114. Enlightenment is…

1. Experiencing the limitless continuum

Living with the limitless continuum is enlightenment. The limitless continuum will happen when you relax from the identities you hold of yourself in the outer and inner worlds.

If you are settled in that limitless continuum and are able to be active, you are living enlightenment. If you are not able to settle down in it, but you had at least one experience of it, then you have experienced satori.

2. Realizing the self, world, and god

The basic thing needed for enlightenment is a 'psychological revolution', a new clarity about the self (jeeva* ), world (jagat* ), and god (Ishwara* ).

How you think, why you think, how you are driven, what is your inspiration, what motivates you in life - this understanding is the clarity about the self or jeeva* .

How to achieve your desires in the world, how you avoid fears and other things forced upon you by the world - this understanding is the clarity about the world or jagat* .

Clarity about Ishwara* or god means understanding the source of both the individual self and the world. Achieving

Jeeva- Usually the imperishable spirit that dwells in all living beings.

Jagat - Universe.

Ishwara - Supreme.

the source, knowing all these three, is enlightenment.

When you have a clear understanding about why you think and how you think, this very understanding gives you the clear experience of the self. When you understand how to connect with the world through your fear or greed, achieving what you want, and avoiding what is not needed, you gain a clear experience of the world. The third is experiencing god, Ishwara* , the source of the self and the world.

Gaining a true understanding of the self, world, and god is enlightenment.

3. Intense excitement for no reason

People ask me, 'After enlightenment, can enlightened beings enjoy?' I tell you, only after enlightenment can you enjoy! Before that, you can only think or imagine you are enjoying.

After enligh-tenment, you don't even need sense objects to enjoy. You will simply be enjoying all the time. There will be such an intense excitement for no reason.

If I have to define enlightenment in two words, I will say it is 'intense excitement' for no reason, intense passion directed towards no object. There is no object, but there is intense passion. There Enlightenment is intense passion directed towards no object.

is no reason, but there is intense excitement. That is what I call enlightenment.

People ask me, 'How can we be happy without a reason?' I tell them, most of you know only one secret, how to be sad without a reason. You have mastered that habit. You have a doctorate in that line! Just change it a little, that's all. When we know that, why can't we learn this?

Many times, you will be in a low mood, but you will be searching for a reason why you are in a low mood! You will not be able to identify the reason, but you will be sad. Your chemistry itself is trained to fall into low moods without any reason, because so many times you have trained yourself to fall into low moods with a reason. After some time, your chemistry learns this habit. Then you don't need a reason. Just by the chemistry, just through the in-built system, you fall into low moods.

Enlightenment does not mean escaping somewhere. Tasting life here and now is what I call enlightenment.

Ishwara - Supreme.

You are alive in every cell in the cosmos.

4. Seeing others as

you see yourself

What I call enlightenment is experiencing the same intensity of life that you feel inside yourself, outside your skin also. You are not alive just inside your body. You are also alive inside every other individual, tree, and rock. Your hold over your physical body is transformed into a hold over the cosmic body! You are alive in every cell in the cosmos. Every cell is a complete, fulfilled part of the cosmos.

There is a beautiful verse at the start of the devotional hymn, Purusha Suktam* , in the Vedas,

Om sahasra sheersha purushaha sahasraaksha sahasrapaat

sa bhoomim vishwato vrutva atyatishtha dashaangulam

This verse beautifully describes the whole of the cosmos as a beautiful human form called Purusha* - having a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet. The form encompasses the whole earth and exceeds that by ten times! This is the experience of enlightenment.

Understand, I am alive as much outside as I am inside my skin. So I am alive in all the millions of heads, eyes, and feet and all the millions of beings in the cosmos.

To achieve this, start seeing everything as if you are seeing it for the first time, without bringing in your engrams, your past engraved memories. Then, you will start experiencing the same life and intensity that you experience inside your skin, outside also. Try this for ten days. Once you get a glimpse, you will never miss it! You will see you are in ecstasy for no reason. You are in excitement for no reason. You will never take things for granted again. You will always be in joy.

5. Being unclutched

As of now you connect all the past experiences of your life and create a shaft. All your future experiences depend on how you have created this shaft. They depend on which words from the past you have picked, and how you have formed the shaft. Your future emotions, reactions, thoughts, and words depend entirely on this shaft. But after enlightenment, life is very different from this. Thoughts arise, and if they want to work, the body pursues the

Purusha Suktam - A vedic chant dedicated to Purusha or the Supreme.

Purusha - In Sankhya philosophy it is the male principle, pure passive consciousness, as different from the active female principle Prakriti.

thoughts. Once the work is done, the thoughts disappear. Then the next time something needs to be done, thoughts arise again, and the process continues. The whole thing happens beautifully by itself. There is no shaft at all.

Currently we all carry constant irritation from the moment we get out of the bed until the minute we go back to bed. Constantly we carry some irritation or other. We are waiting to jump on people. We only need some excuse. After enlightenment, the constant fear or guilt or desire or something that constantly irritates, is not there. When you unclutch from the shaft for even one moment, you get a glimpse of enlightenment.

The shift from the shaft happens in a fraction of a second. If you are deeply aware, you can catch that precious moment when the unclutching happens. All our tapas, spiritual training, is only preparing us to catch that shift. The shift happens many times. You just need to be really aware and you can catch it. When you permanently unclutch from the shaft, you are enlightened.

6. The four permanent changes

I can say that a few changes happened permanently in me when I became enlightened.

After

The first thing was that all inner chatter disappeared. By inner chatter, I mean the constant chatter of words that enlightenment, the constant fear or guilt or desire or something that constantly irritates is not there.

goes on inside us normally. In the gap between my words as I talk now, even in those few seconds, there is no chatter inside. It is simply pure space, silence.

The second thing is that the idea that my boundary ends here at this body, and there starts the rest of the world disappeared. Border consciousness dissolved. I don't feel I am just this six foot form. I see and feel myself in everything. If you watch me, I will be the first one to enjoy all my photographs after a photo shoot or on the book covers! I will just play with them for four or five days.

People ask me, 'What is this, Swamiji? You are sitting and enjoying your own photographs!' I tell them, 'How does it matter? I don't feel I am this six-foot form. Just like you see this form, I too see this form and enjoy it! I enjoy it as a part of Existence, just like you do!' In fact, you feel embarrassed when you see your own photographs only because you feel the boundary of your own body strongly! For me that separate feeling is not there about my form, so I just enjoy it like everything else.

The third thing is that even though the body is a male body, the inner identity of male or female disappeared. The psychological idea that 'I am male' or 'I am female' doesn't exist in me anymore.

The fourth thing is that there is a constant excitement within, everything excites. Even small things give big excitement. Even a simple thing creates intense excitement and joy.

Any small thing, some statue – a small Shiva, a small Buddha or just a soft toy, will trigger great excitement! Every small thing gives great excitement. The most important thing is that I don't feel bored with anything. Over the past five years, I have conducted hundreds of sessions of meditation programs. I have never felt bored because for me, there is no solidifying of the past. You feel bored only when you solidify the past. You feel you have seen everything already. Any face that I see, I feel excited, that's all. The constant excitement is there.

I can say that these four changes are permanent things that happened in me after enlightenment.

7. Ultimate but not final

Be very clear, enlightenment is not the end. It is the ultimate experience, but not the final experience.

You need to understand these two words 'final' and 'ultimate', they are very different. For example, after the first day of discourse in this series, one person came to me and said, 'You have said everything. Why do we need one more class?' Yesterday another person said, 'Swamiji, on the first day, I thought you could not take us any deeper, it is over. Today, suddenly I felt that you have taken us deeper than yesterday, and you cannot take us any deeper than this. Every day I feel that you cannot take us much deeper than this, but we do keep going deeper.' Every day the person felt that the experience was the ultimate.

Ultimate means living every moment totally, completely. Ultimate is not final. It can be updated.

There is a big difference between these two words, ultimate and final. If it is ultimate, it is happening every moment, it is not final.

People think that after enlightenment masters don't grow. I tell you, after enlightenment, not only are they constantly updated, every moment growth is happening, expansion is happening. God grows. Only god grows! Nothing else grows.

In your space you may think you are growing. But the actual growth or expansion happens only in the cosmic energy.

When a being becomes enlightened, not only does he experience his potentiality, but he also starts creating more enlightened beings. He starts creating the possibility of more enlightened beings.

8. No verbalization, visualization

When you are enlightened, there will not be any movement of letter or word or thought between your navel and throat. Words will come only from the throat. I can say this is one of the precise descriptions of enlightenment. There will not be any word, thought, syllable, or sound movement between the navel and the throat.

Words will be there only when you are talking. When you are not talking, there will not be any words inside. Only the energy movement will be there. There will be no thought, no verbalization, no continuous inner chattering.

Your inner chattering is the only thing that disturbs your whole life. This is very difficult for most people to understand. They always think, 'Unless I have inner chatter, how If it is ultimate, it is happening every moment, it is not final.

will I ever plan my everyday life? How will I be able to run my business? How will I be able to live?'

Understand, when you don't have inner chatter, it is not dead silence. It is intense energy! From that energy, whatever needs to be done will come out as a complete visualization. If you have inner chattering, it will come line by line – 'Morning, I have to wake up. Then, I have to go to my office. There I will work on the new project. In the evening I will come back. Then I may go out for dinner…' In a linear manner, one by one, thoughts and words come out.

When you don't have inner chatter, when you are just with yourself, the whole visualization comes out as one package, one piece of information. That is what we call intuition. When you go through the logical process, it is called inner chatter, it is intellect. But when you don't have that inner chatter, things start expressing in you intuitively, straightaway you know.

9. Courage to handle troubles

Enlightenment does not lead to the absence of troubles. It leads to the presence of courage to handle troubles.

The person who has removed hypocrisy from his inner space will experience enlightenment.

10. Peak of the being

When the intellect ripens and reaches its

peak, it becomes intelligence. When emotion ripens and reaches its peak, it becomes trust. When the being ripens and reaches its peak, it becomes enlightenment.

11. Integrated inner chatter and outer words

The person who has removed hypocrisy from his inner space will experience enlightenment.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the enlightened master from India, says beautifully, 'Integrating your inner chatter and your spoken words is enlightenment.' He says, just integrate your inner chatter and the words that you utter. Let both of them be integrated and you are enlightened.

I tell you, to live in a body in which inner chatter and outer words are connected is heaven. Nothing else can give you more joy than living in a body where the inner chatter and the spoken words are integrated. It is just pure ecstasy! This constant ecstasy is what I call nithyananda or eternal bliss. If you can live inside a body in which the inner chatter and the spoken words are integrated, in tune, suddenly you will see that you are living inside a hollow bamboo. You are living with such a vast inner space!

12. Feeling yourself as the cosmic space

Enlightenment is nothing but feeling yourself as the mahakaasha, the cosmic space. It means that you feel that you are the cosmic space instead of the chittakasha, the individual space.

13. Relaxing from your identity in your mind

When you relax from the identity that you project to the outer world, to show who you are to others, it is called the 'first experience' or satori. Relaxing from the second identity that you carry in your inner world, to prove who you are to yourself, is what I call enlightenment!

14. Research & Development from Superconscious Awareness

After someone achieves enlightenment he or she has a very sharp superconscious awareness. With that superconscious awareness, it is easy to do research, experiments and analysis. Even after enlightenment, I have been doing so many experiments, so many practices along with scientists and researchers of the outer world and inner world, and by myself.

Understand, when an enlightened being does spiritual practices it is not just for him. It is to create the right formulas for the disciples, so that he can reproduce the same experience in them.

15. Transcendence of the human state

Someone asked me, 'Is enlightenment the natural human state or is it a transcendence of the human state?'

Surely, enlightenment is the transcendence of the human state. Whatever you think of as the human state is not complete. You are only a seed, a potential, a possibility. You are not a tree. You are not actuality. Your actuality is enlightenment.

You are called a human being in your potential state. In your actual state, realized state, you are called an enlightened being. Be very clear, you are not a human being with a spiritual experience, you are a spiritual being with a human experience!

16. Beyond yogic powers

When you meditate, you can get various yogic powers or siddhis. But enlightenment happens when you go beyond these powers also. Enlightenment is having the capacity to handle the powers, as well as the intelligence to drop them when necessary.

The other day I read an interesting article about a book 'Occult Chemistry' based on research done by the theosophists Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater on the molecular structure of various elements. It said that even long before physics discovered that an atom has a nucleus, the theosophists had determined the atomic structure of many elements, and that too down to the 'quark', the most fundamental particle known today in quantum physics!

How did they find this out with no modern scientific equipment, before even quantum physics was born? The report says it was through the siddhi, or mystical power, known as anima that has been described in the Yoga Sutras by the sage Patanjali, an enlightened master from India and father of the science of Yoga. Patanjali described Enlightenment is having such a strong and clear sense of peace inside you even your thoughts cannot disturb.

anima as 'the ability to acquire knowledge of the small, the hidden, or the distant, by directing the light of superphysical

faculty.'

With yogic training, they could experience visual images of minute objects too small to be seen by the normal eye. They found five new elements through these yogic powers. They even went beyond the quark as well as its detailed structure, into the sub-quark, which science is yet to find. These very same findings have also been made by at least three other people from different places in the world at different times, through such occult capacities.

They concluded that all matter is like bubbles in space, just like pearls on an invisible string. The report says that the researchers not only 'saw' the subatomic particles, but they could also see inside the atom down to the sub-quark, for which science needs a very powerful particle accelerator that costs billions of dollars!

There are many yogis who have these kinds of siddhis or powers that come about as a result of meditation. They are good as long as you don't get caught in them. Otherwise, you will lose sight of the ultimate goal of enlightenment.

17. Clear, undisturbed peace

Enlightenment is having such a strong and clear sense of peace inside you that even your thoughts cannot disturb you.

Do not think enlightened masters don't have thoughts. It is just that their inner space is so big that the mind is a negligible part. For you, if you have a ten-acre mind, all ten acres are like a zoo. With an enlightened being there are a million acres, but still only a ten acre zoo. In a million acres, if there is some movement in ten acres, can you consider it as something disturbing? No! It is negligible. It is practically not there. That is why an average person feels 'I am the body' but an enlightened being feels, 'I am the body also.'

It is not that the idea 'I am body' disappears. It just expands to 'I am also the body.'

18. Allowing the natural flow of energy through your body

Enlightenment means simply allowing that natural flow of energy through your body without creating conflicts. The moment you start choosing and prioritizing, you have already created conflict. Enlightenment never happens to a person who chooses enlightenment. It happens to a person who chooses choicelessness. This is an important understanding.

Attachment to the idea of Enlightenment

For thousands of years, millions of seekers have been struggling. Very few have achieved the ultimate experience of enlightenment. The reason is that you have some idea about enlightenment and you choose what you think is the right action based upon that idea.

When you see living masters, you always see only the side-effect of enlightenment or the byproduct of enlightenment. Your idea and greed about enlightenment is built upon seeing the quality and energy of the enlightened master's lifestyle.

This is not attachment to enlightenment. This is attachment to the idea about enlightenment. For example, you may think that the moment you become enlightened, suddenly somebody will give you a golden throne. You only get attached to that golden throne. You cannot get attached to enlightenment itself.

How will you get attached to enlightenment? Whatever idea you have now about enlightenment is not enlightenment, it is about enlightenment. The more your idea about enlightenment

It is not that the idea 'I am body' disappears. It just expands - 'I am also the body.'

gets purified, the more you will go towards enlightenment, you can never get attached to it.

If you are attached to it, be very clear, your idea about enlightenment is neither pure nor clear. You need to purify and have a clearer understanding about enlightenment. Read spiritual literature, listen to the master's words and get a clear idea about enlightenment.

The clear idea about enlightenment IS enlightenment! Because after some time once you stop fighting with the master, all the clarity that he gave you until then will become a solid experience. When the inner space is very loving, connected to the master, every word he expresses will straightaway become an experience in you. So try to create a clearer understanding. It will automatically take you to enlightenment, and the attachment will disappear.

19. Being aware, doing, and surrendering

Being aware, doing the right things, and surrendering to the Divine - enlightenment

When you are aware, you are already surrendered to the Divine.

means all these three. As long as you think all these three are different

things, you are not enlightened. When you realize all these three are one, all three happen simultaneously and spontaneously. You are enlightened. When you are aware, you are already surrendered to the Divine, and you will always be doing the right thing!

20. Beyond bliss

'Always being intense' is the main mark of an enlightened master. When you see that, you understand it as 'bliss' or 'happiness'. To tell you honestly, I myself do not feel that I am a separate blissful being. All I know is that something extraordinary is constantly happening in me, very intensely. Only an outsider feels it is 'bliss'. Actually it is not even 'bliss'. It is the quality that cannot be described, that cannot be conceived by the mind.

21. Merging of the experience, experiencer, and experienced

As of now, you see three separate things: the experiencer, the experience, and the experienced. For example, you are reading this book now. You are the experiencer that is the reader, the experience is of reading, and the thing being experienced is the book. When you get enlightened, all these three – experiencer, experience, and the experienced, become one. You are only the experiencer having the experience of you, who is also the experienced!

Living Enlightenment

1. Enjoying the chaos of the cosmos within the frame of the body

As of now, you are not mature enough to hold the chaos, the cosmos, inside the frame of your body. You need to put the chaos in order because you are not capable of handling the cosmos as is. The six feet frame of your body is not mature enough to hold the chaos as is, to experience and enjoy the cosmos as is.

Being with a body, mind and brain that are awakened and tuned to experience the cosmos as is, is what is living enlightenment.

For this, the body, mind and brain need to be prepared. The body can be prepared with techniques like Nithya Yoga.

The mind is like the software. It consists of the conscious mind and unconscious mind. The conscious mind can be cleared by the right teachings, by removing the wrong ideas and taking in clear and correct ideas. The unconscious mind can be cleared by meditation techniques.

But ultimately, for the software change to be permanent, the hardware also has to change. Your very brain grooves have to change to hold and radiate the experience of living enlightenment. This can happen through initiation, the touch of the master. Initiation is directly transmitting the energy after which different dimensions of you will start getting awakened.

2. Living a conflict-free life

Living enlightenment has nothing to do with married life or celibacy. It is just living a conflict-free life where your actions and knowledge are in tune with your desires.

3. Reduced number of thoughts

Not being in the extremes of anything, not being caught in the extremes of emotions is what is called the Middle Path. Being in the middle path, the madhyapantha* , suddenly you see a reduction in the number of thoughts that arise before any action starts. That is the period called 'living enlightenment'. When thoughts completely drop and you are able to do all your activity without thoughts, you are enlightened.

4. Centered in sattva

Centered in sattva, positive energy, you will be able to perform all your activities, your profession, your business, your relationships, your whole life in a beautiful, effortless way. You will be able to manage everything just centered on positive energy. That is what I call 'living enlightenment' or jeevan mukti even while you are living, you are liberated.

5. Awakening of the nonmechanical parts of the brain

When you are centered in sattva, positive energy, you have a clear understanding of the jeeva* , the self. You have the clear understanding of how to relate with the jagat* , the world. Because of the clarity of the self and the world, naturally you will fall into the source, Ishwara, god.

Madhyapantha - 'Middle Path' prescribed by enlightened master Buddha. It represents the power of witnessing that causes one to be in moderation without being pushed and pulled into extremes of emotions.

Jeeva- Usually the imperishable spirit that dwells in all living beings.

Jagat - Universe.

The very understanding will give you clarity. That clarity will automatically awaken the non-mechanical parts of your brain. When that awakening happens, a chaos will start happening in your routine. Your routine will start getting re-arranged by itself. Just cooperate with it. That is what I call 'living enlightenment'.

6. Cooperating with the awakening

If you don't cooperate with the new ecstasy that is happening, with the new awakening that is happening, and if you force your same old dull routine on yourself, you may forget, or you may bring yourself back to the same old person, the same old dullness. Cooperating with the awakening that happens in you is what I call being a disciple or living enlightenment.

7. Living the great truths

'Living enlightenment' is the right word. When you are living these great truths you are enlightened, that's all.

People think that having enlightenment means all responsibilities are taken away and that you don't need to do anything. They think it is a long vacation and you can just lie down on a beach, and that nothing needs to be done.

You have a fantasy about what you want to have and all that you never had in your life. You project these and see them as enlightenment. You project your own concept of heaven and think that it is enlightenment. 'Having' enlightenment is a wrong word. 'Living' enlightenment is the right word.

You are supposed to live the truths. Living the great truths in your life is enlightenment. The master cannot hand over enlightenment to you. It is not something separate that he can give. He can only give you the tools for you to experience your enlightenment. He can only give the path. He can only give the truths. You need to start living these truths and experiencing them in your life.

Enlightenment does not mean you will leave your body and die. No! You will live in a center that is beyond the five senses, but with the five senses. Only your center will be shifted. The cognitive shift will happen within you. This is what I call jeevan mukti, living enlightenment.