55. *The beauty of love*

When love becomes the centre of your being, sex becomes a deep union of two beings. The problem is, true love is lost under the covers and lust has taken over. As a result, the beings never come together; only the bodies come together. The relationship remains at a very superficial level. Anything superficial can be shaken easily.

Also, lust always blinds you. It takes you into unconscious intoxication. Love also intoxicates you, but it takes you into deep awareness. Lust and love are two ends of the same spectrum. Anything that puts you into deep awareness is meditation. Anything that puts you in an unconscious state is not conducive. This is the scale to see if what you are experiencing is good for you or not.

Also, when you love deeply, there will be no room for jealousy. Jealousy is there because you are afraid that the shallow roots will give way. If the roots are deep, why would you be afraid? Why would you get jealous? The trust in your partner gets shaky because the relationship is superficial, it is a relationship based on fantasy and lust.

Romance is not real romance if you feel it towards only one person. Life itself is romance! Your very being has to exude romance - towards Existence. When your being expresses itself through your head, it is intelligence; when it expresses itself through the heart, it is compassion; when it expresses itself through the body, it is energy and when it does not express itself but just IS, it is bliss!

When you reach this stage, you will not be dependent on anyone outside for joy. You will simply resonate with joy all the time inside yourself. Of course, you will be able to multiply it by sharing it with others outside.

When you feel deeply connected to a person, there will be no need for physical proximity to that person. You will feel happy and satisfied with just the feeling of connection with him or her. You will feel complete unto yourself and not look for anything outside for fulfillment. This connection will not suffer separation or anything else.

A relationship is all about feeling connected to someone at a deep level, beyond all things. When you don't understand this, you bind yourself to people with many conditions and you call it a relationship. It becomes shaky and you work hard at maintaining it and conclude that relationships are a problem!

People tell me, 'Swamiji, I want to come and stay in the ashram. I am not happy staying at home.'

I always tell them that if they are not able to be happy with 4 people in their house, they cannot be happy with 100 people at the ashram! Do you think that the ashram is some escapist lodge?

Be very clear: home is not anything outside of you. Being blissful all the time irrespective of what goes on around you is what is 'being at home'. If you are not able to do this, you will not be at home anywhere.

When I stayed for months together in an 8 feet by 8 feet enclosure, I was as blissful as I am today sitting on this throne. Please try to understand this. The capacity lies in understanding that your happiness has nothing to do with the outer world objects.

Imagine that a dog is biting a bone and starts bleeding from the mouth. It thinks that the blood is coming from the bone and bites further into it and licks the blood. What will happen to the dog? Only pain will happen. In the same way, we also think that the pleasure or pain is to do with things outside of ourselves and indulge further and further in it and become miserable.

Q: How can we protect our children from developing these kinds of problems?

To be frank, you cannot fully control the process. You cannot control all of the child's interactions with society. But there are some things you can practice at home.

As I said earlier, don't suppress the child's other half. Let it freely express and experience itself in different ways. Don't teach it to be gender conscious.

Just allow the child to be its own natural self, giving it adequate opportunity to explore itself. Children when untouched by social conditioning are by nature so comfortable inside their own boundary.

You might have noticed babies playing with their genitals, or pulling their big toe to their mouth and doing similar other things. These things just show that they are so comfortable and loving inside their own boundary, exploring and enjoying. But we don't allow them to do these things. We immediately stop them and tell them that it is wrong. It is good to allow them to explore.

And when it comes to their clothing, it is always better to dress them in single-piece clothing instead of two-piece clothing. The latter gives them a sense of dividing their body into two and with time, they forget and become insensitive to the lower half of their body. It is almost a division in their consciousness. That is why today, if you are asked to visualize yourself, almost always, only your upper half will come to your mind. You simply neglect your lower half.

Just allow the child to be free in its ways, even if it means that you have to take certain risks. Children have with them a certain sense of intuition and instinct. So, you can take the necessary precautionary measures and allow them to explore.

Also, children are so total in their expressions. So don't suppress them. They don't know to bring in their mind and exhibit superficial or hypocritical behaviour. We have all mastered the art of hypocrisy by allowing our mind to exercise restraint. We never express totally.

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Also, allow them to use both their hands freely. We all discourage them from using the left hand for various things. Why can't the child be ambidextrous? There is nothing wrong in it. Arjuna in the Mahabharata, the Indian epic, was ambidextrous. When we hear of these things, we listen with awe but fail to understand that we are also perfectly capable of these things, if only we give ourselves the chance!

Also, if you have noticed, all children enjoy whirling. Whirling is their way of allowing centering of their energy to happen. You can whirl freely only when your worry center is clear. Children are so innocent and worry-free and hence they are able to whirl effortlessly. But when we see them whirl, our head starts whirling and so we stop them! We tell them, 'Sit in one place! It's not good for health,' and what not. I tell you, just allow them to whirl. Place a blanket beneath them so that even if they fall, they will not get hurt.

Never instill fear in your child! Let him be free; let him climb and fall a few times. If you constantly discourage the child, it can lead to various phobias like height phobia, darkness phobia, which can later turn into fear of climbing, of making new decisions etc. Just follow these simple things, it is enough.

Q: Swamiji**, you were talking about how there is no such thing as a perfect partner. Then what is the purpose of matching horoscopes before marriage?**

Now if I start speaking on this subject, I will have to pull down the whole structure of astrology! Not astrology itself, but the way we follow it today is foolish and nonsensical.

Understand that it is your life. You are living it; you should know the pros and cons. But you don't know anything about your life, and so you go around asking others! Where is your intelligence?

To surrender your life to a stranger, to let him make your life's decisions, just shows that you no longer even know how to run your own life. You have to take responsibility for your own life.

When people come to me with questions about their future, I tell them: Don't approach me to predict your future. Approach me to design your future. All these predictions are only for the weakminded, be very clear about that.

Ancient astrology was a pure science. There was truth in it.

Let me tell you how astrology evolved.

In the past, when a child was sent to the gurukul to the master to study, astrology was used to diagnose what kind of personality, what kind of attitudes and aptitudes he possessed. Accordingly, he was trained.

The master would see what his natural tendencies were. If he had brahmin tendencies where intelligence was the prime factor, he would be initiated into Veda Vidya - studying of the vedic scriptures. If his personality was that of a kshatriya, where bravery and strength were the most dominant, he would be trained in martial arts. If he showed vaishya tendencies, wherein he exhibited many skills, he would be taught business. If he seemed to possess shudra qualities, where he was happy giving his time to routine labour work, he would be initiated into service. All four roles had equal value and earned equal respect.

Guaranteed Solutions - For Lust Fear Worry..._English_part_6.md

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This was the purpose for which astrology was used. Incidentally it also helped predict certain major milestones in a person's life. It was a science mainly used for this kind of diagnosis. Look around you today. A person who is a doctor by nature has become an engineer and an engineer has become a serviceman and what not! That is why there is a sense of total chaos in society.

Q: So ancient astrology is a proven science?

This is what I was afraid of! The moment I say, 'Yes,' you will all start running behind astrology! Tomorrow morning I will see a long queue before me with each one carrying his horoscope and saying 'Swamiji, please predict my future!'

Don't worry so much about astrology!

Vivekananda gave a befitting answer to someone who questioned him about astrology. He told him, 'Go, eat well, exercise well, sleep well. You will become strong, physically and mentally. Then you won't worry about all these things!'

Only a person who is mentally weak depends so much on astrology.

Q: Does that mean that all the people who follow astrology are weak-minded?

No, you can't say that. But the majority are weak-minded. Even people who are normally intelligent sometimes behave foolishly in these matters. They come and ask me, 'Swamiji, if I wear such and such a stone or gem, will it be lucky for me?' How can you depend on a stone! You are live consciousness. You are nothing but God! I can't imagine… I am teaching you the science by which you can harness this whole cosmic energy, and you ask me about stones!

You might have heard about Swami Yateeshwarananda. He was a great man, an enlightened person. When he traveled abroad for the first time, he started out during rahukala - an inauspicious hour of the day, calculated by using the positions of the planets.

Someone asked him, 'Swamiji, how can you start during rahukala?'

He answered, 'You fool! I am the energy that guides the planets! How can they control me?'

See the courage of the man! It is a courage that comes out of deep understanding.

I am teaching you the science by which you can control the planets! So why do you bother about where the planets are and how they will affect you? Pick up the science of meditation, that's enough. Then nothing can touch you.

Go by consciousness

All our values are nothing but a substitute for consciousness.

If you are conscious, aware of what you are doing, you don't need values to tell you what to do. You don't have to follow any rules. Rules will be following you! If you are conscious, all virtues and discipline and spirituality will happen to you and you will naturally flower into a state of spiritual elevation.

Somehow, whenever we hear words like consciousness or spiritual elevation, we always think, 'No, no, this is not for me!' Without even trying any meditation technique, any practical way of elevating the consciousness, we come to the conclusion that this is not for us. So we go in for a substitute, for pseudo-consciousness – which is called morality, conscience, values.

Values are fine when you are at the starting point – but not as the ending point!

Vivekananda says beautifully, 'It is good to be born in the church, but not to die there!'

We should first drop the idea that to be spiritual is very difficult and different.

There is a song by Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi, an enlightened master from India:

Ayyae, ati sulabham, atmavidyai, ayyae, ati sulabham!

It means, 'Oh, so easy, this spirituality; oh, so easy!'

In a later stanza he says,

If you want money, you need to work hard.

If you're looking for name and fame, you need to work hard.

If you want self-realization, all you need to do is keep still!

If you can slip into deep laziness, you will fall into divinity! This laziness is not what we normally know as laziness. It is not physical laziness. It's a kind of… mental laziness! If you can

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completely – I mean completely – calm yourself, you can verily be spiritual.

To be spiritual is neither easy nor difficult. It's just the idea that you have. If you think it's easy, it's easy. If you think it's difficult, it's difficult. To be as you are, what is needed? Is it difficult or easy?

You cannot even use the word easy! It is as you are, right? You are already that, then how can you say it is easy to become that?

Just look in. Turn inward. A little trust in spirituality and a little meditation; that is enough! When you drop the fear that to be spiritual is very difficult, you will get the confidence that, 'Yes, I can be spiritual. I can be conscious.' Then the question of 'is it right to drop my values', will not arise at all.

Right now you are afraid to drop your values because you have nothing else to hold on to! We know, once we drop our values, all the suppressed desires will jump as if the Pandora's Box has been opened! And we know, if the Pandora's Box opens, there will be only chaos! We are afraid of our subconscious.

If you continuously practice meditation, your subconscious will be cleared. Then you will see, even if you open the Pandora's Box, there is nothing in there to jump out. You will see your face reflected in it; you will see a clear mirror!

Now let us enter into a meditation technique called the Dukkhaharana Meditation that will act upon the muladhara chakra and awaken the energy in it.

Emotion: Lust, desire, greed

Chakra: Muladhara chakra

Location: Base of the spine

In Sanskrit, muladhara means 'the root and basis of Existence'. Mula means root and adhara means basis.

This chakra is locked by fantasy and imagination and it flowers when you drop your fantasies and welcome reality!

Meditation Technique to transform lust to love: Dukkhaharana Meditation – a technique from Kulaarnava Tantra

The Dukkhaharana Meditation