When you become a seeker, it means you have begun your search for the ultimate: you have begun your search to find yourself. It is at this time that all your desires which pull you to the outside world leave you. The only desire that remains is the desire for deep fulfillment. Once this happens, there will be no need to depend on anyone or anything because in order to experience deep fulfillment, you are the only one that needs to be present. Fulfillment can happen only because of yourself, never because of others. It is the most personal and individual quest possible: the quest to find vourself.

he moment the disciple allows the Master to work on him, the disciple has started his inner journey. The Master-disciple relationship has no outer world goal. In the beginning - only in the beginning - there will be attention-need from the Master on the disciple's side. After some time, the disciple gains maturity. He understands the Master's formless presence. He starts to feel the Master in everything that he does. This is what I mean when I say there will be no outer goal, only the inner goal. When this happens, the disciple will radiate the Master's grace, the Master's bliss. Then nothing which happens to him in the outer world will have an emotional effect on him like before. Nothing will disturb him; nothing will have any solid effect on him. He will remain totally centered.

You should move around in the world with complete awareness. You should be able to live in society, in the external world, completely aware of what is happening, with no clinging to anything. You should be able to experience all the pleasures of life, but with no emotional pull or attachment to them. This is the ideal way to be; the ideal way to live!

When we view life as a big drama and ourselves as actors playing different roles, this consciousness will start happening automatically in us. When we start witnessing what is happening to us and around us, no matter what happens, slowly all resistance or indulgence will start to dissolve.

Witnessing begins to happen when you move towards meditation. Meditating without any expectation of what might happen next leads you to witness whatever comes your way. When I say whatever, I mean whatever. Whether it is life or death, whatever comes, you will witness!

So forget all about the results that meditation is supposed to bring; just proceed in it. You will enjoy the clarity that it brings you.

• Simply let go! -

There was once a poor shoemaker who lived a simple life. Whether his day's work brought him money or not, he would eat the same plain rice and the same type of gravy everyday.

One day, a thief who was being chased by the police made his way to the shoemaker's tiny house. He came in and declared, 'I am being chased by the police.' The shoemaker, without even looking up from his table, nodded his head.

In the meantime, the door threw open and the police entered the shoemaker's house.

'What are you doing?' they shouted. 'He is one of the most dangerous thieves this town has ever seen. If you are going to give shelter to him, how can we trust you anymore? You have put yourself in great trouble."

The shoemaker, again without looking up from his table nodded his head.

The thief looked at the policemen and said, 'All the money, all the loot is here, in this very house!"

On hearing this, the police began searching the house and in the chaos, the thief escaped.

Luckily, for the police there were three men guarding the house outside who caught the thief right there. They checked his pockets and his small sack and discovered all the stolen money in it.

The police apologized to the shoemaker, 'We are very sorry for the

disturbance which we have caused you. You are a great and humble man worthy of trust', they said.

The shoemaker who had witnessed everything that had been going on in his own house, even now did not look up from his work but simply nodded his head.

This is an example of complete awareness. The shoemaker was aware of everything that happened but he was completely undisturbed. And this undisturbed-ness only comes when you are a witness to yourself and whatever happens around you.

Swamiji to a new comer:

You say that you are afraid to come near me because you might have to take the leap into the unknown; you are afraid because you are unsure of what might happen. Understand first: only because you don't know what might happen, it is called the unknown! You will never know what lies there and that is the beauty of it. You are not meant to think about the unknown because the very word unknown says that it can never be known! Initially, it is natural to be afraid because the ego thrives on a secure feeling. When something becomes unknown, the ego feels threatened; it doesn't know what to do!

With this fear and insecurity, a hundred and one questions will arise: am I doing the right thing? Can I trust him? How do I know he is my Master? What if things don't work out with him? And what not...!

You must have a clear understanding about where these questions arise from. They arise only out of the insecurity that comes with the fear of the unknown. When this understanding doesn't happen, you go behind these questions and you fall prey to the ego. And this is how you miss the Master or delay the process of your own enlightenment. To take the leap into the unknown is the greatest thing that you can do for yourself once you have found the Master. To be around the Master is the greatest gift possible; it is the greatest blessing; but you are afraid. You say that you want to experience silence; that you want to experience peace. Being in the Master's presence is the greatest silence that you can experience. And nothing has to be done on your part. The Master does everything! You just need to be open and allow the Master to shower the experience on you and drown you in eternal ecstasy.

To be a disciple needs only one thing: openness. Openness is allowing what has to happen to happen. What you are doing now is stopping yourself from opening up. What you need to do is stop the stopping. There should be no holding back on your part. If you have the courage, simply jump and don't look back.

But Swamiji, I think I have finally figured out my problem. I feel that if I fully jump, my freedom will be lost. I feel that if I completely let go as You said, I won't have any freedom at all.

You have missed the point I am trying to make! The moment you have jumped, you have let go of all your self-restraint which is binding you all the time. Then there will be no boundaries to bind you. And that is the ultimate freedom! I am defining freedom for you here! Do you understand? Your question is on freedom but I am defining the very freedom for you first! Freedom is breaking free from all the self-restraint and taking the leap into the Master's arms. What you think as freedom and afraid of losing is actually your conditioning that is binding you!

Your everyday responsibilities and the emotional attachment to them are the things that are binding you. Once you jump, the Master takes over everything. Then it is enough if you have deep trust in whatever the Master says; things will happen on their own. Even if he tells you to jump off Mount Everest, you will simply do it, because He has told you! But don't worry, I will not tell you to jump off mountains; relax!

Being a disciple means to live innocently in the space of the Master. It means to trust him in anything, no matter what he says. All your logic, all your nonsensical mental setups will then simply leave you. The Master's words will become your inner chatter; the Master's grace will become your body language. This is the meaning of living with the Master.

One more thing: living with the Master does not mean you should completely drop out of society. First of all, understand: you don't need to drop out of society, you only need to drop out of its grip over you. You only need to drop out of its clutches and be free. You can never physically run away from society. Be very clear: you cannot suppress society and hope to overcome it. That is not the way. As time goes by, as you de-condition yourself, as all the binding thoughts leave you, society will leave you on its own! So I tell you: do not drop out of society; just drop out of your past, just drop out of the emotional attachment to your past. Society carries your past for you; it carries your sense of time and space related to the past. So when you stop bothering about the past, society will automatically drop you.

Why do you think I give spiritual names to all of you? It is an indication of a new life. You see: you are identified with your original name only because people call you by it. Your name carries your identity and your identity stores your past. So when your name is changed, just imagine what will happen! First thing: the Master has given you a name and that too with his name in it (as in Nithya or Ananda). Second thing: everyone around you starts calling you by that name! When this happens, the past that was attached to the previous name simply starts to leave you. A new beginning happens. Of course, you will accumulate new memories, but now the Master is there; so first of all, you will not accumulate negative emotional baggage; second, he will see that whatever memories happen in you do not bother you in any undesirable way.

Becoming a disciple means leaving yourself in the Master's hands and trusting him to the depths of your being. It means simply jumping without thinking twice about anything. It is like you are in a dark forest and the Master is the only one who knows the way through it. He may not have a torch to make you feel secure and make you place your faith on him; but he has held out his hand which is more than enough. Whether you allow him to

guide you or not is up to you. If you allow him to guide you, he will lead you through it. If you resist, he will wait until you relax.

The attitude of the disciple is feminine. Whether you are male or female does not matter. There are many women who are logical and insensitive. And in the same way, there are many men who are emotional and sensitive to things around them. When I say 'feminine', I mean that you should be sensitive and passive to the Master's energy and everything around you.

Be very clear: I am not telling you to live in a docile fashion. No! All I am saying is to be deeply passive and trusting towards the Master. It is the easiest way to awaken your inborn intelligence. The attitude of the disciple is that of intense openness with the awareness of everything that happens inside him and outside of him.

In the beginning, when the disciple comes in contact with the Master, his devotion is only on the periphery. But as the days go by, the devotion becomes more intense; the devotion gets installed deeper and deeper. And as this happens, intelligence blossoms.

I am reminded of one young ashramite who is a perfect example for a disciple. He operates out of sheer devotion. And because of this he is extremely intelligent and aware. His awareness is such that even outside of his department, he connects and gives suggestions instantly. The other ashramites don't particularly approve of this, because their work multiplies with his suggestions! But this boy doesn't care. And one more thing: because of his growing intelligence, he takes on everything effortlessly and also, technology never baffles him. He seamlessly works his way through.

A young girl tells swamiji that she feels like she is not fit to be around Him

What are you saying ma? Everyone and I mean everyone, is fit to be around the Master! He is nothing but a tour guide for the space where you belong. How can he only be for a few? No! The Master is there to clear your doubts and put you into your inner space of pure bliss. How could you not be fit for me then? The very fact that you are having this doubt shows that you are more than fit. Only fit people will analyze these things! The rest take the Master for granted.

But I want to tell you one thing: the Master-disciple relationship should never be analyzed; it should only be experienced. By analyzing, you miss the juice; you miss the exhilarating feeling that can happen within the space of your being, just by being with the Master.

Simply being around the Master relaxes you; it melts you into the same space he is in. It is as if you are a solid block of ice and the Master is the warm sun. What happens when ice is exposed to sun? It melts and becomes one with the sun's space. The same thing happens when you sit before the Master. He simply melts you and you fall into the same space that he is in.

Just talk to some of the people who are continuously around me. They will tell you about times when they sit around me and simply relax into a different space. They feel as if they are melting into unknown-ness.

This kind of feeling happens only when the disciple is fully relaxed and receptive, with a deep trust towards the Master. Then whatever is there will be experienced. Actually, whenever you experience anything of this kind, be clear: you are not experiencing anything new. You are only experiencing what is already there. When you are receptive, you allow the Master to show you what is already there in you. It has always been there, but you have somehow missed it.

I understand, but whatever it is that You were talking about, whatever it is that I can experience, can I not experience it on my own? Is it necessary that I have a Master?

You can try. I am not saying not to try. One thing: it is easier to experience with the help of the Master, that's all. He puts you on the right path and is there with you all the way. If you do it by yourself, it might take longer because you have to experiment with so many paths and so many techniques. The Master will straightaway show you the right way!

Actually, I look at all of you and see how lucky you are. I never had a living Master who lived with me and guided me! You are so lucky to have a Master to show you the way!

In my case, I didn't even have a Master to show me the way. It was like I had a thousand keys for one lock. I had to try; I had to experiment with every single key until I got to the right one. And then finally, the door opened. So yes, it is possible to do it by yourself. But why go through so much when I am here right in front of you waiting to give you the right key? The problem is, even though the key is right here, you fellows won't take it. You have been trained to complicate things before you - Simply let go! -

get what you want. It is hard for you to believe that the key is right in front of you; you feel that you have to do great penance in order to get the right key. No! I am here right in front you holding the key. Just take it!

Ramana Maharishi, a great Master of South Bharat once said, 'Enlightenment is easier than pealing a potato!'

So simply peel the potato; there is nothing more to it!

The Master-disciple relationship is beautiful, but during this time, the disciple falls so much in love with the Master's form that he becomes helplessly attached to it. This is where the problem starts.

It is okay to love the Master. And in the beginning, it is okay to become attached to the form. In fact, it is necessary in order to really love him; but you must not stagnate there. You must move beyond the form. And when I say, 'move beyond the form', I don't mean stop admiring the form. I mean, don't confine the Master to his 6-foot body. Start feeling him everywhere and in everything.

God or the Divine is omnipresent; He is everywhere. The Master's form is just a reflection of what is really there. It is a form he has chosen to make it easy for you to relate to him, that's all. Getting attached to the form is missing his reality.

There are Supreme Swans called Paramahamsa that symbolize Realized Souls or Incarnations. The Paramahamsa flies with its flock and lays its egg while flying. The egg hatches in mid air and even before touching the ground, the little one emerges from it and flies upwards!

The Paramahamsa flies high and beneath it were little fish in a pond. The fish suddenly caught the reflection of the Paramahamsa in the pond and thought it was a new fish that had come to play with them. When the Swan flew to the right, the closest fish to his reflection thought, 'He's so beautiful, so loving, and so compassionate and I am so close to him!' When the Swan flew to the left towards another fish, the first fish thought, 'He must love him more than me. He is going towards him.'

When the Swan flew towards Los Angeles, all the fish in Los Angeles thought, 'Wow, he is coming here! Let us build an ashram for him.' Some other fish decided to write books and make web sites about him. Some fish fought over the swan and some fish marveled at him.

But there were a few intelligent fish that saw the Swan's reflection and said, 'No! This cannot be real. This is not a fish.' They looked up and saw the reality of the Swan. When they saw the reality of the Swan, they realized the truth that they too were not fish but they were really Swans. They realized that they too could fly! One thing: while all this chaos was happening beneath it, the swan flew on blissfully, never hearing or seeing the fish or anything else!

So understand: what you are seeing is nothing but a reflection! It is not the real thing, yet it is the embodiment of reality. It seems to be like you, yet it is not like you. With intelligence, just look up and you will know too.

• Simply let go! -

Being with the Master is like having a love affair with the Divine.

I always tell people: The Master will be with you whether you physically see him or not. In fact he will be with you more when you start feeling his presence stronger than his form. This is because, the feeling of his presence will be so deep, the receptivity will be so strong, that he will install himself deeply in you. It is only when this happens, that you don't see him and yet feel the current and you will understand he is within you. And if he is within you, you will see that there is no difference between the form and the formless; you will understand that the Master is really the formless in form, that's all!

Being a disciple means coming close enough to the Master so that you too can fly. It means coming close enough to look up and see what really is.

Now I tell you: look up! See what is there. See what you are.

chapter 2

As of now, your candle is unlit: your flame is unlit. Coming close to the Master, becoming the disciple, lights vour inner flame. Coming close is enough. It spurs you to become alive. Once the flame happens. vou have become a disciple. Then, the flame starts burning and spreads until it merges with the flame that surrounds it; then there are no longer two entities. There is only oneness.

n love, in deep love, there is a deep connection between two people. The two of them do not have to be lovers; they could be a mother and child, a brother and sister, friends, anything. Love knows no form; it just is.

Just see the way a husband and a wife live. After they have been with each other for some time, they begin to fall in tune with each other. Then, whatever the wife is thinking, the husband will know; whatever the husband feels, the wife will understand. This is the way love works. There is a deep communion that is developed, and boundaries are lost in it. Of course, there are small hiccups and misunderstandings, but there is a bottom line to it and that is what is love.

But between the Master and disciple, the connection is even stronger. It is much deeper than the relationship between a husband and wife or a mother and child.

When a disciple sits at the feet of the Master, there is a whole new dimension revealed; there is a different mood altogether. The Master's words become the disciple's heartbeat. The Master's voice becomes the disciple's inner chatter. This is why I say that this relationship is the deepest of all relationships. It is from a different realm altogether.

The setting of Lord Shiva and His consort Devi in Tantra, portrays this ultimate communion we are talking about. Tantra is delivered by Shiva to Devi amidst divine intimacy. Devi is filled with love for Her Master, Shiva. She thinks of nothing but Him. She feels nothing but Him. Literally speaking, She radiates nothing but His grace. This is what happens when the disciple's love reaches its peak. And then what happens? Devi realizes Shiva's reality. She realizes their oneness, their wholeness. Tantrais a wonderful example of

why the attitude of the disciple should be feminine. Devi does not ask 'why'. She is so passive to His energy that She simply allows Him to fill Her.

The Master-disciple relationship is the most mysterious relationship of Existence. I say this because logic cannot prove it; it cannot be understood on an intellectual plane; you cannot prove it through any experiment; you cannot understand it by going through any book. No! It can only be experienced. It is clearly beyond the intellect.

I tell you honestly: the people who sit before me listening to me and looking to become more and more convinced, are devoted only at the periphery. The true disciple is so deep that he doesn't bother about what I say; he only bothers about what I am. A true disciple falls in love by just being in the presence of the Master's energy, not by the Master's words. It is alright to love my words also. That is perfectly alright, but do not become stuck there. You should also begin to feel the warmth of being in my energy; the loving energy that simply embraces you.

There are a few things that are truly unexplainable, that simply cannot be understood through words, and the presence of the Master is one of them. It simply cannot be comprehended why the Master makes your heart pour at the mere sight of him. It cannot be understood why you envy the ground beneath his two feet!

So all that you need to do is stop analyzing! Simply put the mind to rest and allow what has to happen to happen. This is exactly what being a disciple means. It means being open to the Master and allowing his energy to fill every cell of your body.

There was once an old Zen Master whose health was failing. Everyday, he became weaker and weaker. It came to the point where he was unable to come out of his room. The day came when he told his very close disciple that his time was coming to an end. The disciple, not able to handle the news, fell to the floor and started weeping.

Two days passed and arrangements were made for the Master's death ceremony. During the Master's last few minutes, all the monks of the monastery were informed of the news and summoned to the Master's cottage. All of them, despite being with the Master for long years, wept profusely; all except one who was sitting in the very back with his eyes closed in silence.

This monk who was sitting silently, had hardly felt the need to be near the Master all those years; now too, he simply enjoyed the Master through closed eyes.

Finally, the Master heaved his last breath. The whole monastery was devastated except for that one monk. All the senior monks felt this to be strange and assumed that he did not have any love for the Master. Word soon spread around and people began to notice the monk's strange behavior.

One day, the monk was sitting in meditation with an extraordinary smile on his face when one of the senior monks approached him. "Why are you not showing any grief about our Master's passing away? Do you understand that Master has gone and will never come back?"

The monk simply opened his eyes and said, 'What are you talking about? Where did he go? I just saw him!'

So understand: only by imbibing the Master's energy, will he really be with you. When you drop the form and turn inwards, the Master is sure to be there.

A brahmacharini (an unmarried young spiritual aspirant who undertakes certain austerities) expresses that she feels not worthy enough to be in the ashram because she is not doing any solid work.

There is no such thing as not being worthy enough to be with the Master, to live in his energy field. He is for everyone, whether they work or not. But understand: I am not telling you not to work. In fact, you should begin to feel the Master's presence in the work and continue to work with great enthusiasm. You should begin to feel me in your work. This should be a feeling that comes to you regardless of what work you are doing; whether you are cleaning the bathrooms or writing books.

I always tell people: when you are around me, serving me, you will be with me. But when you are sitting in some corner of the ashram doing some work, not bothered about being around me or about receiving attention from me, I will be with you.

Understand? When you are around me, you will be with me. But the moment vou feel me in your work, I will be with you.

This is what I mean when I say, 'Feel my absence in my presence and my presence in my absence."

Understand very clearly: whether you deserve to be here or not is not the point. Simply drop that dilemma. Actually, this idea of not being worthy enough comes straight from the root of the ego. When you think that you are not worthy enough, it is because you are feeling insecure. It means that you do not trust the fact that the Master loves you. Otherwise, why would you feel like this? If you were sure, if you were clear that your connection with me was deep, then you would not even doubt for a second, and that too based on these nonsensical ideas. You would understand that you are here to be with the Master. And you would simply lose yourself in work. Then, even the

simplest task like sweeping the kitchen floor would make you feel my presence.

And it is okay if you do not feel this way yet. First, you have come to me just now, and second, it is natural to doubt. But one thing: do not get stuck up in this doubting attitude and miss the main thread. The thread is right before you; just catch it!

You should not think in terms of deserving. You are alive and sitting before me; that is more than enough.

Ramana Maharishi was once asked by a disciple, 'What do I need to become enlightened?'

Ramana Maharishi replied, 'You are alive, aren't you? That is more than enough.'

It has been taught to us from our childhood that we will be loved only if we deserve it; only if we perform; only if we work enough; only if we are of use to people. This is true with other relationships like a boss-employee, teacherstudent etc. But in the Master-disciple relationship, this is not the case. You do not need to do anything for the Master to love you. His love is unconditional. If you simply sit in silence, in a receptive mood, that is more than enough. So to receive my love, you don't need to become worthy of it. You don't need to do something extraordinary. These are all nonsensical ideas.

All that needs to be done to receive this love is to simply relax into a receptive mood. I am not telling you not to work. You should still work intensely. It is okay if you have not yet started; at least start now. Lose yourself in work. Work so intensely that you simply forget yourself, because when you do this, your inner space is available for me to enter!

You see, there is one thing that you must understand: the Master will love you regardless of what you do. Whether you trust him or not, whether you believe him or not, he loves you. This is because the Master is nothing but love; he is the embodiment of compassion. Love simply pours from the Master's being. Whether there is someone with the Master or not, it will flow like a river. Like a river flows and touches the pebbles in its way, the Master's love flows and touches all those around him. Whether the pebbles are there or not, the river flows along. Whether you are there or not, my love will flow. So don't bother about being worthy.

A devotee says that he is full of hatred and aggression. He feels that he cannot love anymore.

You see, you cannot force love onto yourself. Love is like snow. It comes when it has to come, but everyone wants it. So, if it has not come, there is nothing that you or anyone can do. You must simply accept that you cannot love, that's all. You must accept whatever you are and whatever is. Actually, only when you accept that you don't love, love will happen - not seasonally like snow but all the time like the sun!

How can I just accept something like this? I thought that love was something that just must be there. As of now, I feel like there is something wrong with me. There are times when I feel like I don't even love you.

There is no need to love me; I am not asking you to. There is no problem if you don't love me. Whether you love me or not, things will not change; they will remain as they are! And there is no need to feel that there is something wrong with you. It is the way you are. You must simply accept it.

And you have brought this issue to me thinking that I will give you some solution with which you can fight yourself. No! There is no need for all of this. You want me to put pressure on you for something that does not exist, so that you can go on blaming yourself for it not existing.

Be clear: I will only tell you to enjoy what is already there and move on. If I were to tell you to simply drop this aggression, then what would you do? You would start to fight with yourself and doing this would only cause more aggression within you. This is the nature of the mind. It just cannot live in

peace; it must always find some conflict. It simply cannot remain without conflict!

So basically, you brought this to me only to create more misery in yourself. I will not make it happen this way. I will only tell you to accept what you are and only then you will overcome it. So, if you don't love, accept it. Nothing more can be done. Slowly, you will see that you start loving naturally!

Understand: you are what you are. No one can change it. And love is such a powerful emotion - you cannot simply force it onto yourself. It should just happen. And the only way that it can happen is by becoming aware that you don't have it. When you become aware that you don't have it, you have already taken the first step towards having it!

Now you will be thinking, 'What is he saying?'

It is like this: when you are angry, but you are not fully aware of your anger, you remain angry. The moment you realize you are angry, the anger starts disappearing! When awareness happens, the solution also starts happening.

It is the same way with love and hate. Only when you become aware of your hate does the reason reveal itself to you; then comes the solution. And the solution is love!

One more thing: it will not be possible for you to remain open and receptive all the time. Sometimes, you will be closed to everything that I tell you, and other times you will be open and vulnerable.

Sometimes you will feel very close to me. You will feel as if you can open everything to me. And then the very next day you will have no trust and you will try to move far away from me. And this will confuse you. You will not understand what you are feeling. It is only when you understand that all this is simply the nonsense of the mind, will you be able to play along with your mind and finally go beyond it.

A disciple approaches the Swamiji and says that he feels unloved. 'Sometimes You speak to me, and other times You don't, he says. 'I don't understand what You are trying to do; are You working on me ?'

As of now, you may love me, but your love is clouded by attention-need from me and jealousy towards others who are around me. All sorts of emotions come with love; especially this kind of love. The love that the disciple harbors for the Master is the deepest. Because of this, many emotions come and go. When you become a disciple, you have taken a step towards a rollercoaster of emotions! Many emotions; many possibilities. During this time, you sometimes trust the Master and sometimes not.

When you first come to me, it is like a honeymoon. You will continuously have me in your mind, to an extent, you even forget your own personality. And then the moment the Master speaks to someone else, you will think, 'He doesn't love me 'or 'He loves him more than he loves me.' Then, you start feeling depressed. With this depression happens thoughts that prompt you to move away from me. At the same time, you also experience moments of deep understanding that create intense love for me. You travel from peaks to valleys and back to peaks!

Understand: if your love is deep, then the Master talking to someone else won't matter to you at all. You will simply love the Master for merely having allowed you to live in his presence, for giving you the opportunity to be his disciple, that's all. This is when the real Master-disciple relationship starts.

Only when your anger and your possessiveness disappear, real love will start to happen. Actually, this is the case in any relationship, not just in the Masterdisciple one. If the husband is possessive of his wife, can their relationship ever be based on trust? If the wife becomes jealous, what will the

relationship be like? It will be traumatic and also just superficial, not deep. It will be based only on the head, not on the heart or the being.

So be clear: these moods will continue to happen. It is only when all these moods drop that you begin to see what lies beyond them and you will be able to be with me without any moods between you and me. Then the relationship will become beautiful. When there are no moods, the real communion begins.

Simply surrender all your moods to the Master himself. I do not mean only the bad moods; good moods also have to be surrendered. Actually, there is no such thing as a good mood. Moods are simply projections of the mind. The moment you have given in to any mood, you have given in to your mind. Only when you drop your moods, when you have dropped your mind you will really be able to be with me. Until then, you might be with me but not really with me.

Anyhow, about your feeling that I don't love you: slowly, very slowly, you will begin to catch the point, now that I have told you this. You have come through love, and then slowly, your emotion changes, and you begin to hate. And when finally the awareness starts happening, you will drop both love and hate. Then there will be nothing between you and me. There will only be silence; a deep and vibrant silence.

Yes.

A newcomer approaches Swamiji She says that shedoesn't know if He is the right Master for her, yet shewants Him to be her Master.

You must understand one thing ma. I cannot force myself upon you. I cannot force you to think of me as your Master. It must simply happen. You see: the Master is like a river. He is continuously flowing in ecstasy. Whoever has the courage to just jump in, will experience. The river cannot jump on you. You must jump into the river. Be clear on that.

I am continuously flowing. What might happen when you jump in, even I don't know! Decide whether you want to take the risk or not. Don't bother about whether I am your Master and such things. Nobody can make you feel it. You have to be able to feel the current of the river. You have to be able to feel the pull of the Master.

The decision is yours. Whether you want to jump in, or stand by the shore and watch, is up to you. All I can do is invite you to jump in and allow the current to carry you with it.

There have been many arguments put forth about the existence of the Divine. And many of them have been considered. Man has simply found every possible argument to create doubt, especially on this subject. But there are a few people who are different. Even if you try to throw some argument at them on this subject, you simply cannot. They will not be taken for a ride. It is these people who leave such a strong impact of bliss on you, that even if you want to ignore it, you simply can't! Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, you will detect something different in them that is simply beyond your intellect. These are the intelligent ones.

Only those who trust Existence can develop a deep trust in the Master. And this is the reason why the very emotion between the Master and the disciple is different. It is such a deep communion; there is such deep trust, that when the disciple is ready, the Master's flame simply enters the disciple without any effort.

You must understand one thing: pleasure needs two people one to give and one to take. Even happiness needs two. But bliss does not have anything to do with the other person. It happens only in aloneness, when one is completely centered in one's Self.

You see: to enjoy food, you need food. To enjoy a movie, the movie must be there. To simply enjoy yourself, you have to depend on someone or something. In general, to enjoy, you need to become attached to some object. Your enjoyment is sourced from some object outside of you.

So now, you may be wondering how to attain bliss without depending on any external object. First thing: understand clearly that you alone are enough to experience bliss. Second thing: spend time with yourself and look in. There is a space within you that is the real 'you'. It is your innermost space. Once you have discovered this space, you will realize how powerful and solid it is. It is powerful because it doesn't need any support from outside. It is solid because it is the most powerful space ever! And once you have discovered this space, you will start experiencing causeless happiness which you call bliss. Bliss brings so much freedom with it because it is your very nature that you are expressing! Because it is produced from the core of your being - the pure space within you.

One more thing: it is not the disciple who finds the Master; it is the Master who finds the disciple. When the disciple's yearning becomes intense, the Master will appear. When you have found your Master, you might experience mood swings and other things. You might even be driven to the point of leaving him. But there is always a deep pull which pulls you back to him. Whether you want him or not, whether you accept him or not, you feel the pull. Be very clear: He does not do anything. It is you! It is your longing that pulls you back. There is an attraction to some unknown energy; an attraction which is beyond your logic.

The Master will never reject; he will only accept everyone. He doesn't know any differentiation of any sort. He knows only one thing: compassion. And compassion knows only one thing: love. During the public darshan at the ashram on Sundays, thousands of people stand in a queue. There will be no differentiation between workers from the villages or CEOs from the city. All of them wait in the same line and touch the same two feet. I am telling you this to make you understand the reality around a Master; to make you understand that there is no need for all these doubts.

One thing: when you are around me, you never know what to expect next. This uncertainty makes you feel insecure and uneasy. And this is my work on you! Every second is fluid and evolving when you are around me; every second brings new life when you are around me. When this happens, you choicelessly start living in the moment instead of living with your mental patterns. There will not be any time to bring in your mental patterns because I will make it so hectic for you! You simply have to live in the moment, that's all!

The problem is that the ego in you thrives on mental patterns. It survives because it continuously refers to the old mental patterns and references. So, when you are forced to live in the moment, it starts feeling powerless. There starts the problem! But that is my work on you! My work is to make you lose your solid identity with your mental patterns and therefore your identity of your very built-up personality.

I always insist that people visit and stay in our ashrams for at least a few weeks. Our ashrams are like spiritual laboratories. So much of chaos is created - chaos that is energy; chaos that

forces you to be in the moment; chaos that breaks all your social conditioning! In this chaos, you are made to work. In the beginning, the chaos will disturb you; you will feel that you can't proceed with your work at all. Slowly, you will find the thread, the order in the chaos and you will start doing work! Then, you will enjoy the chaos and the work! You will be in every moment intensely and you will begin to forget yourself, your ego.

Ask some of our ashramites about life in the ashram. You will be shocked! They sleep for hardly two hours and they feel so energetic to do work! This is because they are so much in the moment. Fatigue happens only when the mind moves away from the moment into the past and future. Energy is sapped when this happens. When you are in the moment, the very moment becomes energizing for you. When this happens, it is the work that rejuvenates you, not the sleep!

If you ask our ashramites, they will tell you how beautifully it works for them. At first, each one of them resisted this concept. They would fight helplessly with themselves. But once they caught the thread of what was happening, they simply fell into the space which I have created for them!

So don't close yourself to these ideas. Open up and be receptive. That is the whole beauty of the Master-disciple relationship. You may feel vulnerable, but at the same time, when you move with trust, you will see miracles happening in your life.

Many times, the disciple is represented as a lotus. When you start opening up to the Master, you start blooming.

So, this fear that you may have is natural. But because of this fear, be sure that you do not close yourself. You should open up. And I am not telling you to force yourself to open either. I am saying, don't resist the deep understanding that is trying to happen in you, that's all. The receptivity will happen on its own. Once it happens, do not close yourself again. If you can understand this one thing, the rest will simply start happening.

Just become a flower. Make your heart and your being available to the Master. Nothing more is needed.

Actually if you see, from the very beginning, we are taught to close ourselves up. Have you seen the way small kids whirl? They whirl for no reason. And when you see this, what do you say? 'Keep quiet! Sit down! You will hurt yourself!' What nonsense! In that joy, in that innocence, the child whirls. And just because you are dull and unable to handle it, you scold him. Actually, in a subtle way you become insecure when you see someone else enjoying. Just because you are dull and bored, you cannot bear to see someone else expressing their joy. From the beginning, we are taught not to express ourselves.

From the beginning, we are taught to operate from the head instead of the heart. Children operate from the heart; this is the reason why they are so joyful. But we teach them to use their heads; to operate through logic. And let you be very clear: you simply cannot reach the Divine through logic because the very nature of logic is cunning.

For example: when you see the sunset, only for a split second you feel its beauty. Almost immediately, your logic comes in. You begin to think of all the other sunsets which you have seen and then you hope that all the other sunsets that come will be as beautiful, and what not. The sunset is right in front of you and you fools will be thinking of all the sunsets which are yet to come!

This is what logic does to you. It simply robs your capacity to enjoy the beauty of life. It is impossible to live in the present with your logic, with your mind. That is why when people ask me how to live in the present, I simply laugh. The very question shows that you are thinking about the future, about the result!

So, be clear, as long as you operate from your head, you will simply miss the Divine; you will simply miss me! The Divine is like a gentle flowing stream. Only if you let go will its gentle currents pull you along. These currents are gentle as well as rapid but they are there to carry you with the river. The moment you let go, you will simply be swept away!

Understand: you must let go; only then will I be able to do my work. All your effort should only be to let go.

I am trying to take you beyond logic and beyond words. My words are not what I am trying to show you. They are not going to liberate you in any way. They are just there for you to hang on, because if I call you fellows and simply sit in silence, nobody will be here! Only this mike will be here! And I am sure that after sometime, the mike will also run away!

So try to understand the silence behind the words.

Part 2: Rising in love with the Master

One man was giving a sermon. The fellow was so dull and so dead in his speech, that after five minutes, everyone simply left. But still the fellow went on talking. By the time he finished, there was only one man remaining in the hall. When he said his closing line, the man endlessly applauded.

'I am glad you enjoyed my talk', he said to him. The man looked at him and said, 'No, no, that mike is mine!'

So if I simply sit without saying anything, this is only going to happen! It is better to avoid such things!

Anyhow, my words are there to make you stay, to put you into the silence. But actually, even if I stop talking right now, physically you may be silent, but inside, the same nonsense will be going on! So at least when you hear my words, there will be some inner transformation happening and your inner chatter will minimize.

Understand: I can penetrate you through silence. The same will also happen through words, but it will take some time. But when your being is open I will be able to penetrate you through silence.

When I talk, just feel the silence in the words. Do not listen to the words inside you; hear the sounds outside. Do not hear the words outside, but feel the vibrations. The more silent you are, the more you will be penetrated.

And I do not mean this only now when you are sitting before me; I mean this all the time. Simply become a child who whirls with no intention, just out of innocence. Only when you can do this, you have started surrendering to me.

First understand the nature of logic. Logic always wants everything to be in order; the whole of life should be in order. But the entire universe is not the order that logic understands. The universe is a wonderful chaos! But there is a certain order in it that is its own! But, you are trying to put your order in the chaos. This cannot be done. Another thing: logic wants everything to be fast, to move quickly. And this is the reason why the mind can never meditate. Meditation cannot move quickly; it is a very slow, but very powerful process. Coffee can be instant but meditation cannot! There may be instant coffee but there will never be instant meditation! Calculations of the mind can never be applicable to the natural ways of the universe.

When you become a disciple, the time has come to move away from the mind; to move away from the calculations of the mind - into the love affair of the heart. Only when you move into the space of the heart will you begin to function in totality. Until then, you function either in perfection or in striving for perfection. Once you understand the totality of life, you will no longer take part in the rat race. And to tell you honestly, the thing about the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat!

When you love deeply, deep trust happens as well. And when you trust, a deep waiting will happen in you; a waiting to merge with your source, a waiting to find the source from where you came, a waiting to completely understand the mysteries of the universe. A person

• WAKE UP! -

who is able to wait forever may even get it now! But a person who wants it now may have to wait forever! Actually, your inability to wait, your impatience, is the real hindrance. It is only deep waiting that will bring you the ultimate.

A senior brahmachari (an unmarried younq spiritual aspirant who undertakes certain austerities) tells swamiji that he tried to run away from the ashram earlier, but there was always something pulling him back.

When you start falling in love with the Master, the trouble starts! Love makes you vulnerable. When love happens, your conditioning that has been covering you all the while suddenly starts dropping. When this happens, fear starts rising in you. The fear rises because with the disappearing conditioning, the ego suddenly starts losing its grip over you. Your so called societal personality, and everything else that you have known to be you starts to change. So naturally, you feel fear. And so you try to move away.

But even if you try to move away, you will find it impossible, because the pull towards the Master is so intense, the energy binding you is so intense that even if you try to move away, you will find an inexplicable pull to come back. It is because, this pull is neither from your mind nor from your heart. It is from your being! When the being emotes, your intellect becomes powerless! That is the beauty.

One more thing: I am not here to teach you anything. I am here to give you understanding. There is a big difference between a teacher and a Master. A teacher will give you knowledge and information. A Master will do the same thing, but at a deeper level. He will give you all that all your teachers give you and something more! He will simply transform you. To listen to a teacher does not require much; you can simply hear, reproduce, and move on. But with the Master, surrender is needed! The Master will not simply say something and let you go. He will start doing things on you. His is not a class; it is a surgery -

of your ego! Of your deep ignorance, of your societal conditioning. There will be many ups and downs when you are with the Master, but you simply have to go through it because his work is at the being level. The deeper your conditioning, the more is his work. He will churn you to extricate all the deep illusions of the mind and finally show you your own reality, which is nothing but the reality of the universe!

You should understand one thing very clearly: the Master is here only to transform you. But during transformation, many things happen; there may be pain, there may be happiness, and there may be fear and insecurity. Just the deep trust in the Master is enough to overcome all of these.

A devotee says that she sometimes finds herself to be avoiding swamiji.

Understand: the people who avoid me are the people who will be transformed by me the most! They will try to escape; they will try to create all possible nonsensical excuses to be away. They try to create all this because they have already started sensing that I am taking them to the unknown, to the ultimate truth that they actually seek but are afraid of because it is not familiar to them.

You can try to escape, but I will find you! Actually if you see, the more you try to avoid me, the more you will feel pulled. The more you try to escape, the more you will end up coming back to me. This is why I said that those who escape will be the ones who will be transformed. When I say I will be with you, I mean it! Wherever you go, my presence will surround you!

See, it is easy to escape from me physically, but it is not easy to escape from the pull towards me. The pull comes from within you. Wherever you go, it will be in you. And with passing time, you will become intensely aware of it. Because you go on escaping from the pull, your mind will become more focused on the pull!

Be clear: if you try to avoid something, you are bound to fall back into it. If you try to avoid me and do not want to be around me, understand, you will only be around me! Nothing can be done! Of course, it is for your own good.

• WAKE UP! -

Man as of now, is like gold which is yet to be purified by fire. The Master is the fire. He will purify you and once he does, he puts you directly into the ultimate experience. To experience the ultimate, you need to be purified. Your feeling of a deep void, of incompleteness, of an unfathomable gap between you and 'you' is nothing but the need to be purified, the deep yearning to be free from all the conditioning, and realize the great truth. Unless you become one with the truth, you will not feel centered in yourself. And this is what causes the mysterious restlessness in your being whatever you may achieve in the outer world.

It is like gold that has been buried in mud. Because it has been buried in mud, it forgets that it is gold! It thinks that it is mud. Gold can never be mud. It can only be under the delusion that it is mud.

This is exactly what happens within you as well. You have been covered by social conditioning for so long that you forget yourself; you forget your real nature. But be clear, no matter how long you are covered, your essence will always be intact; it will not go away. In the same way that gold remains gold in the mud, your essence, your being, still remains the same.

All of you have your own opinions and knowledge which you have acquired from society. But to set foot on the path to find yourself, you must first drop all these things because they are the things that bind your mind. Actually, to tell you honestly, to put you onto the path, I cannot give you

anything, because all that you need is already in you! The gold just has to be dug out that's all. Nothing can be added to the gold itself. It just needs to be dug out. Meditation is your shovel to dig yourself out. Just go deep and dig, and you will find what you are looking for.

So understand: the Master's work is not to give you something. Instead, it is simply to rob you of everything that you have. When a disciple comes to the Master, he thinks that he will get something from the Master. Be very clear: I will take everything that you think you have and leave you to find yourself! This is the ultimate thing that the Master gives you. All that you need is already there; it has only been hidden by all sorts of societal ideas which you have accumulated.

The problem is, over time, you start to feel comfortable with the societal ideas. When the Master starts taking it away from you, it initially hurts. You want to escape from him! But you simply cannot because the being has recognized that he is a Master! There starts the so-called struggle! You start to realize that while you have a certain idea, he has quite another; then you start getting irritated.

You have all sorts of expectations about how an enlightened Master is going to be; how he should fulfill all your dreams. But when you come to me, it is a different experience. Instead of fulfilling your so-called dreams, you find that I only frustrate them! I only frustrate your expectations. I will frustrate your mind until you are finally thrown out of it!

A newcomer says that he wants swamiji to awaken him. 'I feel like I am in a deep sleep', he says. 'Please awaken me!'

Actually, we are living in a kind of sleep, and we need to be awakened. And this is the Master's work; to hit the disciple so hard on the head that he simply has to wake up! All these meditations that I give you are nothing but my different sticks that slam you on your head to awaken you!

Initially, a little effort is needed to start waking up. Once you start waking up, you have had a glimpse! Then you slowly start remembering how everything might have been before you went to sleep. If you completely wake up even for a moment, then suddenly, all will be remembered!

A disciple can only be with the Master if his love is deep. Because the Master will go on chiseling, and it hurts, unless your love is deep, unless your trust is total, you will not be able to handle it. When the love for the Master is so deep, you will choose love over life itself! The Master's work is a surgery. You have to trust the surgeon and relax your mind before he starts his work. When you allow him, he will make you reborn with your own reality.

The surgeon is always ready. The operation room is always open. All that you need to do is enter!

The only thing holding you back from the Ultimate, is your ego. Simply surrender yourself. That's all! By surrender I don't mean imitate me or try to be like me. I mean simply surrender all your ideologies and all your conditionings to me. Then, your individuality will be revealed to you.

A visitor asks, I have heard You speak a lot about surrender. Could You please tell me exactly what You mean by surrender?

eing a disciple is surrender, nothing more. It means that you no longer resist; you simply let go. Unnecessary time is wasted when you resist. It is as if you have gone into a hospital and you yourself are resisting the doctor. And he is the one who is treating you! He is the one who will give you relief!

This is a surgery. You must have full trust in the Master. Only then can anything be done. But he will never start the operation unless you are ready. When he sees that you are ready with trust, he starts. And it is a beautiful surgery. There may be pain, because your ego is leaving you. And your ego is what you have known yourself to be. But if you remain trusting the Master, the ego will simply leave you. All the energy which you have wasted all this time in your head will now move towards its source, back to the center.

But I still don't think I understand what surrender means. How do I know if I have surrendered or not?

You must simply experience it. Only then you will know; only then you will understand.

It is like this: you have never tasted sugar before. And you come to me and ask what sugar tastes like. All I can tell you is that it is sweet. But will you understand what sweet is if you haven't tasted sugar yourself? No! You must taste and experience it for yourself.

If you are receptive with deep trust, it is more than enough. The surrender will happen on its own. This is because surrender is nothing but trust and deep love.

Actually, the Master is just a channel. Your being yearns to surrender itself to its source that is the cosmos. But it is difficult because the cosmos is abstract and the mind comes in the way. The Master is nothing but a manifestation of the cosmos. The Master is a small window through which you can see the vast sky. He is the path to the cosmos. If you first surrender to a form which you can see, over time, it will be easy to surrender to the formless.

So, to be a disciple means, to surrender. In the beginning you surrender to the Master and then to the Cosmos or Existence. It is like this: the river must flow towards the ocean. For this, it has to flow with the current; it cannot flow against it. And only when it reaches the ocean, has it merged with its source, has it really found its reality. So understand: only when you have lost yourself to the source, you have found yourself. And the Master is the current that pulls you to your own source.

You see: as of now, you believe in your ego. This is only because you have been living so much with it that you have started believing you are the ego. It is only in surrender that you come to know who you really are. Surrender means surrendering the ego; all of your falsity. Your ego is the base for all the falsity in you. When I say falsity, I mean all the thoughts in you that delude you into thinking that you are separate from this cosmos. So once the ego is surrendered, your reality starts rising. Understand, it is your ego that is the core for all falsity. It exists in your head. But your reality, your being exists within every cell of your body because your head is societal, while your body is natural.

And this is the reason why the Master-disciple relationship is the deepest. It is a being level relationship. Even lovers are not so close; and they cannot be. Lovers are attracted by each other's egos. And the very nature of the ego is domination. If they operate from their egos, what will happen? There will naturally be conflict.

Actually, if you see, the relationship between the Master and disciple is the

only one where there is no domination; where there is a voluntary surrender. It is the only relationship where one surrenders everything that he has ever known - all forms of ego. The disciple's core becomes trust; every pore vibrates with love. This is the beauty of it.

By love, I do not mean the love which we have all experienced in regular relationships. It is the kind of love where nothing is felt; neither hate nor love; neither greed nor jealousy; just a surrender. Only when you don't feel anything at all can you really love. Real love happens only after surrender.

So, as I said before, it will be difficult for you to surrender to Existence, because it has no form. If I tell you to surrender to the sky, you may find it difficult. But when you surrender to my form, it is easier. I am a device for you to surrender. And I am a pure device because the Master is nothing but a pure channel through which Existential energy flows all the time.

So my form is available for those who feel the need to sit at the Master's feet and leave their egos. Let you be clear: you may see my feet, but there is nothing inside. You may see my form, but there is nothing inside it. My form is just a hollow channel for Existence to flow. Whether you surrender to my form or to the sky, makes no real difference.

As of now, you are doing the opposite. Instead of surrendering the ego to me, you have surrendered to the ego itself! When you come to me, all sorts of things will be clouding your mind. Your ego will tell you that you are losing your freedom and this type of thing is not for you. Just show the red card to it. It is your ego that has stripped you of your freedom and which is coming and telling you that you have no freedom! It is only because you continue to be in the mind's boundary, within the ego's game, that you are stuck.

I am an excuse for you to drop the ego. It is not that you are going to surrender to me, to this 6-foot form. And what will I sit and do with so many

egos? I am simply the object to which you surrender, that's all. The point is your act of surrender, not me.

Only when you drop the ego will you realize that you have not dropped anything. It is only your ego which has dropped you. Then all the conditioning which you have accumulated disappears. You come to know yourself.

The problem is that the ego, the mind, thinks that it is very intelligent. It will go on telling you some nonsense, and because you have surrendered to it, you trust its so-called guidance. The Master will quickly help you overcome this binding to your mind.

There were two guys digging a ditch on a very hot day. The first guy said to the second, 'Why are we down in this hole digging a ditch when our boss is standing up there under the shade of a tree?'

'I don't know,' responded the other, 'I'll go and ask him.' He climbed out of the hole and went to his boss. 'Why are we digging in this hot sun and you are simply standing in the shade?' He asked.

'Intelligence,' the boss said.

"What do you mean intelligence?"

The boss said, 'Well, I'll show you. I'll put my hand on this tree and I want you to hit it with your fist as hard as you can'. The ditch digger took a mighty swing and tried to hit his hand. The boss removed his hand and the ditch digger hit the tree. The boss said, "That's intelligence!"

The ditch digger went back to his hole. His friend asked, 'So, what did he say?'

'He said that we are down here because of intelligence.'

'What's intelligence?' asked the friend.

The ditch digger put his hand on his face and said, "Take your shovel and hit my hand."

This is exactly the way in which you are living! You catch the words and miss

the truth! You always understand the truth as something else. When you misunderstand, you miss the whole thing. The Master's job is to keep on trying to make you understand the exact meaning of the truth.

You see, I am preparing the people who are living around me for many things. The experience will come, it has to come, but it will be too much for them to handle it when it comes, unless they start surrendering now to me. Their bodies will not be able to handle whatever is to come unless the surrendering starts now. And I am not saying that the experience will only come to those who are around me. No! I am only saying that when you are around a Master, the experiencing starts happening and you need to get prepared for it. And that is the only reason why I talk so much on surrender.

If a person can surrender, then whatsoever happens, he will be able to handle. Even if the whole world falls apart, he will remain centered in himself because he has surrendered everything. There is nothing, no investment in the inner world or outer world to lose. When I say outer world, I mean the attachment to the outer world things. You always fear losing outer world things only because of your attachment to them. When you don't have the attachment, you are not disturbed when you lose anything in the outer world.

A brahmacharini confesses to swamiji Ifeel like I am doing the complete opposite of what You tell me to do, she says, 'and then I feel uneasy.'

You see, it sometimes happens like this. If you feel happy doing the opposite, simply do the opposite; what else can be done? I give you some instruction for you to find bliss. The whole focus is on finding your inner bliss. If you are feeling blissful by doing the opposite of what I say, then continue!

The problem starts when you begin to feel some tension. Tension is followed by anxiety. Tension is the trigger; anxiety is the state that follows. Tension serves as an indicator for anxiety to come. So if you are feeling some tension, then be clear that you are moving in the wrong direction. As long as you are happy, you continue to do the opposite. Once tension starts, know for yourself that you are moving in the wrong direction.

I don't mean that you will only feel tension when you do not follow me. See, when I give you some instruction, I sense your energy and based on that, I give you the instruction. I see what will move you from where you are stuck and give an instruction for that. That is why for the same situation, for the same question, for the same problem, I give different instructions to different people; because the instruction is for the individual to move from where he is stuck and different people are stuck in different places. So when I give you an instruction, it is the best for you. You don't wish to follow it because your ego tells you something different. Then, a time comes when you start feeling uneasy. Then you start thinking that maybe you should have followed what I said! So it is alright; just take your time.

So, be clear, I am not here to force any ideology on you. I am here to take all the ideology you know away from you! And when you have given up everything, you will find yourself. Understand one thing: the very nature of the mind is to put you in confusion. Its very nature is dilemma. So if you simply run behind whatever it says, you will now understand what will happen!

Listen with your being. Do not bring in the mind at all. The mind is not in any way connected to the heart. The mind revolves around logic. But the heart is completely different. It revolves around love. It has nothing to do with logic, only emotion. That is why when I say listen to the heart, do only that; do not bring in your mind at all.

To tell you honestly, listening to your heart is the greatest obedience. Whenever your mind tells you to do something, simply look within yourself and see if your heart is open to the idea. When you are doing something, listen to your heart; do not bring in the mind at all. When you need to use the mind, use it only then. When you need to plan something, see if you have to use your logic, and only then listen to the mind. Use it like a tool.

And one more thing, you should learn the art of listening. Now you will be thinking, Then what am I doing here now? I am sitting and listening to you for such a long time!' No! You are simply hearing my words. Hearing is different from listening. They may have the same meaning in the dictionaries, but in actuality, they are complete opposites. Hearing is of the mind. It is totally intellectual. You will hear my words; you will follow them. But there is no juice in it; you miss the whole thing. There is no deep feeling involved here. But listening is different. If you are listening to me, you are not merely listening to the words which are uttered. You are allowing the sounds to penetrate your being. My words penetrate you like energy. When this happens, the words do not simply enter the head and stay there. They reach your very being. They reach your inner space. And I talk to your being, not to

your head. So, you simply cannot listen with your head. When a Master talks, listen with your very being. His words are sheer energy that can penetrate you at the being level and transform you in ways you cannot even imagine!

Another thing: as I told you earlier, I will tell people different things at different times. What I say to you and what I say to someone else may be completely different from one another. But what do you fellows do? You sit and discuss what I have said to each of you and confuse yourselves! I will tell you to go left and the other guy to go right, and somehow the work will get done. But what happens when you discuss it? Only confusion! So understand, it is better you don't analyze or discuss the instructions given to you.

Vivekananda was sitting on the banks of the holy river Ganga with his disciple who was pressing his feet.

A so-called Vedantist, a scholar, came and started to flaunt his knowledge to Vivekananda. He talked all sorts of philosophies and bragged to Vivekananda that he bathed in the Ganga everyday and therefore he was very spiritual and what not.

Vivekananda replied, 'There are many fish in the Ganga river that swim everyday as well. Does it mean that they are big scholars? Does it mean that they are very holy? Simply go into the world and live your life. Learn something there. Don't be stuck in these stupid philosophies'.

The Vedantist was simply shocked when he heard this. He turned and quietly went away.

After some time, a young college student passed by and was very excited to see Vivekananda. He approached him and said, 'I have heard that you are a very modern Guru. You don't believe in all of these useless rituals like taking bath in Ganga every day and reading all the ancient scriptures. I completely agree with your ideology. I am living happily in society without all these spiritual practices."

Vivekananda looked at him and said, 'What are you talking about? It is only because of this Vedantic spiritual backbone which we have, that you are able to live peacefully in society. Go back and learn more on spirituality and Vedanta. Bathe in the Ganga everyday and cleanse yourself.' The young guy was shaken and he simply went away.

• Let go of it all -

Both the Vendantist and the college guy got the lessons they needed. But the guy who was sitting and pressing Vivekananda's feet was very confused! He asked him why he was making such contradictory statements - saying one thing to one guy and the complete opposite to the other.

Vivekananda told him, 'What had to be told to each of them, I have taken care of. For you, don't bother, simply press the feet!'

To surrender is to become blind with love. You will not know in which direction the Master is taking you, yet you will trust that he will lead you down the path. This is because the Master is the path for you, nothing more. You don't have agenda for yourself. The Master becomes your agenda. When this happens, he will ensure that you do not move off the path and stray.

With me, I never make rules. I give only guidelines. I can tell you that something would be good for you so that you can explode in 360 degrees. The decision is yours. In the end only you must decide.

Surrendering is your choice. I am not going to sit here and force you to surrender. But I can say that something will be good for you. I can say that you will experience a tremendous freedom when you let go the weight of your mind's emotions.

But in the end, it is your own choice. You can help yourself grow, or you can simply listen to your inner chatter and go back to the same life that you were living. It is you who has come to me, and it is your own decision that makes you stay here.

A real disciple chooses to follow the Master's words because he loves to do it! Because he doesn't know any other way! He doesn't care to know if there is any other way! He loves the idea of following the Master blindly, with no idea of what might happen to him. This is the way in which you guys are living around me now. You keep yourself going only because of your devotion and trust that you are with the Master.

You have been obeying your parents, your friends, your relatives and your teachers, all your life. Your parents would say something and you would obey. Your teachers would say something and you would follow them. But here, I am not saying something for you to obey. I am saying it to make you understand, and with this understanding you simply find that you are transformed!

So, it is only because of your surrender, that you are with me. It is only because of your love, that you enjoy the transformation. When a person surrenders, he does not do the work simply as work. He does it because he feels the Master's transforming fingers in the work. He enjoys the Master through the work. This work is valuable only because of the love that is put into it.

And not everyone gets an opportunity to do my work. Those who have surrendered and simply do without any reason are the chosen ones who will carry my mission.

People sometimes approach me and say they think they have surrendered but that they are not sure. Surrender is the ultimate certainty. It is the clearest clarity. You have really surrendered when you don't even have the idea of surrender left in you because if you have surrendered everything, then even this very idea has left you. So only when you feel nothing but love and openness while sitting in front of the Master, have you surrendered. And be clear: if the thought comes, 'I feel a lot of love towards the Master right now; I think I have surrendered,' be sure that you have not surrendered at all! If this is the case, then it is only your mind that is playing with you. Your mind is just telling itself that it has surrendered! But surrender happens only when the mind itself is surrendered!

Your surrender must be total. You cannot simply think you have surrendered. If there is a doubt, you have still not surrendered. It is yet to come. But if you have a deep seeking inside, it will happen.

Also, with a Master, things happen quite in contrast to what you might expect. Just see how things happen in the ashram! You may be doing something thinking that I will not enter that place for the next few hours. But what happens? Suddenly I will enter and you will get the shock of your life!

So with the Master, expect only what can never be expected! This is the ultimate lifestyle, the most spontaneous way to live. This is what living in divinity is all about.

And there is no technique which you can practice to simply make surrender happen. It will happen when the time is right. You cannot create it. You can only stop the stopping that is preventing it from happening.

To tell you honestly, man has more capacity to destroy than to create. This is because in man, the ego is most prominent. But if you just look at small children, this will not be the case. Ego has not fully penetrated small children. Just observe their play. Look at a two year old. She will not destroy at all. She will go on creating something. Of course, children also throw things in a fit. But their inherent nature will be to build, to create, to make new things. This is why children are so interested in building blocks. They get a chance to create. They get a chance to express themselves.

But there are a few things which however much you try, you simply cannot create. For example, you cannot create love. It happens when it has to happen.

You have come to me after such a long time. You have seen the world and understood society. After all that, you have come to me. Now simply allow what has to happen to happen! Why are you in such a hurry? There is no need to think of the passing time and all such things because you are with me now and nothing matters any more. The day that you are completely unaware of what might come, but at the same time in a state of full awareness, it will come!

The very idea of surrender has been misunderstood. We are taught that surrender is 'giving in' through an inevitable fight; we have to fight with ourselves and someday change. We are taught that we have to change our natural way of being. But if you see in reality, it is totally the opposite! Surrender itself means to be totally natural. You give up all the nonsense which you have acquired through time. You simply throw all your falsity in the dustbin; that is surrender!

Surrendering to the Master means being fully relaxed in your being. Whatever I tell you to do, even if it is the most illogical thing, you will simply do in a relaxed way. Even if I tell you to walk on fire, you will simply do it with a smile on your face. And this has really happened. Just ask our ashram brahmacharis. For their dheeksha initiation, they are made to walk on red hot coal as a meditation. And you will be shocked: every single one will enter and come out laughing. Can you even imagine walking on red hot coal in society? Instead of getting bliss, you will only get nice blisters! So understand: it is surrender that gives you the power

to do things which you never imagined.

Actually, when you resist me, you are creating a split within yourself. One side that is your heart, will want to be with me, and the other side that is your mind, will simply tell you to drop everything and run! Fighting creates duality within yourself. By fighting, you are going against everything that I am teaching you. If you want to live with this fight, with this duality, then simply live with it! What else can be done? You must learn to

look beyond these divisions that have been created by you. Only then will you find unity. And this unity will not be forced at all. It will simply rise. It is like an orchestra. Many different instruments will be playing, with so many different sounds. But somehow in the noise, there will be a central chord, a rhythm!

In the same way, if you are aware of these divisions, unity will begin to happen. When unity is found in duality, it will be at a much deeper level. And it cannot come by any effort. It only happens through deep relaxation within your self.

In the beginning, the so-called surrender that you feel is actually only a honeymoon! It is not surrender at all. There is excitement of the unknown, that's all. But you will soon settle down and then the real work will start. The operation will start!

This has to happen to everyone. It is a kind of falling in love with the Master. But you mistake this feeling of excitement as surrender. It is only when this 'honeymoon' period ends that you begin to rise in love with the Master. It is only when you begin to rise in love with the Master that you really start growing.

And when you are in this initial phase, your trust will not be total. You will go on doubting your own surrender, your own trust. Learn to just he, to just feel receptive; then, things will simply happen. If you are patient, if you simply wait with all openness, this doubting attitude will disappear. If you are in a hurry, be clear, you have already missed.

Once you trust, once you surrender everything to the Master, then even he disappears. As I said before, I am just an excuse for you to surrender. The Master is nothing but the form to which you surrender. So once you have surrendered, the Master's form is no more of significance to you. Then there is only the emptiness. When this happens, you and I will be part of the bigger Whole. It becomes a deep understanding.

It is possible to surrender to the cosmos, but you will create many problems in the process. Surrender is like a waterfall. It needs space. But you will give only a small

and narrow entrance. This narrow opening and this waterfall will continuously be fighting with each other. Then it is this narrow opening that will come to me and say, 'I am not getting any experiences.' What am I to do? The waterfall wants to come in. It is trying to push its way through; you are not giving enough space. That is where the Master comes in. He is used as a representation of the cosmos. It is easier to surrender to something which you can relate to. It is easier to fall in tune with something which you can admire. You can relate with the Cosmic Whole. You can admire the Cosmic Whole, but it will take time.

The Divine is continuously guiding us. But we never listen; this is the main problem. And this voice is small, very discreet. The quieter the mind gets, the louder the voice within becomes. It is continuously guiding you, telling you the way, but you do not listen. The noise in your mind is so much that you can't hear the whispers of the Divine.

This divine guide does not lie outside you, it lies within. Only a person who goes deep within uncovers the divine guide. As of now, it is covered by too much of your mind. Once you have uncovered this guide, everything that you do will be blissful. And this has nothing to do with any increased morality. No! Your being is by itself pure; just that purity will come through and whatever you do will simply be blissful. You are not going to try to create an emotion. The emotion will happen on its own.

Once you have dropped the mind, your walk itself becomes lighter. This is because a big load has been taken off you. Your mind is the biggest load. Once it is dropped, just imagine how much lighter you will look and feel!

I tell you, walking lightly without the mind is the greatest gift which you can give to Existence. Just think: the Earth is carrying so much weight - the weight of all the minds and all the people! That is why Mother Earth is considered to be most patient. She carries our weight day and night. So the minute you walk without your identity, you have made yourself so light and therefore you become the greatest gift to Her.

Until we have found the inner guide, the Master is needed. He is the guide who appears to be outside but in reality is inside. He goes on pulling us within ourselves to become aware of just one glimpse of the Divine, the inner guide. And having this one glimpse is enough. It will throw you back into yourself.

The Master is here to tell you what you are not listening to. Only because you are not listening within, it must be told from the outside. It is always easier to listen to the outside than it is to listen to the inside. This is because your mind can relate to the outside. Your mind knows only that. So until the time comes when you are fully pushed within yourself, the Master will only appear to you as a form from the outside, from the external. When you surrender to the Master, you are doing nothing more than surrendering to the guide within. The Master is only a mirror of yourself; he reflects you.

Surrender needs your strength. And it is not the strength which you think you know. It needs the strength of the soul. It needs complete certainty. The Master gives you this strength.

When you decide strongly to be around me, along with strength, you get the stamina, not of the body, but of your will! If this is not there, you can simply run around me, but you will not be able to be around me. To be around me, you need intense maturity. But to run around me, just an instruction is enough and you will run around like a horse! But I don't need you all to run around; horses are more than enough for that! I want all of you to develop this intensity and stamina. And the moment I have said this, the very next moment is simply enough for you to catch the flame. Actually, the very next moment is too much! This moment is enough! Simply catch hold of it; nothing more is needed.

Let you understand: by surrender, I do not mean for you to only surrender to me. Surrender means to let go of everything and place it before Existence. You only use the Master as a tool. So if you have really surrendered to the Master, then you have surrendered to Existence. And when you have surrendered in the truest sense, you are enlightened! After all, Masters are the ones who have surrendered to Existence so completely that their very body is an expression of Existence.

A disciple tells swamiji that he feels he has not surrendered even though he has been with the Master for so long. Because of this, he feels that it is time for him to leave.

Actually, because you are feeling this way, the possibility to surrender is even greater! You see, you have just given up. But there is still one thing that is stopping you. You are still fighting. You have still not fully given up. The fact that you want to leave means two things: that you are letting go, but at the same time you are fighting.

The only reason you are waging this battle within yourself is because deep within you, the desire to surrender is there. But you are so frustrated that you simply don't feel the need to wait anymore. This is the reason why your surrender is not total; it is clouded by all sorts of confusion and impatience.

There is no need for you to leave. By leaving, you will simply miss. To be with the Master is the greatest blessing. Just understand this deeply because over and above this, I cannot force you to be with me. Ultimately, it is your own decision.

People always think that living with the Master is only waking up in the morning, doing meditation and yoga etc. Understand, being with the Master means to go through all your ego hurdles. The Master will go on churning you through different ways until you are finally churned down to nothing; meaning, there will be no separate identity of yourself, just a merger with the Divine.

There are a few guys who feel happy only in disagreement with me! And it is okay to say 'no' to me once in a while. It gives some juice to the whole fruit! Actually, if you continuously say 'no', a 'yes' will soon come. From that deep

disagreement, an agreement will come. This happens with everything. If you are strongly for something, the complete opposite is bound to come up at some point in time.

So don't be bothered about your disagreement; it is alright. Even if just a small corner agrees with me, that is enough. I will move deeper and penetrate you further.

When you first come to me, your surrender cannot be total. It can't even be called surrender. But slowly, very slowly, it grows. You begin to surrender more and more everyday. The beauty of surrender is that you will never be aware of what is happening to you. It will simply happen without your knowledge and it will take its own course.

As you begin to understand me, it becomes even more possible. And the minute you begin to understand yourself, it has become possible.

As time goes by, you begin to understand that the object to which you are surrendering is nothing but yourself. You understand that by surrendering, you will not lose your individuality; you will gain it.

I am not telling you to drop your material things. The whole idea is that even if I tell you to drop all that you have ever known, you will not think twice; you will just do it. This is what surrender is all about. But in order to trust, the mind has to drop you! Because as long as the mind is there, it will keep filling your head with unnecessary thoughts. When it drops, what has to happen can happen.

One day, a famous professor approached the great Zen Master Nansen to seek some philosophical advice. The Master lived in a cottage in the forest and the professor had to walk a long way to meet him.

When he reached the cottage, the Master was boiling water to make tea.

The professor's head was full of questions for Nansen and he began asking them right away. 'Wait', said the Master, 'let us have tea first.'

But the professor was impatient. Not only did he want his questions answered, he also wanted to flaunt his knowledge to Nansen. While Nansen brewed the tea, the professor continued to talk about this theory and that philosophy, asking Nansen's opinion and giving his own.

Finally Nansen finished making the tea. He brought the teapot and two empty cups and set down one cup before the professor. 'When will you answer my questions, Master? There is so much I have to learn from you!' exclaimed the professor.

Nansen started silently pouring the tea into the professor's cup. He poured and poured until the cup was overflowing. Still he continued to pour.

Zen Masters are known to do some odd things, but this was just too much! The cup was simply overflowing!

'Master! What are you doing? Can't you see that this cup can't hold anymore tea? It is already full!' cried the professor.

Nansen smiled and replied, 'Is that so? So are you.'

Zen Masters usually speak in riddles, but the professor understood what the Master meant and from that day he became his disciple.

One more thing: never take the Master's words for granted. When he tells you to do something, simply drop everything and do it immediately. Only then, the transformation will happen. But if you take your time and do not act immediately, be sure that transformation will be delayed. You will simply miss the moment.

When he gives you some instruction, simply do it. You shouldn't wait a while and think about it. Simply do it right then. Otherwise you will miss.

Stop thinking! This thinking process is the culprit for delaying your very enlightenment, which is why I tell you to drop your mind! If you simply follow the instructions intensely, you will be pushed back into your being. You will be transformed.

In the Master-disciple relationship, the disciple will think that the Master is having all the fun and putting the disciples to work! But you don't know: he has to make you trust him and look at him as a guide and at the same time make you feel like you have your freedom. He has to pamper you and at the same time make you stand independently. The Master has to work in all possible ways. If you try to understand, you will simply become confused! Don't ever attempt that. It is not needed also.

Once you have understood what surrender is, the relationship itself will change. The Master will help you to be independent. Actually, once you have surrendered, anything that the Master says will simply feel possible. If he tells you to become independent, you won't even need to try; it will simply happen.

Krishna was with a few devotees when he looked at the sky and said, 'See that white crow!' Everyone said they could only see a black crow, everyone except Arjuna. Arjuna said he could see the white crow. And then Krishna said, 'Fool! There is only a black crow. What are you talking about?'

Arjuna replied, 'Krishna, when you said it was a white crow, I saw it as a white crow!"

When Krishna said there was a white crow, Arjuna simply saw it as a white crow. Even if it was completely illogical, the disciple trusted the Master's words. This is because Arjuna did not surrender only his intellect; he had surrendered his senses as well. He had the clear understanding that whatever Krishna said was the truth. And it is not that he had become dumb. No! His sense of surrender to Krishna was so deep that his intelligence was simply in tune with the Master and his words. There was no scope for the mind to step in at all. His very senses had surrendered.

See, the Master can give you the assurance that enlightenment will happen. And you can feel that it has happened in him. You can smell that there is something different about him; he is not like any other ordinary person! This understanding itself will keep the flame alive within you. The moment you have stepped on this path, there will be many ups and downs. The journey is not always smooth; there will be stones and pebbles and ditches! There will be many times you will feel as if you are just aiming for something that is a mere illusion. You will feel you are only wasting your time and would have done better in society. It is only by looking at the Master, watching his magical body language, listening to his words, absorbing the silence that he radiates while he is talking, that the certainty of the whole thing will keep flowing in you.

Right when you are completely hopeless and feel that the whole thing is just a waste, the Master will give you the confidence once again! From nowhere, you will get a surge of inspiration about the whole thing!

You see, the old personality which you have acquired is very strong. This is because you have been associating yourself with it for so long. So now you must consciously watch yourself. You must consciously make an effort not to encourage your old personality. When you can do this, your real individuality will be uncovered. You must try to operate only from your individuality. This can only happen if you are fully aware about yourself. Actually, the best way to start associating yourself with your individuality is to forget

that you have an identity and flow with whatever the Master tells you to do. Just disappear into your work and allow the Master to work on you. It will happen. Allowing the Master to work through you is a blessing that does not happen to everyone.

When you flow with things allowing the Master to work on you, you will see that every new moment takes care of itself. You don't need to do anything.

There are two ways a person can live his life. One way is to live moment to moment and the other is to live by connecting the past, present and future and taking decisions based on that. The moment you have understood surrender, everything drops from you. Then there is no past and there is no future. There is only the moment.

One of the biggest problems is we go on living in the past. In fact, the past is so alive that the present is forgotten! Through your review of the past and planning and so-called organization, you miss the cream that is the present. If you can live in the now, you will no longer decide anything. Your attitude of surrender to the moment will cause decisions to happen spontaneously.

When you have understood the power of being in the now, you will become independent and intelligent automatically. You will not depend on me. The Master is there only to give you guidance, not support. From him, you uncover your own individuality.

One more thing: the Master is here to give you understanding. But such an understanding will take root in you only when deep confusion also happens. When the confusion becomes so deep that you feel you can't do anything more, the understanding starts happening!

Sometimes a person thinks he has surrendered and that there is no more steps to take towards the Master. He will feel that he has gone as deep as he can possibly go. Understand, this is pure delusion. The moment you have REALLY surrendered, you are enlightened! Until then, it is only creating the space for it to happen.

A devotee tells swamiji that when she meets him, she does not understand why she has to explain everything to him. If You already know everything, why do You need me totell You about my problems?

See, I understand your problem; that is different. But you must first understand your problems! I make you explain to me only because I want you to understand. I can see where the problem lies and tell you, but there is no point in it at all. If I tell you, the experience of understanding will not happen in you. Again, you will follow because I am telling you. Most of the time, you suffer because you do not know exactly what your suffering is. Not only that, when I ask you to verbalize your problems, you may be cunningly hiding the real suffering and verbalize it differently outside. You will not even be ready to face your problem courageously.

When I forcibly make you verbalize it, when I start cross questioning you and tiring you, I make the real reasons for suffering come out of you. Many times you will see that if you are open to me when you talk to me about your suffering, you will get clarity at a level you cannot even imagine. You might have come to me with some reason, but as you open up to me, you will see that the reasons are entirely different, that you are hiding under a complete hypocritical layer.

The moment you say I know everything, although you may sound like having a surrendering attitude, be clear, you are actually escaping from the truth yourself.

You need courage to open up in front of me. If you are really interested in getting out of your problems, you will be like an open book in front of me. I will then have no difficulty in evaporating your problems. But if you hold back, then it becomes difficult for me. So it all depends on you.

chapter 4

The very nature of true love is unconditional. It is directed to no one and nothing. It simply flows for no reason. It is an overflowing because you feel the deep connection between vou and Existence. Until this happens, your love is always directed to a particular thing and this cannot be called love at all.

Then you take dheeksha - initiation - from the through you and transform you. And the moment you become an ashramite, you not only commit yourself to your own enlightenment, but you also commit to another beautiful thing and that is the Master's mission. You commit to serving the mission which is nothing but the enlightenment of you and millions of other seekers like you.

But in order to carry the Master's profound message, you should have experienced and understood it yourself. You should feel the bliss; only then can you spread it. If you do not feel the conviction yourself and you try to spread bliss, you will be giving the people only blisters, not bliss!

You always radiate only what you have. So you cannot just imagine being blissful and try to spread it to others. What you spread is nothing but what you are overflowing with. Then, it will show in your very body language, in your words, in your face. Actually, if you observe the walk of a person who has known bliss, you will feel as if his feet are not even touching the ground. He will appear to be gliding over the ground. This is because all the extra, unnecessary weight of the mind and ego has disappeared! He is just an emptiness through which Existence flows . . .

Even a glimpse is enough to catch on. But do not stop there! There is so much more honey; more honey to taste; more honey to experience.

It is like this: I have dipped my finger in honey and then practically taken every bit off. Then I have wiped my finger with my kerchief. It is this finger which I have put into your mouth. For this you are saying, 'It is so sweet, so beautiful!"

Yes it may be sweet, but there is so much more to taste! Remember that!

Other than the Master, we have had so many relationships where we have loved someone. It could be our parents, our friends, our children, our husband or wife.

But in these types of love, there is need for attention from the other person.There is a compulsion to possess the other person. This is what you have known, to be love. This is what you have always felt love to be.

And then what do you do when you come to me? Because you think this is the way to love, you will start trying all this with me also. You will become possessive and crave attention. Actually, all these emotions have nothing to do with love. They are just concepts of love built over time. In real love, there are no expectations. In real love, the two persons involved will simply disappear. Just the beautiful energy called love will remain. There will be no need for attention or for possessing the other. When this happens, there will not even be the need for the physical presence of the other person.

I am not saying that all your other relationships are wrong. I am saying that they are illusions. Even that is perfectly alright because the only way to get past an illusion is to go through it.

But when you come to me, you will think that I will simply support these illusions. There starts the

Part 3: Rising in love with the Master

problem! Of course initially, when I see someone who needs me to support their illusions, I will support them and if I see that someone has the maturity to handle the truth, I will simply shake all these illusions away! Either way, once the operation starts, the illusions will have to be broken.

In a discourse, a newcomer says, I feel as if I am too dependent on all the people whom I love.

First thing, love is always expressed as seeking attention from others. Actually, your attention need is very intense, but you seek it in the name of love. This is where all the problems start, the problems of so-called love. When you seek attention, you become dependent on the other person from whom you are seeking. But because you do not want to be dependent on someone else, you begin to pull away. Then once you have moved away, you feel as if your needs are unfulfilled and then you want to come close again!

This is what you are doing. You come close, then you move away, then you come close again. If you watch a husband and wife together, you will see what a love-hate relationship it is. If you keep them separate, they will want the other in the name of love. If you keep them together, they will fight!

As of now, you are trying to change your relationships in order to attain fulfillment in love. It is not possible to do that. Whatever is happening is not because of the other person in the relationship, but because of you, of your mental setup. If you internalize these ideas, slowly your mind will dissolve and you will fall deeper into real love.

Do some awareness meditation to dissolve your mind. Do the breath watch meditation. Simply watch every breath that goes in and every breath that goes out. You see, breath is the basic life force. It is the bridge between you and Existence. If you can become aware of it, you will be able to move in awareness all the time. Become aware of the breath that goes in and the breath that comes out. In between the two, there is a U-turn. Become aware of this turn also.

You go through many different phases with the Master. When you first come to me, you are very open. But then after sometime, you become closed. After some time, the openness will happen again.

In the beginning when you felt open, it was only your imagination. But later, it becomes reality. And there is nothing wrong with the closed feeling also. Almost everyone goes through it. It will pass. Once you fall more and more in tune, it will pass. And then when the openness comes, it will stay.

Openness comes only with awareness.

The army of a conquering General was ravaging the country. When it came to a little village, the General saw that everybody except an old monk in a monastery had run away. The angry General rushed into the monastery and shouted, 'Don't you know who I am? I can simply draw my sword and cut you into two without blinking an eyelid.'

The old monk smiled and said gently, 'Don't you know who I am? I can stand here without blinking an eyelid while watching you draw your sword and cut me in two.'

The general was ashamed. He simply dropped his sword and fell at the monk's feet.

When a disciple comes to the Master, his energy shifts from his head to his heart. The same energy that was used in logic will now be used in love.

And as long as the head is filled with logic, authentic love cannot show itself. To live a life without love is to live a life without life in it. Life will just seem dead, not alive.

The moment you experience love, you will be transformed.

'Some days, the feeling to leave is just so intense that I don't know what to do,' says an ashramite 'and then on other days, the pull to remain here is even stronger!"

There will always be a pull to remain here because the pull is from your being. Life with a Master is ecstatic and a challenge! Not everyone can handle it.

Being here makes you vulnerable; it makes you insecure. There will be many ego blasts and you need the courage and maturity to handle it.

When your ego just cannot handle it, it simply wants to run away. And then on the other hand, your being feels the pull. So naturally, you will be confused. You will be unsure of which voice to listen to because both will seem authentic.

You have known the ego for much longer. This is why many times the ego will appear correct. But then if you look within yourself, you become clear of what you want. Then there will be no confusion. But again after some time, you will be pulled by the mind.

The next time you feel some pull towards or away, look within yourself; see from where exactly the thought or impulse is coming. You will be able to sense whether it is authentic.

If you feel the pull, that is more than enough. The fact that you have become sensitive enough to feel the pull is more than enough. If you have not felt the pull, then it is a different thing. But you have felt it; that is more than enough.

Then you have already stepped inside. Then you have already begun to fall in tune.

To be with the Master means to just be playful. The moment you become serious, you have missed it. The Master is there to simply take away this seriousness and show you the way to enjoy.

A visitor tells swamiji that he wants to be close to him but feels there is a wall between them. He asks the Master why he feels so restricted to come near him.

ctually, this barrier that you are feeling is just a wall which your ego has created. And initially, this is the way everyone feels. Everyone feels there is something stopping them from coming near me. Initially it is alright because if all of you pounce on me with no understanding, what will I do?

All that I am doing is trying to make you a child again - filled with innocence. I am trying to make you dance with the wind and sway with the leaves. But you go on resisting. Your personality will resist. I am trying to awaken your individuality because if I tell you to dance with the wind, you will simply think that I am mad! You will feel foolish if I tell you to do all these things.

Alright, feel foolish - what is wrong with that? The only way to drop your personality is to simply feel foolish for some time. Even if you feel foolish while you are dancing, continue! If you simply continue without bothering about what others think, you will be able to just let go suddenly. And then you won't feel foolish at all! Then, the people around you will also find you beautiful because when you lose yourself, you automatically become beautiful.

When you come to the Master, he gives you a new birth. So you can forget about your childhood and the past. You will be reborn with innocence and openness that will never leave you; it will be with you always. You will stay with the moment that is presently there.

Until now, you have had the script of your life written by society and you were simply playing along. Now, the Master will write the script and you will not play along, but you will be totally there in every word of it, enjoying it!

A Zen Master was meditating in a cave deep in the mountains. When he opened his eyes, he saw a visitor sitting in front of him. He was a monk of a well known monastery. 'What is it you seek?' asked the Master.

The monk began telling the Master what had happened. At one time his monastery had been famous throughout the Western world. Its rooms were filled with young seekers and its temple echoed with the chants of its monks. But now, things were different. People no longer came to seek guidance, and the temple was so quiet. There were only a few monks remaining who did their duty with heavy hearts.

After telling the Master all this, the monk asked, 'Is it because we did something wrong that the monastery has become like this?'

'Yes,' said the Master, 'Ignorance.'

'What do you mean by this?' asked the monk.

'One of your monks is Buddha in disguise and you are ignorant of this.' After saying this, the Master simply closed his eyes and returned to his meditation.

Throughout the journey back to his monastery, the monk's heart beat fast as he thought about what the Master had said. Buddha himself had returned to Earth and was right here in the monastery? How is it that they had failed to recognize him? And who was it? Dofuku? Soji? Doiku? Eka? No, it cannot be; they have too many defects. But the Master said he was in disguise. Could those defects be one of his disguises? But everyone in the monastery had some defect. And one of them had to be Buddha!

After returning to the monastery, he gathered all the monks and told them what the Master had said. They looked at one another in disbelief. Buddha? Here? Incredible! But he was supposed to be here in disguise. What if it were that monk there? Or the other one over there? Or ...

One thing was for sure: if Buddha was there in disguise, they probably wouldn't recognize him. So they began to treat everyone with respect and consideration. 'You never know,' they said to themselves when they spoke to one another. 'Maybe this is the one.'

The atmosphere in the monastery became vibrant with joy with just the thought that Buddha was there. Soon dozens of seekers came to learn of the wisdom of the monastery. And once again the temple echoed with the holy and joyful chants of monks who were filled with the spirit of love!

The more silent your mind becomes, the clearer things become. And you will be shocked to see the beauty of the things around you. You will not be able to believe that you missed the beauty of the world around you in the name of having already seen it.

Once you become aware of the beauty, you begin to feel the laughter of Existence. When you become aware of the laughter outside, you come to know the laughter within. You will understand the simplicity of everything that you once took seriously.

Laughing at yourself is the greatest blessing. because when you can laugh at yourself, you can never be hard on others.

Love is not a serious energy at all. It is total nonseriousness. Only a person who is playful can love. And my guys should become playful. They should live with music instead of mathematics. They should live in poetry instead of philosophy. They should live in playfulness instead of seriousness.

And I do not want any one of you to renounce life; I want you all to rejoice in it.

If you rejoice in it, you are bound to love!

The moment you move into acceptance, you also move into a different dimension; you can call it the Divine or whatever you want to call it. The possibility to move into the Divine is always there. The moment you drop your problems, you are already there.

You go on asking me questions and I in turn go on dissolving them. But actually, you have no questions. It is only your mind that is playing with you.

You ask me a question and I give you an answer. You have a problem and I tell you a solution. It is like a game. As long as you play the game, I will simply play along. As time goes by, you become aware of the game which you are playing. Once you understand what you are doing, the questions will automatically drop. Then you will simply drop everything and dance!

Instead of wasting your time thinking, you will sing. Thinking is the only thing that prevents you from reaching the Divine. There are actually many ways of reaching the Divine, but the moment you start your inner chatter, you miss it.

See, when you have a problem, there are two things you can do. You can either forget about it or carry on with it. So you decide. Do you want to waste your time pondering over it or do you want to move on?

The quality of your life has to do with the way you live your life inside you. There are some people who will look at a rose bush and count the number of thorns in it. They will not even notice the roses. Then why should thev call it a rose bush; it should be called a thorn-bush! They only notice the thorns. They start abusing the thorns and miss the roses!

It is not that the thorns are more noticeable than the roses - no! It is your mental make-up that makes all the difference.

So instead of seeing the thorns, see the roses which have grown around the thorns. The fact that a rose is growing around thorns is the greatest miracle! And once you have become aware of these miracles, you have shifted from the mind to the heart. You no longer become affected by the logic games of the mind. You no longer become affected by anything. You have dropped logic and entered into innocence.

And then the whole world around you becomes like the rose which grows around the thorn.

It so happened that a master of a Japanese tea ceremony accidentally touched a Samurai's sword on a busy street. The angry Samurai challenged him to a duel for the insult, because to touch a Samurai's sword is considered to be like a slap in the face. The tea master apologized and explained that it had happened accidentally. But the Samurai did not listen. He asked the tea master to meet him the next day at the city gates for the duel.

The tea master didn't know what to do. He had never fought anyone in his life. He went to one of his friends who was a sword maker, to borrow a sword, and told him what had happened. The friend said it would be useless to give a sword to somebody who was not a swordsman. He advised him to face his death with honor and to perform the tea ceremony as his last gesture on Earth.

The next morning, when the tea master and the Samurai met for the duel, the tea master announced he would perform the tea ceremony before the fight. He knelt down and calmly started the ritual. The Samurai was shocked. The man was going to die in a few minutes and he was going through each step of the tea ceremony as if nothing was going to happen! He had never faced an opponent so calm before death. After some time, the Samurai could not stand it anymore.

He went over to the tea master and fell at his feet. He said, 'You face death and yet you are so calm. You are not only a great tea master but a man who has conquered the fear of death. Please forgive me for my arrogance and accept me as your disciple, so that I may learn how to face death with such calmness.'

The mind is artificial; it is pseudo. And I am trying to get you to drop the pseudo and move on to reality. If you again run behind the pseudo, what is the point?

You must simply make the transition from the artificial to the natural; from logic to spontaneity; from the outside to your innermost core.

aturity comes through freedom. Life should be -used as an opportunity to grow. A person can grow only when there is freedom.

By the time a small child learns to speak, he has already learnt the way the world works. He has already been conditioned. Slowly, slowly, he begins to forget himself. He becomes so caught up in the drama of the outside world that he forgets his own reality. People go through their whole lives without remembering what they once were; they go through their whole lives living without the truth.

If they are lucky, they will find a Master who will show them how to uncover the falsity. And they will be thinking that they have to go through one big process to rediscover their reality. But what they don't understand is that it is just like peeling a potato. You are just peeling the outer layer off. The inner layer will always remain intact; it is only the outer layer that will carry all the dirt, all the conditioning.

All that you must do now is simply peel this outer layer off. You must uncover what has been covered by society. You must rediscover what was originally there. And this is what the whole process of being with the Master is about. He will go on working on you; he will go on digging through the dirt until wu have been uncovered. Once all the dirt has been polished off, bliss surfaces. You recollect who you are.

One thing I can tell you: instead of wasting your time looking for misery, simply look for bliss. Be aware of the bliss which is present all around you. Like I said, you can either look for flowers or look for thorns. Both will be there. But the choice is yours.

Have you seen even a single child who is after money and other materialistic pleasures? Children are so simple. Such simple things satisfy them. But we go on trying to push them towards the so-called goals that we know. To tell you honestly, the whole process of educating children is nothing but pushing all these ideas inside them. And by the time he comes back from university, he is fully programmed. Deprogramming is the work of the Master.

For the Master to work on you, you must be open and receptive. You must be willing. You must have total willingness for the Master to enter your being and transform you. If this is not there, and you are trying to create a wall, how will he be able to enter? Actually, even if the wall is there, be clear, I will break the wall and see that you are transformed! But that only becomes a waste of time. Then I have to go on working on you and you will go through many different emotions. But if you are receptive, I can simply enter your being without any barrier. Then the transformation will simply happen. Then it will be even easier than peeling a potato!

I do not put any ideas in your head because it will be totally against what I am doing. I am trying to break your head and throw all the ideas out! I will give you insight and awaken your inbuilt intelligence.

I will simply take all these ideas and throw them out!

I will see that the ego is lost. This is the greatest transformation.

A student asked a Zen Master, 'What is Zen?' 'It is right before your eyes,' the Master replied. 'Then why can I not see it?' the student asked. 'Because of your 'I'. 'If I don't have this idea of 'I', will I realize Zen?' asked the student. 'If there is no 'I', who wants to realize Zen?!' the Master asked.

chapter 7

Being a disciple means to be open enough to feel the grace of the Master. The moment the disciple falls in tune with the Master, the transformation has already started. But you must have the courage to drop the past and all that you have thought yourself to know and simply live in the here and now because that is the only wav the grace of the Master can be experienced fully.

ou see, I am not bothered about what you do after you have opened. Because once you have opened, the work will happen automatically. It is only the opening that must be done. You should first open yourself; that is the basic thread.

When there is a breeze, simply dance along with it. When the birds sing, sing along. Once you are open enough to let Existence lead you, the Master's words are not needed anymore. Then the Master and you will communicate in silence. This is because the Master is nothing but silence. He uses words only to communicate with you. And now you too have become silence. So you and the Master can sit in complete silence together and what has to happen will happen.

There are times in the ashram when these young people would simply sit before me and dissolve into silence. I will not speak a word; neither will they. They just lose themselves in the silence.

The Master is here only to give you the initial push to take the jump. If you love the Master, things will be easy. When he says to simply jump, you will not even think. You will just do it.

This is what being the disciple is. It is about trust. To tell you honestly, to take the jump into the unknown needs

courage. And without trust, it is impossible. If you are in doubt, be clear, you will never take the jump and even if you take it, it will not be total. And if it is not total, you will be badly bruised.

Once someone has jumped, my work on them is over. Because once the jump is taken, you simply have to land.

• BREAK THE WALLS -

A devotee tells swamiji that she doubts Him a lot.

FOR CHICALL

Actually ma, these doubts only come up when you are trying to make an effort to believe in me. Who is telling you to believe in me? Simply be; that's all! You see, believing in the Master and trusting him is something that can never be created. It must simply happen. It can happen out of your deep openness and receptivity. You can work on making yourself open because through openness trust comes.

There is a big difference between trust and belief. Belief is pseudo. It is like a forced effort which does not come naturally. But trust is completely natural. In order to believe in me, you have to work hard for it. And how long will you continue to work hard? If even for a moment your effort slows down, doubt arises. This is what is happening to you now.

For you to believe is like having a fight. And naturally, if you go on fighting, you will need to relax for some time. When you relax, the doubt comes again! You will again start fighting!

Drop these beliefs and trust will arise if it has to. For you to drop the doubting mind you must first drop all your beliefs. And understand, the trust that will arise is not blind trust, it is enlightening trust.

So simply be, that's all; feel the presence and the energy; that is more than enough. There is no need for you to try to believe. Doubting happens when you try to believe in me. Just allow what has to happen to happen; don't go on analyzing things.

A newcomer approaches Swamiji and says, I had a problem and did one of the meditations which You qave me. If my problem has not been cured, then what is the point of doing the meditation?"

If you go on having such expectations, how will the meditation help you? The whole point of every meditation is to take you beyond all expectations. If you sit and expect all possible things instead of meditating, how will you be benefited? I am sure that throughout the meditation, you would have been thinking about whether the desired result would happen or not. It doesn't work this way.

I gave you the method to try out and if you really wanted the benefit, it would have happened because you would have worked with it intensely. If you are not willing to do even this much to have the experience, then what can be done?

You must be willing to work intensely. Your intensity should be such that you will be willing to give your life for the experience. And what is life here for? It is here only to experience and enjoy!

As of now, all your happiness is dependent on many parameters - the person, the situation, the location, the time etc. You will be happy one minute but if someone says something to you the next minute, all the happiness will simply disappear. This shows the depth and dependency of your happiness.

If you are really happy, if you are really blissful, then none of these parameters will be able to shake your happiness. No matter what happens, you will remain centered in your self, centered in bliss. This is what the state of Ananda is. It means to live in bliss no matter what happens around you.

Even if the sky is falling and everyone is running, you will also run, but there will be no sense of loss or panic within you. You will remain centered within yourself.

I have seen many people who think they trust me. And then they will have the doubt ... The very nature of doubting is against trust.

Because you have not had any spiritual experience, you have a good reason to doubt me. And this happens: hidden behind your so-called trust there is always doubt. And I am not saying there is anything wrong with the attitude. For you it is natural because if you didn't do anything totally how can you trust me totally? I am totality. Unless you become totality, you will always have the doubt. You yourself must feel the urgency to mould your personality into your individuality. Then, things will fall into place. Then you will rise above all the possibilities for doubt, and focus on your enlightenment.

And your mind is so cunning! It will catch all possible opportunities to doubt, but will somehow miss all the opportunities to trust! It is like I am giving you ninety-nine opportunities to trust and you miss them all. Then you get one opportunity to doubt and you catch hold of it!

Just become aware of how the mind works. Watch it. Watch the games it plays; then you will understand.

An acharya - teacher - comes to swamiji and tells him that he loves swamiji very much. But when he is confused, he doesn't know where to turn. He does not know what to do in times of confusion.

Let you be very clear: in the beginning, there will be confusion. There is bound to be confusion. All these things that are making the path rocky are actually a preparation for climbing the mountain.

It is like cooking the Hindu spicy sambar. While it is cooking, the spices will burn your eyes and irritate your throat. But then when the sambar is ready. you enjoy it.

So you will have to go through such hurdles initially. It may burn your eyes but in the end, you will enjoy it! There will be all sorts of emotions that will arise. But after things are fully cooked, everything will settle.

You should go on stirring the pot of your emotions. You have to go through your emotions; you have to evaporate them. You can never escape them. If you try to escape, they will still be within you, but hidden. Then, thev can come up at any time.

Only when you overcome these emotions, there will be an ease within you.

The so-called ease which you feel occasionally is just a false idea. All these emotions were inside you then also; if they were not there, where do you think they are coming from now? You are on a volcano that is just waiting to explode.

First, become aware of this volcano. Then, you know what you are sitting on, so you begin to feel uncomfortable. At least now you are aware of it.

Otherwise, you would happily be sitting on top of it without knowing it would erupt at any moment. So at least now you know what is under you.

And now, you know it is under you; why do you continue to sit? Just get up! You must move away from it so that it can erupt, evaporate and settle down. You have to find another center, your center. You simply have to change your style of living. This is why there is so much confusion. One side of you will say you cannot continue to live in the same way. And another side will tell you that it is perfectly alright. No!

Initially, it is okay to give the responsibility to me. It is okay for you to come to me in your confusion. But by and by, you must become more responsible. If you go on looking for someone to give the responsibility to, you will never turn inwards. You will only look for someone from outside; you will never look within.

The time has come for you to look within.

A newcomer says he is finding difficulty in accepting swamigi's power and authority.

I am not telling you to accept my authority. All I want you to do is listen and try to understand what I am saying.

You can take my words in two different ways: you can see me with authority or have a deep understanding about who I am and what I am here for. It is your choice.

If I say something and you accept it with a clear understanding, then it is alright. But if you simply do something because I have said so and there is no understanding, then you have missed. If you simply do what I tell you just because of my authority, then you have missed the thread.

Try to understand what I am telling you. If you do what I say after it has become an understanding in you, you are on the right way. Then it has become a truth within you, not just an imposed ideology.

And let you be clear: I am not here to give you ideologies because you have more than enough of those! I am here to take all your ideas away and give you truths. Truths are much deeper than ideologies. They are simply an expression of one's own experience. Ideas come straight from logic, from the mind; they are not authentic. All ideas are simply an expression of what you have picked up from society.

I am here to take you beyond ideologies and bring you straight to the truth. I am here to give you my understanding, not my authority. So remember, do not just do because I have said so. Let my words penetrate you and give you a deep insight.

One more thing, I am not going to go on giving you guided instructions. I am not here to give you guidance every step of the way. I will give you a few guidelines; just a few hints here and there. It is like I am giving you all the ingredients but you only have to cook. I will not do the cooking for you.

You will have to taste and check whether everything is alright. In the same way, I will give you the method but you will have to do the work. I will help you along the way, but that is all. I will give you the torch, but you must open your eyes and find your way.

There is no need to look at me as a big authority figure. Everything I tell you is completely against the attitude of an authoritarian. I never tell you that you have to do something. I only give you guidelines; I never give you rules. I give you options and in the end, the choice is yours.

The very nature of the Master is acceptance. He will accept whatever you are and work on transforming you. The very nature of an authoritarian is resistance to your nature. He will just impose, that's all. He doesn't care what your nature is. So when I tell you something, I am not telling you out of authority; I am telling you out of compassion so that you too can catch the experience. And if you do not accept what I am trying to tell you, it is perfectly alright. I cannot force you to have such understanding. All I will do is wait until you are ready, for the clarity I am willing to give. It is like I am holding some candy in my hands. Whether you want to take it or not, is up to you. But I will go on holding it, and go on offering it to you. I don't offer brain candy, I offer candy for your being!

Actually with an authoritarian, you feel more comfortable because you hold him responsible for everything. If you have any problem, you throw it on him; all responsibility goes to him. But here you will surely feel insecure because you are responsible. With me, I will make you feel responsible. Here,

you have to keep your own problems and overcome them. You cannot pass them on to someone else. But I will give you everything you need to overcome it.

Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, you do want to be under someone. You may go on saying that you want freedom and this and that. Subtly, you enjoy giving all your responsibility to someone else because then, you will never be questioned. You will only be given orders and you will faithfully carry them out like a servant.

Here, I will throw the responsibility onto you and see that you become a leader. All that I am continuously trying to do is make you as independent as possible. I do not want you to become dependent on me. Initially, there will be some dependency on me, because you are used to this attitude. Your whole life you have depended on someone, so when you come to me, there will naturally be some dependency.

And this is the reason I go on speaking. I want your mind to become clear with understanding. When understanding comes, you will become independent. You will stand up!

'I feel like I let other people take me over too easily, says a newcomer, and then when they take control of me, I tend to break away from them. After some time I lose direction and I feel like there is nothing left to do except to go back to them."

At least now, you have understood this much! This is the way in which not only you but everyone is living. Someone becomes your authority and you follow them for sometime and everything goes well. And then the problem starts when you begin to want your independence.

Then you try to get your independence and free yourself from their authority. After some time, you will feel at a loss and then you will search for someone with authority again! Just see the play in the whole thing! You are moving around in a circle. Now all you have to do is take a small diversion and leave this circle.

This dependency is not needed now. When you were a child, you needed to be dependent on your parents because the basic maturity was not there. At that age, you would not have been able to analyze and reason and follow arguments. So you had to be told to do everything. But now this is not needed. Now if someone goes on telling you exactly what to do, you will just look foolish!

Take a conscious decision to take up full responsibility for yourself and whatever is going on around you. This is the only way to stop playing this game. Until you are willing to take up full responsibility, this game will continue. It is a very cunning game. I am not saying that you are the sole responsible person, no! Every person has to wear the same sense of responsibility towards the circumstances. That is the way. Then, no one can blame the other and there will be no dependency.

A mother was having a hard time getting her son to go to school in the morning.

'Nobody likes me,' he would complain. 'The teachers don't like me, the kids don't like me, the superintendent wants to transfer me, the bus drivers don't like me, the school board wants me to drop out and the custodians also don't like me. I don't want to go to school.'

'But you have to go to school,' insisted his mother. 'You are healthy, you have a lot to learn, you have something to offer others and you are a leader. And besides, you are forty-five years old and you are the principal.'

In psychology, they have proven that women have become authoritative only because they are at home with the children all the time. Mothers have to tell them exactly what to do and go on nagging them to do it. They see no other way.

Now the woman has learnt the art of authoritativeness and she has forgotten that there is no need to do it with the husband. This is where the conflict starts. Both of them want to be authoritative. Both of them think they are being intelligent in their authority. If both of them are really intelligent, they will straightaway see how simple the situation is. They will then drop their past baggage and enter into the moment with no complications.

A married couple trying to live up to a sophisticated lifestyle went to a party. The conversation was about Mozart.

'Absolutely brilliant, magnificent, a genius!' everyone said.

The wife, wanting to join in the conversation casually said, 'Oh, Mozart you are right. I love him. Only this morning I saw him getting on the No. 5 bus going to Coney Island.'

There was a sudden hush and everyone looked at her. Her husband was mortified. He pulled her away and whispered, 'We're leaving right now. Get your coat and let's get out of here."

As they drove home, he kept muttering something to himself. Finally his wife turned to him. 'You're angry about something.' 'Oh really? You noticed?' he asked. 'I have never been so embarrassed in my life! You saw Mozart take the No. 5 bus to Coney Island? You fool! Don't you know the No. 5 bus doesn't go to Coney Island?'

You go on thinking that you are very intelligent. You don't even understand that you are making a fool of yourself!

Actually it is better not to be an authoritarian to anyone. You just bother about yourself - that is more than enough. Depend only on yourself. Try and find the dependency within. Let you be clear: the person who follows others has no trust in himself. Otherwise, what is the need to follow others? A person who has trust in himself will follow himself. He will learn what has to be learnt from others but he will never follow others. He will follow himself out of his own clarity and understanding. In order to do this you need courage and trust in yourself and you should know you are doing the right thing.

When I initiate you, I am not initiating you into my following; I am initiating you into your following. I am telling you to simply use me as a means to reach yourself. You should imbibe the Master's spirit, the Master's body language, but never follow, never imitate. The moment you imitate, you have brought your mind in again. You should imbibe Him; you should simply become the Master, without any effort at all. Imbibing is a natural process which does not require any effort. Imitating is an artificial thing that requires effort. How long can you go on imitating? It will again become a fight, a struggle.

I am not trying to make you trust me; I am trying to make you trust yourself. I am trying to throw you towards your inner depths. I am trying to make you realize how deep you can really go. And I will not allow you to cling to me. The disciple would love to cling; the disciple would love to be dependent, but the Master is not there for all this. He is there to destroy the clinging nature in you and make you move inwards freely and joyfully.

This process might be frustrating because the Master will never fulfill your expectations as you want them to be fulfilled. He will disappoint you many times. But through this frustration and disappointment, the transformation, the understanding happens and finally you reach the top. Then you have become independent. Then you will understand what it was all about; how compassionate the Master is.

One more thing: I cannot open you. If you remain closed, I can only inspire you to open; it is you that has to open. There are a few guys here who think that I am responsible to make them open and get enlightened. And if they haven't become enlightened, I am the culprit!

Understand, unless you are completely open without any desire, enlightenment will never happen. How can I make you open? How can I take away your desires? All I can do is tell you to become aware of it so that the desires will leave you.

You want guidance, you want help every step of the way. This is where the problem starts. You are expecting a map from me. You want me to instruct you and tell what has to be done at every step. If I give you a map, it will only be a distraction to you. Instead of looking inwards, you will go on looking outwards at the map. So I will only give you a few hints. You have to understand these hints and create your journey.

There are two ways you can live your life - either completely closed as if you are surrounded by walls -

this is the way of the ego; or making all these walls into bridges so that you can connect to the Whole - the way a meditator lives! This is the way to move out of the ego.

I am here to make you free; I am here to create bridges, never walls. This is why I do not let you become dependent on me. Walls make you dependent, bridges make you independent. So, to be open, to be free, is to have no walls around you.

You simply have to become yourself. As of now you are not yourself; you are just what society has made you to be. What you really are is hidden deep within you. Now uncover yourself. Then you will know yourself.

I am not trying to make you into something. I am just trying to make you what you already are! Understand? I want you to become what you already are, nothing more. What you are thinking yourself to be is not you. I am again and again telling you this. I am here to make you what you originally are.

I am like a gardener. The gardener just helps the rose to become a rose. He helps it bloom by pouring water, putting manure, spraying disinfectants etc. He does not actually make it grow. The rose grows by itself.

I will give you understanding and I will give you the space to grow. But you are growing by yourself. I am not doing anything. So continue to grow. Continue to understand what you already are.

You have to realize your own presence. No one is going to help you. It must happen by yourself and only yourself. I can support you, but I can do no more than this. It is a long journey which you will have to go through, and you have to go through it alone.

A devotee says when he first came to the ashram, he felt like he was always in a high mood. But now he feels like his self confidence has gone. He says he is feeling vulnerable.

The self confidence that you felt initially was just your ego. When you are in the ashram, slowly, your ego will start getting exposed. That process will hurt you. You will start feeling that what gave you confidence as a personality is being taken away from you. That is what you are feeling now. Your self-confidence will start shaking.

A person who is aware of his ego, will start radiating confidence and will not be afraid of losing anything. His confidence is a natural by-product of his awareness of himself. He is not under any illusion. That is what is important.

Right now we identify ourselves only through several masks that we wear. It is these masks which we are identifying ourselves with. So when they are gone, there will initially be pain. These masks are your ego. You are here to get rid of the ego; so these masks simply have to drop.

You might miss the masks now and it may hurt. But only when your true nature comes up, only when the masks are gone and your original face is revealed to you, will you understand that the shattering of your masks was a blessing.

Part 4: Rising in love with the Master_English_part_4.md

When you move away from the energy field for sometime, you feel nervous. This is because there is such protection here; it always feels as if someone is watching over you. You can feel the invisible hand of Existence all the time taking care of you, whether I am there or not there in the ashram.

The way in which I take care of you depends on you. Each one of you is different. Each one needs a different way of dealing and taking care.

One thing: simply going away from me for some time will bring you even closer to me. The less dependent you are on me, and the more you are able to be without me in the physical plane, the more you have surrendered.

And it is okay for you to go and come back. Otherwise, you will take the energy field for granted; you will take living around the Master for granted. This is why when I see that someone is taking the ashram for granted, I allow them to pack up if they feel like it. I let them go to any one of our branches or stay wherever they wish to. Then, they will understand the privilege of living around the Master. And when their intensity increases again, I will call them back. This has happened many times.

I let the fish out of the water for some time. Let them feel the need for the water; let them feel the protection that the water gives. Only then they can start swimming joyfully again.

You are born with your truth, but through time, your truth is forgotten. Truth is the one thing that should never be forgotten but it is also the one thing that you fellows will always forget! Truth is the one thing that connects all of us. It is only through truth that you and I are connected. You and I can never meet. But your truth and my truth can meet.

Being yourself means being blissful without the aid of any external factor. Just imagine that the whole world has disappeared. Only you are there. What would you do then? You would jump around happily! You would just be in bliss, is it not?

This is the way in which you should live now. The only reason why you are holding back is because you are afraid of what people might think of you. You are so bothered about what people are thinking all the time. That is why I am telling you to simply feel as if there is no one except you. Set aside some time when you are by yourself and just listen to yourself. It is only because of people that you are not letting go. If the people were not there, you would be like a river. You would simply flow with no idea at all of where you are going and this very feeling will give you joy. There will not be any feeling of insecurity at all! You would trust Existence to take care of you.

Just listen to yourself. Don't be confused between what the ego is saying to you and what makes you feel blissful. You should be able to clearly tell the difference between your feelings and your thoughts. To be able to do this, you need to become aware.

One more thing: when you sit before me and listen, the mind will catch certain ideas and then you will begin to think about them. They will never reach your core. If you think about what I say, the vibrations of the words will never become a part of you. Just listen, digest it and forget about it completely.

There are people who will go on writing long letters to me every day telling me about their problems. They want to show me how many problems they have. You cannot have so many problems. What happens is, you move around in a circle some hundred times and come again and again to the same problem and then you will think, 'God, I have so many problems!'

Whenever these so-called problems surface, there is no need to make such a scene of it. When there is a problem, close your eyes and see from where the problem is coming. Only when you become aware of these subtle things, will you understand how you have been going around in circles for such simple things.

The main problem is, we think that if we have big problems, we are big people. I have seen these old women talking. One will talk about her problem and the other will try to make her own problem seem bigger. They will go on and on trying to make their own problems sound very big!

This is just a way for the ego to feel big. Those who just keep silent and do not listen to the games of the mind will benefit the most.

There was once a twelve year old boy named Toyo. He was the youngest monk in the temple. Every morning and evening, the older disciples went to the Master's room to receive instructions. The Master gave them techniques to silence their minds. Toyo also wanted to get sazen (personal guidance) from the Master like the other disciples. When he asked the Master to give him a technique, the Master simply said, 'Wait for some time. You are too young.'

But Toyo continued to ask. So finally the Master said, 'Alright! You can hear the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping?'

Toyo went to his room and thought about the question. He could hear the music of the geishas in the distance. 'Ah, I have it!' he said to himself.

The next day when the Master asked him to show the sound of one hand clapping, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

The Master said, 'You haven't got it at all.'

Disappointed, Toyo went to a quiet place and meditated. He heard the sound of water dripping. 'Now I have it!' he thought. The next day when the Master asked him again, he imitated the sound of dripping water.

That is not the sound of one hand clapping, the Master said, "Try again."

The sigh of the wind, the screech of the owl, nothing that Toyo demonstrated for the Master in the next few weeks, the Master accepted.

So Toyo went on meditating. And then one day he understood. He went to the Master and prostrated in complete silence.

'Ah! Now you have it. Now you have understood the sound of one hand clapping.'

Life with me will be ecstatic but equally challenging as well because my work is to cause chaos in you, break all your social conditioning and past patterns and show what you are really made of.

D y becoming a disciple, you have made the clear I decision to find yourself. When you begin to find yourself, there will be pain because you are losing what you thought you were - that is your ego. The ego is what you have known to be you. It has become you. But when you come to a Master, you have actually chosen the path of dropping the ego although you are not aware of it!

When you are with the Master, you will start falling in tune with the way of Existence that is spontaneity. In what appears as the chaos of the universe, there is an amazing order. You will learn to perceive that order and enjoy moving in tune with it. The whole of Existence is an energy body with supreme intelligence. There is no planning. If the rain comes, it comes. If the lightning comes, it comes. Only we try to predict the rain and lightning through weather forecast!

Living in the moment is beautiful because then every new moment is packed with so much freshness! And even if the future seems to repeat things, we will not see it as a repetition; we will only take it as a fresh happening. The trick is to un-clutch from the habit of linking things and creating conclusions. It is this clutching that makes things appear as boring and repetitive. Actually, the future never repeats itself. It is just another happening. That's all! It is our mind that brands it. For example: you

may see a sunset today, and you may see it tomorrow also. But it is not the same sunset! It is continuously changing. But your mind links it to yesterday's sunset and says, 'Oh! I have already seen. I am seeing it everyday. There is no need to waste time in seeing it again.'

No! It is a new happening. Understand that.

To tell you honestly, we are all afraid to throw ourselves into the unfolding newness of every minute. We feel cozy by going on repeating the same thing everyday. For example: you wake up at seven thirty, read the newspaper at eight, eat breakfast at eight thirty and go to the office at nine. Then you have lunch at one and come back to the house at seven; you watch television for some time, have your dinner and go to bed. The next day will be exactly the same thing. You feel comfortable doing things in a routine fashion because they are done everyday and there is no question of anything new or unknown.

But with the new, there will be fear because everything is unknown to you. You will be doing everything for the first time, so naturally, you will be unsure of whether you are going to make it or not. But in this uncertainty, there will be a thrill, a vitality. And when you go with this aliveness, you will become spontaneous and intelligent.

The Master is everything; he is every single dimension you can ever imagine. He is like winter and at the same time, summer; the moon and at the same time, the sun.

He is delicate like a flower yet as hard as a rock. Only when he is like this, will the disciple grow.

Actually, the whole problem is that you are not open to what the Master is trying to do to you. I am trying to shatter you and you are trying to protect yourself. I am trying to melt you and you are trying to freeze. I try to attract you with my fragrance but you pull away. I try to crush your ego but you escape.

I am trying to do something and you are trying to do the opposite.

'I feel as if I can never accept things,'says a new comer. 'Whatever I have doesn't seem like enough for me. And then when I get what I thought I wanted, even that doesn't seem like enough."

You will have to pass through this stage. By and by you will understand the pseudo-ness of the whole thing. But in order to understand, you will have to pass through it first. And you will have to go through it many times before it becomes a solid experience.

Simply passing through it once will not become an experience. The understanding will only touch you externally and pass. Only when it happens again and again will it become an experience in you. Then you will be able to understand the nonsense of the whole thing!

Once you have fallen in tune with me, you begin to forget your mind. It is like when you are in love with someone, your mind becomes less important. The love is what takes you over. So once you have forgotten yourself, I will be able to enter you. Then there will be no hindrance because it is the mind that is the hindrance. And now the mind has left you so I will simply be able to transform you.

And to tell you honestly, your mind leaving you has nothing to do with me. The Master is just a device. The disciple has fallen so much in love with the Master that the mind doesn't have a say anymore. Whatever the Master says, your body will simply respond!

I am here only to bring you to the state where you will not listen to the mind. But you dropping the mind is not because of me; I am just an excuse. The mind has to be dropped. That's all! But if I tell you to drop the mind, will

you be able to do it? Will you even be able to understand? So you have to go through the drama!

The Master is a drama, nothing more. He just appears to be in front of you and telling you all of this. But understand that what you are seeing is just a drama with a very good hero!

So once the mind has been dropped, you will feel a great burden being lifted from you. Then you will understand the games which it has been playing on you. It will go on telling you that happiness is somewhere else; it will never help you look within and experience it now. The mind will always look here and there. It will never look inside.

The mind functions out of the past or the future. It can never be in the present. It can never be here. To be here is against the very nature of the mind. Only when you are in the present, you will experience bliss. Bliss does not exist anywhere else except right here. But the mind will go on throwing you farther and farther away. It will tell you to seek bliss is within you. What is the need to seek it? The mind cannot be happy in the present, so it goes on projecting somewhere else. It will go on projecting and postponing.

The only way to overcome the mind is to go through it. You will have to become aware of the games it plays. Only then you will understand.

There will be many times when you will hope and the mind frustrates you. It is like you are driving in a car with the hope of getting somewhere and the car is switched off. After some time, you will understand that the car is of no use and there are other ways of getting where you wish to go. In the same way, your mind will again and again lead you into frustration. Soon you will realize that the mind is of no use and with this realization, you will drop the mind.

Once you understand this, it will not be an intellectual understanding. It will be experiential. You would have experienced the troubles that the car gave you; you would have experienced the frustrations of the mind. Now, it is not just something someone has told you. It is not just something you believe in; it is something that has penetrated you as a practical and deep understanding. Once this understanding comes, you simply cannot live with the mind. It has to leave you. And then there will be nothing that will cloud your inner space.

The only way to really digest what I am saying is to first drop the mind. As long as the mind is there, whatever I say will only be a belief for you. It will not penetrate you. Once the mind is dropped, you will see the Truth for vourself.

Once you enjoy life without allowing the mind to play, your problems will not have any effect on you. Being happy and having problems are two completely different things. You can have problems and still be happy.

When you are happy, you become vulnerable; this is why there is a subtle fear. When you are happy, you become childlike and innocent. Then you become afraid that you have become vulnerable. But when you are miserable, you will look intellectual, knowledgeable, and solid.

To tell you honestly: true intelligence comes only when there is innocence. You may have intellect. Intellect comes from the outside. It has to be acquired. But intelligence is what you are.

So as you begin to come into contact with yourself, you will have to face the fear. Everyone has emptiness at their very core. It is like a wheel. The wheel may have many spokes but at the very center, there is emptiness. And it is this emptiness that holds the whole wheel together.

In the same way, your whole life is centered upon emptiness. This is what we are working for; this is what you are here for - to put yourself back into your emptiness. Being in this emptiness is the ultimate fulfillment. But the fear comes because you have been brought up with so much of noise.

Actually, unless you have fallen into your inner space, you can never experience the ultimate fulfillment that you are actually seeking. All of the so-called fulfillment that comes your way will break with the smallest disappointment. Then how can you call this fulfillment? Fulfillment is the feeling of complete contentment no matter what the situation is. And this feeling can only happen when you have fallen into emptiness.

When you are in deep sleep, you enter into this emptiness. This is why you are so fresh after a dreamless sleep. You touch your emptiness and it rejuvenates you. This is because in this emptiness there is no name or identity. You just lose your identity. You forget who you are. It simply is, that's all!

But the moment you wake up, you are no longer in that emptiness. In fact you have no idea what happened! It is not like the emptiness has left you; no! It is still inside you but you were not aware of it while you were experiencing it. When you were asleep, you were unaware. If you were aware, you would not have come out of this emptiness. You would have understood its depths. And the moment you understand it, you will fall into its depths.

The other thing stopping you from knowing the depths of yourself is fear. You have the fear of losing your so-called self. This is why you are afraid of entering your own depths. This fear will be there until you enter. If you simply forget the fear and jump, the fear will disappear. Fear is against the very nature of emptiness. There is nothing in emptiness - it is just empty. So once you drop the fear and consciously enter, you will be able to stay in its depths.

Do not suppress your fear and try to act as if you are very strong. If you do this, it will only be pseudo because underneath this so-called strength, there is fear. Simply accept you are afraid, and carry on. Accept your fear and continue anyhow.

You see: accepting your fear and moving on is different, and suppressing it is totally different. When you suppress, you act as if there is no fear and you simply put on a nice show to prove you are very strong. But when you accept your fear and move towards the emptiness, you are aware of your fear but you still continue and reach the emptiness.

When you accept, you have the clear understanding that the Master is pushing you towards yourself.

An onlooker tells swamiji that he is not able to comprehend what swamiji is saying. He tells him that he has become confused.

If life was meant to be logical, there would be only men or only women. There would be only cold or only hot. But there are both. There are always opposites; there is always a yin and yang - the male and female, the opposites.

When there is duality, there is bound to be confusion. Only when you have absorbed all confusions and all opposites, will oneness happen in you. I am not telling you to drop all confusion. I am telling you to understand and use them. For example: love and hate are two emotions in you. Now you have used both of them and a new emotion has risen in you: compassion. Compassion is both of these and something more.

This is what I go on doing. I create bridges within you between the opposites. And this is what causes the confusion. Your mind's nature is to divide, so you are perfectly alright with these opposites. But the nature of life is oneness, so I am telling you to find the bridge that will connect.

The bridges are already there. You just have to look.

And I will go on creating opposites in you. If you are confused, I will make you clear. If you are clear, I will make you confused. I will go on putting you in confusion. Only when you are utterly confused, the mind will drop and suddenly there will be no more confusion, only clarity.

Confusion is a part of life. If you are not confused, you are just dull. And what will you do with certainty? Confusion is much more valuable. It means you are alive. It means you are growing.

But you never want confusion. You only want certainty. You want certainty because you want security all the time. You need to feel secure. But I tell you: instead of running away from confusion, you should have the clear understanding that confusion will make you clearer.

The moment I see you settling, I will just shake the Earth beneath you. You will fall down and become frustrated and confused. The nature of the mind is to settle, but life has to move! The mind is like a stagnant pool, but life is like a river. Life is full of movement, but your mind wants to be still.

This is the reason why there is so much of struggle. Your mind wants to remain stagnant, but life has to move. As of now, you are living for the mind. So you want to become stagnant. But your inherent nature is to flow with life; to be in continuous movement.

Let you be clear: the confusion will be there. Once you come into contact with me, the confusion will come. This is because the new will start happening but the old will still be there. It will be difficult to decide whether to let the new take over or to continue with the old. The new will be chaos. The old is order. But there is a charm in the chaos, a pull. You will try to run away, but you end up running towards it!

Let the confusion be there. Do not run away from it; become aware. Once you have totally lost yourself in confusion, you will simply drop the mind.

Confusion is part of the process. It is part of the work which is done once you come to the Master. The transformation can happen only after all your old concepts and ideologies leave you. All of these ideologies are like a mesh for me to enter. Unless this mesh gives way, I cannot enter. When confusion happens, the mesh becomes so tight and complex that it has to break. When this happens, I can enter!

To tell you honestly: you are not going to surrender to me. The disciple never surrenders to the Master. He only surrenders to himself. But as of now, you do not know who you are, so if I tell vou to surrender to yourself, you will not be able to fully understand. The moment you surrender to the Master, you will be thrown back to your self. The Master is the path back to your Self. Guru Bhakti - devotion towards the Master suddenly leads to Atma Bhakti - devotion towards the Self.

An old devotee tells THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM that there are times when he is not quite sure who he is following. "There are times when I feel like I am following You', he says, 'and there are other times when I feel like I am following myself."

You see: whether you follow yourself or you follow me, there is no difference. It is as if you are looking into a clear, still pond. When you stare deep into the pond, your reflection stares back at you. So who are you looking at; the pond or yourself ?

If you understand this one truth, you will understand the relationship between the Master and disciple.

The Master is the pond. He is a mirror which the disciple can simply look into and see his own reflection. Understand?

You are looking at me only to see yourself. And this is why I am going on telling you to surrender. You are not surrendering to me; you are only surrendering to yourself. It is just like a mirror. A mirror has to reflect you; otherwise it cannot be called a mirror. So the only purpose for your looking at me is to look at yourself. As you look at my face, your real face will be revealed to you. Then the mirror is no longer needed because you have seen yourself.

And this is what being a disciple means; to simply look at the Master and lose your self. The Master will reflect what you already are.

When I say look at the Master, I mean be with him. But in the ashram, there are a few guys who sit around and just look at me while the others discuss their doubts. They will go on gazing at me. I call it 'gazing meditation'! As you go on gazing, you will simply drop my form and turn inwards. But you must not get caught up with the form and forget you are looking at a mirror. Simply gaze at me with the deep feeling that you are experiencing yourself.

A brahmachari says that there are times when he feels like he is fighting with swamiji .

Actually you are not fighting with me; you are fighting with the transformation. You are afraid there is no way back to what you have always lived with. And you know there is no way back. This is why there is a fight.

It is a battle against yourself. Your pseudo self will go on being defeated, yet it will go on trying. The Master is a reflection of you. So it will feel like you are fighting with me.

As of now, there are two patterns within you: the artificial and the natural. If you are open and allow the Master to do his work on you, he will effortlessly pull the natural from its depths and bring it to the surface. But if you continue to fight, you will nurture the artificial and it will only take longer. Understand: because you have two different things within you, there is an inner fight, an inner argument. One side wants to be open and receptive and the other side wants to remain closed and sealed off.

It is like you are a mirror, a shiny mirror. But through the years, dust has collected. If you become open to the Master and allow him to do his work, he will simply wipe your mirror clean. But if you go on fighting and resisting, more dust will accumulate. And poor guy, he has to wipe that also!

So just become receptive and allow your mirror to be wiped clean. Then you will be able to see with more clarity. You will be able to see that I am you there is no difference. And if I am you, with whom are you fighting? There is no one to fight with!

One more thing: in the presence of the Master, all the emotions which you have been carrying your whole life will come up. And they will be more total than what you have experienced before. This is why your mood changes so frequently when you are with me. Society has taught you to allow only certain emotions and suppress others. Here, all the emotions will come up and be chiseled; all of the emotions will be worked on.

What you project yourself to be and what emotions lie within you are two separate things. And it is a very powerful technique to be in the Master's presence because everything will come up and be expressed totally. When it is expressed, it will pass.

• RISING IN LOVE WITH THE MASTER -

There was once a very powerful king. Despite his power and wealth, he wisely chose to be a disciple of a Master. He often visited the Master to receive guidance. The fact that he was king did not matter and had no effect on the relationship as a Master and disciple.

One day, during his usual visit, the king asked, 'Master, what is ego according to our ancient truths?'

The Master's face turned red and in a very arrogant tone he shouted, 'Fool! What kind of an idiotic question was that?' His response shocked the king and he became serious and angry. The

Master then smiled and said, 'This is ego.'

• UNCOVER YOURSELF -

If you go on fighting, you will just be defeated faster because if you are fighting with me, you are fighting with yourself!

Sometimes the fish swim against the river's currents and sometimes they flow along with the current. But either way, the fish is in the water. Whether you go along with me or you resist me, you are still here; you are still in the water. If you want to waste your energy in swimming against the currents, go ahead and tire yourself out. Once you are tired, you will flow with the current. But understand one thing: you are still in the water!

As I told you earlier, life with me will not always be a honeymoon. There will be many ups and downs. And there will be times when you will be sitting in front of me and you will feel like you are not with me. You will even feel like I don't care for you at all. There will be many emotions which come up. Everything that has been lying within you will now come up. But unless all this gets churned and comes out, you will not be free from them.

When my work on you is happening, you will feel like escaping; you will feel like dropping everything and running. Be clear: by hiding from me, you are only escaping from yourself; you are only hiding from yourself. Ultimately, it is your choice. You can either hide or allow. By hiding, you will only miss. If you allow, the transformation will happen.

• RISING IN LOVE WITH THE MASTER -

A devotee says he never feels satisfied no matter what happens.

First thing: I do not teach satisfaction. I teach you how to be contented. They are two completely different things. Satisfaction is a part of the ego, but to be content comes from deep within, much beyond ego. You can create satisfaction but you cannot create contentment. It has to happen on its own. And it will come when you experience total discontentment with full awareness.

When you are talking about satisfaction, you are actually talking about wanting more. When you are talking about contentment, you are talking about a settled state within which doesn't need any 'more'. It already has everything that is needed.

And this is the meaning of realizing. It means to live in awareness in any situation. This is what I am continuously teaching you. I am telling you to live and enjoy the bliss which lies within you. When you do this, you are content every moment. There is no need to search for any 'more'; there is no need to go in search of bliss. It is within you every moment! Bliss is not something that can be found, because it is already there.

The moment you become my disciple, it means you are dropping all ideas of separation. In the beginning, you will drop the idea of separation from me; vou will experience oneness. And soon, this oneness will grow and you will start feeling it with the whole of Existence. Then everything will be one; there will be no separation. There will only be one cosmic whole.

akua, a Japanese Zen Master went to China to study Zen. He lived in the mountains where he would continuously meditate. If people discovered his hideout and pestered him to speak, he would say a few words and move on to a less accessible place.

When he came back to Japan, the emperor sent for Kakua. He requested him to teach Zen to him and his subjects. Kakua stood in silence for some time. Then he took out his flute and blew one short note. After playing that single note of Zen he made a courteous bow and disappeared.

A small Zen story:

You see, there are two things: communication and communion. You must understand the difference. Communication happens all the time; it is from the ego, the mind. But communion happens between two beings. It is a deep merging that comes from within.

Communication is the sharing of ideas; it is between two minds. But communion is a sharing of energy. It happens in complete silence. It is a merging where you lose your identity.

When you sit around me, after some time you will be shocked to see the watch. So many hours would have gone by! This is because when you are with me, there is a beautiful communion that is going on. This is the merging of the Master and disciple.

One more thing: you will never be my disciple. I am only a link. You can only be a disciple of the Divine; a disciple of Existence. You become a disciple through the Master. I am only the door, but the other side of the door is where you need to go.

The Master is only a visible form for the invisible. This is because the ego will not be able to relate with something which is not seen. Actually, the Master is both visible and invisible. When you initially come to me, you will know only the visible. But as time passes, the invisible becomes clear to you. You begin to feel the absence in the presence.

The closer you come to the Master, the deeper you go, the less you will be able to find him. As you move deeper, finally the invisible is revealed.

Bodhidharma sat for nine years staring at a wall. This was his meditation. When disciples would come to him for guidance, he would simply tell them to sit and gaze at the wall. After a few hours, many would leave; what to do ...? Simply sitting and gazing at a wall?

But those who stayed on and trusted the Master attained to the highest peaks that have been available to humanity. And the whole of Zen stands on Bodhidharma's ideology.

There is a small Zen story:

A Zen Master was becoming old and announced he was looking for somebody to whom he could pass on the monastery, and who would take care of the mission. He said he would choose the disciple who would submit the best poem showing his understanding of Buddhism. Everybody thought for sure that the chief monk Shen-hsui would be chosen. So they did not even try to compete. But Shen-hsui was not so sure of his understanding. He wrote an anonymous poem on the walls of the Master's quarters. It went like this:

The Bodhi Tree is the body The mind is a shining mirror Make sure that you wipe it And let no dust stick to it

The next morning, when the Master read the poem he asked his disciples to burn incense before it and said that whoever practiced what was in the poem would realize their true nature. Shen-hsiu told him in private that it was he who had written the poem. The Master said, 'Your understanding is not yet perfect.'

The morning after that, another poem appeared beside Shen-hsiu's poem:

There never was a Bodhi tree. There is no bright mirror. Nothing exists. So where is the dust to stick to it?

The Master knew that only Hui-neng, one of the junior most monks could have written it. He rubbed out the poem with his shoe and secretly called Hui-neng to his room. The Master told him to take care of everything after his death and told him to run away to the mountains and stay there until the monks got over their hurt feelings and were ready to receive Hui-neng's teachings publicly.

Hui-neng did so and went on to become one of the greatest Zen Masters ever.

Understand: I am not there and you are not there. There is only a great emptiness that is. It is this emptiness you have forgotten and it is this emptiness you are here to remember.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is a living enlightened Master of the 21st century.

He took birth in Tiruvannamalai, a spiritual nerve center in South Bharat. Since a very young age, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM spent days and nights in meditation in the divine aura of Arunachala. His intense quest for deeper Truths of life led him on his spiritual journey which covered the length and breadth of Bharat, several thousand miles of which he covered on foot. Visiting venerated shrines, meeting highly evolved yogis and rishis, and practicing intense meditations. he studied Yoga, Tantra, and other Eastern metaphysical sciences. He went through several profoundly impacting spiritual experiences, culminating in his realization of the Ultimate at a young age.

Since then, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM has been sharing his experience with millions of people worldwide through the activities of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Mission which conducts insightful and inspiring meditation programs and a wide spectrum of social services, thus providing life solutions at the physical, mental and spiritual levels. The meditation programs are offered worldwide through the International Vedic Hindu University (IVHU) Florida, USA. Further, free education to youth, encouragement to art and culture, corporate meditation programs, meditation for prisoners, free medical camps, free meals, a one-year residential training program in Bharat called the Life Bliss Technology program, an in-house gurukul system of learning for children, and many more such services are offered around the world.

Employing time-tested vedic knowledge and modern technology, the Mission ashrams and centers the world over serve as spiritual laboratories where inner growth is a profound achievement. Today, they are much sought after as ideal destinations to explore, experiment and experience through a host of programs, courses and research facilities in diverse subjects from meditation to the sciences.

Established in 2003, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Mission has grown today into a worldwide movement for bliss, standing for the ideal of realizing an enlightened humanity and thereby raising the collective consciousness of planet earth.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Mission offers specialized meditation programs w benefit millions of people at the levels of body, mind and spirit. A few of them are listed below:

• Energize yourself

A chakra based meditation program that relaxes and energizes the seven major chakras or subtle energy centers in your system. It gives clear intellectual and experiential understanding of your various emotions such as greed, feat, worry, attention-need, stress, jealousy, ego, and discontentment. It is designed to create a spiritual effect at the physical level. It is a guaranteed life solution to experience the reality of your own bliss. When you are liberated from a particular emotion, you experience a new world, a new energy. It is a highly effective workshop, experienced by millions of people around the globe.

A meditation program that unleashes the art of living by demystifying the process of dying. This program creates the space to detach from ingrained and unconscious emotions like guilt, pleasure and pain, all of which stem from the ultimate fear of death. It is a gateway to a new life that is driven by natural intelligence and spontaneous enthusiasm.

An indepth program that analyzes clearly the workings of the mind and shows you experientially how to be the master of the mind rather than be dictated by it. It imparts tremendous intellectual understanding coupled with powerful meditations to produce instant clarity and integration.

A program that reveals the different dimensions of relating with others and with your deeper self. It clearly defines relationship as that which kindles and reveals your own unknown dimensions to you. It allows you to experience the real depth and joy of any relationship in your life.

Life Bliss Technology (LBT) is a residential program for youth between 18 and 30 years of age. With its roots in the Eastern system of vedic education, this program is designed to empower modern youth with good physical, mental and emotional health and practical life skills. By nurturing creative intelligence and spontaneity, and imparting life skills, it creates economically self-sufficient and spiritually fulfilled youth. Above all, it offers a lifetime opportunity to live and learn under the tutelage of an enlightened master.

A unique and powerful means of healing through the Cosmic energy, this is a meditation for the healer and a means to get healed for the recipient of the healing. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM continues to initiate thousands of Nithya Spiritual Healers worldwide into this scientific and time-tested healing technique which has healed people of ailments ranging from migraine to cancer.

An enlightenment intensive program for sincere seekers offering yoga, powerful teachings, meditation, initiation and more. This program is an intense experience to prepare the body-mind system to hold and radiate the experience of 'living enlightenment'.

An advanced meditation program for seekers where the presence of the Master and the intense energy field lead one to the state of nithya ananda - eternal bliss. It offers a range of techniques from meditation to service to sitting in the powerful presence of the master.

An experiential meditation program sowing in one the seed of:

Shakti, the Energy to understand and change whatever you need to change in life, Buddhi, the Intelligence to understand and accept whatever you don't need to change in life,

Yukti, the Clarity to understand and realize that however much you change, whatever you see as reality is itself a continuously changing dream,

Bhakti, the Devotion, the feeling of deep connection to That which is unchanging, eternal and Ultimate, and

Mukti, the Ultimate Liberation into Living Enlightenment when all these four are integrated.

• Life Bliss Meditation

Become one among the millions who walk on planet Earth - Un-clutched! Register online and get initiated.

Nithya Dhyaan is a powerful everyday meditation prescribed by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM to humanity at large. It is a formula or a technique, which is holistic and complete. It works on the entire being to transform it and make it ready

for the ultimate experience of enlightenment to dawn. Each segment of this technique complements the remaining segments to help raise the individual consciousness. It trains you to un-clutch from your mind and live a blissful life. It is the meditation for Eternal Bliss.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM says, 'My advent on planet Earth is to create a new cycle of individual consciousness causing Collective Consciousness to enter the Superconscious zone.'

Meditation and de-addiction camps worldwide: Over 2 million people impacted to date

Nithya Spiritual Healing: A system of cosmic energy healing administered free through ordained healers, through our worldwide ashrams and centers, touching people globally every day - healing both mind and body

Anna Daan: free food program: nutritious meals distributed every week through all the ashram anna mandirs for visitors, devotees and disciples thus improving health standards

The THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Order and its training: Spiritual aspirants ordained as Sannyasis, Brahmacharis and Brahmacharinis: who undergo years of intensive training in yoga, meditation, deep spiritual practice, Sanskrit, vedic chanting, life skills, and who run the 100% volunteer based ashrams of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Mission worldwide, working in all Mission activities

International Vedic Hindu University (IVHU) (the former Hindu University, Florida, USA): THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM was unanimously elected as chairman (chancellor) of International Vedic Hindu University which provides education in Eastern philosophies, therapeutics, vedic studies, meditation science and more through Bachelor of Science, Post Graduate and Diploma degrees

Nithya Yoga: A revolutionary system of yoga in the lines of sage Patanjali's original teachings, taught worldwide.

Temples and Ashrams: Over 30 Vedic temples and ashrams worldwide.

Meditation Programs in prisons: Conducted in prisons and juvenile camps to reform extremist attitudes - resulting in amazing transformation among the inmates.

Medical Camps: Free treatment and therapies in allopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda, acupuncture, eye check-ups, eye surgeries, artificial limb donation camps, gynecology and more

Support to children in rural areas: School buildings, school uniforms and educational materials provided free to rural schools.

Life Bliss Technology: A free two vear / three month program for youth teaching Life Engineering and the science of enlightenment

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Gurukul: A modern scientific approach to education combined with the vedic system of learning - protecting and developing the innate intelligence of the child who flowers without repression, fear or peer pressure

Corporate Meditation Programs: Specially designed and conducted in corporate firms worldwide including Microsoft, AT&T, Qualcomm, JP Morgan, Petrobras, Pepsi, Oracle, American Association of Physicians of Hindu Origin (AAPI) - with focus on intuitive management, leadership skills and team work.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Institute of Teachers' Training: Over 300 teachers trained to teach: transformational meditation programs, Quantum Memory Program, Nithya Yoga, Health and Healing Programs, Spiritual Practice Programs and more

Media: Articles in national and international newspapers and magazines, carrying transforming messages from THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Publishers: Over 4700 hours of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's discourses transcribed, edited and published in-house and made available in stores through books, DVDs and CDs

Life Bliss Gallerias: Worldwide stores and mobile shops retailing recordings and books of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's discourses and Nithya Kirtan recordings in 23 languages

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Meditation & Healing Centers: Worldwide, offering meditation and healing services

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Sangeeth Academy: Music, dance and other forms of art taught and encouraged in youth and elderly alike - live and through internet

Free Discourses on YouTube: Over 500 free discourses on www.youtube.com – wisdom from the Master, easily accessible. Ranked top in viewership

Support to scientists and researchers: Continually bridging gaps between science and spirituality through researches on spiritual energy and healing.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Youth Foundation: A collection of inspired youth, building a divine and dynamic society with a common ideology of peace and enlightenment

Nithya Dheera Seva Sena: Through transformation of self, this volunteer force of Ananda Sevaks trains and functions in the service of humanity, also serving as relief wing working towards disaster recovery management.

Sri Anandeshwari Temple, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Giri, Pashambanda Sathamrai Village, Shamshabad Mandal Rangareddy District - 501 218 Andhra Pradesh, Bharat

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAMpuri, 102, Azhagapurampudur (Behind Sharada College), Salem - 636 016 Tamilnadu, Bharat

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAMpuri, Girivala path Tiruvannamalai - 606 604 Tamilnadu, Bharat

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAMpuri, Kothainachiarpuram, Sankaran Coil Road, Rajapalayam, Virudhunagar District Tamilnadu, Bharat

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAMpuri, Embalam to Villianoor Main Road, Embalam Post, Pondicherry - 605 106 Bharat

• A wide range of products for blissful living: ●

• THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's insightful messages on video, audio tapes, CDs and books ● in over 20 languages.

• Enlivening music and chants for meditation and deep inner healing. ●

• Meditation and yoga books, kits and CDs for rejuvenating body, mind and ● spirit.

• Energized rosaries, bracelets, photographs, clothing and gift items for a ● stimulating life style.

• Ethnic energy bead jewelry for men and women for tranquility and ● continued high energy.

• RISING IN LOVE WITH THE MASTER -

Guaranteed Solutions

• Don't Worry Be Happy ●
• THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Vol. 1 ●
• Instant Tools for Blissful Living ●
• You Can Heal
• Follow Me In!
• The Door to Enlightenment
• Songs of Eternity
• . You are No Sinner
• So You Want to Know The Truth?
• Uncommon answers to Common Questions
• Meditation is for you
• Rising in love with the Master
• Bhagavad Gita Series
• Nithya Yoga The ultimate practice for body, mind and being
• Open the door....Let the breeze in!

Being with the Master is like putting ice into fire. The ice will melt; it has to melt. During the melting, all sorts of reactions surface. But once the ice has melted, it will become one with the fire.

The Master - disciple relationship is one of the most mysterious happenings of Existence.

This book is a compilation of intimate conversations between the Master and a small group of disciples. It is about the great love affair between the Master and the disciple. It is about how the Master takes his disciples beyond their doubts and shows them their own reality.