1. Gospel of Paramahamsa Nithyananda ( )

Gospel of Paramahamsa Nithyananda

(

Gospel of Paramahamsa Nithyananda

nlightenment

)

"

M.R.P in India only: Rs.750

(

Published by Nithyananda Publishers

iving

)

The meditation techniques included in this book are to be practiced only under the direct supervision of an ordained teacher of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam and in consultation with your personal physician to determine your fitness and ability to do the techniques. They are not intended to be a substitute for medical attention, examination, diagnosis or treatment. If someone tries these techniques without prior participation in the meditation programs of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam and without the direct supervision of an ordained teacher of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam, they shall be doing so entirely at their own risk; neither the author nor Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam nor Nithyananda Publishers shall be responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Published by: Nithyananda Publishers Nithyanandapuri, Off Mysore road Bidadi – 562 109, Bengaluru Karnataka state, India

Copyright© 2009 - 'Living Enlightenment year'

Previous editions: 12500 copies Seventh edition: November 2009, 3000 copies

M.R.P in India only: Rs.750

ISBN 13: 978-1-60607-048-2 Ebook ISBN; 979-8-88572-185-1

ISBN 10: 1-60607-048-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. In the event that you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Living enlightenment is actualizing the limitless potential and experiencing the ultimate as every moment of life unfolds afresh. Living in this divine space is living the best life and doing the greatest service to

society.

Preface xv
Introduction xvii
I. YOU ARE YOUR EMOTIONS
 Flow in love 1
What is Love? 1
Love cannot be created 2
Love heals five types of restlessness 3
Love brings great courage 6
Be open - not philosophizing 7
Ego disconnects - Love connects 9
Be a lover every moment 11
Love yourself first 12
Love Existence and feel It loving you 13
Love is different from respect 14
Love is the root of all religion 15
Three types of Love and their integration 17
Enter into causeless Love 18
Love, hatred and attention-need 20
The unity of Love 22
Love and liberate, don't possess 24
Love in relationships 28
Meditation – feel the Love overflowing in you 30
 There is nothing to worry 31
What is Worry? 31
How does Worry take root? 31
See what is as it IS – and move on 33

Worry – a legacy passed down	36
Worry and dilemma – our inner software	39
Awareness – the benign virus!	42
Don't Worry about others' opinions	43
Work out of inspiration – not out of Worry	44
Leave no space for Worry to fill	45
Worry is only an illusion	47
Surrender and relax	48
The ego in disguise	49
Get out of your comfort zone	51
Stop Worrying about your wealth	53
Drop Worry, pick up health	54
How meditation helps	55
Meditation	55
 Excel without stress	57
What is Stress?	57
Mind is not a machine	58
Connecting the unconnected	59
Mind is a process	60
Mind is also an illusion	61
How do we decide?	63
Transcend time - be in the present	64
Inner chatter	66
Words cause Stress	66
Physiological effects of Stress	67
Is Stress work related?	68
Beyond Stress	71
Meditation technique	72
 Face your fears and be free	73
What is Fear?	73

Big Bang and black hole inside you	73
How to overcome Fear	82
Meditation techniques	84
 Pain is a great teacher	89
What is Pain	89
The cognitive shift	100
Meditation techniques	102
 Desire is a dynamic energy	107
Recognize your true desires	107
The true Desire for fulfillment	108
Desire, knowledge and action	108
Turning the awareness from the object to the subject	110
Experience life every moment	110
The power of love	111
Lust to love	113
Meditation techniques	118
 Guilt is the original sin	121
What is Guilt?	121
Three kinds of Guilt	121
Guilt created by immediate family	122
Guilt created by society	123
Guilt created by you	126
Lift yourself by your self	127
Guilt – a manifestation of ego	128
Morality	130
Rules	133
Guilt and responsibility	138
The useful Guilt	140
Guilt can result in physical disease	140

|-----------------------------------------------|-----| | Guilt can at the most change the symptoms
| 142 | | Vedic social system Vs Politics based system | 142 | | You are complete as you are
| 143 | | Guilt of following another master
| 147 | | Meditation techniques
| 148 | |  You are the best, why compare? | 151 | | Comparison and Jealousy
| 151 | | Why comparison? | 151 | | Wants Vs Needs
| 154 | | Doing, having and being
| 155 | | You are unique | 156 | | Jealousy has no solid existence
| 156 | | How to overcome Jealousy
| 159 | |  You are not who you think you are! | 163 | | Seriousness Vs Sincerity
| 163 | | Perfectionism
| 164 | | Life is beyond your logic
| 166 | | What is Ego?
| 167 | | Dual identities
| 171 | | Types of Ego
| 174 | | 'I' and 'Mine' | 176 | | Ego Vs Master
| 176 | | Meditation Techniques
| 178 | |  Gratitude is enough! | 181 | | | | | Gratitude – what and why
| 181 | | Be grateful for just being
| 183 | | Everything is a gift
| 184 |

Thank your body	188
Everything is auspicious, just celebrate it!	189
Gratitude can burn your karmas	196
Gratitude - the ultimate prayer and religion	197
Expectation is the culprit, let go!	199
Your very body language can change with Gratitude	200
Meditation	201

II. DEEPER TRUTHS OF LIFE

 You can unclutch from the mind maze	203
The ten-minute experiment	203
The nature of the mind	204
Awareness	205
The shaft that does not exist	207
From fear to freedom	212
Unconscious or subconscious mind, a pure myth	216
Unclutch! Radiate awareness, energy and intelligence	216
Myth of body-mind	217
Living intensely in the present	221
Witnessing	232
False identities	234
Meditation techniques	240
 The karmic cycle can be broken	243
What is karma?	243
The present is the totality of all past decisions	244
Karma and TPS	246
Karma – totality of conscious choices	247
Everything in life is a choice you make	248
Samskaras in the seven layers of the body	251
Three types of karma	254

The way out of the daily irritation - living your prarabdha karma	255
The way out of the cycle of karma	257
Cosmic cause-and-effect principle	259
The vibrant living cosmos	259
Reaction or response	260
Masters have no karma	261
Only intention matters	262
Mission or machine?	266
What is the karma of this birth? A miniature of your total karma	266
How to dissolve this birth karma? Simply by your breathing	267
Responsibility	270
Karma and the next body	271
Enlightenment – back to home	275
Techniques to overcome karma	276
Deities and enlightened masters – your paths to exhausting karma	276
Myths on karma	282
 Death is a celebration	287
Story of Yayati	287
Common perception of death	288
Why are we afraid of death?	289
In the mystery of death lies the answer to life	290
Entering into Death	291
The ultimate let-go A fresh start	292 293
Mystery of mysteries	294
Death in my presence - before enlightenment	296
Death in my presence - after enligtenment	300
What you remember in the last moment counts	304
My own death experience	305
What happens at the time of death	310

|-----------------------------------------------------------|---------| | Waking world Vs Dream world | 313 | | The art of dying
| 316 | | Space for the new | 317 | | Conquer death – be in the present
| 318 | | Complete 'yes' | 319 | | Auspicious Death | 319 | | Reality is a dream
| 320 | | Life and Death Vs Waking and Sleep
| 321 | | Awareness - control dreams and deep sleep, life and death |
323 | | Control life, health… and death
| 329 | | Death is dissolving into the cosmic space
| 330 | | Meditation techniques
| 331 | | Meditation technique 2 | 332 | |  You are intelligence | 335 | | Natural Intelligence
| 335 | | | | | Children are born intelligent
| 336 | | The driving forces of fear and greed
| 337 | | What is the measure of Intelligence?
| 338 | | Spontaneity - straightforward Intelligence
| 339 | | The key to awareness
| 340 | | Beyond rules to responsibility
| 341 | | Now and here
| 342 | | Welcome people, situations, life | 343 | | Beyond the head is the gate to loving Intelligence
| 344 | | Understanding, not thinking
| 345 | | Into the depths of the mind
| 347 | | Body Intelligence
| 347 | | The intelligent self-healing energy
| 352 |

'You' are not needed to run your life	354
Acceptance of the inevitability of life	354
Universal intelligence – macrocosm and microcosm	356
Cosmic Intelligence responds to us	357
Intelligence is not the experience but the lessons learned from experience	361
Emotional attachment – the roadblock on the highway of Intelligence	362
Guaranteed Intelligence to handle life	362
Intellect Vs Intelligence	363
Intelligence from mistakes	364
Intelligence to realize life is a dream	365
Intelligence and Visualization	366
Meditation technique – drop the intellect	367
 Responsibility elevates you	370
Compassion is responsibility and energy	370
A cognitive shift	371
A commitment to serve people	373
Ego Vs Responsibility	373
Responsibility is not seriousness - the world is just a dream	373
Trust and patience	374
Responsibility for others	375
Responsibility of enlightenment	376
State, not status	376
Background	379
Leader consciousness	383
State of a leader Vs Status of a leader	384
Decision making and stress	387
Productivity	389
Understanding from Eastern mysticism - impact of engrams on productivity	389
Freudian representation of the unconscious mind	390
Impact of samskaras on intuition and innovation	392

Meditation technique	398
 Intensity is the unfailing way
What is Intensity	401 401
The burning Intensity	404
Becoming Vs Being	405
'Being' is Intensity	406
Living intensely	407
Intensity is independent of the nature of the work	410
Interest Vs Intensity	410
Be intense in whatever you do	412
Intensity and the four states of consciousness	414
How to get enlightened? I want to…real bad and urgently	419
Living intensely	420
Intensity decides age	422
Intensity prepares you for the ultimate	422
The deep spiritual experience	423
Ramana Maharishi's death experience	425
The power of Intensity - Ramakrishna Paramahamsa	428
The Intensity of Buddha	429
Intensity for my first spiritual experience	430
Driven by Intensity	433
Ask and you shall be given	434
Intensity - the ultimate technique	434
Meditation technique to get Intensity	435
Meditation techniques to be intense	436
 Innocence regained opens many doors to life	439
What is Innocence?	439
Remain empty	444
Silence is the space of unlearning and learning	450
Grasp with Innocence	451

|----------------------------------------------------|---------| | Surrender with trust
| 464 | | Spirituality – the way to innocent obeisance
| 470 | | Drop cunning-ness and become spontaneous | 473 | | Innocence, totality, maturity
| 478 | |  You are part of the Collective Consciousness | 487 | | Matter, energy and beyond
| 487 | | Quantum world | 488 | | Matter is vibrating energy
| 489 | | The world of infinite possibilities
| 489 | | The real nature | 490 | | Perception of space-time
| 494 | | Reality consists of eleven dimensions
| 498 | | Chaos is order - order is chaos
| 499 | | Seer-seen-seeing
| 502 | | | | | Collective Consciousness | 505 | |  Global Peace begins from you | 517 | | Global Peace – a byproduct of individual bliss
| 517 | | Looking in
| 519 | | How to handle the suffering in the world
| 520 | | How to get rid of suffering in the world
| 521 | | Increasing collective positivity to reduce chaos | 523 | | Studies of the effects of meditation on peace | 523 | | Global Peace meditation
| 523 | | The unavoidable loving touch of enlightened beings |
524 | | The Nithyananda Mission | 526 | | Meditation technique for Global Peace
| 526 | |  Sannyas is the ultimate gamble | 527 |

Flow like a river	529
Sannyas is not renunciation	531
Live in reality!	535
Samsar and Sannyas	539
Awaken to the freedom	549
*Namo Arihanta!	558
Integrity – the trait of a sannyasi!	560
Life is for enlightenment!	565
Conditi-oning is the culprit	567
Enjoy the transience!	572
Surrender, love, compassion, Sannyas	576
When Sannyas happens, the moment is right …	582
Recollections of a childhood friend of Nithyananda	584
Real love doesn't stand in the way	586
 Enlightenment is the key to your kingdom	589
Why enlightened beings happen on planet earth	589
Enlightenment is…	592
Living Enlightenment	602
Ego Vs Enlightenment	604
Before and after	605
Deep want, no qualifications	605
Gradual Vs sudden techniques for Enlightenment	608
Expression leads to experience	609
A healthy body gives confidence for Enlightenment	610
Enlightened society	611
The ultimate energy that can stand the test of time	611
The greatest service to mankind - keeping the science of enlightenment alive
	612
Top 10 Reasons to Get Enlightened	613

III. PATHS TO BLISSFUL LIVING

 Why meditate?	615
What is the real aim of life?	615
What is bliss?	616
What is Meditation?	616
What is the right way to approach Meditation?	617
Why Meditation?	619
Benefits of Meditation	623
Self-healing thoughts	624
Benefits of Meditation	628
From 'Meditation in life' to 'Life in Meditation'	630
When to do Meditation?	631
Common fears about Meditation	634
Reality as dream	638
Glimpse of scientific research on Meditation	641
 Nithya Dhyaan – Life Bliss Meditation	645
Nithya Dhyaan – Life Bliss Meditation	645
 Nithya Yoga – for the Body, Mind and Beyond	655
What is yoga?	655
Reducing the gap between reality and dream	656
A state of being	657
Patanjali – founder of yoga	658
Raghupati Yogi – master of yoga	658
Just move the body with the intention and get the result!	659
Scientific evidence	661
Preparing the body to hold the energy of enlightenment	661
Purpose of Nithya Yoga	662

|------------------------------------------------------------|---------| | IV. MASTER - THE LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT | | |  Master - the Living Enlightenment | 679 | | Lion and Cub Story
| 679 | | Is a master needed?
| 687 | | Significance of a master | 687 | | Learning from master
| 688 | | The eternal relationship
| 690 | | God and master | 692 | | Five ways to relate with the master | 694 | | Stages of master-disciple relationship
| 695 | | How to be with the master – be open
| 697 | | What is initiation? | 701 | | The ultimate love affair
| 702 | | Awakening to the purpose of your life and the master | 705 | | Surrender – the ultimate technique
| 711 | | Master – the ultimate luxury
| 715 | | The presence of the master
| 715 | | Upanishad
| 716 | | Doubt and faith
| 717 | | Suspect your identity, not the master | 718 | | 'Just be' in the presence of the master…and it will happen |
720 | | Feeling connected
| 721 | | Power to move even rocks
| 722 | | Hardware and software change
| 724 | | DNA phantom effect | 725 | | Vasudeva Kutumbaha
| 726 | | Q&A
| 727 |

V. MEDITATIONS FOR LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT

 Living enlightenment is the ultimate meditation technique	733
Static meditations	733
Dynamic meditations	746
Breath-related techniques	751
Powerful instant meditations	759
Sound	776
Visualization	783

VI. THE TOUCH OF THE DIVINE ENERGY

 Nithya Spiritual Healing – you can also heal	791
What is healing?	791
Chakras and the science of healing	791
What is Nithya Spiritual Healing?	793
Health benefits of Nithya Spiritual Healing	796
Services	796
 Experience the touch of living enlightenment	799
Ananda Darshan	799

VII. BLISSFUL SHARING

 Blissful Sharing	805
Healing Experiences	805
Meditation programs	806
Appendix	i
Glossary	ix

PREFACE

Many reputed intellectuals including scientists have recorded that there has been an elevation in human consciousness in recent times. Whether it is to do with the Age of Aquarius as rock groups foresaw or the metaphorical end of the world as the Mayans predicted is not the question here.

The question is, how do we define consciousness? As societal beings who have been guided all our lives by moral and legal commandments, our beacon of behavior has always been conscience. But conscience is not consciousness.

Consciousness is the awareness that there is something more to our life than the material pleasures that we seek. Consciousness is that tension within us that tells us there is something higher than what we see. It is the beacon of inner awareness that guides us to a state of being where we realize that we are more than what we think we are.

Human beings are far more than mere bio machines. This is why even the most powerful computer would never be able to replace the human. It can replace the mind and the body but not the energy of the human being. It might be a fact that we ascended from animals. But it is the truth that we can go further.

From time immemorial wise men of all cultures have pondered deep into this simple yet intangible issue of what lies within us. 'Who am I' has been the refrain of many sages. Many did find the answer. Their answers were experiential. The scriptures of all great religions are the expressions of these wise masters to convey their experience to us. When they live, the masters themselves are the experience that we can share.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda is such an experience.

This book is the first volume of the essence of the wisdom of Nithyananda that has so far been expressed. Nithyananda has spoken in a number of structured programs. He has commented on great scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita and spoken to large public and small private groups over the last five years. This book is an essence of these teachings.

This book takes you through an understanding of why we behave the way we do and explains how we can change the way we act so that we are in synchronicity with the energy of the cosmos. Meditation techniques provided in this book help you to experience this synchronicity.

The understanding and the experience that we are one with the energy outside us expands our consciousness. We realize that we are one with every other individual, however different the individual may be in culture, color, language, religion or tribe. We realize that we are all waves in the same cosmic ocean.

This experience is Living Enlightenment. This experience is Nithyananda.

While there is some order in the way the chapters are structured, you may move back and forth in any order to read the subject of your choice. All chapters are interconnected with the common thread of Living Enlightenment. Yet, each one is an individual pathway to the experience and not a sequential step. In this book, references of non-English words have been explained as footnotes on the first three occurrences of the word, and explained in the glossary as well.

As you go deeper into the experience and feel the need to interact with others who experience a similar need, visit the Living Enlightenment section of www.lifebliss.org. You can also join one of the many hundred Life Bliss Centers around the world and interact with others who are already on this path.

This book is an amazing journey into Existential Truths and a gift from an enlightened master of this millennium.

-Nithyananda Publishers

INTRODUCTION

If you are here, it means Existence wants you to be here in this form. You are not an accident, you are an incident. You are a conscious miracle of Existence. Don't think this is positive thinking. This is the straightforward and simple Truth. If you trust this Truth, you will start experiencing life in its pinnacle.

Understand, Existence is trying to express itself through you. What you call your potential is nothing but the expression of Existence through you. When you freely allow this, you will start realizing your infinite potential. When you start becoming the fulfillment of Existence, you become flowing energy, which is what I call Living Enlightenment. Living Enlightenment is living with the flowing energy of Existence, in synchronicity with its miraculous happenings.

When you live this way, you will find there is no personal barrier, no emotional baggage, nothing that holds you back in life. Life flows continuously like a river, carrying bliss and fulfillment every moment.

In this book, you will find deeper truths and powerful techniques to tide over personal barriers and resolve emotional conflicts. You will also find truths that demystify your relevance in this vast cosmos, so you start moving in a higher plane of consciousness.

This book is for anyone who wishes to live a fulfilling life. It reveals the secrets of the self, Existence and the world. It is for every individual to start experiencing the ultimate purpose of taking human birth on planet earth. It is meant to give the experience of:

Shakti, the Energy to understand and change whatever you need to change in life

Buddhi, the Intelligence to understand and accept whatever you don't need to change in life

Yukti, the Clarity to understand and realize that however much you change, whatever you see as reality is itself a continuously changing dream

Bhakti, the Devotion, the feeling of deep connection to That which is unchanging, Eternal and Ultimate, and

Mukti, the ultimate Liberation into Living Enlightenment when all these four are integrated.

-Paramahamsa Nithyananda

Psychology explains that thoughts arise in the brain, and emotions from the heart. Irrespective of where they arise from, thoughts and emotions are inseparable. Ancient scriptures say that thoughts create us. So do emotions. We become what our emotions are. Managing our emotions is crucial to transforming our lives.

What is Love?

Whenever we look at something, the first thing we do is to calculate what we can get from it. It can be a person or an object, that doesn't matter. Our thoughts start functioning either through fear or through greed to calculate what there is in the situation for us. Our attention is centered on that object or person.

It is possible to turn our attention towards our own inner space and ask, 'What can I contribute?', 'What can I add?', 'How can I enrich others?' If the process is only to ask, 'What can I get out of it?' then it is driven by lust. If the process asks, 'How can I enrich it?' it is driven by love! Lust is an energy that demands. Love is an energy that gives.

To tell you honestly, it is very difficult to define love exactly. Mere words cannot express it precisely. I am trying to use a few words here and there so that some word will click within you.

Love is an intense experience in one's inner space. Many of us think love is a choice. We think experience and expression of love are a choice. We think that if we want to, we can handle love; otherwise we can let it go. No! It is not a choice as we think. It is a basic necessity of life.

When I say life, I don't mean just breathing and staying alive. I mean being alive at the innermost being level, as a live Consciousness. If you can express love, if you can experience love, that is the only way of being alive as a Consciousness. If you don't experience and express love, you may inhale and exhale, but you can't say you are a live being. There are so many animals, plants and other things that breathe day in and day out. You will continue to exist like them, that's all.

A small story:

A disciple asked a Zen master, 'Does an enlightened master speak?'*

The master said, 'No, an enlightened person never speaks. Only a person who doesn't know enlightenment speaks.'

Then the disciple asked, 'So does an enlightened master keep quiet?'

Zen - Japanese Buddhist practice. Derived from dhyana, meditation.

Whether it is energy, time, talent or pleasure, only when you are overflowing can you really share it.

The master said, 'No, an enlightened master never keeps quiet. If he keeps quiet, then he

is not enlightened.'

The disciple was puzzled. He asked, 'You say he neither speaks nor keeps quiet. What does he do?'

The master replied, 'He sings! His being sings. He neither speaks, nor keeps quiet. His very being sings.'

Love is the ultimate experience of a human being. When the experience happens, we will not be able to possess the experience, only the experience will possess us! That is what the master means. When the experience possesses us, whatever we do will be like a beautiful song. Any word that comes out will be poetry. Our being will be so light. We will simply float. Our walking will be a dance. Our body language will radiate grace. All our expressions will be of great service to humanity.

All human beings are born as loving beings. A newborn baby radiates causeless love. Does she know anyone around her at birth? No! Her energy is causeless love. As we grow, society instills fear and greed in us and we orient our love based on greed and fear. Then it is no longer causeless love. It is love with a reason. It becomes suffocating. We start feeling other emotions like jealousy, fear and anger. We experience only love with a cause, a reason. But with a little awareness and awakening, it is possible to reclaim our original love.

Love cannot be created

Love can never be made to happen with just our logical decision. Our mental setup itself should be created in such a way that we become love and our actions speak love. Our logic should start radiating a love that is beyond logic! When real love happens in us, we will not even be aware that we are loving. Only others will be aware that we are radiating love.

When real love happens, we overflow with so much energy that we will have the courage to share whatever we have with others. We get tremendous confidence because we know it has happened in us! Whether it is energy, time, talent or pleasure, only when we are overflowing can we really share it. Similarly, love happens only naturally, never through compulsion. If we try to create love, it will be like forcing open the petals of a flower to make it bloom. Can it be called flowering? No. Love is a flower that blossoms deep within your being and sends out a sweet fragrance that we share with others.

Love heals five types of restlessness

The word 'love' is loaded with so many different meanings, interpretations and commentaries. First, let us leave out the idea of selfless and spiritual love. Let us first consider the normal, simple love with all its possessiveness, jealousy and all the side effects it causes! Even that love can do a lot of good for the body and mind. Later we will discuss selfless, spiritual love or mature love.

The other day I was reading an article in a magazine. The title was, 'Live Forever'. I was amazed to read it. It gave eleven techniques to extend your life by at least twenty years and it was supported by statistics and survey reports. All the eleven techniques were related to love. It said that even caring for a pet animal releases a hormone in us that allows us to live at ease with our body. If caring for our pet animals does so much, surely caring for the husband or for the wife will do a lot more!

The article also spoke of how people die early if they are single or widowers and how life is extended with love. It also spoke of how chances of getting cancer or depression are less when you have love in your life. Even what we call ordinary love, simple infatuation, can do miracles for our body and mind. It can give us a deep feeling of healing and wellbeing.

According to Tantra * , five types of restlessness happen in a person and all of these can be healed by ordinary love, by the simple caring for one another. Once again, I am not speaking of spiritual love or devotion or selfless love. That comes later.

A small story:

A school boy fell in love with a girl from his own grade.

One day he was kidnapped by an extremist group and sent to a camp across the border for training. A few months later he came back to his homeland to spread terror.

He entered his village to find that the family of his beloved was killed by terrorists.

He met the girl and they started talking. She told him how much she hated what was happening and begged him to stop what he was doing. She told him she would marry him only if he surrendered to the authorities.

Tantra - Ancient vedic tradition of achieving enlightenment through spiritual techniques or practices, meditations and ritual worship.

Whenever you express love you become a channel for healing energy.

The boy immediately surrendered and joined the army fighting

the insurgency while carrying a photograph of the girl in his pocket all the time.

Let us first talk of simple, practical love that you share with someone for some reason, either because the person will support you socially or support you when you face some difficulty or just because you want to maintain a good relationship with that person. For any of these reasons you may show love. Even this type of love heals you from the following five kinds of restlessness.

The first kind of restlessness happens due to your circumstances. Sometimes, in a particular place or situation you feel restless. If you move from that place or situation, you feel more settled. Even under uncomfortable circumstances, if you just show a gesture of love to someone, or if someone shows a gesture of love to you, things can become instantly better for you! It can heal you.

The second kind of restlessness is physical. Physical restlessness is nothing but a constant tension in your body for no particular reason. It is said that all such tension can be released when you express love to somebody. You may ask, 'How can love take away physical restlessness?' You can see for example, a mother who has a child to look after will feel continuously rejuvenated in spite of the child driving her crazy! Because of the love element, she will cope with the tension. Otherwise, taking care of children is not an easy job!

The rejuvenation happens because of the love and care the mother feels for the child. Any tension or restlessness in the body disappears when you care for somebody, when you smile at somebody, when you express love in your body language, even if it is just once.

When you express yourself through your head, it is called intelligence. When you express yourself through your heart, it is felt as love. When you express yourself through your being, it is experienced as energy. When you relax into your being without expressing, it is bliss! Each one is the same energy but expressed in four different ways.

So whenever you express love, you express energy also. Love is concentrated, caring energy. So naturally, whenever you express love you become a channel for healing energy. When you are a channel for energy, you not only heal others but heal yourself as well.

The third form of restlessness is mental. Any mental restlessness can be healed by love. Research indicates that when you care for pets or play with children, you reduce the possibility of heart attacks and also reduce the risk of fatal diseases!

The fourth form of restlessness is emotional. Mental restlessness is different from emotional restlessness. Mental restlessness is purely intellectual and can be controlled easily. But emotional restlessness cannot be controlled by just a few words of consolation. It can be healed only when you express love. When you start radiating love, it floods your being with energy. When your being is opened to such higher energies, it heals the emotional restlessness.

Ultimately, we come to spiritual restlessness. There are so many people who can sit with others, who can sit with the television, who can sit with newspapers, but who can't sit with themselves. This is what is called spiritual restlessness. Spiritual restlessness means that you cannot sit with yourself. You can give appointments to everybody else but not to yourself!

Your love for the teacher or the master can heal your spiritual restlessness. Many people come and tell me, 'Swamiji, just sitting in your presence puts us in a calm state but when we go back home, we are not able to remain in that calmness. Why is it so?' When you are in the presence of an enlightened person, you start relating, you start expressing your love towards him automatically. This heals your spiritual restlessness.

Your love for the teacher or the master can heal your spiritual restlessness.

If you observe when I speak,

I often give long gaps between words. The gaps are actually used to bring down your spiritual restlessness. When you sit in front of the television, you are able to sit so comfortably because information is just pushed into your being without a break. You aren't given a chance to experience your restlessness. So while your restlessness is actually supported and increased, you don't experience it and you feel very comfortable.

But here, if you have the patience to sit and listen to these words with the gaps, your spiritual restlessness will come down and the tendency of your mind to ask for the next thought will also come down. You automatically become receptive and these words will not only touch your head, but they will directly touch your heart as well. If you are totally relaxed and at ease with yourself without too many thoughts, your being will open, taking in everything and be healed.

If your mind is calm, just listening is enough. There is no need to even meditate separately later. The very listening itself can create the experience in you. If your listening is not proper, then it is difficult for the experience to happen. J. Krishnamurti * , the famous philosopher says, 'Listening is god.' Deep and total listening without restlessness is divine. That itself is god. If you look deeply into your being, the very presence of the master that causes love to happen in you heals the spiritual restlessness.

So even simple, normal love heals all five types of restlessness.

Love brings great courage

A beautiful incident happened in the life of Ramanuja* . If you study the life of Ramanuja* , you will see how he used every step of his life to move towards enlightenment.

When his teacher initiated Ramanuja , he gave him a special chant. The teacher told him not to pass on the chant to anybody and that if he did so, he would go to hell. Ramanuja asked him what would happen to the others with whom he might share it. The teacher said that they would be led to salvation.*

What would we have done? Naturally we would have kept quiet, thinking, 'Why unnecessarily go to hell?'

Ramanuja immediately stood on a platform in a temple and called out to the whole village. He loudly pronounced the chant given by his teacher and told the people, 'Let you all go to heaven! I am not bothered about me going to hell. Let you all reach heaven!'

When you are deeply in love, you feel as if your whole being is open and you are ready to go to any extreme for the sake of anybody. You are ready to go to any boundary, as there is nothing to protect within your being. Your being is totally open. You don't feel insecure when you are wild with love. That is why people who are in love always do risky things. They take the risk because they feel they have nothing to lose. There is no insecurity about anything. They feel so expansive. Love gives tremendous courage and energy. It opens you up. It makes you finally available to yourself. As of now, you are not available to yourself. Love can make you available to yourself.

When the teacher saw what Ramanuja did, he admitted that he learned a lesson from

J. Krishnamurti - Renowned Indian philosopher.

Ramanuja - Founder of the Vishishtadvaita or modified duality principle. Along with Adi Shankara and Madhva, considered to be one of the three great teachers of Hindu philosophy.

his disciple and declared that Ramanuja had reached greater heights than him. He told Ramanuja, 'You are in a different space now.'

Be open - not philosophizing

If you observe, you will have a very definite mental setup towards the people you live with everyday. You will practically know all the dialogues that might happen between you and them. You will know exactly that if you start the conversation in a particular way, in just what way the other person will respond! If you start the dialogue in another way, you will know exactly how the other person's response will change. You have a virtual script of all the possible everyday dialogues in your head.

Only if someone comes up with a new dialogue or behavior are you a little shaken or disturbed, and you don't know how to answer or react. Those are the only few minutes you start wondering about how to respond. Otherwise, you know the dialogue for the whole day. You know how it should start, when it will take a turn and how it will end. It is a dead dialogue. There is no life in it.

The problem is that we have all practically become philosophers. We don't understand that life is not philosophy. It is spontaneous flowing energy. It is new every moment. Philosophy is all about repeating the same old things in different ways, that's all. There's nothing fresh in it. Life is fresh every moment. Philosophy robs life of the freshness.

A small story:

Ten philosophers were imprisoned in a country. They were kept together in one cell. They decided that somehow they should escape from the prison. They sat and made a big plan. They got the mold of the prison door key and made a duplicate key.

Finally, they chose the date of escape. The whole plan was clearly laid out. They decided that on the particular night, two of them will open the prison door with the duplicate key and signal to the others. The others would escape and these two would follow after locking the door behind them.

The day of escape dawned and two of them went to open the door. The rest of them waited for the signal. They waited and waited but never got any signal. Three hours passed. Suddenly the two who had gone to open the door came back and said, 'We have to drop our plan to escape. It can't happen today. We will have to do it some other day. We will have to reschedule our escape.'

Love is really a success of the heart that every individual should experience.

The others asked, 'Why, what happened?'

They replied, 'What to do? The foolish guards forgot to lock the prison door!'

Those who philosophize cannot think of anything new! It has to be the same old mental setup. If there is some change or some new situation, they cannot think creatively to deal with it, because they are not open. They are like a closed circuit.

We have also become like philosophers when dealing with our lives. We are stuck in patterns of the past. We are never in the moment. If anything new happens, we are at a loss.

The person who experiences the 'ever living presence' experiences life in its freshness. He is also the one who is open and available. He constantly experiences the oneness with everything around him. Understand, being open means respecting every thing as equal to you. It means considering each other as equal and being open to change. 'Available' means that you are clear that the source of everything in this universe is Existence and that you are available to it every moment. That is the meaning of being available. It is recognizing the profundity of Existence of which all things are part. If you are open and available, you are no more a philosopher. You are ready to open up to life with love.

With philosophy, you have fixed ideas, and you become very assertive. When you are too assertive, you can't love. Assertion is an aggressiveness that does not allow love to come in. When you are too sure and filled with preconceived ideas, then where is the space for love to enter? Love needs beautiful space in order to blossom.

With philosophy, there is no room for love to settle in its existential state. If you really want to experience the taste of nectar, can you experience it through just a set of ideas about it? No! You need to taste the nectar yourself, give it some space, allow it to fill you and settle in its existential state. Only then you will know its taste. In the same way, to experience love, just a few ideas alone will not help. You need to allow it to grow in its existential state in your inner space. Then you will know it. Allow it to happen in your heart, not in the head. Decide to be with the heart. Then it will grow and happen.

What was once a failure within the head can become a success within the heart! Love is really a success of the heart that every individual should experience. It is easy to stay in the head. It is, after all, a mundane and familiar intellect. It requires courage to come down to the heart, because with the heart nothing is familiar, everything is fresh. At the head level you have a solid identity and familiar patterns. At the heart level there is no identity, no pattern. It is an open space. To enter into it, you need tremendous courage. That is why love is fearsome for many people. It is an unfamiliar zone. With the head, there is comfortable familiarity.

Ego disconnects - Love connects

If the cosmos is a grand ocean, we are all part of it. We are one with the ocean, not individual drops in the ocean. When we think of ourselves as individual drops, we feel separate in our boundary and in our feelings. This is what is called ego. We become driven by feelings of 'I' and 'mine'. As long as this separation remains, we never experience the energy of the ocean that is love, we can never experience that causeless and surging love.

As long as we remain a drop in the ocean, we say 'no' to life. We neither love nor trust. We don't feel blissful either because bliss is possible only for those who know how to love and trust. It happens only to those who know how to feel part of the ocean. Bliss is possible only when our heart says 'yes', when the 'no' completely disappears from our being. 'No' is darkness, 'yes' is light. 'No' is ego, 'yes' is egolessness. 'No' is the way of the unconscious person. 'Yes' is Love is being in the flow with Existence, to be totally with it.

the way of the awakened one. All the conflict, all the suffering in our life is because of our saying 'no'. 'No' is a fight, a war with Existence. 'Yes' is love, peace with Existence. 'Yes' is deep accord with the totality of who we are – the ocean. Bliss is another name for that accord, that harmony.

The way to be in bliss is to dissolve into the ocean, not to be a drop but to merge with the ocean. To be a drop is to be with ego. The ego is the root of all misery. When the ego is absent, bliss reaches us from every nook and corner of the ocean of existence, as if it were just waiting for the ego to disappear.

Ego is a closed state of consciousness. All the windows and doors are closed. Life itself becomes insulated and encapsulated. Our ego surrounds us like a capsule. Our ego is like a sealed capsule; there is not even a small gap to allow anything to enter. It closes itself due to fear and shrinks into itself. That is how we create misery for ourselves.

Love is being in the flow with Existence, to be totally with it. Ego is like frozen ice. Love is like liquid water. Only when we are liquid do we become part of the ocean. Then we don't have any private goal or

Consciousness can do two things. It can create ego or it can create egolessness.

destination. Each moment is blissful, incredibly ecstatic, just

going with the plan of the cosmos.

The mind is part of the ego. It knows how to close, but it does not know how to open. To love means to open up, to surrender. It means opening up to Existence, to the flowers, to the bees and to the stars. How do we open to this beautiful music that fills the whole of Existence? How do we open up to this celebration that goes on and on – flowers dancing in the wind, trees enjoying the wind and the stars, always in a state of bliss? Except for man, everything else seems to be in harmony.

Man falls out of harmony because he has what is called 'consciousness' which is not present in other living creatures.

Consciousness can do two things. It can create ego or it can create egolessness. If it creates ego, we live in hell. If it creates egolessness, we live in paradise. The whole world is in paradise without knowing it. When man enters paradise, he enters knowing it fully. That is the grandeur and beauty of man. That is the danger as well, because it is easier to fall into the trap of the ego and not enter into paradise than to enter paradise knowingly.

The problem is that we have forgotten who we are and for what we were created. We are emperors of love, but we dream that we are beggars. We have the whole kingdom of Existence within our being and yet we continue to beg for mundane things. We keep collecting mundane things not knowing that we have infinite, inexhaustible treasures within our being. We are oceans, yet we are thirsty because we have become disconnected from our own selves. But no matter how disconnected we are, no matter how much we have forgotten and how long we have forgotten, it can be remembered in a single moment and we can become connected immediately.

Love is the connector.

Bliss arises from love. Love is the poetry that connects you back to Existence. Love is the sword that slays the ego and merges you with the ocean. When the heart is full of love, your whole life is transformed from prose to poetry, from noise to music and from discord to harmony.

It is such sheer joy to simply exist. Just 'to be' is enough. But we need to be sensitive to feel the joy of being. We need to grow feelers. The feelers are what we call love. Love feels the joy of just being. When you grow the feelers of love, life is no longer made of independent thoughts but becomes a continuous feeling. Then the ego starts to dissolve. Once we have moved from thinking to feeling, there is only one more step and that is from feeling to being. That is very simple.

The first step is difficult, to move from thinking to feeling. The ego has trained the mind to think so much, that's why. The second step comes almost automatically. There's nothing we need to do for it to happen. From feeling to being, the distance is nothing at all. It can happen at any moment. The poet can become the mystic at any moment. He is almost there. The real problem is how to get out of our thinking and get more and more into feeling.

Just follow the heart. Just love more, that's all! Feel more. Enjoy more so that you can feed your heart. Watch the sunrise, sunset, clouds, rainbows, birds, flowers, animals, rocks, and people, and watch them with awareness. Look into their eyes. Existence is so multidimensional. Look into every dimension like a poet. Praise it. Feel it. Be ecstatic! Expand your consciousness and experience every single detail of Existence with love. Slowly, the ego will lose its hold and disappear.

The only barrier to love is fear. When things start happening, we become fearful because with love we enter into a merger. This threatens the very basis of our ego. Ego is separateness while love is a merger. The fear we feel is nothing but the fear of the dissolving ego. Let the fear be there. It will hang around for a while. If we simply ignore it, the ego will leave us. It is a From feeling to being, the distance is nothing at all. It can happen at any moment.

great day when fear of losing the ego leaves us. From then on growth becomes simple, easy and spontaneous. Then we are not, only love is.

Be a lover every moment

Encounter any situation in life with deep love. Soon you will become pure love. Whether it is a person or your work or a passerby or god or anything, just encounter it with deep love for love's sake. If you are a painter, just be completely in love with painting. If you are a dancer, be completely in love with dancing. If you are working with your computer, treat it with utmost love and become lost in it. Just be completely sincere and completely in love every moment.

If you are painting and at the same time thinking about which gallery to put up the painting in or how much to sell it for, then be very clear, you are not lost in love. You are in love only with some particular thing, which is money in this case. If you are dancing while calculating what you will get once you finish the dance, then be very clear you are not lost in love. You create

Real love keeps you in the moment.

more and more bond-

age by doing this. Even when a master happens in your life you do the same thing to him.

I tell people, 'I am showing you the moon by pointing at it with my finger. If you look at the moon, you will experience what I experience. Instead if you cling to my finger, you will neither see the moon nor will you relax!'

If you become lost in every moment, you become love. Then, when you work you work with the utmost focus because you are in deep love with it. This way, your very life becomes a deep meditative love.

Then you start feeling, relating and respecting everything as a living being, just as you are. You even start feeling the other person's thoughts. You start responding and relating to the other person without him or her opening up to you. You feel the cosmos as a translucent, ever-living presence. You have tremendous intelligence. You know exactly how to connect to things. Such is the power of love.

Real love keeps you in the moment. It gives you tremendous awareness. That is why it is so powerful. Nothing is as intense

Sufi - Mystical dimension of Islam.

as being in the moment. Love is experiencing life moment to moment, in its totality. And it is not about two persons or any object. It is just love for love's sake, that's all. If you get a glimpse of real love experienced in the moment, you can nurture it within you and make it grow to fill your whole being and life. That spark is enough!

Then you become a wonderful creator because love energy is also creative energy. That is why poets express such creativity. They lose themselves in love and become blissful creators. Out of the freshness of the moment, the creativity happens.

The Sufi* mystic Jalaluddin Rumi* says, 'Wherever you are, whatever your condition is, always try to be a lover!' The whole of Existence is in a deep romance with itself. You are part of it. So it is your nature to be a lover every moment. Only by being that can you experience the real fulfillment of your original nature.

Love yourself first

The big problem today is that most people don't love themselves. Society never teaches that it is possible to love ourselves.

Jalaluddin Rumi - 13th century Persian Sufi poet.

Understand that unless you love yourself, you cannot possibly love another person. Only when you lose yourself to yourself can you lose yourself to others. We are taught that we can only love even ourselves if we have a reason. If we perform well, we love ourselves. If we fail, we hate ourselves. We apply the same logic to others. We love them only because of something, never without a cause or a reason.

When you don't love yourself, you become cynical and negative towards life. When you were alone in your mother's womb, you were completely loving and blissful. In your aloneness in the womb you experienced your loving self. That is why you will see that you assume the fetal posture whenever you lie down with insecurity. Blissful aloneness is your original nature. Once you came into the world, society conditioned you to believe that you needed people and television to be loving and happy. It never nurtured your original quality. Your original quality is blissful aloneness. If you get back in touch with that, you will settle down and feel peaceful and relaxed within yourself.

For a few minutes every day, just sit by yourself and feel overflowing love towards yourself. Feel what a wonderful being you are. Feel how much you have taken yourself for granted. Feel yourself as part of Existence and love yourself for it. Melt with the feeling of love for yourself. If you practice When you don't love yourself, you become cynical and negative towards life.

this everyday you will see that where you were once hard and self-centered, now you have become soft and loving.

When you deeply settle down within yourself with peace and love, bliss will explode in you. When your nerves are clean, when your nervous system is cleaned by peace, bliss will explode. You will start expressing the same bliss that is expressed in the master's body language.

Then when people love you, you don't feel guilty or unworthy because just as they love you, you love yourself too. You become ready to receive love from others. Usually when others show love to you, you feel guilty or unworthy because you don't feel you are worth being loved. Once you settle within yourself with deep love, you will receive others' love with joy.

Love Existence and feel It loving you

Existence is not a thing. It is a living energy being. Every single tree, every single stalk of a plant responds to your love and hate, your every thought.

Cleve Backster* , a polygraph expert, has conducted several experiments to examine the response of plants to human emotions and thoughts. He discovered that plants would respond to human thought in a way similar to how a human being would respond. A simple thought by a person about burning the leaves of the plant would register erratic movement in the polygraph recording of the plant! Backster* called this response 'Primary Perception' the ability of plant, animal and human cells to perceive and respond to any thought.

On one occasion, Backster* recorded graphs that registered a flat line that suggested the plants were in a state of shock. He asked the owner of the plant if she had done anything to hurt the plants. The lady told him, 'I roasted a few of its leaves to get their dry weight!'

When you start loving Existence, it begins responding to you in beautiful ways. You start rising above all of the differences around you - differences between people, situations, emotions, between anything and anything. Everything merges into unity. And that is the truth. Everything is part of one Whole. And love is the only thing that can make you realize this truth.

In India, there is a tradition of spiritual wandering where people walk by foot the length and breadth of the country, visiting many temples and pilgrim centers. I used to wonder how they were able to do that, especially going through forests, sleeping with wild animals and begging for food. The secret is that they start feeling connected with nature so completely that nature protects them beautifully. Whether it rains or shines, the animals and trees, everything, takes care of them. Even though this may be logically difficult to understand, it is the truth.

If you begin to live with a little respect and love for Existence and all its creations, you will be able to recognize these things happening in your own life as well. Nature will simply reciprocate your love in many beautiful ways.

Love is different from respect

Very often, love is confused with respect. From a young age, children are brought up to always show respect but never to show love. You can hear people teach the children, 'You should respect your elders.' You will hardly hear, 'You should love your elders.' That is the problem.

Cleve Backster - A polygraph expert who studied behavior of plants subjected to threats or affection using the lie detector equipment.

Respect sows the first guilt in you that you are something inferior. It makes you feel separate from the other person to whom you show respect. On the other hand, love sows the seeds of joy and unity in you. It makes you feel connected with the other person and with everything in Existence. With respect, there is fear. With love, there is authentic respect as well as the scope for deep understanding to happen. With respect alone, not much understanding is possible. With love, there is a possibility for tremendous understanding and transformation to happen. Love by its very nature is transforming. It softens and melts you.

The scholar Professor Nicholson, composed a Sufi* verse on love:

'Love, Love alone can kill what seemed dead,

The frozen snake of passion. Love alone

By tearful prayers and fiery longing fed,

Reveals a knowledge schools have never known.'

Any stone heart can be melted with love. Only love can melt your hardness. Only love can keep you porous.

Respect creates distance between you and the other. Love bridges the distance between you and the other. Only because people themselves have not experienced love, do they give Love is like the root of the tree and all religions are like leaves or branches.

respect as the rule of acceptable behavior. Respect is easier but not real. Love might be difficult only because not many know how to go about it, but it is real. With love, respect is automatic and authentic. With pure respect, the appearance of love is forced and may never be authentic.

Love is the root of all religion

Love is the original religion. It is the root of all spirituality. All other religions are offshoots. Love is like the root of the tree and all religions are like leaves or branches. Even the greatest religions are only big branches compared to the religion of love!

Love has no temple or scripture. It is like the roots that lie beneath the ground but provide the nourishment for life. Without it, the whole tree dies. Through love many branches and leaves are created. But what do we do? We cling to the branches and leaves instead of clinging to the root. When we cling to the root, we get the direct nourishment. When we cling to the

Sufism - Mystical dimension of Islam.

Love is the secret of all religions. There can be no logic about god, there can be only love.

branches, we enjoy only one dimension of the nourishment. When you

become more loving, you will enter the invisible temple of love.

Tree roots contain the information about all the trees in this world, just like a dewdrop contains information about all the oceans in the world. If we understand the structure of a drop of water, we will understand everything about all the oceans on earth. We will understand the compound called water itself. Water anywhere cannot be anything other than its chemical composition. That composition is ingrained in the smallest particle, and that is the dew drop.

In the same way, man is an atom of love. And love is nothing but the quality of Existence. If love is known, the whole of Existence can be experienced. Understand that the composition of man is not physical, chemical or even psychological, it is spiritual. Nobody can teach us what it is. We must experience it on our own. All other knowledge is transferable: physical, chemical, scientific and psychological. All such knowledge is easily transferable. Only spiritual knowledge is not. It cannot be taught as such, but it can be experienced!

A small story:

One day a master asked his disciples how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun.

One of them said, 'When you can look in the distance and tell whether the animal is a cow or a horse.' The master said, 'No.'

Another disciple said, 'When you can look at a tree in the distance and tell if it is a pine tree or a mango tree.' The master again said, 'No.'

They asked the master, 'Then what is it master?'

The master replied, 'When you can look into the face of any man and recognize your brother in him. When you can look into the face of any woman and recognize your sister in her. If you cannot do this, then no matter what time of the day it is, it is still only night time.'

The master can give a few hints, little hints here and there. Then we must find our own way carefully, cautiously. Love is just a hint, but if we follow love slowly, very slowly, we will be surprised that god becomes more and more of a reality. He is no longer just a thought, no longer simply an idea, but something that we can feel. The deeper we go into love, the closer we come to the feeling. The day we dissolve into love we merge with unity.

Love is the secret of all religions. In spite of this, people are lost in logic and theology. Theology is as far away from religion as anything can be. There can be no logic about god, there can be only love. God is in poetry. He is in music and in dance, but never in logic.

God is not an idea that can be arrived at through logical processes. He is an interior experience, so deeply interior that one must go there absolutely alone to discover it.

From time immemorial, the conclusion of many mystics has been that matter is glued together with love. An invisible force keeps atoms and molecules together. They do not fall apart because of this invisible force. Science has yet to discover this ultimate energy. It has detected a few of its manifestations such as gravitation and electricity but these are only gross manifestations. The day that science discovers love will be the day when religion and science will commune with each other in the same language.

For now, just rejoice because love is possible. Be joyful that love is your inner potential. You can rise to the ultimate heights with love. Nothing is impossible with love because love can transform itself into god.

Three types of Love and

Nothing is impossible with love because love can transform itself into god.