A small story:

Once upon a time, a pregnant lioness attacked a herd of goats while hunting for food. As she jumped at one of the

goats the strain became too much for her and she died giving birth to a cub.

The new born cub could barely open his eyes. He made some sounds and moved around on the ground helpless. The goats saw the orphaned cub and felt compassionate towards him.

You may wonder how goats can feel compassion towards a lion cub. Understand, when the enemy does not disturb or hurt you and you don't feel threatened in any way by his presence, you will feel compassionate towards him even if he is your enemy by nature. In the same way, since the goats did not feel threatened by the lion cub they started showing love towards him.

The goats sensed the cub was not going to attack them and because of this they were able to express compassion towards him. They looked after him, bringing him up in the manner they knew best. They showed him how to eat grass, drink goat milk, live like them and even how to bleat like them!

The lion cub also picked up the body language of the goats. Right from his birth no one had ever told him he was a lion, so he never knew what it was to be a lion. So the cub grew up continuing to live like the goats. The goats also were quite comfortable with the cub being one amongst them.

As the lion cub grew, he began to express his strength in a manner that was natural to him. When the other younger goats fought with him, he used to hit them with a strong blow. The young goats would complain to the mother goat, 'He is hitting us!' The mother goat would try her best to patch things up between the cub and the goats by consoling the young goats and advising them to forget about the fight.

One day a lion attacked the herd of goats. The frightened goats scattered in different directions. The lion then saw a lion cub running away with the goats bleating like them. The lion could not believe his eyes! He could not understand why the cub was running away upon seeing him and why he was bleating like the goats.

The next day the lion returned not to hunt but to look out for the young cub. When he saw the cub he slowly went up behind him and caught hold of him. The moment the lion caught hold of the cub, the cub started shouting, 'Let me go! Let me go! Baa, baa…'

The lion said, 'Fool! Don't be afraid. I am not going to kill you. Don't you know who you are?' The cub cried, 'I am a goat. Let me go! Let me go!'

The lion said, 'Fool! You are not a goat. Don't be afraid of me!' But the young cub was terrified and not ready to listen to anything. Somehow he managed to break free and he ran away.

The next day the lion came back to where the goats were. He managed to catch the lion cub again. This time he held him firmly.

The cub was struggling under the grip, but while one part of his mind told him strongly to escape, another part of him felt good at being touched by the lion. The assuring, comfortable feeling of the lion's touch awakened something deep within the cub. Seeing the struggle of the cub, the lion let him go saying, 'I will come again tomorrow. But at that time I will not be chasing you.' The lion went back into the forest.

The lion cub stayed awake the whole night unable to sleep. His mind was filled with so many thoughts… 'I cannot accept what the lion said to me,' 'But I think there may be some truth in what he said,' 'No! No! No! I don't think whatever he said is correct. I know I am a goat. I have known it from birth. What he says does not make any sense to me. He is just lying to get something from me.'

Understand, the lion has penetrated the cub in a way beyond the cub's logic. Let me be very clear, if the presence of the master affects you beyond your logic, the master in you has already been awakened!

You cannot feel connected to the lion unless the lion in you awakens. If you feel some ecstasy, some comfort, through the touch of the master, the lion, and if you find yourself trying to recreate again and again the same feelings that came up in your memory when you were with the lion, even if it is through visualization, be very clear, the lion has touched you deeply! A part of you has already started feeling soothed. A part of you has already started feeling there is something in what the master says.

The next day when the lion arrived, the cub was standing there waiting for him. The cub was standing patiently at the edge of the forest looking out for the lion. But when the lion appeared, the cub started moving away from him toward the herd of goats. But he did not turn his face away from the lion as he did not want to lose sight of the lion!

He just took a few steps back cautiously telling the lion, 'You stay where you are and I will stand where I am now. We can still talk. It is true that I am not able to forget you. But let us keep this distance between us.' The lion replied, 'That is alright with me. You stay where you are. Now let us talk.'

The lion continued, 'Understand, you are a lion! You are ignoring your true nature by trying to be something else! Look carefully and you will see the difference between you and those goats.' The cub cried, 'No! No! How can that be? I eat the same grass as them. I live exactly as the other goats do.'

The lion said, 'Fool! Understand this very basic thing. See for yourself. No other goat feels attached to me. No other goat is waiting for me. They are all terrified of me. Only you are waiting for me. Understand from this alone that there is something happening within you. What is the need for you to wait for me here? Come with me to the river nearby and look at your reflection in the water. You will be able to see your face and mine.'

The cub felt scared to go with the lion and told him, 'No. Let us just stand here and talk. You stand where you are, I will stand where I am. You say whatever you want to say. I will stay right here and listen.'

Then the lion said, 'Alright, let me tell you this. If you allow me, I can show you your true self in the river and prove to you that you are like me. But I will not force you. I will return after one week. If you are ready, come back to this place and wait for me. I will then take you with me to the river. If not, just forget me. Don't even try to remember me!' The lion then left.

After a week as promised, the lion arrived. The cub's mind was still confused, 'Should I go or not go to meet the lion?' Deep within, the cub really wanted to meet the lion but at the same time he was very afraid of the lion.

Finally, the cub reached the place where he had met the lion the last time and found the lion there. The lion looked up at him and stood up. He led the way and slowly they started walking towards the river. As they were walking, the lion moved a little closer to the cub. The cub got scared and started shouting, 'No! No! You stay where you are. You just show me the path to the river. Please do not walk so close to me. I can walk to the river on my own!'

The lion moved away a little and started telling the cub stories about when he was a cub himself and how he grew up to become a fully grown lion. Listening to these stories, the cub got so engrossed he forgot to keep the distance between the two of them. As they walked, the lion started getting closer to the cub. The cub was completely involved in the stories of the lion and was asking him, 'Is that so?'

'Is that how it happened?' 'Did you also have all these problems?'

Without the cub realizing it, the lion had slowly come so near that he was now touching the cub as they continued their walk! Suddenly the young cub noticed this but he found that it did not bother him at all. He felt the gentle touch of the lion on him so relaxing! He did not protest.

The lion continued talking and the cub was saying, 'Oh! That was nice... that was interesting…' The lion was now almost holding the cub, but the cub was fully engrossed in the 'small stories' about the lion's early days.

As soon as they reached the river the lion caught the cub and took him to the water. The cub knew now there was no escaping. But he was surprised that he no longer had any desire to escape!

Understand, the cub knew that not only could he not escape, but he also did not want to escape! But then, a little ego hiding in a corner of his mind troubled him and he said, 'No! No! Let me go! What are you doing to me? Why are you holding on to me?' The cub still had some fear in him. So he asked, 'What are you doing to me? Tell me please, what are you doing to me?'

The lion replied, 'I am not doing anything to you. Just look into the water.' The cub looked into the water and said, 'Okay, I am looking into the water.' The lion then asked, 'What can you see in the water? Can you see two forms?' The cub replied, 'Yes.'

The lion said, 'Well, one lion is me and the other lion is you.'

The cub repeated, 'Two reflections: one mine and the other yours.' Then suddenly he realized what he was saying. He could not believe it and started shouting, 'May be not! No! No! No! Both the reflections in the water must be of you!'

The lion shouted, 'Fool! Look! I am raising my hand. See which reflection is raising a hand.' The cub pointed to the reflection in the water and said, 'Only that reflection is raising its hand.' The lion then said, 'Okay, now you raise your hand.'

The cub raised his own hand, looked at the reflections in the river and cried out, 'Yes! Yes! Yes! I see! I see!' Then in a small, confused voice he asked, 'But… How can I be a lion? Am I not a goat?'

The lion simply looked at him and said, 'I am not here to play with you.' That is when a feeling of ecstasy began to rise up in the cub. He could sense something incredible was about to happen.

But then again his mind stepped in and his mood went into a low and he started doubting in his mind, 'I think I have been hypnotized. This is not my true nature! Something has happened to me. This is not me. I have never felt so blissful, so joyful! This is not me! He is doing something to me. He has already done something to me!'

The cub still resisted. He struggled to escape, but it was only a half-hearted attempt, an act actually, because he actually had no real desire to escape.

The cub started protesting, 'No! No! No! Let me go! Let me go! I know that you are a lion. As an offering for you, I will bring the grass which I eat everyday. I will bring the milk which I drink every day. I will devote my time to serve you.'

Finally the lion thought, 'I should leave him now. He can only understand this much for now.' So, he told him, 'Alright, be very clear, we shall meet again tomorrow. I will not come to the boundary of the forest to bring you here. I will be in my own home. If you want to see me, find out where I live and come on your own to meet me there. I have no time to waste by coming all the way to your place to bring you here! If you don't want to come to me through your own effort, let it be!' The lion told him this and left.

This time the cub did not run away as he usually would. He walked back very slowly. He did not want to go, but on the other side his mind was pushing him to go back to the goats. Three legs of the lion cub were not moving. Only one leg was able to move. Big drops of tears began to fall from his little eyes at the thought of this farewell.

The next day the lion was seated in a majestic pose in his home. Slowly, very slowly, the cub approached him with freshly-cut green grass thinking, 'This is the best grass available anywhere' and set it down in front of the lion saying, 'Please accept this offering I bring you.'

The lion watched and thought to himself, 'Alright, if I take this grass this fellow will feel connected to me. He might even allow this relationship to become more intense. Through this he might feel more connected to me.' Thinking this, even though a lion never eats grass, he picked up the grass, put it in his mouth and started eating! He praised the cub saying, 'This grass you brought for me tastes really good!' The cub was very happy with himself. The relationship started deepening between them when the lion began to eat the grass.

Understand, the lion comes down and eats grass only to be able to bridge the gap between the cub and himself. Even though he never really eats grass, he acts as if he is eating it and loving it.

Slowly the relationship grew between the lion and the cub. Sometimes when the lion tasted the grass brought by the cub he shouted at him, 'Fool! Don't you know which type of grass you should bring to me? What kind of grass is this? By now you should know what I eat. Next time bring me the right grass!'

The lion cub began to think, 'He is getting angry. I also get angry sometimes. So he speaks my language and I can speak his language. He is just like me!'

When the lion eats the grass, he comes down from his level, from his plane, from his consciousness, to connect with the cub.

The cub immediately felt very comfortable. It could now connect with the lion. Now the cub decided, 'I must bring the right grass and fresh milk next time. I must do things the right way. Maybe I should have the grass packed properly.' The cub made plans, thinking he had been scolded by the lion because he

When the lion eats the grass, he comes down from his plane, his consciousness to connect with the cub.

did not do his work properly! This is how the relationship started happening between the cub and the lion. Now the cub started feeling free and he started coming to the forest to see the lion whenever he felt like it. The cub started feeling very comfortable around the lion, very relaxed. It did not know the 'master' plan of the 'master' lion.

One day when the cub came as usual with grass and milk, he saw the lion sitting with a large chunk of meat in front of him. The moment the cub saw the meat he got afraid and started shouting, 'Why do you have meat on your plate? What is this? Are you a nonvegetarian? I did not know you are a non-vegetarian! You are such a loving and charismatic person. You cannot be a non-vegetarian! You eat all these terrible things! I am a vegetarian! I can't digest this!'

This time the lion did not take the time or energy to explain anything. He simply caught hold of the neck of the cub, picked up some meat and forced it

You are neither man nor the identity you think you are.

into the cub's mouth. The moment the meat entered

his mouth, the cub tasted the blood from the meat and something suddenly happened within him.

The cub could not understand what was going on. The cub had tasted meat for the very first time! He was overwhelmed with the feeling that rose in him. This is what happens in your first experience of bliss, satori! When you experience it, you will understand!

On tasting the meat, the cub let out a roar like a lion! He started roaring announcing his true nature. He expressed his true nature. Now the lion looked straight into the eyes of the cub and said, 'Tat tvam asi' - That art Thou – you are That.' The initiation happened. The lion became a lion. That was all. The lion who thought he was a goat became a lion!

You are a lion, not a goat!

Understand, you are neither man nor the identity you think you are.

You are very much like the goat. In fact, you are the goat. Look at me and understand. I too thought I was a goat, but just look at the way I became a lion. Just take a close look at my own life. Then you will understand how foolish you are to think of yourself as a goat, and you will automatically become a lion!

This is what Krishna means when He says, 'When you understand My life, you will be liberated.' A liberated man's life liberates you because it shows exactly where you stand now. The liberated man too was ignorant once and stood in the same place you are standing now. This will give you the tremendous courage that you need to swallow raw meat to taste your inherent nature that is bliss and to start roaring instead of bleating. When this experience happens you roar instead of bleating.

How long did it take for the cub to realize he was a lion? Hardly a second! The moment the meat and the blood went into his mouth he started roaring. But remember how long it took just to get the meat into the mouth of the cub!

It takes time to enter the master's cave. The relationship, the bridging needs to happen before that. That is why it takes some time.

Enlightenment itself does not take time. The bridge, the trust to transmit that experience takes time.

The master speaks not to give you the truth, but to help you recognize that the truth is already within you. The master is only a mirror. You see your own face in the deep silence of sitting by his side. The body language of enlightenment is the master.

The enlightened master, Adi Shankara, recites beautifully in his verses of Bhaja Govindam :

Enlightenment itself does not take time. The trust to transmit that experience takes time.

When you have surrendered at the lotus feet of the master,

From the chains of this world you will break free,

Then, in complete control of your mind and your senses,

Within your heart, you will find the Lord.

It is very difficult especially for the modern mind to understand the need for a master.

The master is the one who gives you a glimpse of the Real, the truth of who you are. He is not here just to teach. He is here to awaken.

The master is the only scripture that is alive.

Surrender towards god is difficult because you don't know where god is or who god

is. God is a mere concept to you.

But the master is one with the Whole. He has reached the Ultimate. To him god is reality. He lives with god or Existence or whatever you wish to call it. And the master is real to you. He is tangible. So he can become your door to reach god.

Through him you can take the quantum jump into the arms of god.

The only thing standing between you and your true nature of bliss or god is your ego. The process of becoming a disciple is the process of renouncing your ego. The ego is very difficult to drop. Dropping the ego means losing the solid identity that you have been carrying all these years, thinking you need it for survival. Dropping the ego looks like death when actually it is the ego that stands between you and life!

Dropping the ego is possible only in a relationship of deep trust, love and reverence with the master. You gradually gather courage and then risk dropping the only thing you have clung onto throughout your life, your ego. You drop the ego only when you fully know that even if you fall, you only fall into the net of infinite love and compassion of Existence embodied by the master.

As of now, most of the experiences that you add to your being bring in more and more fear or greed. Instead, any experience can add more strength and awareness to your being also. This is the cognitive shift, the psychological revolution the master does on you that results in your complete transformation.

You may ask, 'Why do I need a master? I can learn from life.'

Learning from the master is a very sweet experience, a very joyful experience. The master first puts you in his lap and gives you the anesthesia of love before he starts his operation on the tumor of your ego. Because he showers his love, you will not even experience the pain of going through the transformation. Even if it is mildly painful, you will endure it only with the joy and awareness of being with the master.

Master is intense life. Not only does he teach you, he also sees to that you go through the whole transformation blissfully.

A small story:

The father of a young boy was telling his little son to move a big stone. The boy tried his best, but he was not able to move it. He stood completely tired. The father said, 'You have not used all your potentiality. Use all your potential power.'

The son was completely tired. He shouted at his father, 'What are you talking about? You are saying I have not used all my potential power. I am tired. Are you not able to see?'

The father said, 'Why, you could have asked me. I am also your power!'

In the same way, you can also use the master's presence. Please understand, you can ask me. You can take the master's help. You have never done that. You have never considered the master also as your potential. So much of help is available, you can have so much, but you never ask or you never take it!

Life itself can be your master. But then it will become difficult to know from where to learn, what we should learn and from whom to learn. Dattatreya , a great master says, 'I never had a master because life has always been my master. I learnt how to concentrate from the hunter who tries to concentrate on the bird. I learnt how to save money for the future by watching ants!' Life can become a master if you have the intelligence to pick up right things from it. But many times, you pick up the wrong things.

A small story: King Harishchandra lived his whole life based on* Through the Master you can take the jump into the arms of god.

truthfulness. The story of Harishchandra says that he lived for the truth and at one point he even sold his wife and children to maintain his truthfulness.*

Once in a village, a preacher was narrating the story of Harishchandra . After the narration he asked a man, 'What did you learn from this story?' The man replied, 'I learnt that I should always speak the truth, no matter what happens in life.' The preacher was happy. Then he asked another man, 'What did you learn?'*

The second man said, 'I learnt another important lesson. In an emergency, you can even sell your wife, nothing wrong!'

Understand, you can learn two different things from the same story!

You may not have the intelligence to always learn correctly from life, which is why the master happens in your life. He shows you the path because he has already tried it and succeeded.

The master shows you the path because he has already tried it and succeeded.

See, by giving some medicines also, tumors can

be removed. But it may take years and years. The master simply removes the tumor in no time. One more thing, the pain you will have living life with the tumors will be much worse than the pain you experience when master removes it. The pain with the master when he removes it is hardly anything. But living with the tumor is dangerous and difficult. That is why it is better to go to the master.

Life is too deep a mystery which cannot be captured by our desires. Our desires may appear big and worth a whole lifetime for us. Because of our narrow view of life, we attach so much more importance to insignificant things while there are so many significant and more meaningful experiences just waiting at our doorstep. But the problem is that we can't even imagine them because we have never seen the likes of these.

That is where the master comes in. He has seen the wholeness of life. He can see things which you cannot even imagine, leave alone desire. He is there just to help you move towards realizing that fulfillment in your life too.

All you need is the trust to move with him. Then as things start happening you will be convinced about this truth. Then you enter the virtuous circle. More trust leads to more experiences which lead further to more trust.

The master does not impose anything on you. He simply removes what is not necessary and what has been imposed on you and leaves you fresh and new. You become a beautiful empty canvas upon which you can create your own unique painting. You can compose your own song and you can dance your own dance. The master opens out the gates to the sweetest experience of life, the experience of your own uniqueness.

Understand the difference between technique and process. Technique can be done again and the effect will be the same. But with process, you can't get the same effect every time and you won't even be able to do it on your own.

Technique done with the master is a process. Process done without the master is technique.

What is a relationship?

Relationship is that which can reveal to you dimensions in you that you don't even know exist inside you. It gives you the experience and proves to you that you are also capable of loving someone or something. It shows that you can also love and you can also sacrifice to an amazing extent for the sake of someone.

When we are born, we are born with completeness. But we are not aware of many of our dimensions and when we are not aware, the outer world too does not know of it. Relationships have the power to awaken our unknown dimensions and make us experience them and show the same to the outer world.

Relationship awakens the unknown dimensions in you.

A relationship with anyone or anything, no matter who or what, will lead you to the ultimate relationship with the master.

When you fall in love, whether it is with a man, woman or child, deity or master, you will see dimensions of you that you never knew existed inside you. With the flowering of such love, you become more responsible. You experience the very juice of life.

The relationship with the master, who is one with Existence, is deeper than any other relationship. It is a being level connection.

Generally all other relationships will create bondage but the relationship with the master has the power to lead you to freedom and finally to eternal bliss. Even if you try to create bondage in this relationship, it will only lead to eternal bliss! Bondage can never happen in this relationship.

A relationship with anyone or anything will lead you to the ultimate relationship with the master.

The form of

the master is the bridge between the Ultimate and you. Because the form is an embodiment of the Ultimate, it has both the dimensions, of man and god. When you relate with not only the form but also the truth that the form stands for, you reach the knowledge of the Ultimate.

The master is all forms and no form. He refuses to be captured in a frame, to be turned into a stone or worshipped as an image. The master is beyond forms, beyond dimensions. He has infinite dimensions - infini-D!

Frozen into one frame, whether mother or lover, he is easy for you to capture and retain. He becomes easier to market. But the master is not interested in business for him. He wants you to be confused so that you look in and become enlightened. He wants you to die so that you become awake.

Come to the master with your ignorance. He will show you the path. Don't hesitate to fall into his arms with love. You will soar with him into bliss.

Master is the person who awakens the enlightenment dimension in you.

The master relates to us on multiple frames and planes, each

one of which unveils the beauty and intensity of the unique relation he has with every single being that has the fortune of entering his space.

Each one in the quest for the Truth traverses a uniquely beautiful path with the master as he leads from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge. It is a delicate love affair. It is the merger of two beings in such deep trust and communion that the flame from the master just jumps from his being to the disciple's being. The spark of awareness is thus lit.

Different relationships unleash various dimensions in you. A lover unleashes the love feeling in you. Friends around you unleash the feeling of friendship in you. Your kids unleash the motherliness dimension in you. Your parents, grandparents unleash the childhood dimension in you. But only the master can unleash all the dimensions in you. Master is the person who awakens the unknown enlightenment dimension in you. You cannot calculate the transformation the master-disciple relationship creates in you. The master reveals himself in various dimensions and makes you transcend those and lets you experience the Ultimate through communion.

The poet-mystic, Kabir sings beautifully,

'Master and god both appear before me. To whom should I prostrate?

I bow before the master. He introduced god to me.'

Swami Vivekananda, in one of his discussions with fellow disciples of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, referred to Ramakrishna as god. Another disciple objected saying, 'Surely this is taking it to the extreme. I agree that the master is enlightened, but how can he be god?'

Vivekananda asked him, 'What do you know about god?' The disciple said, 'Oh, god is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.'

Vivekananda asked, 'What do you mean by saying that god is omnipresent?' The disciple said, 'God is everywhere.' Vivekananda said, 'Surely, then you must be able to see him now.' The disciple was confused and did not know what to say further.

Vivekananda told him, 'To you god is a concept that you cannot see, a notion that you don't even know or

understand. But here is the master in front of you who is god in reality.'

Someone asked me, 'What is the difference between god and master?'

I asked him, 'What do you know about god? All you know is a bunch of words, concepts. You have no clue as to what you are talking about when you refer to god. To you he is just an idea, an imagination of what you believe to be the ultimate energy and universal consciousness, or whatever name you wish to give something you know nothing about!'

The Brahmanda Purana says,

Master is Shiva sanshis three eyes,

Vishnu sanshis four arms

Brahma sanshis four heads.

He is Parama Shiva himself in human form

The master is real. He is the reality of the ultimate cosmic energy. He is here and now. He is in the present; He is the present. He is the bridge between you and the concept of god. In that sense he is greater than god.

People ask me, 'Are you god?' I tell them, if you do not know what or who god is, how can you ask me whether I am god? God I am not here to prove I am god. I am here to prove you are god.

cannot be defined. He can only be experienced.

Let me tell you one thing clearly, I am not here to prove that I am god. I am here to prove that you are god. I am not here to prove my divinity. I am here to prove your divinity.

The master is like a forest fire that is happening on one side of the river. The disciple is on the other side of the river. The river is the 'samsara', the river of births and rebirths. Between the master and disciple, if there can be a bridge made of any material, the fire can move, cross over the bridge and reach the disciple. The material of which the bridge is made is immaterial. It can be made of wood or with cement but the forest fire has the capacity to move over the bridge and reach the disciple. In the same way, irrespective of whatever relation you may have with the master, just get totally dissolved into that.

Brahmanda Purana - A collection of 12,000 verses in what is usually considered the last and eighteenth Hindu purana or epic. This epic is the story of the creation of the universe by Brahma.

Shiva - Rejuvenator in the Hindu Trinity of gods.

Vishnu - Sustainer in the Hindu Trinity of gods.

Brahma - The Creator in the Hindu Trinity of gods.

Parama Shiva - Supreme.

If you dissolve into that, it will simply fulfill your feelings and lead you to the ultimate state of eternal bliss. If you understand this truth deeply and try to practice this with the determination, 'I will focus on my feeling and get dissolved into the master-disciple relation', it will lead you to that state. Don't think that you don't know how to dissolve in that. The sheer determination is enough, it will happen automatically in you. Any hurdle between the master and disciple will dissolve just by focusing on the dissolution that happens between the master and disciple.

There are five attitudes with which to relate with the master. Through each attitude, a different path unfolds, taking you closer to yourself.

One path is the attitude of the mother towards her child, looking at the master as your child. This is called vatsalya bhava which is how Yashoda, Krishna's foster mother, related with Him.

Another is the attitude of the child towards the mother. This is called matru bhava. This is how Ramakrishna related with goddess Kali, looking at the master as mother.

The third is the attitude of a friend, looking at the master as your friend. This is called sakha bhava. This is how Kuchela and Arjuna related with Krishna.

The next is the attitude of a servant. It is called dasa bhava. It refers to the masterdisciple relationship wherein the disciple feels like a faithful servant of the master. This was how Hanuman, the monkey god, related with Rama in the famous Hindu epic Ramayana.

The ultimate is the attitude of the beloved. It is called madhura bhava. This is how Radha saw Krishna. This is how Radha felt about Krishna, the attitude of the beloved. Let me be very clear, the attitude of a beloved is in no way connected to whether you are a male or female. It is in no way connected to the body. It is completely beyond the body. It is from the being.

If the master is male and you are also male, then too madhura bhava can happen. Or if the master is female and you are female

also, then also madhura bhava can happen. Madhura bhava is in no way related to gender. It is beyond gender consciousness. It is a feeling of intense connection.

The last is the maha bhava. It is all the other five bhavas put together and something more! That is what the master–disciple relationship is all about. Sometimes with the master you will feel he is your son. At some other time you will feel he is like your mother. Sometimes you will feel he is your lord. Other times you will feel he is like your friend. Sometimes you will feel he is like a comforting beloved. The relationship with the master is all these five put together plus something more.

You can relate with the master in any one of these five attitudes or bhavas, or all the five put together.

There are many levels in the masterdisciple relationship. The first is purely at the intellectual level, based on doubt more than anything else. Numerous doubts keep coming up all the time. You think, 'Eh! He seems to be hardly thirty years of age. How can he be a master? He doesn't seem to be highly educated or qualified. How does he get thousands of people to listen to him?' You have your doubts, you are cynical. In the zone of pure intellect the relationship never happens.

The next step is from intellect to intelligence. From the negativity of doubt you move to, 'Why not attend this program and see what this person is really doing?' Instead of remaining with 'What can he do?' you move to 'I think he means something. But I neither believe nor disbelieve. Ok, let me see.' The intellect starts to become intelligence.

Then next, if you continue to look in, you move from intelligence to intelligence with emotion like 60% intelligence, 40% emotion. You feel that the master is a good friend. You think, 'He can guide me a little bit here and there, wherever I need guidance. I have an idea of how my life should be, so he doesn't have to teach me everything, but wherever I need to make some decisions, I can take his help.' This is looking at the master as a friend. That's what we call sakha bhava, the friendly attitude.

This is like using a stick to walk with. You use the stick when there are ups and downs. After that, by and by, slowly, when you go through some serious problems like depression and low mood, when you are not able to help yourself with his words, you ask him, 'Your teachings are great but at this moment I am not able to follow them. What do I do?' Then he supports you mentally, psychologically also. Then

He fills you, he fills your heart. You have a problem forgetting him.

you realize that the stick alone may not be enough, that

you need more support. Then you reach out for his hand and with his help you start walking again. The gratitude towards him increases while holding his hand.

If you have only the stick, then it is a friendly attitude, the intelligent emotion. If you start holding his hand, he will start lifting you, then slowly it becomes emotion-intelligence. In this stage you move from intelligence to 'intelligence with emotion' like 60% intelligence and 40% emotion. This attitude is what I call feeling the master like a father or mother.

From being a friend he becomes a father or mother. Slowly, very slowly, the relationship deepens. You settle down and think, 'He is not just a friend. He is not just a person who gives me suggestions and ideas. He takes me out of my problems also.'

Then slowly, again and again when you are helped every moment beyond your expectation, the feeling within you toward him becomes pure emotion. He fills you, he fills your heart. You have a problem forgetting him. That is the moment you feel like bowing down to him like a servant, not with shame but with revered humility that you have found someone to surrender all your problems to. This was how Hanuman felt towards his master Rama in the Hindu epic Ramayana. He was completely devoted to Rama. A deep connection of high emotion happens with this kind of relationship. This attitude is much more emotional than the earlier one. It is a mix of 60% emotion and 40% intelligence.

Then, by and by, you move in deeper emotionally and you become protective of the master. Instead of asking attention from him and taking help from him, you want to support him, love him and attend to him. Your attitude becomes that of a nurturing mother. This is a state of pure emotion. It is the primal need of a mother to ensure the wellbeing of her child.

In these four states of intelligence, intelligence-emotion, emotion-intelligence and pure emotion, your life is separate and independent from the master's life. You just take help from him to help your life, to enrich your life, that's all.

When the emotional attitude ripens, you start feeling that your life is no longer separate from his. You then move from the emotional level to the being level. You feel like sacrificing yourself to take care of him and dedicating your life to him. There is a merger at the being level, even stronger than the emotional connection of a mother and child. It is a connection of deep love, without any gender consciousness. This is what is called madhura bhava, an intense mix of emotional and being level attitude.

When the madhura bhava becomes intense, suddenly you experience that there is no 'he' and 'you'. There are no two different beings. You and he are one and the same. You start experiencing the maha bhava, experiencing you as the master. You experience the ultimate, tat tvam asi - That art Thou.

First intellect, then intelligence, then 60% intelligence and 40% emotion, then 60% emotion and 40% intelligence, then 100% emotion, then 60% emotion and 40% being, then pure 100% being.

This is how step by step you start experiencing and growing in the masterdisciple relationship. But at any time, any one attitude may be more prominent than the others.

Everyone grows collectively in energy, yet each one's relationship with the master is unique. That is the beauty of it! Be it dasa bhava, the master-servant relationship as existed between Rama and Hanuman, or vatsalya bhava, mother's love, as between Yashoda and Krishna, or sakha bhava, friendship, as between Krishna and Arjuna, or matru bhava, child's love for mother as between Ramakrishna and Mother Kali, or madhura bhava, love of the beloved, as was between Radha and Krishna - each bhava, the attitude, is unique to that relationship,

between that disciple and the master. Each disciple progresses with the master in search of his When you let go and are open, the master is such a live energy that you will be a new being, a new consciousness.

reality in the path that is best for him to progress.

When you are with the master, be completely open. Don't be frozen. Understand that life is a lot more than logic. Let go of your logic and be completely open and aware.

When you let go and are open, the master is such a live energy that you will be transformed. You will be a new being, you will be a new energy and you will be a new consciousness.

I can say it in just one statement: you will be new! You will be 'new' and 'clear', you will be 'nuclear'!

You will feel lighter. You would have lost the weight of the 'tumors' you were carrying but that were not part of you, that were a disturbance in you. Something that is supposed to be an inherent part of you

Be open to the master, this trust is all that is needed to form the bridge between you and Existence.

can never be a disturbance to you. If it is a disturbance, it was never meant to be a part of you. So

just be open so the 'master surgeon' can remove these tumors you have been carrying for life over life.

When you are with the master, be total. It is not a question of whether you agree or disagree with what the master tells you. You have to go beyond agreement and disagreement. When you see the sun rise, can you say you agree or disagree with it? No! It is, that's all. In the same way, the master is, that's all. Once that feeling becomes a part of you, nothing more needs to be done from your side. Then you have given the master the permission to reveal yourself to you.

To be a disciple means to be completely open to the master, not afraid in any way, not hiding yourself in any way, being totally authentic to the core.

Then the master can do his work on you. He will push you in directions you would never have thought you are capable of handling. He will inspire you into moments and situations you would have been otherwise afraid of. He will expand your boundaries continuously till you ultimately realize there are no boundaries, there are no limits. Then you also become like him. You too become a completely free, limitless Paramahamsa!

All you need to do is be open to the master, to Existence. When you are open, you are expressing your trust in the master. This trust is all that is needed to form the beautiful bridge between you and Existence.

A small story:

A disciple fell into the river Ganga. His master was sitting on the banks of the Ganga. On seeing him the disciple shouted, 'Save me! Save me! God, save me! Master, save me!'

The master replied, 'Fool! Stand up. Save yourself.' The disciple shouted back, 'Teach me your philosophy later. First save me. My life is in danger. Just save me!'

The master did not even move. He repeated, 'Fool! Save yourself! Stand up.' The disciple cried out, 'I thought you were my master. Save me, save me!' Now the master shouted in a loud voice, 'Idiot! Stand up!'

The disciple got frightened and stood up… and saw that the water was only up to his waist!

You also struggle because you have 'fallen into water' but do not realize it is only up to your waist! It is only when you listen to the master and stand up do you realize the water just reaches your waist and you can simply relax. All the worries that you thought were destroying your life don't really exist in reality. They are mostly only in your imagination. They never come out true.

So understand, when I say 'I will take care', I am actually giving you the stick with which to stand up. When the master says, 'I will take care', if you doubt it, you simply miss an opportunity to stand up.

Burn your samskaras in the master's presence

A beautiful incident from the enlightened master, Ramana Maharishi's life:

There was a disciple who was writing the Ramana Purana , verses in praise of Ramana Maharishi. But he had what you call the 'writer's block' and he was stuck at one point. Somehow, whenever you write with ego, the 'writer's block' will happen. Anyhow, that disciple came to Ramana Maharishi and said, 'Bhagavan* , I am not able to write further, please help me.' Bhagavan* said, 'Put that paper down and leave. I will talk to you later.'*

The disciple put the paper down and went out. When you are caught in an engram, just be in the master's presence.

The next day when he came back, he saw that the whole poem had been completed! Ramana Maharishi had written 300 lines himself. When the book was printed, the writer enclosed those 300 lines within quotes and below he put a footnote, 'These 300 lines were written by Bhagavan Himself.'*

Bhagavan saw the book and asked, 'Oh! So then, the other lines are written by you? Alright!'*

The disciple later says, 'Something simply broke in me when he said that. Tears rolled down, and I just dropped at the feet of Bhagavan and never got up again.'

Just that one comment was enough for this disciple, Muruganar to become enlightened!

Understand, just like Muruganar's one engram or engraved memory of writer's ego, you also carry many engrams. When you are caught in an engram, just be in the master's presence. You will be completely healed of it.

Ramana Purana - Stories about enlightened master Ramana Maharishi.

Bhagavan - Used as a title of veneration with great masters, literally meaning 'prosperous'.

The low also will pass just like the high mood. That is the very nature of the mind, it is like a wheel.

The big problem is that the engram will not allow you to acknowledge that you even have an

engram. It will justify itself because it is a question of survival for itself.

That is why I always tell people, when you are caught in engrams, when you are overwhelmed by these powerful unconscious drivers of anger, lust, greed, fear, depression or jealousy, never make a major decision. Just be in the master's presence. Never miss that wonderful opportunity. You will be completely healed and you will be able to come out of it. Never escape from the master when you are caught by engrams.

Whenever somebody is depressed and he leaves me, I feel so much for him. It is not because I have one person less in the mission. No! It is because he left me at the time of depression. If this same person leaves me when he is happy, it is alright. It is a normal relationship. He will carry me in him wherever he goes. But if he is in a depressed state, not only will he not grow, but he will never come out of that engram also. It will become a serious wound in him like a cat that is burnt by hot milk. It will never again go near milk.

Never decide on anything when you are in the low mood. The low mood will naturally itself distort the facts for you. It is not the right condition to take any big decision. You have to wait to swing to a good mood when things will be clearer. Always take a big decision only when you are in a cheerful mood, when you are in a positive state of mind. Just like how you decide anything in the light of day when you are awake and not in the dead of the night when you are asleep, in the same way decide this too when you are in awareness and not when in turmoil.

Be very clear, the low also will pass just like the high mood passed. That is the very nature of the mind, it is like a wheel. What is down has to come up. Neither the 'up' nor the 'down' can be said to be more real than the other. They are both there, that's all. Trusting the positive more is a choice that you have.

If someone decides to leave when they are in depression or low mood, the problem is his mind will come back to a high and when that happens he will repent his decision. Then it will be difficult to come back because he will be caught in guilt and will not feel qualified to come back.

I always tell people, never leave when you are depressed. If you are depressed, that is the right time to be around me. Trying to move away from me when you are caught in engrams is just as if you are sick and you do not want to be with a doctor! This is actually the right time to be with a doctor!

Whenever you need to heal yourself, whenever you need inner healing, you need to bring yourself again to the life energy. Many times you can see, a simple disturbance from the outside world or from the past memory inside you can drain your energy.

Another thing that drains your energy is taking too many decisions. You can try this. Go and sit in your office, don't do any work, just take some five to six major decisions. You will feel tired.

The truths, ideas or words which bring you out of that tiredness or depression, and give you the energy and confidence, are what I call shaastra-shastras or knowledgeweapons.

The truths which not only bring you out of depression but also destroy the source of depression once for all are called mantra. The words which show the path for human beings are mantra.

When any mantra comes from a being with the enlightened experience, with a pure inner space, you do not know why, how or what, but you suddenly see that it works. It 'clicks'! A mantra need not be a chant. It can be just a few words of That sudden click with the master and his teachings is 'initiation'.

clear expression of the truth that sinks deep within you and lifts you in awareness. You are so shaken by the truth of it when you hear it the first time. It literally explodes in you, in your consciousness. You cannot forget it. As you listen, you start to live by it. Your life changes without any effort. This is the power of mantra.

One part of your logic continues to fight with it initially because if you accept the Truth and start expressing it in your life, all your vested interests and many things which you thought of as life are now at risk. But your core, your being understands. It gets the click and says, 'I know what he is saying is the Truth.' There may be a doubt in a corner of your mind, but your very core feels connected. You may not understand logically, but suddenly your heart feels connected to the words being uttered, the truth being expressed.

That sudden click or connection with the master and his teachings of truth is what I call 'initiation'.

Initiation means the great truths, the words which lead you to the Truth, a clear path which leads you to the Truth. If it is experientially transmitted, if you have at

The ultimate happens when you drop ego.

least one glimpse of a powerful exp-

erience of something beyond your logic, something that transcends your mundane desires, then the initiation has happened, you are initiated.

When I use the word 'initiation' there will be so many doubts like, 'I am already initiated by another master, can I have the initiation from you? If I get initiated can I go to other masters and learn something new?'

Perfectly alright, nothing wrong! I always tell people, go to all the gardens and pluck flowers and make a beautiful garland that you can wear over yourself. It is not like a shop where if you go to one shop, the shopkeeper will try his best to keep you in his shop till you finish your purchases! The human ego is such that it will die only if it is beaten by ten to twelve masters! So don't worry, there is nothing wrong in approaching different masters. Learn all the best things from all the sources and enrich your life. Only one thing, don't become a window shopper. It is dangerous because then you will not learn anything from anyone.

The first thing that happens to a genuine seeker is the dissolution of his questions. His questions dissolve and only tremendous thirst remains. This is the first initiation that happens when the master changes your focus from knowledge towards knowing, from memory towards intelligence.

Once the emphasis has moved from knowledge to knowing, your focus moves from 'knowing about' to 'knowing'. You are interested in knowing yourself. For that you use the master as the means.

As you come closer to the master, the master takes you to the next level of moving beyond knowing you. You will never know yourself unless you drop the obsession with yourself. Your obsession with you is your ego. So the ultimate happens when you drop the ego, surrender the ego at the feet of the master. Just when you forget you, you will discover you!

A master is one who fulfills the longing of your being. It is a very deep, delicate love affair.

As you come closer to the master in your love, in your trust, there is born a deep silence. It is not the dead silence of a graveyard but the vibrant silence of life and love.

The more you awaken to the purpose of your life, the more your life becomes a celebration. A deep joy arises for no reason at all. You feel an ocean of bliss so deep that you can just share and give infinitely. You may have felt this harmony and connectedness in other relationships a few times, but the intensity when it happens with the master is on a different plane altogether.

The relationship between a master and disciple is the most intimate relationship. Even the greatest lovers cannot be that intimate because even they are two, there are two egos. And egos will always clash because they are independent individualities. But with the master, he is nobody. There is no ego in him. So there is only one ego and that is yours. His whole purpose is to dissolve it so you also become nobody.

The strength of the connection is what will hold you when the ego is being dissolved by the intensity and grace of the master. Then there is no master, no disciple, just a harmonious Whole vibrating in tune with the entire cosmos.

Once the authentic experience flowers with a master, you will relate to everyone and everything with great sincerity and love. The fragrance of this exquisite flowering will automatically spread to all your relationships with people, trees, rocks, stars and the whole universe.

Magical moments

Coming closer to the master is the path to becoming a master.

The most magical mom-

ents in life happen in the moments of love and trust from a disciple towards the master. It is the start of a relationship out of this world to the secrets beyond. It can become a grand celebration where the whole cosmos dances with you.

It is like how a river comes to the ocean, dancing, eager to become one with the vast ocean. Coming closer to the master is the path to becoming a master. It is the grand merger with the cosmic Whole.

The beauty in the relation with the master is that it is unpolluted by any expectations or give-and-take. The master accepts you just as you are. The purity in the relation with the master is that there is no attempt to make something else of you. You actually love the master because he gives you the complete freedom to be just what you are with no strings attached.

The love between the master and the disciple can never be 'satisfied'. Because first of all, the dissatisfaction is not a superficial or mental dissatisfaction. It is a deep dissatisfaction of the being that wants to break free from the false boundaries of the ego and love infinitely. So when the master happens, there is eternal freshness, eternal love and excitement, pure bliss that

Master is a promise, an assurance, a living ideal. He gives you the promise, 'Open, you will never die!'

arises from the being every single moment.

This will go on opening new doors as the relationship

reveals subtler and deeper aspects of love, devotion and merging into the Whole. This is the ultimate love affair. It is the love affair with Existence itself.

Sister Nivedita* describes the power of the relationship with the master, 'One's whole attitude to things was reversed. One took fire, as it were, with a given idea. Or one suddenly found that a whole habit of thought had left one, and a new outlook had grown up in its place, without the interchange of a single word on the subject. It seemed as if a thing had passed beyond the realm of discussion, and knowledge had grown, by the mere fact of nearness to him.'

Master – the living promise

It is like this: the seed is trying to break and become a tree. The seed says to the tree, 'Please! You come out first. Only then will I break and open. Who knows? After I break, you may not happen. I may just die and disappear.' But the tree says, 'No no, unless you open, I cannot come out. Open!' The seed says, 'No, no. You come out first, give me the assurance and the guarantee that you will happen and only then will I open'. The fight goes on.

The seed is afraid because if it opens, it may just die instead of becoming the tree. The tree says, 'Unless you open, I cannot come out, I cannot happen.' The fight between the tree's happening and the seed's opening continues.

The master is a person who was once a seed, and who later became a tree. We are like the seed. He assures the seed, 'Don't worry, I was like you. I had the courage to open up and I have become this beautiful tree. So just open! Just relax. You will only become a tree, you will never die.' He gives you the assurance, the confidence. Master is a promise, an assurance, a living ideal. He gives you the promise, 'Open, you will never die!'

Beyond ego and envy

The master's love is perhaps the only unconditional love there is, totally unselfish, without expectations, just giving, asking for nothing. The master's

Sister Nivedita - Anglo Hindu disciple of Swami Vivekananda.

love is detached and radiating all the time. It radiates whether you are there or not. All you need to do is to stand with your bowl and take your fill again and again.

Usually for a man, it is his ego that is the major block in receiving. By nature man is less given to emotions than a woman, and more prone to acting out of the intellect. To give into someone, to accept someone as a master unconditionally is almost impossible for the mind unless the heart takes over. When he is with the mind, giving in means loss of personality, loss of identity, death of the very ego. It becomes too much to lose. But with awareness, by seeing where one is missing, it is possible to melt and give in.

On the other hand, possessiveness and envy is the greatest danger for a woman to reach the master. A woman has to go beyond the form of the master to the formless, beyond the concept of possessing the form to the reality of sharing his love and compassion with others without envy, and growing spiritually. Initially it is alright to feel possessive and envious. In fact, only when these emotions surface in you, they leave you as well! If they remain deeply hidden, they cannot leave you. But as the relationship with the master grows, the intelligent one will allow the transformation of both into pure love. It is only then they experience the pure love of the master also! Until then their own possessiveness and jealousy act like filters in experiencing the pure love of the master.

The master is like the river. If you keep your hands open and let the river flow through you, the water is with you all the time. If you try to hold the water with your hands, you miss it! The master's love will flow through you without interruption as much as you need. The moment you close your hands hoping to contain the river within your tiny palms, you will lose the river, you will lose the master. You just have to be a beautiful part of the flow of life and enjoy the love of the master.

Understand, the disciple will not know about his ignorance because he is in darkness. The responsibility is of the person who is in the light, not of the person who is in darkness.

• A small story: There was a born blind man wandering in the Himalayas. He was searching for a stick to guide him. He stumbled upon a frozen snake. He thought that it was a stick and started using it.

An enlightened master saw this and started shouting, 'Fool! It is a snake, drop it.' The blind man started shouting, 'No! I think you don't have a stick. So you are asking me to drop it so that you can pick it up!'

The master said, 'Fool! I don't need it. What you are carrying is not a stick, it is a snake. The sun will rise soon, the snake will come back to life and it will kill you.' The blind man was not ready to drop it. Then the master said, 'Even if you don't believe me, now it is my responsibility to save you.' So he snatched the snake and tried to throw it away. The blind man started beating the master with the same stick.

But the master said, 'Even if you beat me, it is ok. It is my responsibility to save you because you don't know.' He took the snake and threw it away.

You don't know how many births you have struggled or prayed to have a master. You are not even aware of your own true yearning. Understand, for a master to happen in your life, it is not a joke. You yourself don't know how many births you have struggled and prayed intensely to have a glimpse of a living master. Awakening to the master in your life is nothing but awakening to this deep yearning and purpose of your life.

Purpose of life Vs Engrams

I always tell people in the Life Bliss Program Level 2 – THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program, at the time you leave this body, that is at the time you are dying, suddenly all the material things of this world that you enjoyed with your senses will be seen as black and white. They will no more seem colorful like they were when you enjoyed them.

It is like when you are in a dream state in your night sleep, this world will become black and white. When you are in the waking state as you are in now, the dreams will become black and white.

In the same way, when you leave this body, this entire past life will be seen in black and white. At that time, only the spiritually intelligent events in your life, or conscious decisions that you made in your spiritual journey will shine in multicolor! Any pleasure you enjoyed related to your gross body and mind will be seen in black and white. All that you did in the line of consciousness will shine!

As of now, the master, spirituality, consciousness, all these things might seem dull and uninteresting, as if they are only retired life entertainment. The master is more or less like a choice in life right now. When you leave the body, you will know, whatever decisions you made in the conscious line, the moments you spent with the conscious energy, the master and his teachings, will become bright in multidimension and multicolor. All the material things of this world will fade into black and white.

At that time, you will feel, 'Oh god! I have missed the whole thing! I was blinded by illusion!' In the process of death, when you feel this intense pain of having missed, you will take the serious decision for the next birth, 'Next time I will not miss the master.' When you take the next body you go into a coma state because of the pain during birth and you again forget the intent. So the same cycle continues.

Therefore, even when the master happens in your life in this birth, you have no idea what had happened to you in your earlier lives, how many times you have missed him before. You have forgotten the intent with which you left your earlier bodies. You have forgotten the whole purpose of your life. The same ego, the same engraved memories and problems repeat because you forgot and you miss the master the same way as you did before. Once again, when you leave the body this time, you feel the same terrible pain of having missed once more.

The bridge of trust between the master and you

You have forgotten the whole purpose of your life.

As of now we pursue the master, meditation, consciousness and such things only because we have time, not because we seek the real experience behind them. When you leave the body, this whole world and its sensory experiences will fade out like black and white photographs. Only the moments with the master, the conscious journey through such spiritual experiences will be colorful and alive.

Everything related to the body and mind will be colorful and alive now. The spiritual, consciousness related things will not seem interesting or alive. At the time of death, when all these fantasies disappear, everything related to the gross body and mind will become dead, black and white, and everything related to the subtle consciousness like the master and meditation will become colorful and alive.

Because I can see that moment happening in you at the time of your leaving your body, I feel responsibility to do something about it. That is the reason why whenever somebody is about to miss me, I always feel, 'Oh god! Again one more soul is missing the experience!' I try my best to make them understand why it is important to be with a master.

You see, all of you can see only the 70-80 years that you live in the body. That is the reason why the master is only a choice for you. You feel if it happens, it happens, otherwise, forget about it. This is your attitude now. But I can see a much larger span.

It is like this: If you are standing on the road, then you can see one mile of the road on both the left and right sides of you. You can see the bus coming within this distance. But I am standing on the thirtieth floor, so I can see ten miles on both the left and right sides of the road. I can see a limousine coming much ahead of it appearing on the scene for you! When I stand on the thirtieth floor and say, 'Watch out, a limousine is coming your way,' you say, 'No, no, Swamiji! Only a bus is coming! Why are you telling me that a limousine is coming?'

You don't realize you are standing on the ground floor. You can see only one mile on either side of you. In life also, you can see only 30 years of past and 30 years of future. Because I am standing on the thirtieth floor, I can see a few lives into your past and a few lives into your future. That is why I say that the master happening in your life is a rare and great opportunity. That is why I take so much care that you should not miss. Moreover, I have seen how a few people who have missed repent so much for the rest of their lives and after they leave the body also.

Sometimes what happens, when you miss a few times, during the next birth, some people bring a strong depression or disease along with them so that they will not miss the master again in that birth! The disease will keep them attached to the master. Appar* , a great saint from South Bharat, had brought severe stomach pain with him. In his biography he says, 'I brought this purposely so that this time I will not miss remembering Shiva!' Why should you come with so much of pain to remember the master? There is no need. You can remember with bliss itself in this very life.

You see, the child will not know what will happen if he jumps on to the street and plays. But the mother knows. The mother is responsible. That is why she is careful with the child and keeps him safe. But the child doesn't realize this and says, 'I will go out and do what I want.' Then what to do? The mother tries her best to help the child, that's all.

Appar - Thirunavukkarasar or Appar as he was popularly known was a 7th century CE Tamil poet saint and author of Thevaram, devotional songs in praise of Shiva. Appar was one of the most prominent of the 63 Nayanmars, Tamil Shaivaite saints.

Actually, when you miss the master, the master misses nothing. Whatever he had to achieve, he has achieved in his life. There is nothing more that he needs or wants.

The master never loses anything. But for the disciple, it is too big a loss. Missing the master for any reason, for any mistake, is too big a loss. That is why I don't want it to happen to anyone. It is like you grab and eat a banana from a street vendor without paying and because of that you are given a death sentence! It is too big a punishment for a very small mistake. That is the reason why whenever somebody is about to miss me, I always try my best to take all possible steps to avert it.

Do not miss the master. Hold on to him and maintain the deep trust or connection or bridge. Life will be totally different.

Anything can be sacrificed for the masterdisciple relationship. But for nothing should the master-disciple relationship be sacrificed.

End of the psychodrama of life

All your relationships are mere characters and life is just a drama. Please understand clearly, everything that happens as a relationship is just a psychodrama.

You should understand the truth. You take birth in a family with somebody as your mother, father, brother and sister and play with them as family members. You might have Life is just a drama. Everything that happens as a relationship is a psychodrama.

seen the kids playing with the dolls. The child will have a few dolls. He will dress one as father, another as mother and similarly dress two other dolls as brother and sister. Then he will enact a day of their life. He will make sounds as if the father is going to work, pretend that the mother is cooking something in the kitchen, show the brother going to school and the sister refusing to go to school and crying instead. The child will play all these roles himself and enjoy the whole game.

Now just look into your life. You are also trying to possess more and more, whether in terms of relationships or material things. You try to expand the movable and immovable possessions and suddenly the drama ends with your death.

Again you take birth in some other family with a different father, mother, brother and sister and play the same game once more. Our entire life is nothing different from the game which the kids play with the dolls. This is the psychodrama of life. For one who experienced the complete masterdisciple relationship, the psychodrama will not happen again in his life.

Allow the boiling – and become enlightened

Someone asked me, 'Are my samskaras, that is my engraved memories pertaining to my previous lives, an obstacle to becoming your disciple?'

Samskaras themselves are not an obstacle. But when the master works on them to operate or to remove them, you should understand he is working on you because you requested him again and again directly or indirectly.

When I work on your samskaras, you may think I have my vested interests of fear or greed. Be very clear, when you think this of me, you are only projecting the fear and greed that you have on to me and think that I have them. Enlightened masters as such don't have any fear or greed. I work on your engrams because you requested me thousands of times in thousands of births!

Your samskara itself is not a problem. When I work on it, if you don't resist, then it is ok. Your resistance when I work on it is the problem.

Your samskaras are not a problem, you trying to hold on to them is the problem. If you are ready to let go when I work on them, then it won't be a problem. If you just understand that only your tumor is being removed and you cooperate with me to work on it, it is beautiful. But sometimes, you think I am directly cutting you out of some vengeance! You start complaining, you start resisting me and you start blaming me like the lion cub.

When the lion was having meat in the lion and cub story, the cub starts complaining, 'What! I thought you are such a holy person, you are such a great person. You were giving me so much of confidence. You were helping me so much. But I never thought you will eat meat. I thought you too were a vegetarian like me!' Your socalled immature morality or your so-called immature understanding projects your own ideology on the master and tries to resist when he works on your samskaras.

Samskaras themselves are no problem because you come to the master only because of your samskaras. If you don't have samskaras, then why should you come to the master! You are already enlightened!

I accept you as you are, but when you are with your samskaras, you are not as you are. You are suffering with your hell. I am breaking your hell. When I break the prison in which you are living, you think I am breaking you. You start resisting and creating problems.

Sometimes, when you come near me, you feel tremendous energy and bliss coming up. Sometimes, you feel tremendous anger and the depression rising also. But soon the depression will disappear. When you come near me, you are coming near an intense energy space that dissolves your negativities. That is why you feel such mixed and intense emotions.

You see, the master's body is practically like an atomic energy station. When you come near, whatever emotions are in you start boiling. It is like if you put a potato inside hot water, the potato will start jumping around! The potato is not dancing by itself. It is dancing because of the fire energy below.

I always tell people, having samskaras is not a problem. The potato is not a problem. The jumping potato should not jump out of the vessel and run away. That is the only thing to take care! If it is inside the vessel, it will become a siddha potato! Siddha in Sanskrit has two meanings. One is 'boiling', another is 'enlightened'. So be very clear, if the potato does not jump out of the vessel, if it remains inside the vessel, it will become not only a boiling potato, but an enlightened potato!

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is confused completely about what is the path he should follow. The ultimate teaching imparted by Krishna to Arjuna in the last chapter is the best technique to realize the Ultimate. After giving various techniques like meditation, devotion and knowledge, Worry and tension come when you think you are the doer.

finally Krishna reveals the straight, sure and ultimate technique, which is that of surrender.

Be very clear, when you surrender to an enlightened master, you are actually surrendering to one who has no ego, no identity and hence no vested interest of his own. He is one with and overflowing with Existence. By holding his hand, you ask him to take you also to the ocean of bliss he is in.

Worry and tension come when you think you are the doer. Then you get tired soon. But if you shift the sense of ownership to a higher energy and continue to do your work blissfully, you will feel tremendously relaxed!

A small story:

There was once a bank manager who used to take all the cash to his home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He did this for a month and could not do it anymore.

He found himself trembling all the way while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with all the money in his custody. He finally asked his boss to be relieved of the job since he could not bear the stress any longer.

His boss told him that even if the money was lost, he would not be blamed and that he could continue with his job. The manager slept peacefully from that day onwards.

What was the difference in him? He was doing the same job, but why was there no more fear and tension? Because the responsibility had been shifted to a higher authority, that's all. He continued to do what he was doing.

When you surrender to the higher energy, you can never feel drained and exhausted because you are directly connected to the one who is an embodiment of the infinite energy. This is the gift of surrender.

Intensity of surrender

If you allow the calf to be with the cow for only ten minutes, the calf will drink only the milk and come back. But the fly that sits on the cow twenty four hours will suck only the blood. You can be with the master all the time and still not feel the connection or the seeking. Also, you can be away from the master and yet feel the connection all the time. It is not about being near his physical presence. That does not play a major role in the seeking. It is the depth of the seeking that plays the major rule.

Ramakrishna very beautifully says, 'Surrender to anything. Surrender is important, not what or who you surrender to. If you surrender to a stone, even that can become god and guide you.

When the intense seeking is not there, even if god comes to you, you will ask him for an identity card. When the seeking becomes strong, even a small stone can teach you.

The same life force inside me is present outside also. It can enter you also and teach you. Because I have become empty, the life force entering me is coming out as music. So if the same depth of seeking starts happening inside you, the air that enters your nose can become a strong inspiration or teaching inside your heart. Without that intensity in you, even if I tell you something now you will not even remember what I told, after two days.

A subtle point you need to check in yourself is this. Observe whether you listen to the master when your mind disagrees with him. If yes, you have surrendered. Else you are following the master only when he tells you something agreeable to your mind! It is just a coincidence that he is telling you sometimes what your mind agrees with, nothing more than that.

There is no need to be interested or have a positive attitude when it comes to the work of the master. Only the surrender, the acceptance to do what the master says, is necessary because it is from the deeper level of being and not the superficial level of the mind.

The master is actually just a means, an excuse to surrender because you are not able to relate with the whole of Existence directly. You are afraid to look at the vast expanse of the sky. So you want to look at the sky through a window. The master is like your window to the sky of Existence.

Three levels of surrender

I will now explain to you the three categories of surrender: surrender of the intellect, surrender of emotions and surrender of your very senses.

The first is surrender of intellect means trusting the master's intellect more than your own intellect. This is just intellectual surrender. At this stage, you follow the lifestyle that the master shows you.

The second is trusting the master's emotions much more than your own emotions. This means trusting that the relationship with the master is the ultimate relationship, more than any other relationship. If god appears before you and asks you to choose one person on planet earth as the only other person who can be alive except you, who will you choose? If you choose the master, then emotional surrender has happened to you.

The master is like a window to the sky of Existence.

Of course, the

master can never be destroyed, but that is different! Never think that just because you choose him he is alive! He will be alive whether you choose him or not.

If you feel that your emotion towards the master is stronger than any other emotion, then emotional surrender has happened in you. Be very clear, 99% of the people remain in the first level. Only 20% to 40% of these people move deeper to the second level. The rest remain standing where they are.

There is the third kind of surrender, surrender of the senses.

In Krishna's life there is a beautiful incident.

After the Mahabharata war, when Krishna and Arjuna are relaxing, Krishna says, 'Hey! Arjuna, look there, there is a green crow!'

Arjuna says, 'Beautiful! A green crow!' Krishna says, 'Fool! It is black, not green.' Arjuna says, 'Yes Krishna! It is black, not green.'

Krishna asks, 'What has happened to you? When I say green, you say green. When I say black, you say black. What is going on with you?'

Arjuna says, 'Krishna, let me be honest. I don't know what color that crow is. But when you said green I saw it as green. When you said black I saw it as black. I know nothing else!'

Arjuna's very senses trusted Krishna. He trusted the master's senses much more than his own!

Placebo effect or more?

In medical terms, we have a term called 'placebo effect'. A patient takes a dummy medicine but he is told it is actually the real medicine, and he is cured of the ailment! But recent research indicates that the placebo effect is actually far more revealing.

I read about an interesting research at the University of Turin in Italy. They tried an experiment where they connected electrodes to the person and gave him controlled electric shocks. First they established a pain scale for the person by finding the minimum current he could feel and the maximum current he could bear.

Now, before they gave the shock, a red or a green light would appear on the screen in front of the person. Green light meant the shock would be a mild one. Red light meant the shock would be stronger. The person was supposed to then rate the pain from the shock on a scale of 1 to 10, from mild to strong.

Now the person tried this for 15 minutes. At the end he felt that in the beginning the shocks were strong while in the end the shocks were mild.

But the shocking thing was actually it was exactly the opposite. The last series of shocks were all strong. Then how did the shocks get perceived as mild? Just before the mild shock was administered, the light shown to the person was green indicating that the shock about to come was a mild one.

So the person's mind was prepared, conditioned to believe the shock coming up was going to be a mild one. When the shock was actually administered, even though physically it was a strong one, because his mind was anticipating a mild shock his body actually felt a mild shock!

So researchers are now saying that the placebo effect is much deeper and has lot more significance than what was thought before.

They have found that even drugs do not always have the direct effects. Their results can be influenced by expectations. Doctors have found that if the person is not told that he is being given an injection of a painkiller, he has to be given a larger dose to get the painkilling effect. Whereas if he knows that he is getting a painkiller, much lower doses give the same effect!

The mind is so powerful, it can directly create a physical change in you. Just like the senses can surrender to the mind, in the same way the senses can surrender to the divine consciousness too. This is exactly what happened in the case of Krishna and Arjuna when Arjuna saw a green crow when Krishna told him to see the 'green' crow.

Your senses say you are a human being. But I say you are a spiritual being. As long as you trust your senses, you will be a human being. When you trust the master you will experience that you are a spiritual being. That shift is what I call the 'cognitive shift'.

The master is the ultimate luxury in your life. When the master happens in our lives, nothing else is needed. If he does not happen, nothing else is of use. He is a channel to bring wisdom to our life and to update it, according to our need.

Life energy and the master are not two different things. Masters again and again emphasize the beautiful concept called experiencing the master inside. Only until you experience the master inside, you think you need the master from the outer world. Once you experience the master inside, you don't need the master from the outer world.

See, when a meditation technique is done with a master, it becomes an alchemy process. If you do it alone in your home it is called meditation. When you do it along with the master, in the presence of the master, guided by the master, it becomes alchemy. It is like boiling you. The process becomes so alive and intense.

A small story:

There was a young lady who did not know cooking. But she wanted to make something for a potluck dinner that she was going to. She got hold of a cookery book and tried making a dessert.

She was holding the book in one hand. The instructions said, 'Put the vessel on the stove.' She did. Then it said, 'Put half a cup of flour.' She did so. Then, 'Add water half a liter, add a little sugar and stir it for twenty minutes.' She followed every instruction exactly but nothing happened even after twenty minutes.

The master's presence itself is fire. It will ensure the product happens, the alchemy happens.

Why? Because the book did not tell her to light the fire! In the same way when you are doing meditation on your own,

sometimes you may forget to light the fire. The master's presence itself is fire. It will ensure the product happens, the alchemy happens.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, why should you insist on the presence of the master?' Of course, you can listen to my words on an audio CD or a DVD. But when you sit here, the honesty that radiates in my eyes, the truth that expresses in my body language will catch you. You will catch it. You will feel the click, the connection, 'Yes, he is talking the truth.'

Even if you want to suspect, suddenly you will see your logic has no power over you anymore. These words are simply entering you beyond your logic. This will happen only when you sit in the presence of the master. We call that as Upanishad - just being around, sitting, and opening up to the master.

Open yourself with trust and just drop yourself into trust. You will see the master standing there to hold you. Just drop yourself from your head and fall into the abyss of the heart. The master will be there to hold you and make you enlightened, that's all.

Upanishad means 'sitting'. When a disciple sits in the presence of the master the same experience that happened in the master is reproduced in the disciple.

The disciple who experiences the master and within whom the master has been reproduced, writes down his recollections on how this process happened. The disciple or the master or someone else writes an account of how the experience was reproduced in the disciple - what happened when the process began, how it ended and what happened when it ended. This report is referred to as an Upanishad.

How upanishad happens – beyond the law of cause and effect

We have heard of the law of cause and effect. If you drop a ball, it falls down. If you heat water, it becomes steam at 100 degrees C. If you put salt in water, it will dissolve. This is the law of causality. Any action will result in a particular effect. Science has its foundation on this law of causality.

But this is not the only law in Existence. An important law in operation every moment is the law of intuition or as the philosopher Carl Jung* calls it, the law of synchronicity. Here, it is not that something happens and another happens as a result of it. Something happens and a corresponding thing happens.

We are so used to seeing things as cause and effect. You can see the relation between the cause and the immediately following effect. But life is filled with instances where the effect happens so much later that you are not able to relate to the original cause. It is just like when you throw a stone in the water, you can see the immediate ripples are because of the stone. But if you came a few minutes later, you see the secondary ripples, but you cannot be sure what caused them.

You may have experienced instances like this in your life. You think of asking your friend to make your favorite dessert and you land up at her place and she has made exactly that! She just felt she should make it on that day. This is the power of synchronicity.

This happens between the master and disciple even more than in close relationships of friends, lovers or Master-disciple relationship is the ultimate love affair.

spouses. Because the master-disciple relationship is the deepest relation possible in Existence, it is the ultimate love affair.

It is the most mysterious because it is beyond the narrow range of logic. In fact, life begins only when you have touched something that is beyond logic, which cannot be framed by the mind but which pulls the strings of your heart. It brushes aside the arguments of the mind, always looking to criticize.

The true disciple is not a disciple because of something the master said, rather it is because of what the master is. That is why just sitting with the master, the disciple starts falling in tune with the beautiful rhythm of the master. This is Upanishad. This is true disciplehood, being open to the master so that he can shower his love on you and you can receive it in all its glory and divinity and grow.

Whenever you have a doubt, surrender the doubt and faith both at the feet of the master. You see, the master is the one who gives you the faith and he is the same person

Carl Jung - Renowned Swiss psychiatrist and contemporary of Sigmund Freud.

Penance is being ready to work on the technique at any cost since enlightenment is the first priority.

When you are stuck with doubt, tell the master mentally, 'Master, it is you who gave my faith in you, it is also you who gave me doubts about you. I am surrendering both at your feet. I don't want to play this game. I have suffered enough with this game. Please take care.'

When you surrender both doubt and faith at the feet of the master, you will see something called trust happens in you, which is neither doubt nor faith. It is the courage to experiment with the truth.

Deep trust

A Zen master was bringing up a small boy from a young age to be his successor. This little boy had a very deep, loving connection with the master but he was a very naughty boy. He would try to behave in the same way as the master. He would try to imitate and make fun of the master, standing behind him. The master had a habit of always holding his thumb up whenever he wanted to emphasize a particular point. This boy also would stand behind the master and do the same thing!

One day the master got annoyed and just took the knife he was carrying and cut off the boy's thumb. Understand: the story says very beautifully that the trust and feeling of connection was so deep, the boy did not even think once for a moment that something wrong was done to him. The disciple felt very clearly that if the master does something, it must be good for him. The story says that this deep trust even during the intense pain enlightened him at that moment.

Understand two important things here. First thing, that much of connection and trust over the master existed in the boy. Second thing, the disciple was willing to go through any suffering, pain and any kind of tapas or penance. Penance is being ready to work on the technique at any cost since enlightenment is the first priority. Of course, this technique is for the people for whom enlightenment has become their first priority.

The stronger you hold on to an ideology or to a person, the deeper will be your depression. If you hold on to a person, say your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife, your son or brother or father, you will be bound by the sway of the relationship, and you will invariably fall into depression and start blaming that person. This is how depression happens. In the same way, if you hang on to your ego or identity or ideology, again you will face depression.

When you face the depression due to the ideology or identity or ego, you start blaming the whole world because there is no second person to blame! You lose confidence in the whole world. You lose trust on the whole world. You don't even know the reason for your depression, and you start blaming the whole world. Living with a strong ideology or strong identity is like being in the worst possible hell.

When you fall into this kind of depression, you will not have the intelligence to associate the depression with the identity that you created. You will not have the intelligence to realize that your identity is the cause for your depression. You will start suspecting everybody and blaming everybody. Even a simple incident will be enough for you to blame another person as the reason for your depression. That is the big problem with this ego-based identity.

You always think that if you don't have a strong identity, others will cheat you. But understand that if others cheat you, they will cheat you at the most for a few hours. Whereas if you build a strong identity for yourself because of this, the very identity will cheat you for your whole life. It will be with you when you are in the waking state, dream state, and deep sleep state; and you will be blissfully unaware of it. So it is better to be cheated by others than to be cheated by your own identity.

Always remember one thing:

Do not suspect the master, suspect yourself. Suspect the identity that you are carrying. That's the right thing to do.

The wheel of love and hate

In the beginning, you come to the master with love. When the master starts his operation on the tumor of your ego, suddenly the wheel turns and the love becomes hate, anger and resistance to the master. When the awareness happens, you realize the cunning play of the mind posing in different ways. Then you go beyond both love and hate. The relation deepens and there is no expectation of love or fear of hate. So if you are faced with anger, just have the patience. That point of transcendence will happen.

Understand, the fight is not between you and your mind. The fight is between your mind and the master. Whose side you are on is your choice.

If you look a little deeper, you will see that the fight is because your mind knows that it is fighting a losing battle. So it tries all kinds of tricks to survive. This is the one battle where you win if you lose!

Being defeated by the master means defeating the false you by the true you. It is the ultimate victory over your self. You regain the kingdom of god, which your mind had stolen.

When you just jump in the presence of the master, when you enjoy and celebrate Existence in the presence of the master, when you celebrate his presence and your presence, when you just celebrate, things will simply start happening in you, nothing else. That is the answer, technology, method and solution for the true masterdisciple relation to happen.

When you can't understand that, then I have to talk, reply to all your questions, create more and more problems, that's all. If I answer your questions, what will happen? You will ask, how to do that? What is the technique? Then I have to give one more technique to do that technique. Then, how to do that technique...? It will simply go on.

Questions only generate further questions. That is why philosophy has not been able to answer any question completely. Questions can never be answered. The solution is to go beyond the plane of questions. Then there are no more questions, they simply dissolve and disappear.

Just sing and dance and celebrate the presence of the master. Then all these doubts, questions and everything will simply disappear.

If you have the doubt and questions, you can't celebrate. Celebration and doubt are just anti, opposite to each other. If you celebrate, questions and doubts will disappear. Don't wait for the doubts to disappear and then celebrate. It will never happen. Just celebrate and the questions will disappear.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa beautifully says, 'If you sit under a tree and clap, all the birds on the tree will fly away.' In the same way, just dance, all the engrams in your body will fly away and disappear! All the doubts that are sitting inside your body will just fly and disappear. So jump in such a high speed that all the birds will fly and disappear and will never think of coming back. Even after the birds fly away their nests may remain in place. Jump in such a way all the nests should also drop! Whatever is inside, everything should just drop and disappear.

For you to grow, I have to hit at your ego. But be very clear, I never push you away from me. I only pull you towards me. So even if you fall, you will fall only on me. Two things can happen when I hit: you can catch the truth or if you miss, you will just fall in my lap.

Understand one thing: when I hit, just welcome it. Don't dodge. Don't resist. It is not the hit that hurts you but the resistance.

A small story:

Once a man fell down from the fifth floor of a building. When he hit the ground, he was in a state of shock. Somebody asked him out of concern, 'Did it hurt?'

The man replied, 'The fall did not hurt. Only the stopping of the fall hurt!'

In the same way, it is not the hit that hurts. When you realize it is not a hit, but a blessing out of sheer compassion for you to grow, you will realize the beauty of it and welcome it even more.

Once the connection with the master happens, he does not need to give you anything and you do not need to take anything from him. There will be no giver and no taker. Why? Because an explosion would have suddenly happened, merging the giver and the taker into one.

If you feel that the constant feeling of being connected has happened in you, do not let it go at any cost.

I always tell

people, bhakti* or the feeling of being connected to the master is such an ultimate happening, never miss it if at all you have got the opportunity in your life. Never miss it. It is too costly to miss. It is such a deep happening, the ultimate blessing. Never miss it if at all you get the chance.

If you feel that the constant feeling of being connected has happened in you, do not let it go at any cost. Throw away any idea that comes between you and him. Anything can be lost but not the connection with master because if that one relationship is kept alive so many things can happen in you. The possibilities are infinite and all the doors are open. I can give you one small scale to measure if you are open or not.

If you can notice very clearly that your TPS, thoughts per second, is slowing down the moment the master enters your inner space, it means that you are open.

Bhakti - Devotion.

This is an incident from the days of my spiritual journey.

One morning, a master was talking to all of his disciples in the angle of feeling connected to the whole of the Himalayas. The master was loving and caring enough to allow me also into their morning session. He was asking the disciples one by one, 'Did you practice this technique?' It seems a few days earlier he had initiated them into the technique of feeling connected to the Himalayas. They were supposed to constantly internalize that the Himalayan mountains was a part of their body.

One disciple said, 'Yes master, now I feel completely connected.' Now the master very casually said, 'Alright then, move that rock.' Understand, I promise I saw with my eyes, the disciple moved his hand and that rock moved. Logically it is very difficult to understand this.

I too had a shock and was shaken to see what happened. The master looked at me and said, 'Do you want to see the power of the mind? Just sit here.' He told that disciple who moved the rock to hold my hand. He told me, 'Now you

move your hand.' I moved the hand and the rock came back to its original place. This was too big a shock for me.

Then he told me very beautifully, 'It is not that only that disciple can do and you can't do. No! Anybody who can be part of that connection will be able to move the mountain.'

I am not saying we need to move the rocks. I'm merely talking about this technique just to tell you the power of this technique.

The one thing that you cannot miss

When you are in love with the master, not only will you feel he is god but all the miracles which you feel or expect should happen in the presence of god will also happen in front of him, in his presence. But when that love is lost, when you don't have that love, you won't see those miracles happening in his presence. You may be the same person, he will be the same person but those miracles will not happen.

Somebody asked me why this happens. Does the master lose enlightenment? No, he does not lose it. You lose the ability to recognize or connect with the enlightenment. When people ask me whether I am god, I tell them it depends on you!

I am constantly available, open. If you want to connect to me as a teacher, you can connect to me and carry all the knowledge. If you want to connect to me in the level of a master, you can have the initiation itself. See, only a master can initiate, a teacher can't initiate. The teacher can teach, the master can initiate. If you connect at the level of god or Divine or ultimate energy, you will carry the experience itself, not just initiation.

It depends on how much of your inner space is available for me, that's all. If you relate just intellectually, you will carry knowledge. If you relate with a little bit of emotion, a little bit of love, you will carry initiation. That means whatever I can't express through words also will go into you. My entire software will be transmitted to you. If you are able to connect with the being deeply, you don't need initiation. The whole experience will be transmitted. The software and all the applications will also be transferred! It depends on the person as to what level he connects with and at what level he experiences.

I always tell people, bhakti or the feeling of being connected to the master is such an ultimate relationship. Never miss it if at all you have got the chance in your life. Never miss it. It is too much to miss. If you miss things in your outer world, it is ok. If you miss your ideas that you carry in your inner world, that is also ok.

In English there is a proverb: If you miss or lose wealth, nothing is lost; if you lose your health, something is lost; if you lose your character, everything is lost. I think even if you lose your character nothing is lost. Only if you lose the connection with the master, everything is lost.

It is such a deep relationship. It is the ultimate blessing. Never miss it if at all you got it. If you feel that the constant feeling of being connected has happened in you, do not miss it at any cost. Throw away any idea that comes between you and him. Anything can be lost but not this connection.

One more thing, it is not that you will be disconnected from me. You will be deeply connected to my true self. In love, you will feel connected. In hatred you will feel disconnected. In devotion, you will go beyond the connection and disconnection. You will just feel my presence and experience it whether I am physically present or not.

When I say go beyond love, I don't mean start hating or feel disconnected. No! I say let the love become devotion. You will feel that you and the master are not different persons. You will just feel the very presence without the suffering of the absence. He will constantly remind you to turn towards you. He will not be binding you in any way.

Whenever you start experiencing the presence of a person by putting in so much of energy to create that feeling of connectedness and love, not only you become dependent on him but by that time he will also become dependent on you. If somebody can remain without him being dependent on you but allowing you to be dependent on him till the time you are ready to be independent, then he is an enlightened person. An enlightened person will never be dependent on you. So he doesn't have vested interest to keep you under his control, under his thumb.

When the time comes, when he sees that you can turn towards yourself, he will just ask you to turn towards yourself. He will see that your energy that is invested in so many ways is all completely centralized. Once he sees that the centralizing work is complete, he immediately takes the next step. He will tell you, 'Now enough. Start working in my absence. Work on your presence.'

A master will agree and co-operate with you for you to feel his absence and he will transfer the whole energy to your devotion. He will not bind you. That is the greatness of falling in love with the master.

The master is a person who will not be dependent on you but who will initially allow you to be dependent on him. When the time is right, he liberates you into absolute freedom. He transfers your whole energy back to you and says 'goodbye'. He lets you to experience the ultimate for yourself.

The unconscious zone in the mind is like the software that can be cleansed by meditation. The hardware, the brain itself, will be tuned to hold this new software by the darshan* or grace of the master.

When you clean the conscious and unconscious with meditation and create a change in yourself, the hardware may not be able to hold and sustain that effect from day one. If the master's darshan* or blessing happens, the hardware also changes to hold that effect. If you don't get that blessing, constant meditation and teaching will eventually help change the hardware.

If the hardware is old, once the new software is installed, the hardware will also get updated gradually. However, if you want a change immediately in the hardware, darshan* is the right thing.

Darshan - Literally 'sight', referring to the vision of the divine, a deity or master.

Straightaway it will change the hardware. Sometimes, without even installing the new software the hardware can be changed and the person will straightaway start radiating the new software's quality. That can happen when a disciple is completely open to the master. Sometimes a disciple falls in love with the master for no reason. He may not be attracted to the teachings or be familiar with them, he may not be attracted to the meditation techniques or be familiar with them, but he just falls in love. If he is in love with the master for no reason at all, the master can straightaway change the hardware along with the software. These disciples will be simply radiating the quality of the teachings and meditation without even learning any of them.

As on now, both the hardware and software are directed to the outer world, the material world. The conscious portion of the software starts turning to the inner world through listening to teachings, and the unconscious portion of the software starts turning through meditation. But even if software turns inwards, the hardware will not be able to handle it. Then naturally the hardware will try its best to maintain its original nature. If the software is too strong and stays in the same tune, then the hardware will change. But immediately, if after the teaching and meditation is given, the darshan and blessing is also given, the hardware will also change and it will start holding the change. It will be prepared to hold on to the same experience.

There is an interesting research done by the Institute of HeartMath, USA:

In this experiment, the characteristics of light-photons were studied in a light scattering chamber. The graph looked like a typical plot representing random motion of the photons.

Next, a DNA* sample was placed in the scattering chamber. The graph now changed showing an interaction between the DNA* and the photons of light.

Then the DNA* was removed from the chamber. When the DNA is removed, you would anticipate that the graph would be the same as before the DNA was placed in the chamber. Surprisingly, the graph after the removal of the DNA looked clearly different from the one obtained before the DNA was placed in the chamber.

In spite of the removal of the DNA, it influenced the behavior of the lightphotons. Not only immediately after

DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid, the building block of all living beings containing the genetic code.

removal but for several more days, the lingering effect of the DNA on the lightphotons persisted.

One interesting observation is that this effect is not seen with the DNA of lower forms of consciousness. So, one can conclude that the consciousness of a particular object or a particular person is always radiating and it contributes its own effect. We can also note that in nature, the higher forms of consciousness, by their very presence, will influence the other forms of lower consciousness. (The complete paper is available at twm.co.nz/DNAPhantom.htm).

You can then imagine how a superconscious energy, that of an enlightened being can influence the consciousness of everything and everyone around them.

Energy to hold the transformation

Staying in the presence of an enlightened being will straightaway change the hardware for it to hold on to the transformation and the software and the entire process.

Understand, even your physiology changes with enlightenment. When a master touches, that software of enlightened physiology is also downloaded into you changing your physiology.

When you are completely open during the touch, the software of enlightened physiology is downloaded into you. Your body learns that it can be better than what it is now! Your bio-memory learns the lesson that the possibility for better existence is there.

With the master's love comes love for the fellow disciples. It is no longer 'I', but 'we'. A bond develops with fellow disciples, that is stronger than even biological family bonds. There are no conditions here except for the need of radial love for the master. The peripheral love automatically flourishes. 'Vasudeva Kutumbaha', Krishna's vision that the whole world is our family, becomes true.

You grow collectively in energy, yet the relationship with the master is unique to each individual. The affair may start with the intellect or the heart. Very soon it ascends to an affair of the being. When a being merges with another, the disciple's with the master's, it is liberation, everlasting bliss.

Living enlightenment is living with the master…it is that easy!

Does the master choose the disciple or does the disciple choose the master?

First thing, it is actually the disciple who chooses the master. Because master never chooses. The master just showers. He is like the sacred river Ganga. He just flows. If you want, you will enter the river, immerse yourself, drink or play - whatever you want you do. But Ganga itself just flows. It does not choose. So it is with the master. The master is a choiceless energy, choiceless bliss.

So I can say that the relationship is established by the disciple. The disciple has got the ultimate freedom, the last freedom in establishing the master-disciple relationship. After establishing, whatever freedom he has will be lost because he will become enlightened! The last activity that you can do, the last choice which you can make in your life is choosing your master, that's all. The moment you choose the master, you disappear as you. Then you are no more an individual. You become master.

master? Is the disciple justified in demanding some proof or does the master expect unconditional surrender?

First thing, neither can the disciple have unconditional surrender nor can he stop asking for proof. Disciple means he will be demanding solid proof from the master to prove he is authentic. Second thing, he will not have all the qualifications to be a real disciple. That is a disciple.

He will not be a perfect disciple but he will ask the qualities from a master to be the perfect master. That is the quality of the disciple. Don't worry about it.

The quality of the master is that he will not ask for unconditional surrender and constantly he will be giving you the proof that he is the real master. That is the master's qualification.

One thing, even if you are asking for proof or not ready to have unconditional surrender, it is ok. There is no need to give unconditional surrender. You can't give it also. Go on demanding for the proof, don't bother. You will have it.

As you receive the proof, unconditional surrender will simply happen in you.

How does trust develop between a disciple and a

Can anybody become the master or is he the chosen one?

Nobody needs to choose you. You need to choose you, that's all. Understand, fortunately masters are not chosen the democratic way! Nobody needs to vote for them! All you need to do is, vote for yourself, that's all. You need to choose yourself, nobody else needs to choose you.

Just decide consciously, from today I am going to live reality, the truth of my being. That is all the decision you need to make. You have become the master, that's all.

I always tell people that when I say I became enlightened on a particular day, do not think something had happened in my system. Of course, something had happened, but that is not the important thing that I want to convey.

First thing what happened is that very consciously I decided, let me live my enlightenment. When I decided this, as a side effect, something started happening in my body and mind. People always think that first the experience should happen and then you decide. No! First the decision has to happen and only then the experience happens.

Swamiji**, I would like to know the purpose of our life, the world, the universe and our god.**

If you know the purpose of your life, you will be able to understand the other three automatically.

The purpose of your life is the purpose of the universe. The purpose of the universe is the purpose of god. It means the purpose of your life is the purpose of god.

Be very clear, find out the purpose of your life and you will be able to find out the purpose of god. But unfortunately, I cannot tell you the purpose of your life.

One more important thing, based on what you think as the purpose of your life, you will attract that kind of a universe around you. You will create that kind of a world around you. You will be devoted to that kind of god. Understand, the purpose of your life decides the purpose of your world, the purpose of your universe, and the purpose of your god.

If your purpose is just money, you will create that kind of a corporate world around you, you will create that kind of a corporate universe, you will understand the whole universe as a business company.

So the purpose of your life is going to decide the purpose of your world, the purpose of your universe and the purpose of your god.

If you are enlightenment-based, if you feel that the purpose of your life is not money but enlightenment, suddenly you will see, you attract that kind of a society around you, that kind of a universe around you or that kind of god whom you believe will give enlightenment.

If you feel that you want money as well as enlightenment, then your universe will be that way. You will create that kind of a world around you. So I can say, the purpose of your life is the main core or thread. Unfortunately,… I am sorry, fortunately, I cannot teach you that! Only you have to find out.

Is the statement, 'When the student is ready, master appears' right?

Yes, the statement is right. When the student is ready, master appears. Sometimes, even when the student is not ready, out of compassion, master appears. He gives the possibility. Even people who are not ready can take the quantum jump. So I extend my hand for the possibility.

But these fellows sometimes bite the hand! What to do? Even then, I tell them, 'Bite. This is your nature. But I will extend my hand and help. That is my nature. Just because you bite, do you think that I will not give my hand? I will extend one more hand. Till that heals, alright, hold this other hand!' That is all.

Understand, sometimes there is a possibility for the disciple to take a quantum jump. So even when the disciple is not ready, the master gives the hand.

Swami Vivekananda tested his master Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Can I test you?

Once, when I was invited to address a college gathering, a student asked me, 'Have you seen god?' I asked him, 'Have you read Vivekananda's books?' He said, 'Yes. I have read Vivekananda's books. Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna this question. In the same way I am asking you, have you seen god?'

I just told him, 'See, when Ramakrishna said, 'Yes, I have seen god' as a reply to Vivekananda's question, Vivekananda left everything and walked behind Ramakrishna. Now, I am telling you, 'Not only have I seen, I will show you too. Come!' That fellow just disappeared in the crowd!

So understand, before checking out a master like Vivekananda did, first check

Part 16: Living Enlightenment (Gospel of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM)

yourself whether you are Vivekananda or not. Then you can check me out.

One more thing is the trust happens at a much deeper level, not just by checking out critically. The path of doubts is also ok. There is nothing wrong. But let the doubting be open like the scientist's doubt. It should not be like an atheist's doubt. The atheist has already decided there is no god. So his checking out can't be called as doubt. A scientist is a person who has not yet concluded anything. He is still doing experiments with an open mind. Have the doubt of a scientist, not of an atheist.

How do I become your disciple?

Actually, if you are unclutched, you can get into my circle. Being unclutched directly connects you to me. A tremendous energy starts flowing through you. What do I mean by unclutched? Being relaxed without clinging on to any person or thought or thing.

I always tell people that the person who feels only his pain and comes to me for healing is a devotee. The person who has complaints only about his own problems is a devotee.

The person who feels my pain and takes the responsibility which I have taken as this whole mission, is a disciple!

The person who after taking my responsibility realizes, 'How can an enlightened being have pain? Whatever I thought as a pain before taking this responsibility is not a pain, it is nithyananda – eternal bliss,' then you become an insider!

So now you know how to become a disciple. Feel my responsibility, which is the responsibility of Existence. Then you will become a disciple.

How does a seeker know he has reached his master, or can he have many masters?

When you reach the master, this question, 'Is he my master or not?' will disappear. Be very clear. People ask me, 'Should we accept you as our master?' I tell them, 'Never do that mistake. No. I never promote myself. I can never tell you to accept me as your master.'

If I am your master, there will be something beyond your intellect - you will not be able to forget me. Now I challenge, if you can forget me, forget. Then I am not your master. Relax and continue your seeking. You will get the right master. Don't worry.

If you can't forget me, only then I am your master.

I always tell people, never accept me as a master. If I am your master, I will be there in your mind the whole day and whole night. I will be there even in your dreams. If thoughts of me fill you day and night, then I am your master.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, should I remember you? Should I meditate on you?' I tell them, 'No. Forgetting me will be the problem. Remembering me will not be the problem. Only then I am your master. If you can forget me, forget and continue your journey. That is good for you.'

If you are not able to forget me then I am your master. Even if you have one doubt in one corner, that is a solid proof I am not your master. Relax. Don't struggle. Don't suffer. Don't torture yourself. Just say a beautiful goodbye and continue. My love, respects and best wishes for you to reach the right master, the master who is for you. Start searching, you will see the right master. I myself have sent many disciples to many masters. I have guided many people that way. This is not like a shop. It is not as though if you come to my shop, you can't go to another shop. It is not a business.

I always tell people that even if you are my disciple, do not stop learning from all other masters. Pluck flowers from all gardens and make a beautiful bouquet for yourself. After all, life is to be enriched.

First thing is this very question of whether you are my disciple or not will not arise in you if I am your master. If you have this doubt, be very clear I am not your master. Continue your seeking.

Second thing is even if the doubt has completely disappeared and you think I am your master and you feel completely connected, even then do not stop learning from all the other sources, all the other masters. Learn from all possible sources.

After spending two-three years with you, why do people leave? How can they leave? Why don't you keep them?

That is the greatness of a living master. He never hypnotizes you. He never brainwashes you. He gives you all the possibilities. You can leave even after ten years. The doors are open.

An ordinary teacher will try to build things, teach things, create systems and setups from which you can't leave. But with the master, he gives you only the possibilities. All possibilities are open – to be in or to be out. Always, all possibilities are open, because this whole relationship is built on love, freedom, openness and compassion. When you are in love, you see this truth.

Only when you come inside, when you want to be guided by me, I interfere. Otherwise, I keep my distance.

See, when people come to me for guidance, they want to escape from their own dilemma. They know that a powerful security is present here, that a high intelligence is guiding here. But sometimes, their unconscious doesn't want to be guided. Even if I make them wait, they feel that they are not guided, or if I guide them, again they feel, that their freedom is lost. So when these kinds of things happen, I tell them, 'Wait. Slowly, slowly, whatever needs to evolve will evolve.'

Such people, when they leave also I tell them that they have full freedom to come back or leave forever, but never to abuse the guidance that they received when they asked for guidance. They should not judge the incidents that happened when they were in deep love with the mind that is there when that love is no longer present. They cannot judge the same incidents and the same truths without that same love they had at that time.