water'; the North Hindu and the Bengali were also clinging onto what their respective grandfathers had told them.

They landed up fighting without even attempting to drink a mouthful and see.

This is exactly what we are doing also. People who fight over religion are doing the same thing. They have to understand that from whatever angle the early-realized souls saw, from that angle they named it; but everything is one – Existence or God. Krishna and Christ mean the same. People have seen them from different angles, that's all.

These four people, without getting into the lake, are arguing about what their forefathers told them! What will happen? They will only fight because each of them thinks that what their forefathers said was right. If they decided to put aside what their grandfathers said and get into the lake and see for themselves, they would understand that all their grandfathers meant the same thing! Then there would be no fight.

Today, only those who have not got into the lake and had a mouthful of water are fighting. Those who are spreading terrorism in the name of religion are those who have not got into the lake called spirituality and tasted the truth. The four people who are fighting are simply standing on the shore and fighting. So understand that the truth is expressed in various forms, that's all.

Coming back to meditation, simply put, meditation is allowing your mind to relax, that's all. Meditation is not concentration. When you concentrate, you actually try to exclude everything from your mind, which is an impossible task.

Just sit for two minutes and try to exclude everything from your mind; you will go mad! Every single thing that you try to exclude will come back and torture you. So concentration is not meditation. Meditation is simply including everything and relaxing.

Whenever you find time, just relax and be aware of everything around you. Listen with your heart to all the sounds happening around you. It may be the sound of birds, the sound of the calendar in the breeze, the sound of the fan above you, the sound of people around you, or whatever. Just listen with an open heart. Mind you, they are all not distractions. You are flowing with them and so they are not distractions. When you flow with them, they cease to be distractions.

As you do this, you will realize that there is a certain silence, a composite core inside, that is actually witnessing all this. You will become more and more aware of that silence inside you. You will get glimpses of that silence in you.

Slowly, you will lose consciousness of your body also. You will only have awareness. You will feel yourself only through your awareness, not through your body or through your mind.

Meditation will help you realize that you are only a watcher in life. It will help you center yourself well inside your being and carry on with your outer world tasks much more efficiently and blissfully because you will be carrying an inner silence in you that does not allow you to get distracted or perturbed by anything. If you continue doing this, you start leaving the 'I' and 'mine'. Your ego dissolves. Your ego is nothing but the strong feeling and identity that you have about your mind and body.

Why do you think we are trying to create a worldwide movement for meditation? Meditation is the only key to global peace. When you start looking inward, you are no more distracted by the outer world distractions like power, money, vengeance etc. All your base energies will get transformed into higher spiritual energies. The collective consciousness will undergo a shift and automatically peace will prevail.

That is why I am focusing on transformation of individuals. When a set of individuals gets transformed with an experiential understanding, they will in turn inspire others from their own experience and this will continue to create a positive new mental set-up in society.

Unless your understanding becomes an experience, transformation is not possible. Meditation can make your understanding an experience. Meditation is the only hope for transformation of the individual and therefore transformation of humanity.

When you meditate, your intelligence grows. You start getting clarity on all issues. You no more need to ask people for alternatives. You simply know, that's all. You know because you are so much in tune with your inner intelligence. You know that it cannot be wrong.

You will know from your being that you are on the right track. There may be moments when the going gets tough, because you are against the majority, but you will know that the outcome is going to be beautiful and liberating! All you need to do is persevere and have deep faith in your own intelligence.

When you nurture yourself with meditation, your capacity will expand and you will be able to do so many things in the outer world. There will be no limit to what you can do and express. You will find yourself growing in different dimensions.

Anything will come easily to you when you are functioning with your inner intelligence and not with your ego. When anything becomes tough for you, it is only because your ego is making you alienate yourself from that thing. When you lose yourself and start merging with Existence, nothing will be complicated; you will simply flow. Your intelligence will automatically work for you to harness the Existential energy in you.

You will start seeing yourself as a miracle person! Things which seemed beyond you will suddenly become seamless. You will move from ignorance to deep awareness.

No. In deep sleep, you go to the level of the seed and come back to the state you were in before going to sleep. No growth happens in you. When you are in real meditation, you go to the level of the seed, the seed ruptures and you move on to the next higher state. That is the difference. They are two extremes. Of course, when you look from outside, extremes always look alike. A madman looks like a mystic and a mystic looks like a madman! Both of them have lost their minds but in different directions.

Yes, this is an interesting question! How do I appear beautiful always!

You see: If it was only this form of mine that you find beautiful, that you are being pulled to, the pull would waver with time. It would waver with situations, attire and what not. Just think: You see me in the same attire, listen to the same songs, hear the same voice everyday and yet you are here with as much eagerness as ever. Do you think you would be able to continue like this with anyone else in your life? Understand that it is not the person, it is the presence that radiates the beauty that you feel.

As far as you are concerned, you are a person. As far as I am concerned, I am simply a presence, that's all. The egoless presence is so powerful that it simply lures you. There are so many male models and actors who are so good-looking with a much better personality, am I right? With all of them, you might be attracted, but not with a longing from deep within, like in this case, am I right?

Here, the longing is from your being, because your being sees the divinity behind the form. It is the only concern of your being. The egoless presence is ecstatic for your being. That is why you come here again and again!

You see: The longing to feel God is in the depths of every man, but it is not tangible! When you see me, you feel a pull and wonder what that pull is. That pull is the call of your being. But you immediately start thinking what it might be; you know only to apply your mind and reduce everything to logic. God is beyond logic. That is why you cannot explain with your logic why you feel a pull to come here.

All of you simply sit here gaping and wondering what it is that makes you look for hours, without batting an eyelid. When the longing within is deep, this will happen. The longing is the longing to reach home. For many lives you have tried to fulfill this longing but have been unsuccessful and so you come back again; you take another birth.

When you feel this longing, some of you pursue it and start your journey inwards while some of you get scared and escape! Or you linger in the outer circles and keep watching so that if anything happens, you can easily run away altogether! I have to then cheat you and teach you and show you that you have arrived and that there is nothing more to be done except letting go – of your ego!

You always operate from fear because you have been taught that way. Fear is a passive form of ego. You are so afraid that you might give in and so you maintain a distance under the guise of fear. Don't think that fear is something humbling. Fear is a very deceptive form of ego. You are so afraid to let go. You are so afraid that you might dissolve.

Understand that Existence is love. It is only love and nothing else. Also, Existence knows you because you are a part of it. If Existence doesn't know you then who does? So there is nothing to fear.

You don't have to put on any pretensions with Existence. You can just be your own ordinary self and Existence will continue to shower on you. Existence knows only to love and forgive. It does not know any other virtue. You judge Existence by your own egoistic and so-called moral standards; that is the problem,

When you know you are part of Existence, you will feel liberated. When you think that you are separate from Existence, you will fall into misery. You know, it is such a great feeling being a part of Existence! Because of your ego, you feel you are different from Existence.

When you turn your journey inwards, you will become increasingly aware that you are a part of Existence. Awareness will slowly replace ego. When awareness takes over, ego has to dissolve. There is no other way. Until awareness takes over, you will feel you are a solid entity and disconnect yourself completely from Existence.

Actually, the whole sky is there for you to see. But you see it through your window, just how much your ego allows you to see, and you think that the sky inside the frame is the real sky. All such games are nothing but games of the ego. Being aware of this is the first step towards getting out of it. Awareness is the master key with which you can open any lock inside yourself. That is why again and again I say, bring in awareness.

My only concern for you is to help you to flower. That is the greatest thing that I can do for you and you can do for me! I want people to realize their innate bliss, their infinite potential energy. Right now, man thinks that he is a human being looking for spiritual experience. He needs to understand clearly that he is a spiritual being looking for human experience. I am working on teaching him that.

And the only way he can learn it is by becoming aware of the forms of ego that are making him feel he is a human being instead of a spiritual being. When man moves from praying to becoming, he has found the key.

When a person meditates, all his base emotions like anger, lust, jealousy, over-attachment etc. get transformed into higher energy. This propels him into higher realms of consciousness and awareness. Then, he will not be restless like before. Transformation of energy can happen only through meditation.

When this transformation happens in every individual, the whole of society gets transformed. There will be less violence and more global harmony. The most practical way to global peace is through transformation of the individual.

With meditation and the master's guidance, transformation is a process that you go through to destroy all that is not you. It is a painful process that you go through with a master, because you have to let go of all the things that you held close to your heart; all the things that you thought was you.

The master will continuously show you what all you are not and everything will start dropping. He will create situations for your suppressed feelings to surface. You just need to allow him to work on you so that he removes all that you have accumulated over many lives.

I keep telling people: If you try to run away, you are missing the master one more time. Don't try to escape. I will place my hands exactly on the tumours that are hidden inside, the tumours that are your ego. Simply place your faith in me and have the courage to open up. I will then be able to heal all your tumours. Just by opening up to the master, half your ego has left you. The rest, he will take care of. You just need to put out your hand; he will lift you out, that's all.

When you are a sincere seeker, when you are ready for a transformation, you will open up to the master and things will happen automatically. If you are just a window shopper, then nothing much can happen; you will just move from one master to another and not learn anything from any of them.

When you meditate, meditate intensely. When intensity is there along with meditation, the transformation is bound to happen; the super consciousness is bound to happen. Normally, we are either intense and miss the meditation or meditate without intensity. We catch one and miss the other. We need to catch both in order to really flower.

It doesn't matter how long you meditate; how intensely you meditate is what matters. The quality of consciousness is what matters. When you make a conscious decision to turn inward, that itself will give you the intensity to meditate.

Yes, of course! You have come to the point. When you think that life has got a purpose and you run behind the purpose, you are being egoistic. When you realize the beauty of Existence and flow with it, you will understand that life itself is the purpose and all goals are just illusions. Then you have acquired awareness; then you are no more egoistic.

A master is the one who makes you understand the 'purposelessness' of life. When you search with a purpose, you miss reality, because when you run behind the purpose, you miss the present. You simply miss Existence.

When you realize the purposelessness of life, a new consciousness starts blossoming in you. You will then understand that the diamonds that you were protecting all along are mere stones. You will understand that the things that you thought were great, are mere toys. You will understand that money is not the real bliss that you are seeking. You are seeking beyond it.

You will start looking at life as a great divine play of Existence. You will enjoy the drama and play your role with utmost enjoyment and perfection. You will not live for goals; you will live for the sake of living and enjoying living.

Understand that I am not saying that you should stop earning money. Without money, there is nothing you can do in life. I am only saying, enjoy living every moment and make your goals just incidental. You must understand that the whole thing is just a drama and you are a player. When you get attached to goals, you miss this whole idea.

In a drama, does it make any sense to get attached to your role or to another character or to anything? No! It will straightaway seem ridiculous, will it not? In the same way, life is also a great drama; so don't get attached to it in any fashion. Just play your role and enjoy the whole show.

Understand that life is not the goal, but the path itself. When you have a goal, you will run. When you run, your feet will not touch the ground. When you don't touch the ground, you miss the beauty of Existence. When you run, you are literally missing the feel of Existence beneath you. When you drop the goal, the emphasis will automatically be on the path. The path is meant to be enjoyed; the goal will be taken care of automatically.

When you understand the purposelessness of life, you will understand the meaning of living. Until you understand this, you live your life in an unconscious fashion. You live without a proper consciousness. You live with a solid ego that sees only goals, and not the beauty of life itself.

Sacrificing your whole life for the sake of the goal is not the way to live. If you live this way, once every goal is reached, you will only repent at having wasted your whole life on insignificant things. Drop the goal and enjoy the path. Meditate on this teaching again and again. The truth will reveal itself to you.

One more thing: Don't exclude anything from your life and never think that you are missing something in your life. Spirituality is never excluding; it is always encompassing. When you exclude anything from your life, you are missing something. Instead, integrate and include everything. You will then become whole. When you become whole, you become holy!

Of course, if certain things don't interest you, then it is a different matter. You need not bother about including them in your life. Just function with awareness and keep flowing.

Understand that a scientist is a person who creates a formula to reproduce something that he has discovered in the outer world for others to experience.

A master is a person who creates a formula to reproduce something that he experienced in the inner world for others to experience. He creates a formula to reproduce the bliss that he experienced in his own consciousness, for others to experience.

I am now giving you a formula to realize the ultimate bliss or nithyananda.

First, understand clearly that you have ego in some form or the other – it may be active or passive. Then, understand the different ways in which ego manifests itself, the ways we have discussed till now. All your guilt, desires, fear, humbleness, self-importance etc. are all different forms of ego, which happen in you because you feel a solid 'I' and 'mine'. Once you have understood this, become the watcher so that you understand that the whole of life is a drama. By doing this, you will be able to feel your solid self dissolve, your ego dissolve.

When this starts happening, you will automatically resonate with Existence and see how things re-arrange themselves and make life beautiful for you. Then, live with the only aim of killing your ego. Don't guard it in any way. Be ever ready to kill your ego. When you are ready to kill your ego, you are ready to become liberated, that's all.

When you break free from the rigid mechanism of the mind, you become fluid, flowing, like a river; then you are intelligent. When you are able to think laterally, you are intelligent. When you are spontaneous, you are intelligent. When it is difficult to challenge you, you are intelligent.

When you know that life is a drama, you are intelligent. When you understand that Existence is the ultimate life force, you are intelligent. When you are aware and conscious of your inner silence, you are intelligent.

When you can smile and laugh spontaneously without applying your mind to it, you are intelligent. When you radiate energy by your mere presence, you are intelligent. When you are not stuck anywhere for a long time, you are intelligent. When you can feel your ego consciously, you are intelligent. When you know that you are rich not because of your riches but because of your being, you are intelligent!

When you recognize a master, you are intelligent. When you are ready to let go your ego to the master, you are intelligent. When you play the game of life enjoying every moment of it, you are intelligent!

A small story:

Three men were asked the same question, 'What would you do if you were told that you had only 10 more days to live?'

The first man said, 'I would put all my work in order, and tie all loose ends up so that my family does not suffer after I am gone.'

The second man said, 'I would enjoy life to the maximum doing all the things I have never done before.'

The third man said, 'I would consult another doctor!'

This is intelligence! When you can be spontaneous instead of getting caught in the familiar tracks of life, you are intelligent.

Another small story:

In a hospital, the telephone rang and the nurse answered it. A voice asked, 'May I know how Chanda Basu of Room no. 10 is doing please?'

The nurse replied, 'He is doing well and we are hoping to release him tomorrow evening. Who am I talking to?'

The voice replied, 'This is Chanda Basu. You never tell patients anything in this place.'

This is intelligence! When you are not stuck at a point for long, when you don't stay challenged for long, you are intelligent.

Now listen to this:

A man took his city friend to his farm.

He showed him around and later asked him, 'You must have found it amazing to see so many sheep! Did you attempt to count them?'

The friend replied, 'Oh yes. There were 300.'

The man was surprised and asked, 'How did you manage to count them?'

The friend replied, 'Oh, it was simple. I counted the number of legs and divided them by four.'

This is not intelligence! This is a way to show how we complicate simple things in life.

Next, coming to innocence: children are the best way to understand innocence. They just speak out without any editing. They don't calculate; they are so total in their behaviour, never cunning or hypocritical. This is innocence.

But what do we do to them? We try our best to teach them how to edit their words, how to manipulate. We teach them to move from their heart to their mind so that their pure innocence becomes contaminated by the mind.

A small story:

A boy was told that a wealthy aunt was coming to his home that day and that he had to be on his best behaviour. The aunt arrived and a grand dinner was served for her. The boy was watching her continuously throughout the dinner and finally asked, 'Auntie, when are you going to do your trick?'

The lady asked, 'What trick my dear?'

The boy replied, 'My dad said that you drink like a fish!'

Children simply say what they feel like! They express so freely. That is why they are so joyful to watch! Their innocence attracts us. But we don't understand this and we teach them to become cunning, to become manipulative.

A small boy went up to his grandfather and asked, 'Grandpa, can you really imitate a frog?'

The grandfather was surprised and asked, 'Why do you ask?'

The child replied, 'I heard my parents saying that when you croak, we will have a small fortune left for ourselves.'

We are hypocrites most of the time. We never express ourselves freely. We are thinking something and saying something else. We have become so ugly because of this. We have simply lost our innocence.

Another small story:

A mother was leaving her child with her friend for a day. She told her child to remember to thank the friend before coming away that evening.

The child returned home that evening and the mother asked her if she had thanked the friend.

The child replied, 'I didn't because when the other girl thanked her, she said, don't mention it.'

This is how children are! Of course, it is our duty to teach them basic things like gratitude etc., but I am trying to make you understand that we should not make children hypocrites. Let them understand the game and play it with awareness, with no ego, but only awareness. Give them the basic rules and intelligence to discriminate for themselves.

One thing to understand: The innocence of the child is due to its ignorance. This innocence is bound to be there in the child because it is yet to be influenced by societal conditioning. But once the conditioning starts happening and knowledge is gained, the child loses its innocence. But the child can reconnect back with the innocence that it loses over the years through deep awareness. This innocence regained is the real innocence, because this innocence is not out of ignorance now; it is out of a deep understanding.

That is the difference between the innocence of children and innocence of masters. Mundane knowledge squashes the innocence and nurtures ego. But intelligence and awareness can put knowledge aside and bring out the innocence once again. When this happens, you have found the way.

God is not any separate entity for you to relate with Him. Understand that first. He is not sitting above your heads in a place called heaven and waiting for you to relate with Him. He is there in each and every thing in this universe. Everything has been created by him.

He is the creator, creation and the created. He is the experiencer, the experienced and the experience. God is the name that we have given to Existence, that's all. When you understand this, you have started experiencing God; then there is no question of relating with God.

People ask me if I feel close to God. I tell them that I am God! I tell them that they are also God! But of course they are not willing to accept it. They want to know how to get close to God. Close itself means there is a small distance separating you and God. I am telling you that you are God! Then where is the question of close? Do you understand what I am trying to say? God is nothing but the name that you have given to Existence, and you are a part of Existence.

When you live in tune with Existence, when you have found your connection with Existence, you are God, that's all. When you live with a feeling of intimacy with anything and anyone that comes your way, you become pure consciousness. When you can feel the same love towards everyone around you irrespective of whether you know them or not, you are experiencing God in you. This is a simple scale to tell you how far away you are from God consciousness.

When you start falling in tune with Existence, you will start hearing the inner voice in you. Then no other guide is needed. You don't need people to tell you what to do and what not to do. You will simply know; your intelligence will keep guiding you. A master is the one who can awaken that inner voice in you. He works on you to awaken your intelligence.

Most of us can love only with a reason. This is how strong our ego is. When you are like this, be very clear, you are very far away from God! We claim that we shower love on our family and friends. Just look at all the masters who have happened on planet earth until now. What is the common quality that have drawn them to their mission? Pure love, that's all. If they experienced the ordinary love that we feel in your day-to-day lives, do you think they would have been able to set up their mission?

Is it possible to set up a worldwide mission with just ordinary love? How much drive would ordinary love give? It would in fact make you tired soon! If masters have time and again reached people across the world, transforming lives, it is because of the divine love and oneness that they feel with every single human being on planet earth.

In fact, if you read their biographies, you will see that almost all of them have put their family aside, have incurred the wrath of their family and have gone about reaching out to people. Family always resists in these cases. Of course, once maturity and awareness come in, they start accepting and following like the rest of the world.

Anything that makes you feel separate from God is ego. When there is ego, you cannot love consistently and with the same deep feeling all the time; your love will be highly subjective. It will keep moving between extremes.

Watch the body language of masters and you will know what resonating with divine love is. The easiest way to fall in tune with Existence, is by watching the master's body language. A master is in tune with Existence all the time. He exudes love all the time, irrespective of who is in front of him. When you watch his body language, you will imbibe the qualities behind it.

If you watch the master over time, you will be able to perceive how he flows like a river, so beautifully, so poetically, so synchronously, in tune with Existence. Every action of his is in perfect synchronicity with Existence. That is why it is so beautiful to watch! Simply by watching the master, you can understand and feel the beauty and flow of Existence.

Because a master is ego-less, he flows without blockages. Because he does not have consciousness of 'I' and 'mine', he flows. Because he radiates nothing but love, he heals. Healing is nothing but concentrated love. That is why time and again, we have heard of the miraculous healing powers of masters. That is why masters are looked upon as God. Be very clear: Masters are the only living God. They are the supreme manifestation of the ultimate energy.

So, stop worrying about how to relate with God. Start falling in tune with Existence, and become God.

Remember: You cannot conquer Existence. You can only be conquered by Existence. When you lose your entire ego, you are conquered, that's all! When you become a conducive womb for God, He will reside in you. In the initial stages, you are a guest and he is a host. Ultimately, you have to become the host; you have to become a womb to receive Him. Becoming a womb means, melting and becoming vulnerable. Becoming vulnerable means, shedding your entire ego and dissolving into God or Existence. Then, life becomes music and an eternal celebration!

We will now do a beautiful and very effective meditation technique called the Divya Netra Meditation, for this ajna chakra.

Emotion: Ego

Location: Between the eyebrows

In Sanskrit, ajna means 'will' or 'order'. The ajna chakra is known as the master chakra.

This chakra is locked by seriousness and ego and it can be made to flower by innocence, simplicity and intelligence, and by shedding all forms of ego.

Divya Netra Meditation - a Zoroastrian meditation technique

The Divya Netra meditation is done to awaken the higher intelligence in you. It works on the ajna chakra – the energy center located between your eyebrows – called the 'third eye', and connects you to the cosmic intelligence. The ajna chakra is known as the chakra raj – the master of all the chakras.

This is such a significant chakra that there is no religion that has not worked on activating it. When the ajna opens, the whole being enters into a different realm. A whole layer of faculties opens up. That is why all the oriental gods are represented with a third eye in their forehead. The third eye is a symbol for the awakened ajna.

There is an old saying, that if you die in Varanasi, a sacred city in Bharat, you will automatically get liberated. Varanasi is not just the city as we know it. It is also the region where the vaarana, that is the eyebrows, meet the naasi, that is the nose, which is the exact location of the ajna chakra. It symbolically represents the death of ego in the liberated or enlightened state!

This meditation technique is taken from Zoroastrianism. This technique has two parts: One to cleanse the ajna chakra and the other to energize it. The ajna chakra, or the third eye, is known as the destroyer of illusion and lust. It helps open the super consciousness in you.

There is a lit prayer lamp in front of you. It has been lit using sesame oil or clarified butter from cow's milk. You may use a candle also, but ensure that it is made of vegetable fat. This is a guided meditation technique. Just follow my instructions closely.

Sit cross-legged on the floor with your eyes closed. Those who cannot sit on the floor may sit on a chair.

Focus on your ajna chakra as if to penetrate it. (5 minutes)

Open your eyes and look at the flame of the lamp through your third eye between your eyebrows. Your eyes may blink or burn or tears may flow; just allow it to happen. (5 minutes)

Close your eyes and again focus on your ajna chakra. Penetrate it deeply.

Open your eyes and look at the flame of the lamp through your third eye between your eyebrows. (5 minutes)

Close your eyes; do not focus on your ajna chakra; just relax. (5 minutes)

Slowly, very slowly, open your eyes.

We will meet for the next session. Thank you.