Flower In Gratitude

A man prays to God every day, 'O God, I don't have enough money. Please help me win a big lottery worth at least ten million rupees! If I win, I promise you, I will offer 20 percent of my winnings at your shrine. If you don't believe me, please deduct 2 million for yourself, and give me only the remaining 8 million.'

All our dealings are exactly like this – a mere business! It may not be so obvious in our lives, but if you deeply analyse your attitude of prayer, you will understand that you have a business deal with everyone, including God.

A small story:

One day a poor man went to Emperor Akbar's palace.

He wanted to request Akbar to give him some money for his son's studies.

Akbar was known for not turning away anyone who asked for help.

When the man reached the palace, he saw that Akbar was offering his prayers to God.

He turned away without asking for anything.

But Akbar spotted him and called him back.

He asked him, 'Why are you leaving without asking for anything?'

The man replied, 'Your Majesty, I came to ask you for alms, but saw that you yourself were begging!'

If you observe our prayers, you will realize that we actually only beg. We simply ask, ask and ask. Our prayer is nothing but a begging bowl. We beg for material things, for smooth relationships, for power, for achieving our goals, for physical beauty, and what not.

We are asking for something or the other continuously in our minds. In fact we are so much in tune with asking, that it has become an unconscious process within us and we might not even accept that we are asking. We don't even see it as asking. It has become a natural way of life! We have become very involved in it and therefore unable to distance ourselves from it and see it with a fresh mind.

Understand that there are only two kinds of religion in the world; religions based on prayer, and religions based on gratitude.

The religion of prayer is all about asking God for something or other. It can be followed by the masses, because it is very much in tune with our asking attitude. It is in tune with the conditioning that has gone on inside us from a young age. Asking is the prayer that we have been taught since we were children. It seems like the most natural way to approach God or Existence.

On the other hand, the religion of gratitude is based on just an overwhelming gratitude from within, towards God or Existence. It is quite contrary to what is taught to us from childhood. We have always been taught to thank only for what we receive, that's all. We have been taught gratitude as social etiquette; nothing more than that!

How then can we be thankful all the time? It is too much to digest! That is why these religions of gratitude are followed only by a select few.

Only a few meditative religions, like Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism and Jainism touch upon gratitude. These religions have very few followers, but the quality of the followers is high.

There is nothing wrong with prayer, but getting stuck in the act of asking while praying is where the trouble starts. Prayer should be used as a jumping board to enter into meditation; a meditation where gratitude becomes prayer and your being becomes bliss!

You might think, 'Giving your gratitude can be a social habit, but how can it be a meditation?' You will understand what I mean when you actually start giving your gratitude. When you start giving your gratitude, you will understand the value of your life.

I tell you: You are only aware of the people who are directly responsible for providing and caring for you. But during all these times and thousands of other times that you are not even aware of, you are helped, protected, and cared for by Existence, by the cosmos, by the universal energy.

You always think that whatever was given to you was either because you deserved it or because it was an accident. When you start seeing and feeling the invisible hand of Existence taking care of you, you will understand that you are wanted here by Existence. Only then you will understand that you are being showered upon continuously by Existence.

The fact that you are alive is enough to show that Existence wants you here and cares for you. It is only when you don't understand this, you feel dull and depressed and keep asking as if you are the most deprived person in the world.

If you listen from your being to what is said here, you will be able to tune yourself and become sensitive to the wonderful giving ways of Existence!

Most of us pray with fear to God. You can see mothers telling their children that if they don't do certain things, God will get angry with them. These statements take root in the child at a very young age, and give them a wrong concept of God. This is the conditioning that you give your child at an early age. When they grow up, they face serious dilemmas because of this. Instead of embracing Existence with love and gratitude, they stand apart from it with respect and fear.

Religion, if followed out of fear, will not take you anywhere; it will not pave the way for a transformation to happen in you. You might progress materially by the faith that you have in your asking, but you will remain where you are at the being level. The purpose or real fulfillment of life can never happen on the material path; it can happen only at the being level. People who undergo what is called depression of success will be able to relate to what I am saying in a better way. We have discussed depression of success in the earlier sessions.

Religion has to be followed out of deep love and gratitude for the divine or Existence. Although society teaches you to worship God in the name of fear, I tell you: never do it. Always pray with love and gratitude towards the divine.

A small story:

A Sufi Master, Junnaid, used to pay his gratitude to God five times a day.

One time, he and his followers were wandering through some villages where Sufism was not accepted as a religion. In the first village, people accused them of begging, and threw meagre alms at them.

The next day, in the second village, the people refused to give them any alms.

On the third day, the village they passed through was so hostile that the villagers drove them out with sticks and stones.

That night as usual, Junnaid knelt down and offered his gratitude to God.

His disciples were watching him. It was too much for them. They could not understand why Junnaid was thanking God. They were furious.

They cried out, 'Master! For three days we have gone without food! Today we were even driven out of that village like dogs! Is this what you are offering your gratitude for?' Junnaid looked at them and said, 'You talk about three days of hunger! Have you thanked God for the food you have received for thirty years? And know one thing: my gratitude is not for receiving or not receiving anything. It is simply an expression of the deep joy and love in my being. It is a choice-less and prayerful expression, that's all.'

When you live with overwhelming gratitude in you, you have found a space wherein nothing else is needed. It means that you have fallen into meditation. Then, you will not worry about anything else. You are on the right track. Your mind is no longer a hindrance to your growth; your mind has disappeared. The mind cannot step in when you are brimming from your heart. When there is no space for the mind, where will discontentment come from? Discontentment cannot come from the heart. It is purely a product of the mind.

Your mind always stands between you and Existence. It prevents you from hearing, seeing, feeling and emoting with Existence. Once you go beyond your mind and see the beauty of Existence, gratitude will become your prayer and bliss your being! You will then enjoy liberation and permanent joy!

When you drop the mundane logic of your mind, you will flow like a river – choicelessly, effortlessly, joyfully with the flow of the current. You will then play your role and enjoy every moment of it. You will then understand that you are a part of a wonderful drama, where the more sensitive you are to the director, the more effectively you can play and enjoy your part!

When you go against the current, you need to put in effort and exercise choices. When you go with the current, you don't need to make any effort; you will not feel tired; you will not feel frustrated; you will only feel a flowing lightness! Everything will then appear beautiful.

A small story:

A man was on a cross-country train.

He spent all his time in the observation car, watching the passing scenery outside.

An elderly lady was seated next to him and he told her that the best part of the journey was the breathtaking scenery outside.

The lady shook her head, sat for a while looking out of the window, and left.

A little later, the lady came back, sat for a short while looking out of the window, and then got up and went.

After some time she came again and this time she sat behind him.

After a few minutes, she tapped him on the back and asked, 'Excuse me, but do you see something that I don't?'

We simply miss the beauty of Existence! We are always looking for reasons to enjoy, reasons to celebrate, questioning what we enjoy, and what not! We have lost our connection with Existence altogether because of this.

Instead of feeling gratitude towards everything around us, we are asking and questioning all the time. We need to get back this connection with Existence again. Gratitude can help bring back this lost connection. It can help you find your roots once again. It can help you commune with nature, with Existence.

A small story:

A man prayed very hard in a temple one day, 'Oh Lord! Please give me 1000 rupees for 15 days. I am very desperate to receive it. I will return the money to you on the 16th day from today when I get my first paycheck.'

The temple priest was listening to his prayers.

He felt very sorry to see the man in that state.

He had with him 500 rupees. He put it in an envelope and gave it to the man saying that God had asked him to give him the money.

The man was overjoyed. He took the envelope home and opened it.

He counted the money and saw that there was only 500 rupees and not 1000 rupees.

The next day he went to the temple and prayed, 'O God! Next time, please don't send the money through the priest; send it directly. He took half of it.'

We take everything for granted and remain discontented!

Remember that life itself is a gift to you! Have you worked hard to get it? Can any of you say that you have worked very hard to earn this life? No! That is why we don't realize its value! We simply take everything for granted – our bodies, our daily food, the beauty of Nature – everything is taken for granted. We ask God for diamond rings – but do we thank him for giving us fingers to wear them? With time, even the diamond ring will lose its value to us!

One day, the Geography teacher in a school asked her students to write down the Seven Wonders of the World.

All the kids listed the great wonders like the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and so on.

One girl was writing and she kept writing, shaking her head and continuing to write.

The teacher came to her and asked, 'What happened; have you forgotten what you learned?'

The little girl said, 'No. I am a bit confused. There are many more than seven.'

The teacher was surprised and took her sheet and read it. She then read it aloud for the class to hear, 'The seven wonders of the world are: I can see; I can touch; I can smell; I can hear; I can taste; I can laugh; I can love…'

The class was suddenly filled with penetrating silence.

These small things are forgotten because we think that they are small. Everything becomes small to us when it is easily available. There are so many millions of people in this world who can't see, who can't hear, who can't talk, who can't taste. We never think of all these things. We are always thinking of what more, what better, what next, all the time.

A small story:

A man was traveling on the highway to get to his village.

After just one hour of travel, his car jerked and stopped.

He was panic-stricken and saw that he had run out of fuel. He walked a few kilometers praying and sweating and panting and finally came to a town.

He spotted a gas station and went in. He explained that he was penniless, but badly needed fuel to get to his village. They turned him away.

He then spotted another station on the opposite side of the road and walked into it and explained his situation.

The manager of the gas station took pity on him and agreed to give him a few litres free of cost.

The man asked, 'Can you give me the money instead? The station across the road is cheaper.'

Until something comes to us, it seems very precious and we remain in a prayerful mood; the moment it comes, it loses its value and we move on…to another prayer!

We always live with a 'what next' attitude. We are unable to relate to gratitude because of this.

For example, if we go to a shop and see a new type of alarm clock with some new features, immediately we feel that our life will be much better with these new features. We will feel that the whole quality of our life will change if those new features become available to us. We will feel that we will become a lot more efficient with this clock in our lives. So we buy it and take it home.

After a few days, what happens? We won't even have the time to wipe the precious clock! The poor clock will be lying somewhere covered with dust and you will even get scolded for buying it and cluttering the house with one more item! And you will have also moved to some other gadget, some other desire!

We always feel that something that we don't have is as big as a mountain without which we cannot survive, but when we actually get it, somehow it becomes too small a thing. This is how we miss the wonderful attitude of gratitude in our lives. We keep running behind 'what next'.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, enlightened master from Bharat, tells God: 'I am so very intelligent. I gave you all that I had, all my life, full of suffering. You in your compassion gave me in return your presence of bliss!'

Bhagavan tells God that he is more intelligent than God Himself because of this intelligent exchange! Such is his adorable sense of gratitude towards Existence!

Another small story about Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa:

It is said, that whenever Ramakrishna saw someone from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's place, he would fall at his or her feet.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a great enlightened master from Bharat.

On one such occasion, when Ramakrishna fell at someone's feet, the people around him asked him why he fell at ordinary mortals' feet.

He replied, 'Whether they are ordinary or extraordinary, it does not matter. They are from Baanigaati – where Chaitanya did an important sankeertan. The moment I hear that they are from there, the very name creates memories of Chaitanya in me; that is enough. I pay my gratitude to them by falling at their feet for having brought Chaitanya to my mind. If I had not met them, in those moments, I might have been thinking of something else unworthy. They are therefore instruments through whom divine memories and ideas are kindled in me.'

That was Ramakrishna's reply!

For bringing thoughts about Chaitanya to him, Ramakrishna fell at their feet! Can we imagine this today? This is what I mean when I say, everything and everyone should be looked upon with gratitude for whatever they are doing. They are all part of Existence and they are all moving in some synchronicity, orchestrated by Existence. When we are sensitive to this happening, we will be able to feel gratitude for the way things are happening.

We need to imbibe this sense of gratitude from great masters. This is the only thing we need to imbibe from them; the rest will be taken care of automatically, because when you imbibe this, the power of coincidence will make things happen for you and Existence will simply shower upon you. But today, things are very different.

Listen to this small story:

A beggar stopped a man on the road and asked him, 'Two years back, you used to give me 20 rupees. Last year fully, you gave me only 10 rupees and for the past few months, you have been giving me only 2 rupees. Why?'

The man replied, 'First I was a bachelor, then I married and now I have a baby, that's why.'

The beggar cried, 'What? You are using my money to run your family?'

The beggar says, 'You are using my money to run your family!' Actually, many of us think that it is our birthright to expect another person to keep providing for us and for our needs. And we simply take them for granted.

Understand: Even our own father or mother or husband or wife should not be taken for granted.

So understand: When you change your attitude from seeking discontentment, worries and depression, to seeking the present with gratitude, you will automatically be able to harness the energy of Existence better. You will then be able to appreciate Existence better and gratitude will then become your attitude.

A man went to the market to buy vegetables for his wife. He bought ladies' finger, came home and showed them to

his wife.

The wife saw the ladies' finger and said, 'Oh! These are so over grown. I will not be able to cook them.'

The man went the next day and bought some more ladies' fingers, choosing carefully this time, and came home and showed them to this wife.

The wife said, 'What have you bought? They are too tender to make the dish I had in mind.'

The next day, the man went to the market, prayed to the shopkeeper and said, 'Please give me some good ladies' fingers that are neither too ripe nor too tender.'

The shopkeeper picked the best ladies' fingers himself and the man took them home and showed them to his wife.

The wife saw them and said, 'What? You've bought ladies' finger today also!'

When we take things for granted, appreciation will never come spontaneously for us. We will never appreciate anything including our relationships.

Another small story:

A man came home from work one day to find his wife in a terrible mood.

She screamed at him*,* 'I finally managed to train the maid to do all the work in the house and she has now quit!'

The man asked sympathetically, 'For what reason, dear?'

She replied, 'Well, you are the reason! She claims that you spoke so rudely to her over the telephone that she felt she needed to guard her self-respect and therefore quit.' The man was baffled and blurted, 'But I thought I was talking to you!'

We always take relationships for granted. Learn to treat every individual as a part of the whole and feel gratitude towards him or her; then you will never take anyone for granted. You will then worship and respect everyone for being a part of Existence.

When you don't take things for granted, you will count your blessings. If you sit and analyse, you will realize that we always count what we have not received! However much we are showered, we are not happy because we are thinking about the things that have not yet reached us!

Imagine if you had to sit down and make a list of things that you feel you have been showered with in life. You can start the list with your own eyes. As I said earlier, do you know how many people have not been blessed with eyesight? Can you even imagine what will happen if you woke up one day and realized that you have turned blind? You will not even be able to get out of bed and go to the bathroom! Every task you performed thanklessly earlier will demand all your effort now.

Anyway, if you started writing a list of things that you have been given in life, it would be a long list. Once you finish this list, write down a list of the things that you feel you have not been given. This will also be a long list... a very long list actually! The list will probably start with a Benz car and end up being longer than the Benz itself! Both the lists are endless, infinite actually, if you write sincerely without missing a single thing.

Alright, now we have the two lists in front of us. It is now up to us to decide which of the lists we are going to focus on. Are we are going to look at the things not given to us and make our lives dull and dead, or look at the things that have been showered on us and enjoy, making our lives beautiful? It is purely our choice!

A person who takes everything for granted will look at the second list with greed and discontentment. When you are greedy, you will automatically feel only discontented, because there is no end to your greed and therefore contentment can never happen in you! Anyhow, this person totally misses out on the joy of life that is there in the first list.

Anything that comes his way, whether it is small or big, will seem ordinary to him and he will only wait for the next thing to arrive. And when the next thing arrives, that will also look ordinary to him because he is already thinking of the next thing!

Whereas, a person who is always in gratitude, will not even know that the second list exists! He only knows to feel and breathe gratitude every moment. Life is an eternal celebration for him. He will be so light and joyful. He will be a treat to watch. He will exude a beauty that is unique unto himself.

Just by being in gratitude all the time, every so-called mundane thing in life can become sacred and wonderful! I tell you that you think that life has become mundane only because of your attitude of taking things for granted. Life is not mundane as you think. Every small thing is beautiful. Your mind is what is mundane; your mind does not allow you to penetrate and see the beautiful way in which Existence is flowing.

Your mind has become a dead pattern that is constantly repeating, 'what next'.

When you are able to look at things with a wonder-filled attitude, with awe, it fills you with such gratitude and fulfillment because you are not questioning at that point in time. You are not allowing your mind to play at all. You are simply resonating with your heart. It is then that you become a child, and when you become a child, nothing is mundane; everything is wondrous!

Learn to look at everything with gratitude and awe. Take your own body for example. Just try this small exercise now. Sit down and close your eyes. Visualize that your little finger on the right hand has been cut in a minor accident. Imagine now that your little finger is only three fourths of its original size. There is no other deformity in your body that you know of. You have a perfect body. Suddenly, only your little finger is cut.

What will your reaction be? It will be very difficult for you to digest it. For every simple task that you use your hand for, the little finger has a role to play. What will happen to you? You might even become depressed.

Now just think, how many people are there in this world with so many deformities. There are so many people who don't have all five fingers even! From your head to your toe, even if there were a single handicap, you would miss enjoying some aspect of life.

Just try to spend a few minutes every day in your room by yourself, touching every part of your body with love, and thanking that part for enabling you to enjoy so many things in life.

Have you ever thought about your body in this fashion? How much you take your body for granted! How much you abuse your body. Some of us even hate our body because we feel it is not beautiful enough. I tell you, if you do this exercise every day and feel deep love and gratitude for every part of your body, you will see that your whole body and face glow with a new radiance altogether.

Your body responds to your mind. Never neglect it or take it for granted. After all, it is only with your body that you are able to enjoy so many things. Even for you to come here today and listen to this talk effortlessly, you need all the parts of your body to function properly.

An important thing we need to understand is that desire and gratitude can never co-exist. When you feel one desire after another, it means that you are not living with gratitude. When you live with gratitude, you can never have any desires. When you live with gratitude, whatever is given to you will simply fulfill whatever you need at that moment, that's all. Even before you ask, you will be given, so there will be no question of asking!

Things are always perfect when you function with gratitude. Otherwise, things are always lacking and ugly. Man's greed is such that even if he is made king of the Earth, he will think, 'The

In the Shiva Purana (stories on Shiva), there is the story of Shiva and the Brahma Kapaala.

The Brahma Kapaala was a skull that Shiva used as a begging bowl, when he was wandering in the guise of a mendicant.

The strange thing about the Brahma Kapaala was that, whatever alms people put into it, it would promptly swallow!

No matter how hard Shiva tried to fill it, the bowl always remained empty.

This Brahma Kapaala is actually inside all of us. It is nothing but our own ego; the ego that swallows everything and asks for more! The ego that prevents us from enjoying what is being showered upon us.

Whether you want to base your life on asking, or on gratitude, is entirely up to you. Gratitude is not some kind of morality that can be imposed on you from outside. It is an attitude that has to flower from within, out of a deep understanding of Existence and its ways. When real gratitude happens, it can transform your whole perception of life and bring lasting peace and joy for you.

Once a man went to Ramana Maharshi and said, 'Bhagavan, I want peace!'

Ramana replied, 'From your own statement, just remove the word 'I', remove the word 'want' – and what remains is peace!'

The only way to have a live connection with reality, with Existence, is by dropping your conditioning, your ego and breaking the wall you have built around yourself; then you will be able to see that the connection was always there! You don't have to do anything special; you simply have to drop what is not, that's all!

When you are loving, flowing, and filled with gratitude, you will always feel the tremendous energy of Existence flowing through you and you will always be with a sense of fulfillment, not because of any gains but because it has become your very being! This fulfillment is the ultimate fulfillment that every man is seeking, although he is not aware of it. He searches for it again and again in all material things and keeps missing it.

Whether you accept it or not, Existence is taking care of you and all you need to do is place your faith in it and do your duty with gratitude. You will then be showered upon by Existence.

But we don't have faith.

A small story:

time.

A man lived without any faith in God. Suddenly one day, he fell from a hilltop and found himself dangling from just the grip of a tree's root. He was filled with terror. He suddenly remembered people talking about God all the

He thought to himself, 'Why not try to ask God for help' and he cried out, 'Oh God! I have never had faith in you; are you really there? Can you save me now?'

The voice of God thundered back, 'Sure son, just let go of the root that you are holding and I will hold you from beneath.'

The man cried out again, 'Is there anyone else out there who can help me!'

We are simply not ready to place our trust on Existence! The very quality of trusting the universe in your being will make you live like God on Earth! You are missing out on this wonderful opportunity due to your own ignorance and ego.

If we consciously feel a sense of continued gratitude towards the cosmic energy, we will be able to feel ourselves being taken care of in its very lap. We will feel ourselves being cradled by this energy, like a child is by the mother and whether you accept it or not, this is the truth.

A man dreamt that he and God were walking on the beach through the journey of life.

He told God, 'Oh Lord! I dreamed that you and I were walking on the sands of the beach. When I looked back at the trails on the sand, I saw that at times when life was most testing, at times when I had the deepest troubles, there was only one line of footsteps; the other was missing. How could you move away from me during those times?' God replied, 'Son! It was during those times that I carried you!'

Let me tell you from my own experience: In my days of wandering, I traveled several thousand kilometers by foot. I traveled with just two pieces of clothing and a vessel for begging food. I took a vow not to touch money, and not to save food for the next meal.

People ask me how it was possible. I tell you now: I simply placed trust in Existence and concentrated on my goal of enlightenment, and Existence took care of me; that is how it happened.

When you hear me saying things like, 'Have faith in Existence,' you may think that this concept is for yester-years of justice and saints. Not at all. I am talking from my own experience, from what has happened to me who is sitting right in front of you now! And I think I am the youngest in this gathering! So I am not talking of anything from long ago. Understand that.

Just try living with gratitude and watch the miracles happen. Existence gives, if you are ready to receive without a question, with just a brimming heart.

A man dreamed that he went to heaven and that an angel was showing him around heaven.

He walked alongside the angel.

First, they entered a large workroom filled with many angels.

The room was bustling with activity.

The angel guide stopped and explained to the man, 'This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God that are received through prayer are sorted out.'

The man looked around and saw that it was terribly busy with many angels sorting out petitions written on different pieces of paper - long sheets, scrap sheets and what not. They were from people all over the world, in different languages.

Then they moved on and entered a second section.

This section was also filled with many busy angels and lots of packages and papers.

The guide angel explained, 'This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the grace and blessings that the people asked for, are processed and delivered to them on Earth below.'

They walked on and at the end of the long corridor they stopped at the door of a small room.

To the man's surprise, only one angel was seated there, bent over the desk.

The man asked the angel, 'How come this section is so quiet? Which section is this?'

The angel friend quietly replied, 'This is the Blessings Acknowledgment Section. The acknowledgements sent by the people for the blessings that they have received, are meant to be processed here.'

We all ask and ask, but how many of us thank for what we have received? How many of us include gratitude in our prayer along with our asking?

Try out this small exercise when you are by yourself:

For two hours, keep aside your worries and needs, and focus on all that Existence has already given you. You will immediately think, 'If I don't worry about my needs, how can I fulfill them? Who will take care of my family? What will happen to my business?' Agreed, you have to think about all these things. But just for the next two hours, take all this load off your head and do what I am saying.

In any case, do you think your family or your business is running because of you? Let me tell you, things are running smoothly not because of us, but in spite of us! If Existence had to depend on our intelligence to sustain our families or our wealth, we would all be destitute by now! And be very clear: by simply worrying, nothing can be achieved. I think we spoke enough about worrying earlier!

So just for a few minutes, close your eyes and focus on what has already been showered on you, what you already have. Mentally go over everything – your body, your wealth, the people who support and help you, your house, your luxuries, your vacations, everything. Enjoy all of them in a relaxed and grateful way. Take as much time as possible.

Don't rush and go over it in a hurry. Just live all of it in your mind. Stay with that feeling. Stay with that wonderful feeling of fulfillment for a while. Feel yourself becoming filled with gratitude and overflowing with it. When you open your eyes, you will see that what you have is more than enough to run your life! And you will wonder what more you want!

You have to just become gratitude! The best way to become gratitude is to learn to enjoy without a reason. Enjoy everything that you see, everything that you hear, and everything that you do, with the supreme confidence that Existence is taking care. Life will then simply transform in front of your eyes and you will be overflowing all the time because you are always enjoying it.

A small story:

There was a man who was walking past a mango grove, which was overflowing with mangoes of different varieties. He entered the grove, looked around, studied it, took down some statistics and left half an hour later, with facts and figures.

After a while, another man walked past the same grove. He entered it, plucked a few mangoes, ate them joyfully and left!

Now, please don't stop by at any mango grove and eat up the mangoes. You might get stoned for it! Try to understand what I am trying to say. Just learn to enjoy life without questioning, although I don't mean that you should drop all your work and only enjoy all the time.

You need to work, no doubt. No one is going to give you everything if you only enjoy. I am only saying, don't look for reasons to enjoy, that's all. Simply enjoy everything without questioning. Let enjoying become your very nature, then gratitude will become your very being.

Your profession may be anything, your social status may be anything, your economic status may be anything, but enjoying is something that every man can do irrespective of all this.

The problem is that you always feel that there should be a causative factor for everything including enjoyment. You have trained your mind with these kinds of thought patterns. This is also the reason why, you often feel, that others have been blessed with things that they don't deserve, while you have not been given enough for your efforts.

You always think that you need to work hard in order to enjoy. No! Working hard is alright, but it has nothing to do with the capacity to enjoy. Drop this idea. This is the only way you can stop complaining or feeling dissatisfied.

Existence showers. If you choose to enjoy it, you will. It is purely your choice. You choose wrongly and then complain or blame someone else. Remember, no one is responsible for anything that happens to you. Everything is a conscious choice that you make unconsciously. Because of lack of awareness in you, you make unconscious and monotonous decisions and land up complaining about life.

Always remember that heaven and hell are not geographical locations in the outside world. You create them within yourself. The moment you lose trust over Existence, you alienate yourself from it and carry hell with you wherever you go.

A teacher once asked her students, 'Can anyone tell me where you think hell is?'

After a long silence, a girl stood up and replied, 'In my dad's study.'

The teacher was surprised and asked her why she had said that.

The child replied, 'Every time I go to my dad's study, he says, get the hell out of here!'

Children are trained from a young age, to think of hell and heaven as entities outside of them. They are trained to think that God is sitting above, on a big throne, and watching every movement of ours, and noting down our sins and good deeds.

By thinking in this way, we start the cause and effect cycle of all our actions. We associate good deeds with heaven and bad deeds with hell. We start thinking of God and the whole of Existence as a transaction center. Each one of us becomes a businessman in our own way, whatever may be our real profession!

What do you do when you go to the temple? You purchase flowers, coconuts and fruit, and go to the deity inside and make an offering in your family's name to the deity. You tell the name, birthstar etc. of each and every member of your family and do the ritual.

The poor priest will hold one bowl in his hand and you will be telling him a long list of names with all the details of each of your family members. You are so afraid that God will send the blessings to the wrong person, to the wrong household! You give him the exact geographical location etc. and emphasize to him that it is you and no one else who has come with the offering. Only after doing this, you leave the temple. Am I right?

As if God does not know you if you don't tell him all this! As if you need to remind God of your existence so that he will shower on you.

All you need to do is feel continued gratitude towards Him, that's all. He is always showering on you.

It is not that he sees you in trouble and then decides to bail you out, or sees that you are alright and therefore ignores you. All this is our own conditioning that we project on God. All this is what society has taught us from a young age.

Simply enter into the temple with a feeling of gratitude; stand before every deity for a few minutes with deep thankfulness, and leave the temple in that same mood. That is enough. The rest will be taken care of. This is the ultimate prayer. Gratitude is the ultimate offering.

Use these few days you are going to be here effectively to experience what I am saying. Allow gratitude to take root in these few days, when you are away from the outer world. Open up and allow yourself to flower. This is a rare opportunity for you. This is a chance for you to transform. Don't miss it. Create that new inner space in you, which will go with you when you leave this place.

The problem is, we are always trying to reach God through our heads. You can never reach God through your head. If you simply drop your head, you will automatically function through your heart and discover that you need not even reach out to Him; He is already there in you!

With your head, you will always seek outside and you can never find God outside. Also, you will be looking for reasons to feel grateful. When you move from your head to your heart, a whole new space will open out for you, and you will realize that you always knew, and that it was your mind which was causing all the havoc and not letting you realize it.

When you operate from your heart, you are always in gratitude. Do we ever say 'mind-felt gratitude'? No! We always say 'heartfelt gratitude', do we not?

Next, you will ask, 'How do we move from our head to our heart Swamiji!' Just be aware of your head, that is enough! Only because you are unaware of your head, you allow it to function in an undisturbed fashion, in a mechanical fashion. Once you become aware of your head, you will be able to drop it.

Gratitude is not any virtue. It has to be your very attitude. When you feel only gratitude, you can tune yourself beautifully to Existence, and then Existence will reveal to you its magical splendour. All you need to do then is sit back and enjoy!

Let me explain what I mean by tuning. We all know how the radio works. The same radio, without any change in its physical form, can be connected to many radio stations airing different programs, can it not? While you are listening to a particular station, if there are any disturbances or cross-talk, what do you do? You fine-tune it. Now, just apply this same concept to tuning to Existence.

There are thousands of programs happening around us. Whatever we tune ourselves to, that we will experience. Now, tuning to any one program is purely our own choice. You have the freedom to choose the program you wish to listen to, right? In the same way, if you choose to tune yourself to discontentment and similar negative things, you will be caught in the never-ending whirlpool of worry, discontentment, dilemma and what not. Whereas, if you choose to tune yourself with the central chord that is running this whole show, you will catch the right thread in all the chaos that is around you and will be free from all these emotions. You will become a beautiful flower that blossoms with a fragrance.

The more you fine-tune yourself with Existence, the more ecstatic life will be.

Discontentment will pull you down, make you heavy and miserable. On the other hand, gratitude will make you light and blissful.

A small story:

• In a Christian household, a girl was sitting at the dinner table with her mother.
• Food was served at the table and she started eating her food without saying grace.

The mother was shocked and asked her how she could do such a thing.

The girl promptly replied, 'There is nothing on this plate that I have not said thanks for at least once before.'

We know to feel grateful only with a strong reason.

One more small story:

A young girl asked her mother, 'Mom, how many more days remaining before Christmas?' The mother asked, 'Why do you want to know?' The girl replied, 'I was just wondering whether it was time for me to start being a good girl.'

This is how we train children to think and behave. We teach them how to do transactions. We teach them that everything is nothing but a transaction. We don't teach them to be spontaneous and flowing. We don't teach them to live without a purpose. We make everything goal-oriented for them.

Because of all these things that have been done to children, you have to work hard in undoing them first. Be very clear that all that I am doing with you is only undoing. I am continuously undoing. Imagine the amount of doing that has been done to you! Over generations, people have been passing on their ideas to you. I have to first undo all that and then create a space in you for you to flower.

When I tell people to feel a continued sense of gratitude in them, they come back later and tell me, 'Swamiji, these days I say thank you to the cab drivers and to the servants at home.' Be very clear: when gratitude becomes your being, you will not even report these kinds of things.

When you are grieving the loss of a dear one, do you verbalize your grief? Will you be able to verbalize your grief? No! It becomes such a deep-rooted emotion that it becomes the state of your being. You can only feel it; you can never report it.

In the same way, gratitude when it becomes your very being, will simply become your state; you will not be reporting it. You can never report it also. Of course, saying 'thank you' is alright for social reasons because unless you express it, it doesn't reach the ears of the other person.

But what I am trying to tell you here is, we need to move from gratitude of the mind to gratitude of the being. The gratitude that we are talking about, you will never be able to express, because it runs so deep.

People often say to me, 'Swamiji, we are so grateful to you for so many things that have happened in our lives after association with you.'

For reasons of social etiquette, you may thank a person for something, but gratitude is not something that you direct towards a person. When you feel gratitude towards a person for something you have received, it is simply gratitude of the mind. This is the kindergarten stage of gratitude.

Real gratitude is a deep overwhelming feeling inside yourself, not as a result of any gain but just at the thought of existing, at the thought of the compassionate life force that is Existence, that's all. This gratitude does not need any relationship; it is not dependent on anyone or anything; it is not under the sway of any emotions like lust, anger, hatred or love. It simply IS, that's all.

You express your gratitude with words because you are egoistic and you don't want people to think you lack courtesy. But the moment you express it, you belittle or falsify it.

Actually, your very body language can convey the state of gratitude in you. Your eyes can convey it; your smile can convey it; your warmth can convey it much better than words. Tears of gratitude express it better than anything else. When you are overwhelmed, when you are brimming, tears overflow.

I am not asking you to cry! I am only telling you that when you overflow, your body will show it, you cannot hide it, and that is the real indication of the state of your gratitude.

And remember, these tears don't belong to any caste or creed or religion. They cannot be classified as Hindu tears or Muslim tears; these tears don't belong to any religion. They belong to the being and the being is beyond all this. Gratitude is one thing that can dissolve all man-made barriers and conditioning; that is why it is the ultimate prayer.

Anything deep can never be expressed wholly. Poets may write poems to express it, painters may paint to express it, writers may write to express it, but there will remain a portion that can never be expressed through any of this. Existence can never be expressed by ordinary things. That is why it is so mystical and luring. That is why it is so exciting beyond what words can describe! That is why you can only feel it and not express it. That is why you come here again and again!

When you come here, you don't have to express any gratitude, because even without you expressing, I will know. When real gratitude is overwhelming in you, I will know it even before you do! I know the beat of your heart! I know it from the look in your eyes! In fact, when you express to me, you might be deceiving yourself because most of the time, you think and talk in contradicting ways. You might be thinking something inside, but you express something else outside.

Existence knows when a person is flowering from within. Just feel the deep gratitude towards Existence, that is enough. You don't have to express it, just become it, that's all.

In Bharat, there is a tradition of touching the master's feet. When you are overflowing with gratitude to the master, there is no way to express it. You then simply touch his feet, feel the oneness and express the gratitude in you.

Many people come from many places to visit me. Some of them come and stand in front of me and don't say anything. Just tears of joy flow from their eyes. They don't feel compelled to say anything, because they cannot say anything more than what their tears are conveying. They are just emoting from their being.

When you are in the presence of the master, just be there with a deep sense of gratitude and love, with a feeling of gratitude at just being present near him. You will find that all your questions will dissolve and you are filled with a certain joy in no time. When you fill up easily, it means that you have caught the right thread.

Always be with the master with deep awareness; then you will not miss it. When you are in gratitude with the master, the master's energy will pour into your being and his experience will simply flood you.

And when you feel only gratitude towards the master, the need to be physically near him will also slowly dissolve. Gratitude helps you cut across space and time. It dissolves boundaries and makes you expand. When you expand, you feel one with everything. After some time, even gratitude will seem like a disturbance; just silence will prevail!

Even in relationships, if you feel that any relationship is coming to an end with no love lost, you can simply feel gratitude towards the other and depart, that's all. Just feel gratitude inside you for having been associated with the other person for that period of time, for all that you learned and enjoyed because of your association with him or her for that period of time, and depart. Then, even that becomes beautiful.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, how can we feel gratitude towards our enemies?'

I ask you, why not? Your so-called enemies are responsible for making you stronger. They are a challenge to you; they make you grow. By hurting you, they show you a different perspective of life to deal with. Why not then feel gratitude towards them?

After all, you want to grow, do you not? Every moment, you want to become more intelligent, do you not? If these people did not open up opportunities for you, you would be living deluded by only friends surrounding you. That is not going to help much. You need to get roughed out; only then you will rupture and intelligence will flower.

The seed has to rupture for the tree to grow. If the seed is happy remaining a seed, it will simply disintegrate with time and die, that's all. No transformation will happen to it.

When it comes to so-called enmity, an ordinary man will make it look ugly. He will take it to a point where everything becomes a vicious cycle, moving from hatred to hatred. In so many families, there are feuds. It becomes ugly and too much to deal with. Why? It is you who have allowed it to grow in that way. You did not function with deep awareness and intelligence. You were not functioning with fulfillment and so you allowed it to grow in an ugly fashion.

If you were functioning with fulfillment, you would not have been able to see any space for the enmity to grow. It will be an unknown language to you. Even if the other person wants to continue the enmity, you will not feel any hatred towards him. If he wants to end the relationship, you will end it only with gratitude again!

In so many families, people don't look each other in the eye or they actually even take pains to avoid each other in public places. Why all these unnecessary things? Why are you wasting your energy in these kinds of things? Never allow hatred to consume you. Look at it with deep awareness and intelligence. Hatred will disappear and only love and gratitude will remain.

This is a beautiful thing you have come up with. It goes to show that you have analyzed yourself very deeply. You see: When you seek attention from your mind, through jealousy or discontentment, it becomes unhealthy. But when you ask with love and gratitude, it is not a craving; it is simply a deep love for me, that's all.

When you pray with a wanting, it is simply ungratefulness and a play of ego. But when you ask out of deep love, it becomes a prayer, filled with gratitude and devotion. There is a difference between the two.

You are in awareness, so it cannot be called discontentment or craving. With time, this too will drop for you. And one more thing: You have had the courage to come up with this question! I am sure many others secretly feel the same way, but have not said it aloud! They may have consoled themselves by saying, 'What is there in a name*,'* or they may feel shy to come out with it! Of course, there is nothing in a name. But, you need to go beyond it with an experiential understanding, not delude yourself out of it. The fact that you have come up with the question shows that you are willing to courageously go through it.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, what can we do for you in return to show our gratitude to you?'

I tell them, 'The best that you can do for me in return is flower!' That is the best that you can do for me and the best that I can do for you. Understand that. When you internalize these words and make gratitude your being, you have done a lot in return for me.

But, If you feel that you have to do something in return, do some service to society; help others. Help awaken others to the joy that you have discovered. Don't do it out of ego or superiority. Do it for the love of sharing, for the joy of sharing. Give your full energy and enjoy doing it. It will become a joyful meditation for you and an awakening for them.

Every time you feel deep gratitude, you are actually in meditation. So just imagine if you were in gratitude forever! You would be in meditation all the time.

Gratitude can never be taught. Of course, the idea of feeling grateful can be told to children when they are young so that they know about it. But it remains social conditioning just like other things, in the same way as you are taught to respect your elders, and to wish your teachers a good day in school. It is just a mechanism of the mind, not an actual feeling inside you.

Even now, be very clear: I am not teaching you to be grateful. I am only trying to create an inner space in you wherein you will feel what I am saying; wherein it will become your own experience. The energy behind my words can create that space in you, that's all.

Whenever you are given freedom, you become a better individual and you are ready to open up. When you are under psychological slavery, it becomes difficult for you to explore and find your inner space.

I always tell people that I am a liberating Guru! I give tremendous freedom when working on people. Only then it becomes easy for them to explore and evolve.

Of course, I am not telling parents that they should give their children complete freedom and watch them without interfering. I am only saying that psychological slavery should be avoided. Just create the conditions for children to evolve. Take the necessary precautions, no doubt, but allow them to experience the truth for themselves instead of stuffing it down their throats. Give them enough space to grow and experience their inner bliss.

Sometimes people ask me, 'Swamiji, how is it that you are so blissful all the time!'

Masters are always in an ecstatic state because of the deep state of gratitude that just continuously bubbles in them; because they are in communion with Existence all the time!

When you feel gratitude only towards me, or just towards anyone else, you miss the whole. Gratitude is not a beam that is directed in a controlled manner towards appropriate people. It is a fragrance. When you wear it, it simply radiates from you. That is why a master appears so blissful all the time. A master is like a fragrance that you can experience and enjoy! That is why you are drawn here again and again!

Understand that every moment is beautiful, if you are ready to receive and see it. It is not only when we are celebrating a function or we have seen success, or we have achieved something, that the moment is beautiful.

Every single moment is beautiful because Existence simply flows spontaneously and joyfully and all events happen in synchronicity all the time. When you understand this, nothing will ever seem 'wrong' to you. You will then wonder what people are complaining about all the time!

When you feel gratitude towards Existence, the whole of Existence becomes a temple to you. Then you are in a prayerful and meditative mood anywhere you are. You no longer need to go to temples and pray. You simply merge with the whole and feel blissful all the time.

When the whole of Existence becomes a temple, the trees, the sky, the earth, everything becomes one. When you bow down before it, what can you ask for? You will simply bow down with gratitude for being part of the profound Existence, that's all.

When this happens, you can relate to the trees, to the sky, to the earth and to everything else. You then move from communication, which is a language of the mind, to communion, which is the language of the heart. You then shift your center from your mind to your heart.

For those of you who believe that God answers your prayers, let me tell you one thing: God is so compassionate that most often than not he leaves your prayers unanswered!

It is like this: When a child asks for an ice cream when he is suffering from a cold, do you give it to him? No, you don't give it to him.

Now, the child might feel ungrateful to you for it, but you know that you are doing your best for the child because he does not know that what he is asking for is not the right thing for him at that time.

In the same way, with your deep ignorance, you don't know what is best for you but keep asking God for various things. But out of pure compassion, God gently brushes aside your prayers and bestows you with the things that you actually need and prods you on towards better intelligence, which is his only concern for you. Remember that the more your inner intelligence grows, the less you pray or ask.

What can you ask God for? The moment you ask, it means that you think that there are a few things that God does not know! It means that you feel that unless you ask, God will not know. It sounds ridiculous, does it not? Can there be anything that God does not know?

Understand that God gives you what you need, not what you want. If he starts giving all that you want, you will move from misery to misery! When he gives you what you need, you will move from intelligence to more intelligence and somewhere, the asking will drop and gratitude will happen.

God gives you the strength and courage that you need to overcome difficulties.

He gives you the wisdom to dissolve your so-called problems.

He gives you an invaluable resource that is your own updated intelligence, to bring you prosperity.

He gives opportunities for you to explore your own love and care.

He gives you the intelligence to understand that all that you have is all that you need.

He gives you the maturity to flower with a fragrance.

The basic problem with all of us is, we are all ready to believe that God has the shakti or power to give us what we want, but fail to understand that he also has the buddhi or intelligence to decide whether or not it is good for us! Simply because we believe that God has only power, we keep asking and asking.

We always feel that we know what is best for us and pray to God for that. We want to use our intelligence and God's power to get us what we want! We clearly tell him, 'This is what I want and this is how things should be, so please do this for me with your power!' We give all our wants with our preferences within brackets, as a prayer to God!

This is the attitude that gets us into complications. We have to understand that God not only has the power, but also the intelligence to decide what is good for you. When we understand this, we will stop our method of praying.

We think that the whole world is running because of our intelligence. Be very clear: the world is running in spite of our intelligence!

A small story:

God and all the scientists of the world had a meeting and a competition.

Whatever item that God made, the scientists reproduced it identically out of some material. The scientists were able to reproduce things with no problem.

Finally, God made man out of dust and challenged the scientists.

The scientists started to pick up dust…

God said, 'Wait! Make it out of your dust, not mine!'

Man has to understand that Existence is the creator, the created and the creation. Only then can he simply start enjoying things without a care. Only then can he relinquish possession and doership.

We are so used to the concept of trading that it becomes difficult to understand that there can be someone who is not even our blood relative, who can care for us unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. It is too much to believe!

I tell you that Existence cares for you like no one else can. This truth I can tell you, but it is up to each one of you to realize this from within, from your own experience. Only then it will be first hand knowledge.

I always tell people, 'I cannot teach you spirituality, but you can learn!' I can tell you great truths so that you will at least know what you don't know. But making that truth into an understanding for yourself is up to you. I am ready to tell you how many ever times you want to hear the truth.

A small story:

Once when Adi Shankaracharya, a saint from ancient Bharat, was on a pilgrimage by foot with his disciples, at one place he felt very thirsty.

They looked around but could not find anything to quench his thirst.

There was only a palm grove, where they were producing country arrack.

Shankara entered the grove and asked the workers if they had anything to quench his thirst.

They said they had nothing except the country arrack.

Shankara asked for the country arrack and drank it.

The disciples saw Shankara drinking. Immediately, they also asked for the arrack and drank it!

The arrack did not affect Shankara because he is an enlightened being, having boundary-less consciousness!

He walked on steadily but his disciples were staggering behind him!

After a few days, again they were walking, but this time in a desert area.

They felt thirsty and this time they saw only an iron forgery.

Shankara asked the worker attending if there was anything to drink.

The worker said there was nothing to drink.

But Shankara saw the molten iron, the liquid iron and asked the worker for it and drank it.

After drinking the liquid iron, he turned to his disciples and offered it to them!

The disciples were simply shocked.

Shankara wanted to make them understand that they should do what he says and not what he does. The arrack did not affect him because he was established in boundary-less consciousness. Unless you have experienced it, you will not know. So you cannot simply imitate from outside. It has to happen from inside for each of you, and then you will know.

How committed or how connected you want to feel with the truth, is your own decision. I can only help those who help themselves. I can give my hand to lift you up, only if you are willing to at least lift your hand to reach out to mine. If you really want to be lifted, you would at least put out your hand to me. Otherwise, I will allow you the freedom to simply be where you are, that's all. That is why they say, 'God gives you the freedom to be in bondage!'

Most of us think that we are not helped by God the way we should be. I tell you, God knows you better than you know yourself. This is the truth. You have to understand this, that's all. Just try to drop the doubt and have some faith; that is enough. The rest will be taken care of automatically.

A small story:

Two goldfish were inside a fish tank. One of them asked the other, 'Do you really believe in the existence of God?' The other replied, 'What else do you think changes our water everyday?'

If you believe that Existence takes care of all your needs, you will be free from any kind of worry. But remember, as I told you, your needs are different from your wants. Your needs are few but your wants are many. Your needs are automatically fulfilled by Existence. When your wants increase, you lose faith in Existence because you don't see them being fulfilled.

You see, ordinary belief is just believing, that's all. Faith on the other hand, is belief plus energy to put it into action. You can start with belief but you have to end in faith. With belief, there will be a doubt; with faith there will be no doubt, because you would have experienced it. When you have experienced for yourself the wonders of gratitude, you will attract more and more fortune for yourself. I am declaring this from my own experience.

A small story:

A boy once visited a king's palace.

He requested to allow him to stay for a night in the palace. The king agreed and the boy stayed.

The next morning, the boy came up to the king and complained endlessly about the shortcomings of the accommodation provided to him.

The king ordered the boy to be taken out saying that even a day's accommodation was too much for a person such as him.

The boy felt very bad and went to a Sufi saint and narrated to him the happenings.

The saint did not say anything. He simply asked the boy to become his disciple.

A few months later, the saint told the boy that he was going to visit the king and asked him to accompany him.

They went and asked to be allowed to stay for a few days in the palace.

The king agreed.

The next morning, the king asked the saint if he was comfortable with the arrangements that had been made for him.

The saint expressed heart-felt gratitude towards the king for the comforts made for him.

The king was very happy and immediately ordered his men to pay more attention to the arrangements made for the saint.

The saint told the boy, 'Do you see now? This is the secret of life. Feel grateful and you will be showered.'

This is what happens when you thank Existence instead of finding fault with what has been given to you. By feeling gratitude, you send out positive vibrations that will automatically bring back more than you can imagine for yourself.

This does not mean that you have to praise people with your lips and cunningly deceive them to get more. No! When you are in a state of thankfulness all the time, irrespective of your state in the outer world, your gratitude will radiate from you. Then, things will simply start happening for you.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, there is so much suffering around us. Why is this so?' I tell you, this is all nonsense. First of all, there is not as much suffering as you make out to be. There is suffering alright, but it is magnified by your own mind. If you take proper statistics and see, you will understand how much your mind plays in these things. It has become casual social talk to say all these things and magnify the whole situation. Secondly, there is suffering because our faith has disappeared, that's all. We have become avaricious, driven by our unconscious ways.

Understand that Existence simply orchestrates the happenings in the universe. All the events are so synchronously conducted that the more aware you are, the more you can perceive the amazing order in what now seems to be chaotic to you. We just need to be aware of this and play our part accordingly; life will then flow like music.

When you become sensitive to this phenomenon, from small events to larger ones, you will start realizing how things are being re-arranged and made to happen with you being a simple instrument in the whole process. The power of coincidence will start revealing itself to you in its entire splendor. You will become aware that you are part of a macrocosmic orchestra wherein you just need to flow with the music and enjoy it! It is only when you fight the flow, when you try to go against it, that the problem starts.

A small story:

One day, people came rushing to a man and told him that his wife had fallen into the river and was being washed away by it.

The man immediately ran to the river, took off his clothes and plunged into it and swam upstream.

The people screamed, 'Why are you swimming upstream?

She would have obviously been washed away downstream.' The man screamed back, 'Only I know my wife. Even in the river, she would have gone only against the current, not with it!'

When we fight the flow, the problem starts, because it means that we have allowed our ego to step in between Existence and ourselves. On the other hand, if we understand the flow of Existence and go with it, we will be spontaneous; we will be able to take on everything that comes our way and we will expand with gratitude.

When you are spontaneous, it means you are ready to take on any responsibility. I always tell people that responsibility is the ability to respond spontaneously. Masters take up responsibility for the whole world! How? Because they are so spontaneous and moving with the flow of Existence all the time! They know that if they simply flow with Existence, Existence will make things happen in a natural fashion!

If you talk to the ashramites in our ashram, they will tell you about their experiences. It is very hard for them to know things before hand and keep pace, because events happen spontaneously! Over time, they first learn to drop their ideas of needing enough lead-time in order to function, and then slowly they learn to be ready for anything at any time!

An outsider will be amazed to perceive the orderly chaos that happens at the ashram. Be it worship or functions, I will tell them just a few hours ahead and things will get done.

If we learn to flow with Existence, we can live without any worry. But somehow, we all have mastered the art of fighting Existence. We then suffer. If you tune yourself with the flow of Existence, you will find that every moment, you are being watched over and given what you need for that moment.

When you tune in, you carry the radiance and energy of Existence with you. You will be able to see things getting re-arranged, things falling into place like a jigsaw puzzle so that things happen for you; you will be able to feel people receiving you with a strange spontaneity and enthusiasm wherever you go. People will look at you differently. They will experience an unexplainable pull towards you. Your life will become a song that is being played by an unseen musician, to which you are simply dancing. Life becomes just music and dance. It becomes a celebration!

Instead of celebrating, we are all the time searching for more, searching for miracles. We are all the time looking for miracles to occur and feel that they are not happening.

Miracles are never done; they simply happen continuously around you! It is your recognition that makes them miracles! Use gratitude to tune yourself with Existence and you will see the miracles that are happening! Gratitude will tune you to the miracles. Either you enjoy them or you miss them. It is your choice!

When you miss them, you will remain discontented. It is like this: the door is open but you are knocking continuously on it! I am telling you that all that you need is already there and you only have to receive it, but you are not ready to believe this. You don't see the miracles that are already happening around you and instead go in search of them.

Understand that turning water into wine is not a miracle. Turning man into God is the real miracle. PC Sarkar, the famous magician will do the former. It takes deep understanding to do the latter.

A small story, which Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to tell often:

Two brothers lived together.

The older brother decided to pursue business while the younger one went on to become a sannyasi.

After a few years, they met each other again.

They asked each other what they had achieved in the previous few years.

The older brother listed all the material things that he had achieved in the outer world. He explained about his business and how much wealth he had accumulated. He then asked the younger brother what he had achieved.

The younger one simply took him to a river, crossed it seamlessly on foot and proudly declared, 'This is what I have achieved.'

The older brother hired a boat and ferried to the other side of the river and said, 'What? What takes two pence to achieve, you have achieved in so many years!'

People think that if they can do miracles in the outer world, they have become spiritual and powerful. No! Understand: Spirituality is

not a game of miracles in the outer world. It is a game in the inner world, to change your personality to individuality, which is the greatest miracle! Changing personality to individuality is the greatest miracle.

People time and again beg me to do miracles. I tell them that these so-called miracles are not a scale to measure my state. But they don't want to listen. Even if, just to demonstrate simple techniques like materializing etc., I do one or two things, people will start coming to me to watch these miracles, for the magic show; not for transformation! That is my worry.

One day, upon persistent begging from a few devotees, I teleported a Lakshmi idol and gave it to them. I explained to them that it was not a miracle. Just because you don't know the cause and effect relationship of what you see, you think it is a miracle.

What actually happens in teleporting is, just like the sound waves from your voice over the telephone get converted to electrical signals and transmitted over a medium and then get re-converted back to sound waves at the other end, I just convert matter into energy, move it across air and reconvert it back into matter, that's all. There is no miracle in this.

So stop searching for miracles. Live with a feeling of gratitude and love for Existence and automatically, you will see the real miracles happening to you. Your transformation is the greatest miracle that can happen through a Master! And remember, you don't need miracles from a Master; you only need intelligence.

When your intelligence grows, you will handle your day–to–day activities effortlessly and you will be in peace. For example, if you are a manager, you have many duties: you hire people, supervise their performance, fix their salaries etc. Are you able to do all these things without getting stressed? With intelligence, you will be able to handle them without getting stressed. You will be in peace. What you need is intelligence, not power. Remember that.

When you understand and experience that Existence is taking care, you will transform and move on to becoming an individual liberated from all these kinds of delusions. We always place our faith in people, astrologers, fortune-tellers, planets and stars and what not; never on Existence that is the very life source of the universe.

In Bharat, there is a thrilling tradition wherein people ask about their future to a parrot!

On the pavements on the road, there will be a parrot in a cage with its owner beside it.

The people who go by will stop and pay the owner some money and faithfully ask for their future.

The owner will open up the cage and command the parrot to step out and pick a paper from a row of stacked papers.

The parrot will come out of the cage, pick out a paper with its beak, and hold it out to the owner.

The owner will read out what's written on it. That is the prediction of the person's future!

A man with 6 senses asks a parrot with 4 senses to predict his future! How is it possible? Just leave all these foolish things and start falling in tune; catch the central chord that is gratitude, and move in tune with Existence.

When you watch masters, they appear to be so graceful, so miraculous and so divine. This is because they move in tune with Existence. But you don't understand their state; you see only their status. When you understand their state, you will understand that they have simply merged with Existence and that is why they appear so blissful all the time. This is the state that you have to try to achieve.

Instead, what do you say? 'Oh! He is a master; he is always in bliss. How will he know about my problems? I am struggling here for my bread and butter and he is asking me to be in gratitude all the time.'

You only see the rose petals at the master's feet; you only see his status and think that he knows nothing about your day-to-day matters. Remember that the respect he commands is to his state, not his status. You have no idea of the struggle that has gone behind achieving that state.

You talk of struggling for bread and butter. I tell you from my own experience that so many days of my wandering, I went without food. Of course, I never thought of it at that time as a shortcoming on the part of Existence. I was so fervently in search of the truth that everything became meditation, including going without food.

You know, barring a few charity houses, and in Northern Bharat where sannyasis are given great respect, people always shun sannyasis. Sannyasis are always eyed with suspicion. People think that they have come to steal their property. I tell you, never shun them. Why don't you just give them a bowl of rice? That is enough for them. Never be miserly when it comes to giving to people. Remember: If you are not willing to be a daani, that is a man who gives a small portion of his wealth, you will be a mahadaani, one who leaves all his wealth and dies!

Anyhow, please understand that I am talking from my own experience. Even in the deepest of troubles and struggle, if you function with unwavering faith and gratitude, and use your inner intelligence in moving through them, you will see that you will emerge out of it successfully with only greater gratitude and intelligence!

Even if you lose something very precious, just feel grateful for having enjoyed it for awhile, that's all. When you become pure gratitude, you will not cry over anything lost. You will just enjoy it as long as it is there and then continue to feel grateful after it is gone also.

A small story:

A king used to go on rounds at night in disguise in his own kingdom.

Every night, he would see a master sitting under a tree in a blissful state when the rest of the city was asleep.

He felt deep respect for the master and requested him one night to stay with him in the palace.

The master said, 'Alright, I will come today because tomorrow is never sure.'

The king was taken aback at this rather abrupt acceptance of the invitation, but took him to the palace.

In the palace, he gave the master the best of rooms and the best of food.

The master enjoyed everything to the utmost.

The king was observing him as he enjoyed all the material comforts. He did not believe that a real master would enjoy things like this, so his respect for the master decreased day by day. He felt cheated.

Finally one day, the master said to him, 'Something seems to be troubling you. Why don't you come out with it?'

The king said, 'Yes, I can't understand the difference between you and me when I see you enjoying all these things like I do.'

The master smiled and said, 'Alright, let us go for a walk.' The king agreed and they went for a walk. They walked in silence for a long time.

They came to a river that marked the end of the king's boundary.

The master said, 'Alright, my stay is over. I am going, leaving your kingdom. Are you coming?'

The king said, 'How can I? I have my kingdom and my people and so many things to solve!'

The master smiled and asked, 'Now have you got an answer to your question?'

The king was simply jolted at the master's words.

Masters know that everything belongs to Existence. That is why they live totally in the moment, enjoying it to the utmost. Every moment is lived with totality. They are not fearful of losing anything because what is yours to lose?

Always remember that everything belongs to Existence. You are a temporary possessor of it, that's all. Feel gratitude always whether or not you are in possession of many things. That is the way to a liberating life. You can enjoy tremendous freedom and contentment when you understand this one thing.

To be discontented is like giving some food for the mind to chew. The mind will feed on it and keep itself busy. What happens when we feel too contented? The mind becomes starved. It doesn't know what to do. It starts searching for its food!

A lady went to a shoe store.

She asked for shoes to fit her feet and the salesman patiently showed her many pairs of shoes.

She tried on one after another and felt that none of them fit her perfectly.

Finally, the salesman showed her a pair and asked her to try them on.

She tried them on and said, 'They fit too well. I wonder if this is the right size*.*'

When you are determined not to feel contented, then no one can help you. It is a state of mind which only you can help. Most of us feel a certain comfort zone in talking and feeling discontented, because there is always something to talk about; the mind is occupied all the time.

To feel contented always is like losing the mind. This is also why, although we claim that we want to feel contented always, we are not ready when it happens. Our mind plays cunningly because it needs something to chew on.

We feel secure when we run behind the horizon. The horizon is only an imaginary line, but we feel secure running behind it because there is something to run behind! The mind has been trained to run always!

When you are like this, you are actually fooling yourself, that's all. You are creating self-contradictory results for yourself. For example, you want to feel contented at the bottom of your heart, but you keep denying yourself contentment by constantly complaining and refusing to see what has been given to you! You want something but bring something else upon yourself. And you feel comfortable in continuing to try to achieve contentment as a lifelong process!

Understand that the moment you create self-contradictory results for yourself, your misery starts. Try to be clear on how you would like your life to be and direct every ounce of energy towards making it that way. When you function with this clarity, you will never delude yourself and you will see that you soon become what you want to be!

When you enter into a space where gratitude becomes your meditation, contentment automatically happens. The normal contentment that we all know always comes with a reason. It is related to something that has happened in the outer world that has temporarily put your busy mind to rest, that's all. When your mind is restful, you say you are contented. Real contentment is not this.

Real contentment is when you feel permanent gratitude towards the benevolence of Existence. Real contentment asks for nothing more. It simply enjoys everything without a reason; it needs no reason. When you reach this state, you will not know what discontentment is all about.

A small story:

A man once went to a doctor and complained of insomnia. The doctor asked him, 'So, you are unable to sleep at all at night?' The man replied, 'I sleep well at night, doctor.' The doctor asked, 'Then what is the problem?' The man said, 'I am unable to sleep in the afternoons and evenings.'

We are all asking for more and more without any scale of measure. Even if we have a scale, it is infinite; that is the problem. We are completely blinded by our attitude of asking for more. We don't even know where we stand, because of this. We haven't looked inwards in a long time.

Try to remember this joke whenever something is bothering you. Immediately try to connect with the joke and see with awareness what is bothering you. Go deep down and see whether you are really having a problem or you are simply allowing your mind to play. You may just laugh at the end of it.

A lady was traveling on a long-distance flight.

The airhostess came serving food for everyone. She found one lady fast asleep and so she moved on to the next person.

The lady woke up after a while and asked for her food. The airhostess brought her food for her.

The lady touched the food and flared up, 'What sort of an airline are you running? The food is not warm. I have paid through my nose to take this flight and I can't even get warm food!'

The airhostess apologized saying, 'Ma'am, please excuse us. The warmer is not working. The rest of the people also had their food this way.'

The lady said, 'Is that so? Then it is alright.'

See, the food remained cold even then, but the lady was no more unhappy because she knew that everyone else also had their food that way! This is what I mean when I say that everything is a play of the mind; everything is an adjustment of the mind. The mind keeps switching its stance and playing on you, because you have allowed it to take over. You have not centered yourself on contentment and so you sway according to your mind.

So as I was saying, if you are not able to laugh at the end of the day, it means that you are still serious about the whole thing; you still feel that you are shouldering the whole world and that it is because of you the whole show is running.

You see, deep down, the truth is, we belong to Existence, which is the ultimate and all pervading energy which is controlling the whole show. Our inherent nature is also to find that connection back with Existence so that we flow without a problem. But somewhere, we miss this understanding and disconnect ourselves from Existence and start running behind material things thinking that that is what we are searching for.

If you have visited the zoo at least once in your lifetime, you might have noticed that the longest queues are in front of the cages of the lions and the tigers. Always, you will find people standing for a long time in front of the lions and tigers and admiring them with awe and respect.

We do this because, without even realizing it, we are strangely reassured by seeing things that are bigger or stronger than us. It gives us the comforting feeling that we are not the ultimate power. We know that we are not the ultimate power. Our being is actually searching for an encounter with any such grandeur that reminds us of our real role in this macrocosmic universe.

People go to the temples only for this assurance that they get when they see the idols. Those who don't find this kind of assurance in the temples find it elsewhere. But somehow, deep within we know that we are not the ultimate power. This feeling should become an experiential reality for us. Then we will know for sure.

If you go to the Himalayas, you will get a permanent and strong reminder of the profundity of Existence. From peak to peak, the

mountains rise, the mountain becoming the valley and the valley rising into the mountain, with no perceivable beginning or end; and the river Ganges flowing continuously in the valley in different moods, in different colours and trails, chattering and laughing in the language of Existence. If there is a world not made by man, it is the Himalayas. The Himalayas prove that humans are not the ultimate kings.

When you see the Himalayas, you will see how, over hundreds of kilometers, ice mountains appear as just ice mountains and then become mountains and water and later just water. Such are the wonders of nature at its peak.

What books cannot teach you with words, the Himalayas can teach you through just the experience of seeing. Only you need to be ready to receive it. The Himalayas are a live energy body with penetrating silence. You just have to allow it to penetrate you. If you understand that you are but a speck of the splendor of Existence, you will accept it with grace and humility, with no questions asked.

When you open yourself to Existence, it fills you up. How much you open yourself out, that much it fills you up. You all think that you have to work hard to cling on to God. Not at all. Have you seen the way a young monkey clings to its mother? There is every possibility that it might let go and fall. Whereas with a cat, the mother clings on to its kitten; the kitten then is perfectly safe.

You don't have to cling to God. If you just allow yourself to do your duty leaving the rest to God, God will cling on to you. Falling for God is not a big deal. Making God fall for you is a big deal! This will happen when you have undaunted faith and live a life of love and service.

A beautiful small story:

A man was very god-conscious and loving did a lot of good deeds in his life.

He came to know that there was a particular book with a person that had the names of people who loved God.

He was excited to find out if his name was there in the book and went to that person and asked if he could see the book.

He searched through all the pages several times but could not find his name in it.

He was very disappointed and went away.

A year later, he came back to see if his name had been added to the book.

Again, he could not find it anywhere.

As he was turning to leave, the man said, 'Sir, please wait. This book has the list of names of people who love God. I have another very small book that has a few names in it. It is the list of names of people whom God loves.'

He showed the man the book.

The man found his name in it.

It is very easy to fall for God. After all, he is so loving, so giving, so powerful and what not. You can continue to say that you love him and remain where you are. But when you start feeling God at the being level and the transformation happens in you, God will fall for you! You will find yourself being loved in many ways that you have never known before. Such is the compassionate love of God.

We have all along been taught to be wary of nature, of God, of Existence. We have been taught to wear slippers while walking so that the earth does not hurt us. We have been taught to stay away from rain. We have been taught to stay indoors when it is windy. We have been taught to stay away from animals and what not.

I tell you, Existence is your only friend on planet Earth. Do you know how wonderful it is to walk with a feel of the earth? I never used to wear slippers in my younger days except while in college because their rule demanded that I wore them. I just used to walk barefoot, whether it was at home or in school or during my days of wandering.

Even now in the ashram, I walk barefoot most of the time. Of course, the people around me insist that wear slippers saying that my feet will get hurt. I ask them how these feet that wandered the length and breadth of Bharat bare can get hurt now!

You just completely disconnect yourself from nature by doing these things. So many people ask me, 'Swamiji, how is it that your feet are so smooth and flawless even after so many years of wandering in rugged terrain?' I tell you now: I have never felt alienated from Existence; that is why. That is the real reason. I always felt that I was a part of Existence.

I always felt that I belonged to nature. That is why I used to wander without a care, without being afraid of anything.

Just imagine if you had to be alone in the darkness of the jungle with wild animals, with no food and no idea of where your next meal would be and no place to sleep except under the cover of the sky? How would you feel? Totally terrified, would you not?

This is because you have never been taught that Existence is your unfailing friend. You have always looked to people for help because you believed that only people help. You fail to understand that Existence helps through people. Your faith has always been on people, never on Existence.

When you place your faith on Existence, you can live like a lord on planet Earth. I enjoyed my days of wandering. I used to simply walk where my feet led me, with no idea of my next destination. I used to get onto any train and get off at any station where the scenery attracted me. I did not know the Hindi language at that time and most of my wandering was in North Bharat, in the Himalayas. I simply picked up Hindi words to find my way about.

Actually, to learn any language, the first difficulty is your thought that you don't know the language. You first alienate yourself from the language and then it seems difficult. Here again, you alienate yourself with your all-knowing nature.

Anyhow, most often, I wandered on my own and not with any group of wandering mendicants. Never did I feel that I was alone. I enjoyed being part of Existence. When you learn to relate with

nature, you will feel the joy of Existence. I never had to beg for food. When I was hungry or even otherwise, food came through someone in some form. This is what I mean when I say, just believe and let go, and Existence will take care.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, you struggled so much in your life and then reached your goal. Should we also not suffer to reach our goal?' I tell them, 'I struggled because I was using many keys to try to open one lock. I experimented for years and finally found the right key. Now I have the right key with me. I am ready to give it to whomsoever wants it. It will take you only one moment to open with it! Of course, if you feel that you have to suffer, then that is your freedom; I will not interfere!'

When you continuously meditate, you become soft and vulnerable. You become porous, sensitive and aware. You will find that your consciousness is expanding every moment. Your consciousness determines your feelings and actions. That is why again and again, I ask you to meditate. It will purify your consciousness. Things will become clearer to you.

You will be able to feel your center shifting from your mind to your heart. When the distance between your mind and you increases, your whole being will start vibrating with a different feeling and this feeling is what is contentment, a deep fulfillment, a deep love without a reason towards the whole, a continued sense of joy and bliss.

Then, all the energy that you earlier spent on negative thinking and dissatisfaction is released, and you feel blissful and integrated and filled with energy. Gratitude then becomes your prayer and 'Thank You' becomes your mantra!

When you go to sleep, go to sleep with a feeling of gratitude for having spent one more day with Existence. When you wake up, wake up with the feeling of gratitude for having one more day with Existence! This is the simplest and most effective meditation you can do to make gratitude your very being.

I tell you, just by feeling and radiating gratitude from your being, you can change the face of planet Earth. All terrorism, wars, religious fanaticism, ill health, poverty etc. can be eradicated by just spreading awareness about the gratitude that needs to be brought out of each person.

When each one feels and radiates gratitude, there will be no love, no hate, no jealousy. All the possible roots for global negativity can be destroyed with just this one feeling, because the reasons for all negativity will simply dissolve with it. That is the beauty of gratitude!

Alright, now let us spend some time doing a beautiful meditation technique called the Sahasrara Dhyana – a meditation of gratitude.

Emotion: Gratitude

Location: Top of the head.

In Sanskrit, sahasrara means 'thousand petalled' - from the mystical experience of a thousand-petalled lotus blooming on the crown, when this chakra is activated.

This chakra is closed by discontentment and the attitude of taking life for granted and it can be made to flower by overflowing gratitude and contentment!

Meditation Technique to flower in deep gratitude: Sahasrara Dhyana - a Sufi meditation technique.

Emotions and thoughts give birth to our mental set up and attitude. Understanding the play of emotions and thoughts is the first and final step towards moving beyond it. Nithya Dhyaan is a 35-minute meditation designed by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM to unclutch from the mind and move beyond it.

Man by his very nature is an unclutched and blissful Being. What do we mean by the term unclutched?

Every thought that arises in us is like a bubble that forms, rises and dies. Every thought independently rises and dies before the next thought comes up. For example, if you are sitting in a chair and suddenly get up, the moment you have decided to get up, that moment the thought of sitting has left you. If you are working on your computer and decide to shut down the machine, that moment, the thought that you want to work has died. So every thought is unconnected and happens in series, one after the other. One thought has to die before the next one comes up. This is our true nature.

Our true nature is to renounce thoughts every passing moment; to allow each thought to rise like a bubble and burst and allowing the next thought to rise. Our thoughts have only a vertical existence, like rising bubbles.

This process of allowing thoughts to rise and die without trying to connect them is what we mean by being unclutched. As long as this natural process is allowed to happen, things are alright.

But what we do is, we start connecting these thoughts randomly and forming a shaft. By doing this, we convert the vertical and unclutched process into a horizontal one with linear connectivity. Here starts the whole problem. As long as each thought is allowed to rise and die, we can take on any amount of load at the physical and mental planes and our consciousness will remain light and blissful. Once we start connecting the thoughts, our consciousness suffers and we start feeling burdened. It becomes damaging to our Being.

All emotions like worry, lust, discontentment, jealousy, fear, ego and attention-need are purely because we find a connection between independent incidents, between independent thoughts and create a concept for ourselves and start relating with that concept. We create an imaginary shaft with our thoughts and we suffer because of this.

It is these emotions that create all forms of violence be it religious wars, social conflicts or political unrest. The basis or the root of all forms of violence is our emotions and the basis of our emotions is our habit of creating imaginary shafts of our thoughts and empowering them to work on us.

The key thing we do while creating these shafts is, we choose the thoughts depending on whether we want pain or pleasure. We pick pleasant thoughts at random and connect them to form a shaft of pleasure or pick negative thoughts and connect them to form a shaft of pain. We create shafts of pain and pleasure alternately for ourselves and keep oscillating between these two emotions. To unclutch from this shaft is the master key to a blissful life.

If you deeply analyse how we connect our thoughts instead of renouncing them, you will understand how we create suffering for ourselves. It is the mind that finds the connection. As such, there is no connection between our thoughts.

We have been trained to all the time feed on words and thoughts. That is why we create these shafts. We feed on words because we operate out of fear or greed all the time. Out of fear or greed, we create connectivity in our thoughts. We are afraid to let go of this process because if we let go, there is nothing else to hold on to. We have never experienced an unclutched state of mind where there is no shaft, there are only bubble-like thoughts.

In the unclutched state, there is no scope for fear or greed. You will simply BE, that's all. It is a dimension that we rarely experience because we are so used to clutching into the familiar shaft of thoughts.

A small story:

An eye specialist was treating a blind man.

He assured him, "Once I operate on your eye, you will have your vision back and you can throw your stick away."

The blind man became afraid when he heard this. He asked the doctor, "I understand that I will get my vision, but how can I walk without my stick?"

The man was so used to walking with the stick that he could not understand that by getting his vision he can throw away the stick! In the same way, when the truth is that we can live in an unclutched fashion blissfully, we wonder how we can be without clutching into the shaft of thoughts. We see it as something inevitable!

We fail to see how mythical the whole thing is. Our mind is a myth. We have empowered it and become a slave to it. It is nothing but mental slavery.

Just watch the thoughts rising in you. Clearly see how each thought rises and dies and the next thought comes up. Observe how you effortlessly connect these thoughts and create ideas and concepts. Watch the play of these concepts upon yourself; you will understand how you create the whole myth. Connecting thoughts is the original sin.

Living in an unclutched fashion is the only way to a blissful living. Just decide that you will not connect any two thoughts, that you will not pass any judgment on any thought or any incident. The moment you find yourself connecting, simply unclutch from it. Keep on unclutching every time you remember this technique; your mental setup will automatically be transformed.

When you work in an unclutched fashion, you will find your capacity expanding; you will take on a lot more responsibility without getting stressed; you will not experience mood swings between pain and pleasure; you will be blissful all the time. We are so used to happiness that comes in with a reason. This reason is again a shaft that we create with our thoughts. Once you stop creating these shafts, you will be blissful all the time.

The term unclutched, does not mean that you should be aloof and cold to people and situations around you. Just don't connect your thoughts and start the process of creating shafts, that's all.

Remember that you are a beautiful and unclutched being by nature; that is enough. You will stop creating misery for yourself and for others.

Nithya Dhyaan cleanses and energises the vital energy centers in your body which are responsible for the swaying emotions and stored negative memories. It brings intense awareness into your system to awaken the inner intelligence; causes to experience a growing explosion in consciousness that can steer you towards a life of totality. It expels deeply engraved and unwanted negative memories and suppressions.

Meditation as such purifies and lays the foundation to experience the true nature of your body, thoughts and emotions. It is the direct way to connect to the land of the beyond, of eternal bliss, free from the clutches of one's own mind.

Nithya Dhyaan is a technique that gives you what you need to balance your self and be in complete harmony with your body, mind and spirit; to harness the inner intelligence as a propelling force to excel in the inner and outer worlds.

It is a guided meditation technique comprising 5 steps. Please listen to the instructions carefully.

Sit in vajrasana with hands on your hips. Sit on your mat on the floor with both your legs stretched out. Next fold both the legs, one after the other at the knees and rest your posterior on your heels with your toes turned outward. Let your hands rest on your lap. You can use a cushion or a rolled turkish towel under your ankles. Sit comfortably with your head,

neck and spine in a straight line. Now close your eyes and breathe chaotically for 7 minutes. Don't follow any rhythm in breathing. Just move your entire body and breathe aggressively and chaotically from the bottom of your stomach.

Continue to sit in vajrasana. Form 'chin mudra' with your fingers. This is how we form the chin mudra: Place your hands on your knees. Your hands with open palms should be facing upward. Let the tip of the index finger touch the tip of the thumb, as if forming a circle. The three other fingers, arms and the hands remain relaxed. You will now hum intensely for 7

minutes. The humming should be done with lips together with the sound coming from the navel center – as deeply as possible, as lengthily as possible and as loudly as possible. (This is actually the mahamantra humming).

You may now sit cross-legged on the floor if you wish to or continue to sit in vajrasana and for 7 minutes you will take your awareness from the muladhara chakra to the sahasrara chakra.

Manipuraka chakra – at the navel center Anahata chakra – at the heart center Vishuddhi chakra – at the throat center Ajna chakra – between the eyebrows Sahasrara chakra – top of the head

Dwell on each chakra for a minute with the awareness that – the chakra is pure; the chakra is filled with energy and the chakra is radiating eternal bliss - nithyananda.

For 7 minutes just be unclutched in silence.

This guided meditation is taken from Sufism.

Sit straight, hold a few flowers as offering in your hands and close your eyes. Concentrate on your sahasrara chakra. Forget

all other parts of your body. Concentrate only on your crown center and relax there. Wear a smile and relax.

With your whole Being, offer your gratitude to your mother for giving you this body. Remember and give your gratitude to her with all your Being.

Offer your gratitude to your father for giving you this life and providing for all your needs.

Offer your gratitude to all the doctors and nurses who received you when you came to planet earth.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who built the hospital or home where you were born.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who took care of you when you were an infant.

Offer your gratitude to all those who worked for your food, clothes and living when you were young.

Offer your gratitude to all the teachers who gave you primary education.

Offer your gratitude to all your young age friends who made your life happy and blissful, who shared their innocence and joy with you.

Offer your gratitude to your brothers and sisters and other relatives for nurturing you and caring for you. Seek their forgiveness for any hurt that you may have caused them intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who gave you professional education, who helped you stand in your profession, who gave you the courage to stand on your own feet.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who helped you financially, whenever you needed it.

Offer your gratitude to all the doctors and nurses who took care of your health, who gave you medical assistance whenever you needed it.

Offer your gratitude to your wife or husband for giving you love and security in your life. Forgive them for anything that they might have done to you that hurt you. Seek their forgiveness for anything that you might have done to them with or without your knowledge.

Offer your gratitude to all the people who encouraged you and gave you inspiration in your spiritual life.

Offer your gratitude to all those who have served you in one way or another all through your life: the milk man who delivers milk, the grocer, the laundry man, the garbage collector, your servants, your driver, all these people who you take for granted. Seek each one's forgiveness for any hurt that you may have caused intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously.

Offer your gratitude to your enemies and those who have hurt you, for making you strong and forgiving. Seek their forgiveness for any hurt that you may have caused them.

Offer your gratitude to all those who helped you physically, mentally, socially, economically and spiritually.

Remember each one of them and offer gratitude taking your own time.

Offer your gratitude to your body and all its parts one by one.

Offer your gratitude to your mind for its miraculous functioning.

Offer your gratitude to the Divine, to the Whole, to God, for making all these things possible in your life.

For the last 7 minutes you may sit and chant the Guru Puja Mantra or just sway with the flow of the chant on the cassette and offer your gratitude to Existence and to the great lineage of enlightened masters. Offer your gratitude with your whole being.

You may now offer your flowers.