79. The deep spiritual experience

Requirements for spiritual experience

For the spiritual experience to happen, two conditions need to be fulfilled. One is that you must be completely open and available to the surroundings. The other is the intense energy field.

Sometimes even if you are open, if you are not in the intense energy field, the first cracking of the coconut of your ego does not happen. The first spiritual experience is just like breaking open a coconut. Once the first opening happens, it is not difficult to break the rest of the coconut. The first opening needs an intense spiritual energy field.

These two factors are what resulted in my first Only with intensity it clicks. You just catch the flame and the awakening happens.

spiritual experience. I was open and available to the surroundings; and I was in the intense energy field of Arunachala. Fortunately, I was attracted to the beauty of that hill. Normally, if you see a hill or a river or an ocean every day, you will take it for granted. Somehow I never took that hill for granted. I never thought I knew about it. I was continuously open, available.

Understand, being open and available every time, seeing it every morning with the eyes of freshness or with the mind of openness is what I am calling 'being open and available'. Many times, we completely close ourselves to the society.

We just come to some conclusion, some understanding and after that we never update our understanding or our effort with the result.

Every day, the Arunachala hill was living for me. Everyday it was never the same old hill that I saw yesterday. I had a very funny routine. In the morning when I got up I would not open my eyes. I would slowly walk from my room to outside the house holding the parapet wall. I would come out and stand in a place from where I knew the hill could be seen. Only then I

The click happens only when you are in intense energy.

would open my eyes so that the first thing that I

saw in the morning would be that hill.

Somehow my brothers knew that the first thing that I wanted to see was the hill. They would want to have fun teasing me. When they knew that I was out from my bed and slowly walking, they would come and stand in front of me.

If I opened my eyes and did not see the hill and instead saw their faces, I would go back and lie down again. I would lie down again, sleep for half an hour, then again get up and slowly walk back to see the hill and open my eyes. Only if I saw the hill the first thing in the morning, I would carry on with my routine.

It may look funny and superstitious but I always felt I took birth, I took this body, because of that attraction and pull that hill has got for enlightened beings.

There is a very beautiful verse in Tamil that describes the hill as 'the hill that attracts enlightened beings around it'. The hill is especially respected for attracting enlightened beings not only from this planet earth, but also from other planets and spaces, towards planet earth. I never took the hill for granted. It was an everliving presence.

Encounter with the Divine

One day I was trying to sit and meditate. It was a full moon day (Poornima) and the moon was rising as the sun was setting. I was just sitting on a rock on Arunachala hill, trying the meditation technique that the disciple of Ramana Maharishi and enlightened master Annamalai Swamigal* had initiated me into.

I was sitting on the rock trying to find the source from where the feeling of 'I' was rising. On that day I was sitting for a particularly long time trying to find the source in a deep way.

Suddenly something happened and I felt like I was being sucked inside, pulled inside. I was sitting with closed eyes but I saw very clearly that something opened inside. The moment that opened inside, I was able to see whole 360 degrees around me. My eyes were closed but I was able to see complete 360 degrees, whatever was happening in all the directions - front, side, back, up, and down.

Annamalai Swamigal - Disciple of Ramana Maharishi in the temple town of Tiruvannamalai, South India, whose teachings inspired Nithyananda towards his deep spiritual experience as a young boy.

Not only was I able to see, but I was also able to feel very clearly with the same intensity how we all feel alive inside our skin, that I am alive in everything I was able to see.

I was able to see whatever was around me, all the plants, rocks, trees and everything. I was able to feel that I am alive in everything. In the same way you all feel you are alive inside your body I felt alive with the whole cosmos, with the whole Existence.

Till then I was just a mere body. After that, I realized I am body also. Understand, 'I am body also'.

It was a very deep experience. If it was just a word or imagination, it won't have that much impact on your inner space. It was an intense conscious experience.

You see, now you know you are inside your skin. You will listen to anything as long as it does not disturb you. Naturally you know how to protect yourself because you are alive inside and that is your conscious experience.

No matter however many people teach you that you are not just your body you will only listen but you will not allow them to work on you! Because your conscious experience is your body.

My experience that 'I am this whole Existence' became my truth. That is why I started living according to that.

People are surprised that I lived such a strong intense life in such a young age. They feel that We are such hypocrites that we don't even know we are cheating ourselves!

it is very difficult and unimaginable. It is unimaginable for you because it is not your conscious experience. It was easy for me because feeling the whole cosmos is me became a very solid experience.

Ramana Maharishi's death experience

There is a beautiful example of the power of intensity in the life of enlightened master, Ramana Maharishi.

When he was sixteen, spontaneously this happened to him. He was in Madurai near his native place called Thiruchuzhi, which is in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Suddenly one day he started feeling that he was going to die. The great death fear arose in him.

We also sometimes feel that fear of death when we hear about some relative's or friend's death or when we see an accident or when we come across some news about death. We are so well-versed or trained to suppress our emotions and control ourselves that we never allow this fear to come out.

We are such hypocrites that we don't even know we are cheating ourselves! Many times we can see the fear rise but we are an automatic mechanism of suppression.

Over time we learn how to balance ourselves or suppress ourselves. We suppress ourselves and just forget about it or try to do something. We just turn the attention elsewhere.

But Ramana Maharishi did not do anything. He used the door to take the jump. We are also again and again going near this door. Whenever we hear about somebody's death or whenever fear attacks, we also go near the door. But we are afraid to take the jump. We have trained ourselves so much to be hypocrites or not to be intense. We somehow balance and we escape. We switch on the television or we just move our attention towards something else.

Ramana Maharishi used that door to take a quantum jump into deathlessness. He just lay down on the floor and did not move his body and allowed death to happen.

After the enlightenment, he says beautifully about his experience:

Suddenly for no reason I felt the deep fear that I am going to die. I was not sick. I was not having any mental problem. Physically, mentally I was

healthy. Suddenly the thought came, 'I am going to die.'

I just cooperated with that fear. I did not try to jump, I did not try to run away, and I did not bother about anything else. I did not feel like doing anything else. I just sat and allowed the feeling. I just sat and allowed death to happen to my being. I lay down, and I decided let me see what happens. What can be done? I just accepted and I consciously started moving into that fear. The fear started working on me. I could see that I am dead. My body is not moving, nothing is happening in me. I could see very clearly that I am out of the body. Suddenly like a flash the intelligence or the truth descended on me that my body is dead but I am alive. 'I' am not dead. My body is dead, but I could see, I could feel that I still exist. It means I am something beyond the body.

That single experience of the truth shook me completely and I realized I am not just the body, and that I am something beyond the body. After that I never faced the death fear or any other fear. Once and for all the fear had disappeared from my being. The moment I understood that even after my body dying, there is something in me that is not dying, why should I bother about my body's death?

Why should I bother about the death of my body? Because even if it dies, I am going to continue, I am going to exist, I am alive. That means I am something more than what I think. I am something more than this body. This realization has never left me. I have never moved away from this realization after that one experience.

How can a fear create such a big transformation in Ramana Maharishi when in our lives it happens yet we are unchanged by it? The answer is intensity. Such an ultimate experience can suddenly happen without any reason. It is purely your intensity.

Motivation for social service

Be very clear, if you want to really serve society, the first thing you need is intensity in your purpose.

I have seen many people doing something in the name of social service, just because they can't sit with themselves. Be very clear, if you are not able to sit with yourself and do social service like going to some temple, going to some social service organization or doing some such service, you will never be able to experience the truth.

Going to the temple or doing some social service should be like overflowing. You feel so full, you feel there is nothing more to be done and think, 'I have so much of time, let me do some service to society, it is beautiful.' Then it will lead you to enlightenment.

The service itself can lead you to spiritual experience. You feel overflowing and think, 'God has given me so much, this whole life is so beautiful,' and you go to a temple or church to offer your gratitude. Then it will just liberate you and you will become enlightened.

If you are going to the temple or for social service just because you don't feel relaxed within yourself, you can't sit quietly. There is so much of restlessness within you that you just want to do catharsis in some way.

People with this type of attitude, even if they go to temples, will be sitting there and shouting at everybody, 'Don't do this. Don't do that. What are you doing? Don't you know god wants this?' They will start representing god! Not even representing, they will even start acting god. This type of persons, even if they do some service will be only putting their ego in front. They will only be torturing others. They will not be serving others.

A small story:

There was a schoolteacher who was a scoutmaster. He had made a rule that all his students should report to him of at least one good activity or service they did that day.

One day three friends got up and said, 'Sir, today we helped an old lady cross the road.' The scoutmaster said, 'Old lady crossing the road is fine but why did she need three of you to help her cross the road?'

The three boys replied, 'Yes sir, it took all three of us to help her cross the road because she didn't want to!'

Be very clear, many times you start doing things just for the sake of service, not feeling. You don't feel what you are doing. You don't feel the need of the other person. You need to fill your time and you need to show your project report to somebody, maybe to the higher authorities or to the society. Just for that when you do it, you create a mess and more difficulty for others.

I always feel service should be overflowing out of your being. It should never be done for some other purpose. Whenever it is done for some other purpose, be very clear, you will not be intense and you will not be growing in your being. Your love or service will be pure hypocrisy. I can say 'impure hypocrisy', not even pure hypocrisy! If you are pure you will be liberated. It is impure hypocrisy.