Why Meditate?

What is your ultimate aim in life?

To earn more?

To stay forever young, healthy, beautiful?

To have better, longer-lasting relationships?

To improve your personality?

The list is endless. For each individual, there will be a specific goal or many goals.

But every single goal, without exception, points to the same thing: a yearning to be in ananda or bliss. Can anyone say, 'I am not interested in being happy, being fulfilled, being blissful?' No!

Each of us is searching for bliss, but we search in many different ways. However intellectual, however sophisticated may be the ways in which we express it, we are all seeking only bliss. Only the ways in which we are searching are different.

Each of us is searching for bliss, but we search in many different ways.

But ninety-nine percent of us are not even aware that bliss is our true goal! Because we are unaware, we search outside ourselves for this bliss. We search everywhere in the outside world for something which is there within us, just waiting to be discovered.

A small story:

One evening, a man was searching hard for something in the courtyard in his house. His wife asked him what it was. He replied that he had dropped a gold coin. His wife also joined in the search. Soon, others gathered and practically the whole neighborhood was searching for the lost coin.

Suddenly one neighbor asked the man, 'Where exactly did you drop the coin? How come we still haven't found it?'

The man replied, 'Oh, I lost the coin inside the house.'

Everybody searching became angry and asked him, 'Then why are we searching here?'

The man replied, 'The problem is I have no lights inside my house. So I started searching by the light of this streetlamp here!'

This is exactly what we do in our own lives. We are all experts in searching for answers in the wrong places. We search for bliss everywhere, in money, power, relationships, ideologies, but we don't move in the one obvious direction – inwards.

In life everyone has experienced some moments of great happiness. But it has always been for a reason. It is a nice feeling but it has two disturbing qualities: the feeling doesn't last and it is the result of some cause or reason. You are happy because you got a promotion; you are happy because you were cured of some disease; you are happy becauseyou bought a new car.

The state of that happiness does not seem to remain forever. It is there temporarily, and when it changes or goes away, once again you feel pain. Only the happiness you experience for no reason at all, which does not die for any reason, is real and permanent happiness. This is what is called bliss. Such happiness doesn't depend on anything outside of you.

The word 'ananda' itself means, 'that which cannot be reduced, which cannot be lost'. Ananda does not translate into 'happiness'. You will be surprised to know, it simply means 'that which cannot be reduced or lost'. Bliss is that thing which does not reduce for any reason.

Relating to space – the only element that can reflect consciousness

Meditation is falling in tune with nature, with Existence. This is your natural state, your true state of bliss. This is connecting with the Ultimate Consciousness.

You see, the universe or the macrocosm is made up of the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and space. In the same way, the body, the microcosm, is also made up of the same five elements. We can relate to the macrocosm, the Whole, the Divine, through any or all of these five elements. The microcosm can experience the macrocosm by relating with these five elements that pervade both.

Relating to the macrocosm through the earth element is worshipping through idols or deities. Deities are made of the earth element, such as clay, brass, copper, etc. So worshipping through them is worshipping through the earth element. Relating through the water element is offering abhishekas, holy baths to deities, or bathing ourselves in holy rivers. Relating through the fire element is performing homas, fire rituals. Relating through the air element is chanting mantras, divine chants. Relating through the space element is meditation. Through these five ways, we can relate to the macrocosm.

Out of the five elements, space is the only element that can reflect consciousness. The four grosser elements, earth, water, fire and air, cannot relate with or cannot reflect consciousness. Only space can reflect consciousness. And the way to relate with space energy is meditation.

Technique to raise consciousness

Any technique, any method which raises your consciousness is meditation.

Meditation can even be a simple breathing technique. It can be a simple repetition of a word or simply sitting. In the Zen tradition, just sitting is meditation. You may think this is the easiest thing to do but in fact, just sitting is the most difficult meditation. Anything can become meditation if it raises your consciousness.

Intensely blissful in the present

Meditation is just being blissful in the moment. When you are at complete peace Meditation is

in the present moment, you are already in a state of meditation. just being blissful in the moment.

Recall any moment in your life when you have experienced extreme beauty: the sun rising suddenly from behind a mountain, or the first time you heard a lovely piece of music. Suddenly you became totally still, wordless. In the presence of that beauty you became spellbound, you couldn't think any more. You were just silent, relaxed, in thoughtless awareness. You were completely dissolved in that beauty. That moment was meditation!

After a few moments your inner chatter started again. Your mind said, 'What a beautiful sunrise!' The moment the words appeared, you were out of meditation! You can either think or meditate. You can never do both.

Meditation is just being. It is experiencing the present moment without resistance.

The first thing is, be sincere. Keep an open mind. Have the openness to experiment. Be enthusiastic.

There is a beautiful term in the Zen tradition to describe the attitude – the beginner's mind. It means looking at every single thing in life as new, so everything in life excites you.

The second thing is, be optimistic. Bliss is a perfectly realizable goal for you, even if you are completely unfamiliar with meditation.

Once a man approached the great enlightened master Ramana Maharishi and asked him, 'Bhagavan, am I qualified for spiritual life?'

Ramana answered him with a question, 'Are you alive?'

The man was startled. He said, 'Yes, of course!'

Ramana replied, 'That is enough. You already have the necessary qualification for spirituality!'

The very aim of human life is enlightenment. The possibility of becoming enlightened lies in the Kundalini shakti, an extraordinary potential energy which is hidden inside every human body. If it can be awakened, it will take you to a different plane of consciousness, a different plane of Existence.

The possibility to become a different conscious being is present only in human beings. Animals don't have this potential to become enlightened, to become different conscious beings.

The third thing is, be playful! Meditation is a big adventure. To become serious about meditation is to miss the whole point. Celebrate meditation. Simply enjoy it!

The fourth thing is, have patience. Don't start worrying about results the moment you start meditating.

A small story:

Three monkeys once found a ripe, juicy mango. Like all monkeys, they fought over the mango for a while. Then somehow, they had a moment of clarity, a moment of intelligence.

Instead of eating the mango right away, they decided to sow the mango. They knew that once the mango seed sprouted and grew into a tree, there would be more than enough mangoes for all three of them.

Each of them decided to take up one part of the task of caring for the mango plant.

The first monkey said, 'I will water the plant every day!'

The second monkey said, 'I will keep the soil healthy and rich, add fertilizers and ensure that the plant grows well.'

The third monkey said, 'I will guard the plant carefully and protect it from harsh weather and other animals.'

One month passed, then two, then three. There was no sign of any plant growing out of the soil.

The three monkeys called for an urgent meeting to discuss the issue.

The first monkey declared, 'As promised, I have been watering the seed every single day.'

The second monkey cried, 'As promised, I have been adding fertilizer and making the soil rich.'

The third monkey said, 'As promised, I have been guarding the seed very carefully. Not only that, I have been taking the seed out every single day to check whether it has sprouted or not!'

If you are greedy for instant results, you actually prevent the process from settling down in your system. You yourself block the whole process.

The fifth thing is, enjoy solitude. Give yourself a chance to experience your inner environment. When meditation becomes a part of you, bliss will flower naturally.

Four states of consciousness

Let me give you a simple diagram so you can understand what meditation can do and why meditation needs to be practiced.

Various States of Consciousness
	With Thoughts	Without Thoughts
With "I" Consciousness	Jagrat Wakeful State Thinking	Turiya Blissful State State of Full Awareness
Without "I" Consciousness	Swapna Dream State Dreaming	Sushupti Unconscious State Deep Sleep

We experience two states of mind in our day-to-day life, one is with thoughts, the other is without thoughts. We know we have thoughts when we are awake. In deep sleep, do we have thoughts? No. So there are two states of mind: with thoughts and without thoughts.

Our being also experiences two states. In one state we have a clear identity of 'I'. When we are awake, all of us are very clearly connected with the 'I' consciousness, we have an identity about ourselves – I am a doctor, I am an artist, etc. When we are awake, our 'I'

There is a fourth state that we have not experienced. It is called turiya.

consciousness will be like an undercurrent, alive all the time. But in deep sleep, we do not experience the 'I' consciousness, am I right? When we are in deep sleep, we don't have the awareness of 'I'.

So understand that in the mind we experience two states, one with thoughts and one without thoughts. In the being also we experience two states, one with the identity of 'I' and another without the identity of 'I'.

Now let us understand how these two states of mind and the two states of being connect with each other and create different states in our consciousness.

The first state is the waking state, 'jagrat', when we are with 'I' consciousness and also with thoughts. When we are in the waking state, we are very conscious of our identity and we also have thoughts. In this waking state, the frequency of 'I' is higher than the frequency of thoughts. That is why, with the help of the strong 'I' identity, we are able to control our thoughts in this state. If we wish to, we can create a thought, control it, or expel it. This is possible in the waking state.

The next state is the dream state, 'swapna'. In the dream state we have many thoughts but there is no 'I' consciousness. We are not conscious of our identity in our dreams, but thoughts exist. That is why possibly in your dreams, you might see yourself studying in school but sitting with your son next to you! This shows that there is no clear, logical identity of you in the dream state. In the dream state the frequency of 'I' consciousness is lower than the frequency of thoughts. That is why you are not able to control the thoughts. That is also why you frequently have erratic and illogical thoughts.

In the waking state, the frequency of 'I' is higher than the frequency of thoughts, and that is why we are able to control our thoughts. In the dream state, the frequency of 'I' is lower than the frequency of thoughts, and that is why we are not able to control the thoughts in our dreams.

In the third state, the deep sleep state, there is neither 'I' consciousness nor thoughts. This state is called sushupti. We neither have thoughts nor an identity in this state.

These are the three states that we constantly experience in our lives – the waking state, dream state and deep sleep state.

But there is a fourth state that we have not experienced. It is called turiya. In this state the 'I' consciousness exists but without thoughts. It is called thoughtless awareness. Very few people experience this in their lives. Some people experience this for a few seconds and then go back to their regular waking state.

If you get a sudden shock or if you are sitting with nature in a completely relaxed state and in deep silence, it is possible that for a few moments you experience this thoughtless awareness. The identity is alive, the 'I' consciousness is alive, but there are no thoughts. This is the fourth state of turiya.

All our physical and mental illnesses take root in the dream state. The dream state starts penetrating and overlapping the deep sleep and waking states.

If our waking state is penetrated by the dream state, it is called daydreaming. We fantasize or imagine endless things that we wish to do. If our deep sleep is penetrated by dreaming, it is called disturbed sleep.

Continuously during the day or night, our dream state disturbs us. When our deep sleep state is disturbed by dreams, it results in problems like chronic fatigue and insomnia. When our waking state is disturbed by dreams, we will be daydreaming with much less awareness of the world around us.

You might have experienced that sometimes you will get into your car, drive for thirty miles and reach your office. Only when you stop in your parking lot, take the keys and get out, suddenly you realize you have driven for so many miles! You would have made hundreds of decisions from the time you got into the car to the time you reached your office like deciding to press the clutch, to press the brakes, to press the accelerator, to put on the turn signal, or to stop at the traffic light, etc. You would have made all these decisions, but without any awareness of making them. Suddenly you realize, 'Oh! I have reached the office!' When this happens, be clear, the dream state is overlapping or penetrating the waking state.

The more the dream state penetrates the waking state, the more the frequency of our consciousness decreases. We may be living in our human body, but we will not be living a truly human life.

When the frequency of consciousness comes down, we will not be fully aware about the decisions we make. We will not be aware of the kind of words we are thinking. We will not be aware of what is going on inside of us. It will be as if we are living in a house, but we do not know everything that is happening inside that house.

Living in the waking state, continuously disturbed by the dream state, is what I call living in hell.

All our physical and mental disorders are directly due to the dream state penetrating either the deep sleep or the waking state.

Meditation is needed to infuse deep awareness into both your waking state and the deep sleep state.

If both the waking state and the deep sleep state are penetrated by the dream state, we will have physical andmental disorders.

The waking state being penetrated too much by the dream state is what we call depression, because then we will not have the clarity to think fresh thoughts. We will not have the freedom or energy to move beyond our negative thought patterns. When depressed, we feel like all the doors are closed, all the possibilities are exhausted.

You ask, 'Why should I meditate?' Meditation is needed to infuse deep awareness into both your waking state and the deep sleep state. Instead of the dream state penetrating the waking and deep sleep states, with meditation the turiya or blissful state will start penetrating the waking and deep sleep states!

Meditate to bring turiya into every moment of life

The more we meditate, the more our awareness increases, and the closer we move to the consciousness of the fourth or turiya state. Turiya itself means fourth. You cannot give an exact name to this state. It is known by many other names: samadhi, enlightenment, atmagnana, brahmagnana, nirvana, satori, to name some of them. They all denote the same state of consciousness. When this state starts penetrating and overlapping the waking and deep sleep states, we will see good health happening in the body, mind and being. We will start experiencing causeless bliss. Then our very state of being becomes meditative!

The purpose of meditation is to experience this fourth state at least once. Once we experience this fourth state, we can bring the influence of it more and more into our waking and deep sleep states.

If our waking and deep sleep states are completely influenced by the fourth state, turiya, that is what we call jeevan mukti or living enlightenment.

The purpose of meditation itself is to bring the fourth state of turiya into our waking state and deep sleep state.

Why do we need meditation techniques?

Meditation techniques are not there to help you achieve anything. They are there to help you remember that you have not yet found eternal bliss!

If I suddenly tell you, 'Slip into bliss!' is it possible for you? No! You are not even aware that bliss is your natural state. But when you hear so many masters prescribing meditation again and again, you continuously remember that you are still seeking.

Meditation techniques are the lifebuoys that help you cross the ocean of bliss. When you are just learning to swim, will you directly jump into the ocean on your own? No! You need a lifebuoy to keep you afloat. In the same way, to enter into the ocean of bliss, you will need a method to help you initially. Meditation is the most natural method for you.

Meditation techniques are nothing but lifebuoys. Once meditation becomes your way of life, you will automatically drop all the techniques, because meditation will become the very quality of your life, no longer a routine that you make time for each day. Every moment will be meditative. Meditation will be a continuous happening in you, irrespective of what you may be doing in the outer world.

People ask me why are there so many meditation techniques available today. First, there are so many different techniques because there are lots of different types of people. Each person has a different mental setup. A technique that suits one person may not suit the other. So you can experiment to see which technique works best for you. Second, when you keep trying one meditation after another, the very effort of doing all the different meditations will eventually make your mind drop into restfulness, into the ocean of bliss!

Physical health

Meditation has the power to transform you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Let me explain what I mean by health in these four areas. Physical health means digesting whatever you eat and having that food become part of your body. Mental health means digesting all the ideas and problems that you encounter and forming a clear solution. It is living without conflict. Spiritual health means receiving all the great teachings and energy, digesting them and living a liberated life. Having all three is total health.

If your digestive system is working perfectly, that is physical health. I tell you, you don't need anything else. If your digestive system is perfect, you don't even need food. Your physiology will be so

intelligent that it will take the energy directly from the ether. If Meditation is also a proven way to improve concentration and memory power.

your digestive system works efficiently, you will need very little or no food.

Meditation is also a complement to medication. Through meditation, you can regulate your blood pressure and blood sugar, you can increase your body's resistance to disease. Through meditation, it is possible to heal even chronic problems like skin allergies, asthma and arthritis. No disease can escape the power of meditation.

Mental health - awakening of intelligence and flowering of intuition

On the mental level, meditation enhances clarity of thought. Meditation is also a proven way to improve concentration and memory power. Above all, meditation leads you from intellect to intelligence to intuition.

Intellect is when you make your decisions with pure logic. Intelligence is when you respond to a situation in a more creative and constructive way. Intelligence is nothing but the ability to respond to life moment to moment, to be awake to the challenges life throws at us. Intelligence is to be aware of the situation, to alter your answers according to the demands of the moment. Intuition is when the decision simply happens as a revelation! It happens from the energy of your being, not from the space of the mind. Meditation puts you in direct touch with the Divine energy that lies latent within you, within every individual.

With meditation, you go beyond the mind, into the being. In the being no rules exist. You become free to explore your full potential. That's why with meditation you will suddenly find yourself at ease with your surroundings, easily able to cope with new situations. You rediscover your spontaneity.

You may have a medically fit body. That does not mean you are completely healthy. Of course, I can say from my experience of having seen millions of people, ninetynine per cent of those who do not have the 'self-healing clarity' in their system are never able to maintain even physical health.

When I say 'self-healing clarity', I mean the clarity and understanding to bring yourself out of depression whenever it tries to grip your consciousness.

Just a year ago, I did a small research study. I selected one group of people who had been through some meditation programs and had done some spiritual study. I asked them to write for just twenty minutes whatever came into their mind without editing. Then I also asked another group of people who had never been exposed to spirituality to also write down whatever came into their minds without editing for the same twenty minutes. The results of my study were shocking.

In the case of those people who were not exposed to spirituality, if they had written one hundred thoughts, more than eighty of them were directing them more and more towards depression. Only twenty thoughts were self-healing or bringing them out of depression. But in the case of those who were exposed to spirituality and meditation, I saw that more than sixty percent of their thoughts were self-healing! Only forty percent were taking them towards depression. This is the impact of meditation! It keeps you healthy holistically.

Knowledge-weapons to combat depression

The knowledge of the Truth is what I call 'knowledge-weapons' or shaastra-shastras. Shaastra means Truth, knowledge; shastra means weapons. Knowledge-weapons are the weapons of Truth that can destroy the depression of your being.

Whenever depression or suffering attacks you, suffering attacks you, your mind brings different scenes in front of you. In those moments, these shaastra-shastras, knowledge-weapons, can be so powerful, that you simply come out of the depression. They are thoughts that help you to raise yourself out of the suffering. So never feel that the Truth is too much to take in. Try to digest, assimilate and keep it in a corner inside you. Store it as knowledge-weapons inside you.

The more knowledge-weapons you have, the more depression will be afraid of you! If you have a huge army, naturally the enemy country will be afraid of attacking you. Just by seeing your pile of weapons, the other country will think twice before attacking you. In the same way, the more you accumulate the self-healing thoughts, the knowledge-weapons, inside your being, the more depression will fear to come near you. Practically speaking, you will have fewer depressive thoughts that can torture you and the self-healing thoughts as antidotes when they do.

Freedom

With meditation, you can live your life in a much better way, with greater clarity and greater intensity. You will be more aware, more creative. Yet internally, you will experience a deep and undisturbed silence.

You will no longer be doing, you will only be watching the doer. This is the whole secret of meditation – to become the watcher, to become the witness of your own actions and emotions.

As you start witnessing your own actions, you will realize that there is someone inside you who does not change, who does not get angry or feel sad, who does not care about money or security or fame.

That is the real you! The real you can never be touched. The rest is just a personality you have formed around yourself.

Once you become aware that the real you is not the one who acts, that the real you is not the one who feels angry or hurt or depressed, then you experience a tremendous sense of freedom. This will happen through meditation. This is real freedom.

All our life we are searching for freedom. Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us is searching for freedom. We think our freedom is dependent on others. Now you know, the other person is in no way connected to your freedom.

What we search for in our ordinary lives is either 'freedom for' or 'freedom from'.

Freedom for doing, having and being all that we wish, freedom to live as we imagine we want to live.

Freedom from all the things that we hate disease, worry, anger, stress, low selfesteem, pain and so forth.

We are caught between the greed for something good and the fear of something bad. Our whole life is controlled by these two ropes of greed and fear. But when these two ropes of greed and fear control us, we forget the real freedom that we are craving for.

A few weeks back a casual visitor, an artist, was speaking to me. He was telling me why he hated meditation.

He said, 'I hate all these rules and discipline. I like to be free to lead my life the way I want. I get up at ten o'clock, first thing I have my coffee, then I go for a swim whenever I feel like it…' He described his whole day to me.

Then I asked him, 'What if someone woke you up at six o'clock? Or what if your coffee didn't arrrive at your bedside one morning?'

'Oh, that would make me really mad!' he said, and laughed.

'And what if it was raining and you missed your swim?' I asked.

'Yes, that would be a bad thing. If I can't go for my swim, I feel really bad the whole day.'

Then I asked him, 'If your freedom is dependent on so many conditions, are you really free?'

He was shocked! To be really free is to be free no matter what.

That's what I call real freedom, not 'freedom for' or 'freedom from'. Real freedom comes out of living completely in the present moment. Freedom that doesn't depend on any external circumstances is the only true freedom. This is the freedom that you will experience with meditation.

Love and joy for no reason

You will be amazed to find how much love rises and floods your being when you enter into meditation. Through meditation, you will experience a dimension of your being communicating with you, that you haven't touched before. When you experience lasting joy that no external circumstance can alter, it means that you are moving deeply inwards. You will want to share this joy with everyone you meet. When this joy overflows from you and touches the other person, it is called love.

You will be amazed to find how much love rises and floods your being when you enter into meditation.

Just like freedom, this love will be different from any love you have ever experienced before. All your life, you have loved and been loved for a reason. Even in your most intimate relationships, even between husband and wife, between parents and children, there are hidden reasons for loving. All our love is tainted by jealousy, possessiveness and expectations.

With meditation, for the first time, you will understand what it means to love for no reason. For the first time you will not be giving something in order to receive. You will give love simply because you have so much to give! You will shower love upon the world in the same way that a rain cloud showers upon the earth or a flower spontaneously spreads its fragrance all around. You will love because you are so full and overflowing!

Work as play

Most of us feel that life today has become so competitive and stressful that we have no time to do anything that we want to do.

Health

Meditation results in holistic health. It gives good health on the physical, mental and emotional levels. Specific health benefits reported by some who meditate are:

• 1. The stabilization of high or low blood pressure, blood sugar, body heat and heartbeat.
• 2. The balancing of mind/body rhythms.
• 3. Reduction of muscle tension, stronger bones, immunity from disease.
• 4. Cleansing quicker elimination of toxins and body waste.
• 5. Overcoming insomnia and improved quality of sleep.
• 6. Enhanced energy, increased work capacity.
• 7. Longer life span improved body metabolism and body cells with a longer life span.
• 8. Secretion of healthy body chemicals increased secretion of natural antidepressants, enhanced secretion of endorphins, the body's 'happy chemicals'.
• 9. Relationships Meditation inherently puts you in tune with yourself and others. The direct result of this is deeper, more meaningful interpersonal relationships with family, friends and with everyone you encounter in your daily life.
• 10. Intelligence To work efficiently, one needs intelligence. Meditation ignites your innate intelligence making you more aware and sharp. The natural result of this is improved, efficient and effortless performance in whatever you do.
• 11. Creativity Each of us holds within us an undiscovered treasure of talent and potential. Meditation reveals and helps you realize your inner talents and latent creativity.
• 12. Authenticity Meditation allows you to touch base with the real you, and makes you realize your uniqueness. Self-confidence then becomes a natural byproduct.
• 13. Balance Most of us live life as a roller-coaster ride, held in the sway of emotions like worry, jealousy, discontentment, fear, anger, guilt, etc. over which we have no control. Meditation enables you to be centered in yourself, have a solid inner balance and thus be the master of your own self.
• 14. Relaxation, peace, bliss A natural byproduct of meditation is something we spend almost a lifetime trying to attain: inner relaxation and peace. With meditation, you automatically drop out of the vicious cycle of fear, greed and stress, and enter the virtuous cycle of bliss.
• 15. Holistic spiritual growth To measure intellect, we have IQ or Intelligence Quotient, which is measured by many standardized tests. Of late, another measure is gaining importance, especially in the corporate world, namely EQ or Emotional Quotient. However, the most important factor of our lives - inner satisfaction and fulfillment - is what matters at the end of the day. Meditation enhances this very important factor of life, SQ or Spiritual Quotient, besides also increasing IQ and EQ.
• 16. Life As of now, our mental setup is rigid and reflects our personality. Because of this self-image we carry in our minds, we face a lot of troubles in life and are not able to enjoy life completely. Meditation simply reprograms the software of the mind so that we can live life completely.
• 17. Ultimate potential You are like an airplane with the potential to fly, but you think you are an ox-cart because you have not actualized your potential. Meditation simply makes you realize and experience who you really are and the enormous capabilities you have been born with.

Part 14: Living Enlightenment (Gospel of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM)

When you are aware, you will work optimally and use your energy efficiently.

Actually if you see the truth of the situation, it is not a question of less time or

more work. It is your attitude about these things that makes the difference.

Just try this: whatever you do, act with awareness. If you are eating, eat with awareness. No extra time is needed to do this. In fact, it will take less time to eat because when you eat with awareness, you will eat just the amount your body needs rather than stuffing food down your throat thoughtlessly.

Awareness has tremendous knowledge. Awareness can do better miracles than all your planning. Awareness doesn't contradict, it complements the plans. It will add to the potentiality.

When you are aware, you are absent. When awareness is present, your ego can't exist. When your ego exists, awareness can't be present. 'Your absence' will make you live enlightenment.

When you are aware, you will work optimally and use your energy efficiently. So at the end of the day you are just as fresh as in the morning. You see, it is not the work that exhausts you. It is your mind, your attitude.

Take a simple example. Compare when you have to walk two miles to office versus taking a leisure walk for the same two miles along the beach. The walk to your office is like work and you feel tired. But the walk on the beach is refreshing because you feel it is a leisurely experience. The whole thing depends upon your state of mind when you do things.

The whole game of meditation is to get out of the work-oriented mind and look at every moment of life as a beautiful Divine play.

In the beginning you have to practice meditation in life. You have to consciously introduce meditation into your lifestyle. Choose a technique, practice for half an hour or one hour a day. See how you feel. If you enjoy a technique, stick to it for at least ten days without expecting results. If a technique has touched you, there is no way it cannot transform you in some way. Sometimes the transformation will be subtle, and sometimes others may see it better than you do.

Just one glimpse of the joy of meditation is enough to make you fall in love with meditation. Then you will no longer ask how many hours you must practice. When you wake up, your very first thought will be of meditation. When you take a shower, when you dress, when you eat, you will do everything with such complete awareness that every act, every moment will become alive with meditation. You will then begin to live life in meditation.

The next question is when to meditate.

This is always a controversial question! All the youngsters think, 'I can do this in my old age after I have lived my life fully and I don't have anything else to do.' All the elderly people think, 'I should have done this in my young age when I was fresh and energetic.'

So the question is not just how long to meditate everyday, but also when to make the decision to include a meditation practice in your routine.

Meditation is just like reading an owner's manual before you start driving the car. The person who does not read the owner's manual before driving the car will naturally meet with accidents. In the same way, meditation is like the owner's manual for your body and for your life. The person who has not started meditation before entering into life will end up with suffering and depression at one point or the other.

Please understand, meditation is the basic need for every life. It is not an option. It is a very basic need.

Meditation is just like reading an owner's manual before you start driving the car.

After the age of

seven, you need meditation, because until then, as a child you are by nature in a meditative state. It is only after seven that you start getting conditioned by society and drop out of your true nature.

To really understand and enter into meditation, one important thing needs to happen in you - psychological revolution.

What do I mean by psychological revolution? It means a clear understanding about the self, world and god.

As of now, the understanding that you are carrying about life is not complete. That is why you are not able to experience a peaceful, relaxed feeling in your system. When I say the words 'psychological revolution', I mean having a clear understanding about the self, world and god. It is having a clear understanding about the source of the self, the source of the world and the source of god.

The understanding that is able to give you a completely restful feeling, through which you are able to solve all your problems, through which you are able to find your

The psychological revolution will develop an intense inner space.

own life solutions, is called psychological revolution.

Only a person

who has gone through this psychological revolution can meditate. Until then, any technique that you try will seem to fail at some point in time.

People come and tell me, 'The moment I close my eyes, I get more thoughts than when I did not meditate. If I am in action, doing something, I have fewer thoughts. The moment I close my eyes and try to meditate, I have more thoughts.' This means that the psychological revolution has not happened.

The dream state constantly penetrating the waking state and deep sleep state is what leads to more and more misunderstanding, more and more dullness, more and more lethargy. This is what we call traveling towards suffering. It is the vicious cycle of lack of clarity leading to lack of meditation and vice versa.

If the turiya or blissful state penetrates the waking and deep sleep states, then we are moving towards fulfillment. This is the virtuous circle where clarity leads to meditation and meditation leads to clarity.

If you straightaway close your eyes and start meditating, you may have an increased number of thoughts. So in the initial level, I always give a technique which is not directly a meditation, but is more a contemplation. When you work with this technique, it won't lead you directly to a thoughtless state. It will lead you towards more and more clarity. It will lead to the psychological revolution.

The psychological revolution will develop an intense inner space where you can analyze your understanding, consider your decisions and rethink again and again your desires, fears, worries and all that you consider as the basis of your life.

Actually, many times we do not even know what our desires are.

A small story:

Three old ladies were sitting and bragging about their sons. One of them was saying, 'You don't know about my son. He loves me so much, he personally took me to a travel agent and made the best possible arrangements for a twenty-day vacation for me.'

The second lady said, 'You don't know what my son did. He not only took me to the travel agent but also arranged for a private flight. He arranged everything for a month-long vacation for me!'

The third lady said, 'This is absolutely nothing compared to what my son does for me. He goes to the costliest

psychiatrist and all he talks about is me!'

Many times, what you think is life or what you brag about as a great life, may not be adding to your life in any way.

So in the initial level, taking up a technique that can awaken you, that can help the psychological revolution in you, is the best way to start.

Start meditating here and now. Neither age nor time can be the reason to postpone meditation.

The next question people ask is whether they should meditate in the morning or in the evening.

My answer is that the goal is not to make meditation a quantity of life, but rather a quality of life.

There are three kinds of meditation.

The first is bringing the truth or awareness into your life.

This mediation is supposed to be done all twenty-four hours a day. Breath-related techniques like vipassanā* or techniques where you bring your awareness to the present moment all the time belong to this category of meditation. It is not a part of your routine. It should become the very quality of your routine. You may be doing anything like writing, reading, cooking, discussing, but this thread of meditation should be happening simultaneously, like an undercurrent.

With the second kind of meditation techniques, you need to spend a particular time, like one hour in the morning or one hour in the evening, or any other convenient time.

The Mahāmantra* meditation technique, where you hum for a few minutes and then remain a witness for a few minutes, can be given as an example for this category of meditation. Nithya Dhyaan (explained in the chapter 'Nithya Dhyaan - Life Bliss Meditation' is another example of this type of meditation, since it is practiced for a specified time each day.

Then there is the third kind of meditation techniques, where just the very remembrance of the technique is enough.

Examples of this are the statements of the great timeless truths. When you are in a highly mature state, you don't need any separate technique. You don't need to practice the whole day or at any particular time. Just the very remembrance of these truths will put you in the elevated state.

Vipassanā - Teaching of enlightened master Buddha to look inwards by observing breath.

Mahāmantra - Humming meditation that energizes the heart center and taught as part of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's Life Bliss Programs.

The very maturity that happens out of the practice will cause you to experience the Truth the moment you hear it from the master!

This is the third type of meditation. Examples of this are the beautiful Zen koans* . They are profound truths written in a concise way. Just the

very remembrance of them will transport you to the zone of Truth!

There is a very beautiful story in the Upanishad where a disciple comes to the master and asks for a technique or a method for enlightenment. The master just says, 'Tat tvam asi, Tat tvam asi, Tat tvam asi' - 'Thou art that, Thou art that, Thou art that', 'You are the Truth,' and the story says, the disciple became enlightened!

It seems like a very strange story. The master just repeats a few words and the disciple is suddenly enlightened. How is it possible? It seems unbelievable! Actually it is not so. If we have done the first two types of techniques, the technique that needs to be done the whole day and the technique that needs to be done at a particular time, then the very maturity that happens out of that practice will cause you to experience the Truth the moment you hear it from the master!

Many people think meditation involves blindly believing in something. People fear this. They come and tell me, 'I am afraid that I might get too attached to meditation.'

Understand, meditation itself is nothing but removing your attachment! So you can't get too attached to it.

People are also afraid that their desires, fears and whatever else they think of as their life will be taken away from them if they start meditating. In a way this is true! Once you start meditating, whatever you thought of as your life until then, will no longer be important to you! The real truths will start revealing themselves to you. All the illusions you were holding until then will start leaving you.

All the time you are trying to protect yourself from the basic truths only because you are afraid of losing your illusions about life.

The concept or the idea that you are a solid being, which is the root cause of all your

Koans - Riddles given as techniques in Zen to aid Self Realization.

fears, will simply be shaken by meditation. All that you thought you were, all your desires, all your fears, all your worries will be shaken and you will start going through a big change.

This is what is called the psychological revolution. You will have practically a new birth! It is like changing the inner software of your computer. Your hardware may be the same, but your inner software will go through a big change. Meditation is all about changing the inner software.

Your body, your hardware, may be the same, your material surroundings may be same, the persons with whom you are living may be same, but your being will be totally different.

The simple understanding of the four states of consciousness can initiate the psychological revolution in you. It is like a master key. If you apply it every moment of your life, if you are aware of these four states constantly, you will see in every decision, the mechanism or the way in which your thought process goes towards meditation and how every decision is influenced in the right way. This is what I call the cognitive shift. It is receiving information, processing and deciding in the best possible way.

If you understand these four states, if you become deeply conscious of these four states of existence, it is enough. It is like this: when you are in deep sleep state, unless you have some attraction in the dream state, you will not come out of the deep sleep state. But when you come out of the deep sleep state and enter the dream state, you will understand that the deep sleep state was illusory when compared to the dream state! Similarly, when you are in the dream state, unless you have some desire or inspiration for the waking state, you will not move to the waking state. This is the reason why even after waking up, you turn over in your bed and go back to the dream state!

If you don't get up as soon as you awaken, you will find the dream state more inspiring than the waking state. But once you come out of the dream state into the waking state, you will understand that the dream state was illusory, it was not real. Not only that, when you are in the waking state, if you are not very inspired about it, you will slip into the daydream state!

Now, to pull you from the waking state to the turiya state, you need to have a strong inspiration. This is what meditation does. It gradually heightens your consciousness so that you move into the turiya state. Along with meditation, if you have a living enlightened master, he can play a strong role in inspiring you to attain the turiya state. Through just an initiation, he can simply speed up the whole process and pull you into the turiyastate.

But once you move from the waking state to the turiya state, you will realize that the waking state was also a mere illusion!

Understand, there is no scale, no proof to say if the state that you are in is the authentic reality. But remember, again and again and again, you get a glimpse of this Truth every time you face a deep depression or low mood.

During deep depression, this understanding starts rising from within, but we manage to suppress it in such a way that the psychological revolution does not happen inside us at that time. Too much of the life that we are clinging to is at stake. We are afraid of the psychological revolution.

The problem is, if we allow the psychological revolution to happen in us, the results are totally unknown. We don't know what will happen to all our cherished desires, goals, ideals and ideas. We are afraid that we may have to let go of everything. So we manage to not allow the psychological revolution to happen in us.

Every instance of depression is actually an opportunity to allow the upheaval to happen but we miss that opportunity again and again.

The moment you hear the word illusion, you are afraid. You fear that you may renounce everything, you may leave everything behind, and life may change drastically. I tell you, you will lose only one thing, and that is your suffering, nothing else!

You might have had a rare experience, where in the dream state itself you were aware, 'Yes, I am dreaming!' Because of that awareness, you were able to alter some of the events in the dream. Understand that in those few moments, you were aware that you were dreaming, and you were able to manipulate your dream as you wished. But if the awareness increases further that you are dreaming, you will wake up from your dream.

In the same way, in this world too, in the waking state, if the awareness about you, the center, or the 'I' increases, you will have the experience that the whole world in front of you is a dream! Not only will you have the awareness that this life is one more waking dream, but you will also be able to move around the incidents in your life as you wish to! That is what we call attaining siddhis* .

So understand, when the frequency of 'I' consciousness increases, you will suddenly start experiencing the waking state as a waking dream and you will have the energy and freedom to change the incidents that are in front of you in your life.

Siddhis - Yogic powers that arise during the spiritual journey.

But when this starts happening, if you get caught up in changing the incidents in your life, by and by, the awareness of the 'I' will come down, and you will fall back into the same waking state again, and these special powers will also disappear. But if you are not too much attracted to changing the scenes, and you remain centered on raising the consciousness, you become enlightened.

Whether it is awakening from the dream state to the waking state, or awakening from the waking state to the enlightenment state, the process is the same.

When the psychological revolution happens, inner healing happens. With the inner healing, if the techniques are practiced, then naturally, outer healing also happens.

Without the psychological revolution, if the techniques are practiced, they are called kriyā* or yoga* - just physical movements.

With psychological revolution, if yoga is done, it will become a tremendous meditation. With psychological revolution, even ritual becomes meditation. Without psychological revolution, even meditation will become a ritual.

With clarity inside, if meditation is added to your inner space, you will see that every

With

time you meditate, the clarity becomes deeper and deeper. Every time you make decisions in your life, it will add more and more understanding to you.

psychological revolution, even ritual becomes meditation. Without psychological revolution, even meditation will become a ritual.

If you are aware, sometimes you will see that in your waking state also, in a span of say, just half an hour, so many things happen around you without your awareness. Your dream state would have influenced your waking state with thoughts, thus causing you to drift off to the daydreaming state.

When you come back to the waking state with awareness, you will realize that half an hour went past wherein nothing was really under your control. You were awake, your eyes were open and your body was doing work, but you were not aware of what was happening. You were somewhere between the dream state and the waking state. Most of us spend eighty percent of our day in this state.

Kriyā - Action.

Yoga - Literally means 'uniting' of body-mind-spirit.

Sometimes you do see the same world even in the dream state.

Never think just because you are out of your bed, that you are in the

waking state. No! Maybe you can't afford to spend your time in bed all day, and it is necessary for your survival to get out of bed, so you get out of bed. But it does not necessarily mean that you are out of the dream state.

Bringing yourself completely out of the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states, is what I call being in meditation.

You may wonder, 'How is it that every day when I come back to the waking state, I see the same world but every night when I go back to the dream state, I don't see the same world? This question forms the basis of your idea that the waking state is a permanent reality.

Let us analyze one night's dream. For example, let us say that you go to sleep on the night of the fourteenth, and on the morning of the fifteenth, you wake up. You sleep for around ten hours. I am sure many of you have had experiences of having lived around ten to twenty years of your life in one night's dream, in just ten hours. Perhaps the dream starts in your college days and moves slowly, step by step, up to your marriage, your having a son, your son's marriage, etc. In this way, you live even twenty years of your life in just one night's dream, am I right? If you have experienced this at least once, you can follow very closely what I am going to present now.

You see, while sleeping, we go through the dream state and the deep sleep state. Maybe for half an hour, you fall into the deep sleep state. Then you go to the dream state and have some dreams. Again you fall back into the deep sleep state for perhaps twenty minutes, and then once again, you come back to the dream state. In this way you keep moving from the dream state to the deep sleep state and back.

In one night, you dream that you have lived twenty years of your life. In the first episode of your dream, you are in college. In the second episode, when you come back to the dream state after a time of deep sleep, you are getting married. In the third dream episode, you have a son. Maybe in the fourth episode, you see your son getting married.

An important thing you need to understand is when you fall into the deep sleep state and then come back to the dream state, and then repeat this process, in these different episodes, you do see the same world even in your dream state. Am I right? Sometimes you do see the same world even in the dream state.

Understand, it is a very subtle point, a very subtle understanding; if you can catch this, it will lead to very great clarity, which can really revolutionize the way in which you think about your life, the way in which you try to solve the problems of your life.

Imagine a man is dreaming. In the dream he sees a tiger chasing him and he starts shouting, 'Oh, a tiger is chasing me! Save me, save me!' His wife is sleeping next to him. She wakes up and sees the husband shouting! The wife is confused, 'What am I supposed to do?' She just needs to tell him, 'Hey, wake up!' Instead of that, if she tries to supply some weapon to kill the tiger in the dream, what will happen? He may kill himself or he may kill her! Any other solution she may try to find will only lead to more problems, more difficulties. All the husband needs to do is wake up.

If you understand these basic things, suddenly you will see that your very decision-making is revolutionized. The cognitive shift happens in you. The way in which you think and the way in which you make decisions, the way in which you find solutions for your problems, will be entirely different. You will start working towards the right solutions.

When you are dreaming, in a span of ten hours, you can easily live twenty years. You fall into deep sleep and come back to the dream state many times. Whenever you come back to the dream state from deep sleep, even though there was a break from the last dream, you see the same world. So you have to understand clearly that just seeing the same world after the break in the dream state cannot be the quality to define it as reality. Only when you wake up from sleep, do you realize you have 'lived' twenty years of your life in a mere ten hours.

In the same way, only when you wake up from this 'waking dream' in which you are living now, suddenly you will realize you have dreamt maybe ninety years of your life in a few hours! This life in the waking state may be another long dream!

When you are in a dream, you think the dream is reality. Where you are, that is reality for that moment. There is no other scale. In the dream you can never imagine, 'It is a dream.' In the reality, you can never think, 'It is one more dream.' When you come out of the dream, the dream looks like a dream. But when you are in the dream itself, it will not look like a dream.

In the dream, even if you remember about your real life, you think it is a dream. In the reality, even if you remember about the dream, you think it is a dream. So it just depends on the frequency in which you are. There is no other scale to explain which is reality or dream.

Realizing and understanding there is a possibility that this very waking state could be one more long dream will turn much of your attention and awareness to the center, to the consciousness, to the ultimate reality. When you go beyond the frequency of this waking state, it will also look like one more dream.

This is the first step in spirituality. This is the first step in psychological revolution.

Again and again, your suffering gives you a clear statement, you are not living in reality.

Many times I am asked another question along the same lines, 'Not only am I seeing this world, even the people who are living around me are seeing the same world. How can you say it is a dream?'

Understand, in a dream if you are seeing a particular city, and if in that dream you are going to that city with your whole family, then not only you, but the family with you inside your dream, will also see the same city, because they are also projections of your mind!

So, just because the people around you see the same scene as you do, it does not mean that the scene is reality. Those people around you might be a projection of the same scene!

The ultimate truth is the stuff out of which your dream world is made is the same as the stuff out of which this waking world is also made.

If your attention is centered on the stuff, naturally the inner healing cannot happen.

If your attention is equally distributed on the consciousness and the stuff, that is what I call healthy life, balanced life. You will have physical health, mental health and a vibrant life.

If your attention is totally centered on the consciousness, not on the stuff with which these worlds are made, that is what I call 'living enlightenment' or jeevan mukti.

Whether you want jeevan mukti or not, whether you want enlightenment or not, is secondary. But if you can turn a little bit of your attention towards the 'I' consciousness, towards the Truth, towards the center, suddenly you will see that a tremendous inner healing happens.

For example, if you are facing some big difficulty or depression, if you realize very clearly and consciously that this whole thing is a dream, you will experience such a relaxed feeling or the inner healing happening in you. That inner healing is what I call meditation. That restful awareness that happens in you is what I call satori, the first glimpse of samadhi.

A basic cognitive shift or a basic psychological revolution, with the simple understanding that what you are seeing may not be reality as you think, can bring tremendous inner healing inside you, can bring a great restful awareness inside you.

Science is just now getting glimpses of the tremendous power of meditation to completely change the entire body-mind structure itself. The benefits of meditation are countless and across all planes – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Meditation can simply change the very quality of life.

Increased brain power

Until recently, it was believed that in the brain, the connections among the brain nerve cells were fixed in childhood and did not change, so the brain growth stopped early in life. Now scientists are finding that the brain actually grows and forms new connections all throughout life. Scientists call this ability neuroplasticity.

The other day I was reading in the papers about research done by the University of Wisconsin to study the effects of meditation on the brain. The study was done on a group of Tibetan monks who had been meditating for years, and also on a group of students who were new to meditation but had been taught how to meditate.

They found that the awareness was more and the brain activity was faster and much better organized and coordinated in the meditating monks than in the students who were new to meditation. Not only that, the brain region associated with happiness, positive thoughts and emotions, was also much more active in the monks than in the students.

One more important thing, the researchers found that the brain activity of the meditator monks was more intense and organized than that of the students, even before the monks started meditating. So the benefits of meditation are actually permanent. Meditation can simply change the very circuitry and the inner workings of the brain.

Many top universities in the USA like Yale, Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), have also studied the effects of meditation.

Studies using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) showed that meditation actually increased the very thickness of the brain in areas related to awareness and attention, as well as cognitive processing and emotional wellbeing.

The researchers found that the blood vessels become wider, the support structures also increase in number and they have more branches and connections.

Meditation Vs Sleep

There was another research done at the University of Kentucky where they studied the effects of sleepiness on a person's awareness. A group of people was made to look at a screen and they were supposed to press a button as soon as an image came on the screen. Normally a person who has had less sleep takes much longer to respond to the image than a person who has had normal sleep. Sometimes they even completely miss seeing the image coming up.

The researchers tested the participants before and after forty minutes of sleep, meditation, reading or some light activity.

They found that with meditation, the response was the fastest for every single participant, even though the participants were not experienced in meditation. In fact, their response was even better after keeping awake the whole night!

Improved concentration and speed of response

There have been many studies to learn the effect of meditation on the speed and correctness of perception and response.

A couple of studies were done at Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, England. In one study, the participants were given lines of letters with different numbers of dashes marked above the letters. They had to cross out the letters with multiple dashes, as quickly as possible.

In another study, the participants were shown the words like 'RED', 'BLUE' or 'GREEN' printed in different colored inks. They had to quickly name the color of the ink the word was written in. Normally, this is difficult because your brain tends to read the word rather than look and identify the color of the ink that the word is written in!

They found that the meditators were much faster and made about half the number of errors as the non-meditators.

Meditation directly and significantly improves awareness, attention, memory, concentration, response time, visualization, emotional wellbeing, and general health.

Western science has just started exploring the vast dimensions of the effects and benefits of meditation that the inner scientists of the East have researched and lived for thousands of years. The vedic culture rests on these spiritual truths and sciences. Because of it, man has enjoyed the benefits of meditation, the ultimate way to the Ultimate! It is a foolproof, timeproven technique to realize oneself.

LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT