76. Living intensely

You cannot feel fulfilled by offering sense pleasures to the senses. Living intensely does not mean fulfilling your senses, pouring pleasures into your senses, or living as you wanted.

Somebody asked me, 'Since bondage and liberation is relative, why not just eat, drink and be merry?'

That is perfectly all right. Be intense. That's all. Eat intensely. When you are eating, only eat. When you are sleeping, just sleep. When you are drinking, only drink. When you are making merry, just be merry. If you can be merry, you don't need anything else.

The whole problem is because you can't really be merry. That is why you need so much of teachings and ideas about liberation.

See, that's why here you think, 'Why not just eat, drink and be merry?' You think it's very easy. No! The problem is you can't be merry, which is why you drink the things that are not directly needed by your body, which can't be accepted by your body. Understand, If you stay without moving your body when you are overpowered by any emotion, even once, immediately you will be liberated from that emotion.

master's words should be und-erstood comp-letely, with intensity and clarity, not superficially. Eat, drink and be merry is not such a simple issue as you understand, as you think. If you do that intensely, that's perfectly alright.

A small story about this intensity and understanding:

After twenty five years of married life, one day when the wife was going through the closet of her husband in his room, she discovered three soy bean seeds and thirty dollars in cash.

She went to him and asked with a lot of curiosity, 'What is this? Why three soy beans and thirty dollars cash? How did it come? What is the meaning?'

He said, 'Now I have to confess to you. Whenever I cheated on you, I put one soy bean in that.'

When you live intensely, automatically you will be liberated.

The wife was shocked but was a little consoled that

he had cheated on her three times only in twenty five years. She then asked, 'Now what about the thirty dollars cash?'

The husband replied, 'Well, whenever the soy beans were ten dollars per kg I sold them!'

So, eat, drink and be merry, these three words, if you understand like three soy beans, you will not be able to understand the truth. You have to see the thirty dollars behind it! Only then you will understand the truth, you will understand what liberation is.

When you live intensely, automatically you will be liberated.

Karma and Samskara

If you don't live any moment intensely, what happens?

Your mind looks for repeating the action in that moment. Why? Why does your mind pull you to the same experience again and again?

You may crave for a particular candy or you may be addicted to something. Why? Actually if you look deep you can see it is because you never eat the candy or cater to the addiction completely with full involvement. You hold back from throwing yourself into the action fully.

Maybe you feel guilty about it or you have too many confusing thoughts at that time. So you decide to just do the action ignoring your thoughts and feelings that are coming in the way of your pleasure.

You see, part of you wants to indulge in the action. Another part of you argues why you should not. You are caught in too many thoughts, many of them self-contradictory. You lose energy in fighting with yourself. Finally, you are not integrated whether you do the action or not.

You are not intense. So the desire is not completely fulfilled and leaves behind its memory in your inner space. Engraved memories of desires that are not completely fulfilled are called samskaras.

These engraved memories have the power to make you return and travel in that same path. Whether it is coffee or champagne or smoking, whatever engram you create will have the power to make you do the same action again and again, till you feel completely fulfilled with that habit or with that enjoyment or pleasure.

If you enjoy your addiction intensely even once, only once, you will be completely liberated. That engram will never ask you anymore to travel in that path. It will liberate you.

Unfulfilled engrams are what I call karma. You keep your body alive, you keep your mind alive, because still you have hope that the body can give something to you, the mind can give something to you. Still you have the hope you can enjoy something, or something needs to be fulfilled through the body and mind. That is what I call karma.

Karma is nothing but unfulfilled engrams and desires, which are inside your being, which constantly make you again and again to travel in that same path, trying to give the experience of fulfillment in your inner being.

If you do any action with complete involvement, if you follow any desire totally, there will be no craving for repetition and you will be liberated from the desire once and for all.

You can now direct your energies to exploring and enjoying new, unexplored experiences of life. You will not be caught in the vicious circle, your life will move towards growth and fulfillment. You can experience for yourself that life is presenting something new and fresh every moment. For all this, there is only one thing needed on your part: live intensely.

The way of the buffalo and the way of Buddha

There are two ways of living.

One is living like a buffalo, just being alive and breathing but with no intensity and passion in life. The other way is like a Buddha, living intensely in the present moment in the current action.

Have you experienced a nightmare? During a nightmare you will experience that even if you want to open your eyes you cannot. You want to move your hands but you cannot.

Then the nightmare becomes so intense. It may be that a lion is chasing you and has almost caught you or you are falling down a deep chasm or you are in some such life-threatening situation in your dream. When it comes to its maximum intensity, the very intensity wakes you up.

If the nightmare is not that intense, you cannot wake yourself up and come out of it. If it is very intense then that very intensity wakes you up, and suddenly there is no nightmare. It was only a dream, but you thought that it was reality.

Understand, even when you were falsely thinking it is happening, you were actually out of it. It was only a film going on in front of you.

Intensity is independent of the nature of the work

Intensity does not depend on the nature of the work or action. It can be as complex as running a billion dollar company or as simple as cleaning the floor. It is not the 'what' that is important, but the 'how' that is important.

If you can do what you are doing with a totality and intensity that you are completely lost in the action, you have caught the thread of intensity.

The moment you are lost in the action, you become like a flute on the lips of Existence itself. The air that goes into the flute comes out as music because you become a channel for the energy of Existence to flow through you. Be total and intense. That is all that is needed for the arrow to hit the target, whatever it may be.

Interest Vs Intensity

What qualifies to be called as intensity? What is the difference between intensity and interest?

An interest can be lost, but never the intensity. Interest comes from the mind. Intensity comes from the being.

After a while, maybe short or long, you get fed up with your own interest. With intensity, it is a thirst of your being. It transcends the rationale of your logic. Intensity is a call from deep within. The more you have to wait for it, the more the thirst grows, the more the fire flares up.

See the difference between light and laser. Both are made up of the same light rays but the single-pointed intense focus of the laser comes from the coherence and the common frequency of the light rays.

The power of this intensity is what gives the laser the tremendous power to even burn a hole through metal. At the same time it is a controlled focus. This is what gives it the power to do even a delicate task like removing a cataract in the eye.

The story of Bayazid

A beautiful story from the life of the enlightened master Bayazid* :

Bayazid had been with his master for twelve years but the master had not spoken a single word to him.*

One day after twelve long years, the master spoke to Bayazid , 'Go to the hall. There is a book there. Bring me the book.' Bayazid had been passing through that hall for twelve years every*

Bayazid - A Sufi saint.

single day while coming to see the master.

He replied, 'I have never seen the book. In fact, I have never looked in the hall. I was interested only in you, not in anything else. But, if you say I will go.' The master replied, 'No. Stay.'

Bayazid's whole interest had turned into focused intensity. His whole interest was just the master. The master said, 'There is no need for the book. I was just trying to find out how completely focused you are.'

That night, the master told Bayazid, 'Tonight sleep here.' Bayazid lay down by the side of the master but he could not sleep. He was filled with so much intensity, his mind completely stopped in that intensity.

Next morning Bayazid was dead. A new man had emerged. No instruction was ever given. He just had to wait for twelve years. That was the method for him.

If it was just an interest, there was no way Bayazid could have stayed on for twelve years without even a word from the master. Very naturally, his mind would have strongly protested saying, 'What are you doing here? You are just wasting time. Nothing has happened till now. He is not even interested in you. How long are you going to waste time like this?'

It is the intensity that holds you on because deep down you understand, The moment you are lost in the action, you become like a flute on the lips of Existence itself.

not twelve years but even twelve million lives are worth waiting for the Ultimate that the master leads you into. Even that would actually be cheap.

If in a desert your thirst for water becomes really intense, you are ready to pay with your life for a glass of water. When your thirst for realization becomes that intense, you are ready to pay with your life for the Truth.

A beautiful Zen story:

A student approached a Zen teacher to learn Zen. The teacher told him, 'Hear the sound of one hand clapping.'

The student tried for three years and did not succeed. He was depressed that he could not do what his teacher had told him. He came in tears to the teacher saying he had to leave because he could not do what he had been told.

The teacher said, 'Wait for one more week. Meditate constantly.' The student stayed for one more week and meditated. Nothing happened. The teacher said, 'Try for five more days.'

The student stayed further, yet nothing happened. The student came in despair

Live intensely in the moment and taste the real life. Else you are not living.

begging to be released. Then the teacher said, 'Meditate for three more

days. If you don't get enlightened, you had better kill yourself.'

The second day, the student was enlightened.

When your whole being is burning with the single intense desire to realize the Ultimate, you will simply absorb the master's instructions. The magic of transformation is bound to happen. Only then will you be open to receive him. Till then it is just an interest.

Be intense in whatever you do

Tantra* , the mystical science of meditation techniques, says that to know the truth one needs only one condition, intensity. Be total in what you are, what you do.

Live intensely in the moment and taste the real life. Otherwise, you are not living. You are just waiting for death.

When you eat, intensely eat. Let your whole attention and energy be on the food. Do not divert your attention and thoughts to what you need to get done at work tomorrow or where you want to go for your next vacation.

Enjoy the food with all your senses. Taste the food in your mouth, enjoy the feast in front of your eyes, touch the food with love, and smell the aroma of the food. When you eat this way totally, you will enjoy every morsel and you will actually feed into your system the living energy the food is meant to give.

If you are drinking water, drink it intensely. Become the thirst. Feel the coolness of the water going into your mouth, throat and down your food pipe. Let each drop of water that goes into your mouth give you the feeling of fulfillment.

The Tamil classic, Periya Puranam* , describes the stories of the Nayanmars* , the ardent devotees of lord Shiva. There are so many instances of the devotees realizing the Ultimate by simple activities like making garlands for the Lord. An example is Gananaatha Nayanaar, a devotee of Shiva, engaged in simple

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

Periya Puranam - A Tamil classic by Sekkizhar on the lives of the 63 Nayanmars, the devotee saints of enlightened master Shiva.

Nayanmars - Tamil devotee saints of enlightened master Shiva, 63 in number, whose life stories are told in the book Periya Puranam.

services like plucking flowers for worship, making garlands for the Lord, sweeping and washing the floor of the temple and keeping the lamps in the temple burning. Just this simple life led him to reaching the Ultimate and brought him his name 'Gananaatha' meaning the chief of the ganas (attendants) of lord Shiva.

When you pray, be real and spontaneous. Whatever you feel, feel totally and offer it to the Divine. Don't cheat yourself and be hypocritical by not admitting what you feel. You cannot hide anything from the Divine. He knows you better than you know yourself.

Your intensity is the only thing that decides when your object of seeking will happen. If the intensity is total, it will happen that moment. If the intensity is not integrated and total, it will take more time because the intensity has to gain strength in that time.

• A beautiful story: The Sufi mystic Junaid , was taking a walk one morning when a man came up to him asking, 'I need to reach the capital of this kingdom. How long will it take?'*

Junaid just looked at the man and continued walking. The man was going in the same direction. He followed* Junaid * thinking maybe he did not hear him

You cannot hide anything from the Divine. He knows you better than you know yourself.

properly. So, he asked Junaid again, 'Can you please tell me how much time it will take me to reach the capital of the kingdom?'

Junaid continued walking. The man gave up trying to ask further. After some distance, Junaid said, 'You will have to walk at least ten hours.' The man was surprised and exclaimed, 'You could have said that before!'

Junaid replied, 'How can I say before? I needed to watch your speed first. Then only I could tell you how long it will take to reach the capital.'

In the same way, the time it takes to realize also depends on your intensity.

If you are intense enough, it does not need time to reach the Ultimate. Where you are, who are you is irrelevant. You can reach here and now.

• A beautiful story: There was a dreaded bandit who was a terror in the kingdom. After looting a large number of people, he started feeling restless and uncomfortable with

Junaid - 9th century Sufi master.

his actions. He approached a master and asked him, 'Master, I am a sinner. Is there any way out for me? Can I be liberated?'

The master looked at the bandit and asked him what he was good at. The bandit replied, 'Nothing.' The master asked, 'Nothing? You must be good at something!' The bandit thought for a long time and then said, 'Master, I only know stealing, that is what I have done all my life.'

The master smiled and said, 'Good! Then you will use exactly that now. Go to a quiet place and rob all your perceptions and ideas and opinions. Steal all the trees and rocks and rivers on planet earth. Steal all the planets and stars in the sky. And dissolve them in the vast emptiness inside you.'

The bandit sincerely followed exactly the instructions of the master. Within 21 days, the bandit realized his true nature, he became enlightened.

Intensity and the four states of consciousness

There are four states of consciousness.

When you have 'I' Consciousness and thoughts, you are in the waking state, the state in which you are right now. In this

state, 'I' has more frequency than your thoughts. So you can control your thoughts.

When you are without 'I' consciousness but having thoughts, you are in the dream state. In the dream state, your thoughts are at a higher frequency than your 'I' consciousness. That is why you have thoughts in your dreams but you are not able to control them.

When you are without 'I' Consciousness and not having any thoughts, you are in the deep sleep state. Normally, we are aware of only these three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. The fourth state is where you have I consciousness but no thoughts or turiya.

Intense seeking - Awareness in the three states

Intensity means being intense every moment in whatever you do. So first you need to be aware of yourself in all the states. Then only you can be intense throughout.

Now you experience who you are with awareness only during the waking state. You feel, 'I am a doctor,' 'I am a lawyer,' 'I am an engineer' and so on. Only if we are aware of the identities that we carry and enjoy in all the three states, we have caught the thread, the center line of all the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. When we catch the thread of all these three states, suddenly we realize our identity in all the three states.

Somebody asked me, 'I don't think that in the deep sleep state I am aware.' Then who is the person who comes back and says it was deep peace during my deep sleep? Who is the person who is reminiscing about it saying, 'It was filled with darkness. It was as if I was not there at all'? Who is coming back and remembering even this idea, 'I was not there at all'?

If the person is not there in that state, then who is coming back to connect all these three states? No, we cannot say we were not there in the deep sleep state. We were there, but we were not aware of the identity that we had in that state.

Understand, a person who is aware of all these three states is conscious. If we are aware of the identity in all these three states, then we are conscious enough, our seeking is intense enough to be answered, we are intense enough to be initiated and blessed.

If we are not already aware in all these three states, if If even once or twice you have experienced your waking identity in the dream state, then you are intense.

we have not experienced all these three states with the same identity, then naturally we need to now intensify our seeking.

An intense seeker will carry the identity about himself throughout all these three states. If even once or twice you have experienced your waking identity in the dream state then you are intense.

In the dream state suddenly sometimes you remember that you are beyond the identity which you think as you in the dream state. I have seen seekers going through this experience in the dream state. They will be dreaming and suddenly they will identify themselves with their identity in the waking state. Then they will think about the dream state, 'Hey, this is too small. This is nothing.'

If you have had the experience of your waking state identity in the dream state, then you have the intensity. Your seeking is intense.

Wake up!

During a nightmare, a very wild dream, just one thought or one click such as, 'Hey, this is a dream' is enough. You will be awakened. You will be out of the dream. In the same way, if you are intense in this dream you are living, called the waking world, then one click is enough and you will be out of the dream!

If you think, 'No, I need some more technique,' then you are not really going through a nightmare or an intense dream. You are just having some casual flow of thoughts.

Sometimes in the dream state you will be seeing without any clarity. There will be some casual black and white shows which will be going on. You will neither feel like watching it nor feel like coming out of it. If you are in those kinds of dreams, then you are just wasting your time.

If you are not really intense, you are in these kinds of dreams. Neither will you go down nor will you go up. Please do not be in that state. Understand, if you are in such an intermediate state, then this click will not happen. It will not be a sharp, strong shift.

Just like you can get up from your sleep by just an intense desire to wake up at a particular time, you can also get up from the deep slumber you have been for so many millions of lives. If you have an intense total desire to wake up, you can wake up this moment.

Kabir* says so strongly and beautifully, 'When you look for Him, you will find Him instantly.'

There are people who say 'What is there in our hands? When god wants us to be awake He will wake us up. It is our destiny.' Understand, these are nothing but cunning tricks of the mind. God knocks every moment at the door of the prison you have built for yourself. If you don't open, what can be done?

I always tell people, god is a gentleman. He never interferes with your freedom. If you choose to remain asleep, He will simply wait till you wake up. He respects your freedom. Till you are bored and realize the futility of the fantasy world you are in, He will patiently wait.

Look inside yourself and you can see that you are choosing to remain asleep in your fantasy world. Reality is knocking on the door every moment but we choose to ignore it. We are so used to our dream world we don't want to wake up.

So when the master tells you that reality is much more beautiful and 'real', you still remain in the inertia of sleeping. You have to understand, it is only you who can

Kabir - Mystic devotional poet of India.

choose to come out of your long dream. It is your choice and your responsibility.

Intensity in the state of sleep

Have you ever tried this simple experiment? Suppose you want to get up early in the morning at say 4 am. Suppose you don't have an alarm clock. At night, when you go to sleep you simply make a deep and intense will, 'I am going to wake up at 4 am.' At 4 am, you will find that you are awake, your eyes are open and sleep has just disappeared. Your body clock responds directly to the intensity and the sincerity of the desire.

If you are not sincere and deep down you think, 'I will try this as an experiment. It is ok if I don't get up also,' then it will not happen. Be sincere and intense and it will simply happen.

Intensity has the power to penetrate your states of unconsciousness including deep sleep.

Attention shift from the states to the seer

In all the states, one factor is common, the one who goes through these states or the seer. If you look little deeper, you can see that in all these three states of waking, dream and deep sleep, we are trying to change reality as it exists. We are trying to change the scene happening every moment in our lives.

Intensity has the power to penetrate your states of unconsciousness including deep sleep.

• A small story: A small boy went to a watch a movie with his parents. He was watching a kids' movie about a lion cub and other animals in a jungle and was thoroughly enjoying it. There was a scene in which the lion cub was trapped by some hunter and was terrified.

The boy was not able to bear this scene. He just jumped from his seat and ran down the hall closer to the movie screen. He started throwing his hands and legs at the hunter in the movie who was about to cage the lion cub. Anyways, the movie continued and soon the other animals in the jungle joined together and drove away the hunter and rescued the cub.

The boy came back to his seat and proudly told his mother, 'Mommy, see how I went first and all the animals followed me and we saved the cub!'

It may look childish to think that you can change the scene on the movie screen by jumping in front of it. Just look little deeper into your own lives. Like the small boy, in your life also you are under the illusion that you are in control of your life. Life is actually a movie, moving in these three states.

You, the seer, are the projector. Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, you create your reality. When you try to change the events and world outside, you are trying to change the scene by jumping in front of the screen. To change the scene, you need to change the film being projected on the screen.

When you realize the futility of all the three states and the futility of trying to change the scene in all these three states the whole attention will fall on the seer. Then the awakening will happen. If instead you think that there is some utility in all these three states, your attention will be on them. You will continue to be engaged in them. You will continue to try to alter the scene.

If this understanding clicks in us, then it does not take more than one click to wake us up from our state of sleep, whether it is dream sleep, deep sleep or waking sleep. All we would need is one click, 'Hey, this is a dream!' That's all. We will be awakened.

The gate to the fourth state

There are some people who carry the same awareness even to the deep sleep state. For them, when the very understanding of these three states happens, suddenly they will come back to the center to awaken themselves to the fourth state, turiya* .

A small story:

One day early morning, a Zen master started crying the moment he came out of his bed. The disciples were really surprised and asked him, 'Master, why are you crying?'

The master said, 'Last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly.' The puzzled disciples asked, 'But that was a dream. Now you are here sitting in front of us. Why are you crying?'

The master replies beautifully, 'I do not know whether I dreamt that I became a butterfly or that butterfly is dreaming now that it has become a master.'

Understand, it is true and very rare that a few individuals can carry the same intensity to have the same connected, undisturbed identity in the three states of mind. If you can carry a connected, straight, undisturbed, unbroken identity throughout these three states, then you are a seeker.

Turiya - Fourth state of consciousness in which there are no thoughts and only awareness.

Then the individual consciousness is awakened. The pratyakatma chaitanya jagrat has happened. These are some of the Sanskrit technical terms. I have always wanted to express the Sanskrit words also because I want all of you to know that there are many non-portable things in the vedic tradition. Non-portable things mean the non-expressible dimensions of the experience. Some of these Sanskrit words cannot be expressed with mere translations to another language. Some of the dimensions of the experience cannot be expressed when we attempt to translate these words into English. The Sanskrit word itself represents the understandings of the multiple dimensions of the experience.