1. So... You Want To Know The Truth...

'i' Or 'I' ?

To tell you honestly, I was always afraid to speak on this subject of Collective Consciousness, because there is too much truth involved in speaking out on this subject.

Man, as such, cannot handle too much of truth. If it is up to 30 or 40%, he can handle it well. But beyond that, the truth starts transforming him. He feels that the ground on which he is standing is moving away. To tell you honestly, none of us really wants to know the truth. If truth were to be given out honestly, there would be no one willing to accept it…except for a few teachers. The moment honest truths are given; people begin to get frightened. This includes both the teacher as well as the listener.

The bottom line is…Truth frightens us!

A western philosopher has written beautifully, 'Please don't take lies away, let man live on them, live with them'. It is indeed too much for us to bear, to have our lies taken away. These lies are the fundamentals for us to live life upon.

Lies are the base on which we live.

Why do you think we put on make up, dye one's hair and dress up? Why do we dress up in a colorful way, when we know that we are hiding the true self within ourselves? We do not want to see the truth, to face the fact that we have become old. We cannot accept the truth of our ageing and so pretend, fantasize and lie. We know that we are not what we show ourselves to be.

This is not the only way we hide the truth. There are many ways in which we try to hide the truth. Why do you think we have so many social courtesies? We basically respect each other. But for social courtesies, we always follow many formalities. We are taught from childhood to say 'please' and 'thank you', irrespective of whether we mean it or not, irrespective of whether the situation demands it or not. We do it only because social etiquette says so. Whenever we meet someone, we say 'Nice to meet you', even though we may dislike the person intensely.

Why do you think we prepare so many courteous words? When we meet someone we always say, 'Nice to meet you.', 'It feels so nice to be around you.' After some time we say, 'I need to go now; I have to take care of some work.' Why say such things? If we really feel nice, our whole being will show. The joy will be expressed by our body language. We need not even verbalize it.

Be very clear…if we really feel nice, our whole body, our being will show it.

We would not need to say 'Nice to meet you' to mean it and for the other person to understand this. Our whole body language…our smile…our sheer pleasure of meeting that person will make that obvious.

The more civilized a country or people as they believe themselves to be, the less natural they are in expressing the truth of their feelings. When someone smiles, the smile comes only from the lips…it is a plastic smile. This smile never touches the eyes. The eyes never smile, nor the heart. Laughter emanates and stops at the mouth. True laughter, however, comes from the belly. If a person truly laughs, with the feeling coming from his stomach, people stare at him as if he is guilty of misconduct; guilty of expressing the truth of his feelings.

We know that the truth is something else, but we dare not face the truth. Neither in the verbal language nor in the body language do we feel that we can we afford to be truthful. The simple truth is that truth straight away gives us enlightenment…it transforms us.

Let me tell you…there are so many ideas out there. The moment you imbibe a single point of truth or any single dimension of truth in any way, if you catch a single idea and imbibe it honestly, truthfully, it can do wonders.

Vivekananda says beautifully, 'Even if you memorize all the books in all the libraries of this world, it will not help you in any way, other than increasing your ego over the bookish knowledge you have. Use only one idea and try to imbibe it in your being, experience it in your life; your life will be transformed; even a single idea, just one idea!'

The life of 63 enlightened masters is beautifully described in the Tamil book Periapuranam (The Great Epic) brought out in the state of Tamilnadu in South Bharat.

If we study the life of these masters from this book, we find that there are some masters who have not done anything at all that seems worthwhile to us…nothing at all. Nothing has happened in their lives. There are some masters who have just plucked flowers and offered it to God and done nothing else. Yet, they achieved enlightenment. However, when they did the act of offering flowers, they were true and honest to the action.

It is not what we do that is important. It is how honest we are with our action, which really matters.

We also offer flowers everyday and do all possible things to please God, yet we are not enlightened. The only thing we get is extra expense in maintaining the garden or buying flowers!

We are not honest. When these masters pluck flowers to offer to God, they are thinking only of Him to whom they are offering the flowers. They are totally devoted to the thought of the deity and there is nothing else that is distracting them.

When we pluck flowers, even if it is to offer to a favorite deity, we are thinking of something else…somebody else. I have seen these people who do rituals regularly. Whenever they are doing any rituals, they are thinking of something else. Their thoughts are either on their office work or on some other thing in their life.

I have seen people who regularly chant the 1000 names of Gods and Goddesses, the Vishnu Sahasranama(the 1000 names in praise of Lord Vishnu) and the Lalitha Sahasranama ( the 1000 names in praise of Devi or Mother Goddess) as a ritual everyday. They are very proud that they will not eat a morsel till they finish chanting, which if done completely may take more than an hour. All these people…the moment they start chanting, very soon after they start, start looking at the number of the verse that they have reached. They are desperate to see how far they have read and how much remains to complete the chanting. They are bored and tired…it is just a chore that they are engaged in.

When your heart is not in it, even worship becomes a chore. However, when your heart is in it, even hard work becomes worship…joyful worship!

These people cannot focus on the chanting or the spirit of the prayer and do it only out of fear or greed. They do not have the honesty. The enlightened masters did not chant or pray out of fear or greed, or as a ritual, but only because they wanted to do it. They had an urge to do it. They did this out of their very being…from the very depths of their heart, in love and in tune with nature… with God.

From the moment we get out of the bed in the morning up to the end of our day, when we go back to bed, if we scan our day, it is filled with lies. All our smiles are false. If we smile we don't want the other person to know what is in our mind. So, we do not look into each others' eyes. Why is this so? To put it very simply, we are afraid that the other person will read our mind. We can present a big smile on our mouth even when our heart boils; but in our eyes, we cannot hide anything.

Be very clear, nothing can be hidden in our eyes. Our eyes are the doorway to our mind.

We can see the being straightaway in another person's eyes. We do not look into someone's eyes, because many times we say something and do something else, and we do not want them to know this.

A great philosopher professor had once stayed around me for a few days and attended a few discourses. He once asked me, 'Master, to give a 15 minutes discourse, I have to prepare for at least an hour, even for the same thing that I have been teaching for years together. However, I notice that everyday you are giving discourses at some place or the other with no preparation at all and all on new and different subjects everyday.'

Today, we had a discourse called 'Time the Ultimate Thief' in the afternoon, at a software company. The professor tells me, 'I know you do not prepare because you are so busy, you have no time. I have not seen you preparing at all for the speeches. How can you then speak continuously and give ideas? I need hours of preparation!' The answer to this question is very simple.

If our inner chattering is honestly what we have experienced, if our inner chattering, which is our thinking, is our own experience, then there is no need for preparation and your speech will be totally spontaneous, straight from your heart…straight from your experience.

Just open up…whatever comes out is your experience. For example, if someone asks you for your name, do you prepare? Do you need to carry hints for that? Of course not! It's your experience. Be clear, if something has not become your experience, you need to prepare to deliver a lecture.

Understand well that if we need to prepare to deliver a lecture or we are afraid of public speaking; it means that we are filled with lies. Our whole being is a lie, our life is a lie.

Why do you think we are all afraid of public speaking? We are afraid that we might speak whatever it is that we are thinking about. All our fear is nothing but the fact that we might spell out whatever is going on inside our mind. We know that there is much dirt inside us, that something might erupt out…that some garbage might tumble out, and we are scared. That is why we feel that we must prepare for what we need to speak, and also how we need to say it. We need to be sure that we do not speak something else, and that we need to remember the points one by one. If we forget something, we are afraid that we might start speaking something that is really in our mind. All this is done just to ensure that we don't speak something else. All this preparation is nothing but a technique to hide our true inner chattering.

Be very clear, if you are a speaker and are preparing for your speeches, then be absolutely sure, whatever you are speaking is a truly a lie. It has not become your experience; not become a part of your being, not internalized as a part of your being. It is just memorized and vomited.

A small story:

A teacher was walking down the school lobby with a guest she was showing around. As some students passed them by, they greeted her. She nodded her head curtly and muttered under her breath, 'Same to you.' Her guest asked her, 'Why do you never wish them back? Why do you have to say 'same to you'?'

The teacher just smiled and said, 'I have been a student myself and I know what they are thinking in their minds.'

Whenever you greet, just be aware of the thoughts underneath your greeting. Just be a little aware! Think of how many times we need to edit when and what we speak. However, if we are established in truth, our inner chattering will disappear. Our thinking will disappear. If we are completely truthful, we never have to think…we just need to relax and speak. Why do we need to think and plan continuously for this?

It may sound a little funny but it is not only for public speaking or discourses that we do this; even when we meet our friends, even with our spouse, we actually plan and rehearse the words that we are going to say. We also rehearse how to start…what to start with and then practice how we would continue on the topic. We actually do a full dress rehearsal! If the other person starts talking on a different path, we are lost and we have no idea of what to speak. We do a complete rehearsal only on what we know and want.

Mind you, if we need to prepare to speak to our boss, that is okay, we have to be courteous; else we might lose our job which is a part of our basic needs. That is at least a basic need, let us accept it, forget about it and move on. However, we have become so corrupt that even to talk to our friends and relate to family people, we continuously prepare our dialogues. If we have to prepare continuously, whatever we prepare, is a lie. Even if we state it as a fact, it is not the truth.

Understand well…merely stating a fact will not make it the truth!

We can state facts with many connotations, and most of them will be lies. A lie can always be dressed up to look like the truth with a little bit of cosmetic alteration.

In the Hindu epic poem Mahabharata, there is a revealing incident. Dronacharya was the General of the Kauravas, who were a clan of a hundred brothers battling their cousins, the five Pandava brothers. Krishna, the divine incarnation of God Vishnu, who was helping the Pandavas, planned to destabilize Dronacharya, so that he could be killed. Krishna knew that Drona could not be killed unless his mind was disturbed, and unless Drona was out of the way, the Kaurava army that he led could not be defeated. The only way to upset Drona was to kill his son.

Drona's entire energy was focused on his son Ashwathama. Krishna wanted someone to tell Drona on the battlefield that his son was dead. Drona was not attached to anyone except his son and Krishna knew that this was the only way he could upset him and then have him killed. Now, Krishna was also aware that Drona would not listen to just about anyone and believe that his son was killed. Krishna knew that Yudhishtra, the eldest of the Pandava Princes, would be the best person to announce that Ashwathama was dead.

Yudhishtra was known to be totally truthful and never to lie. Everyone believed him. Everyone trusted him. When Krishna asked Yudhishtra to tell Drona that his son Ashwathama was dead, Yudhishtra refused and said plainly, 'I cannot lie. Ashwathama is still alive. How can I say that he is dead?'

Krishna replied, 'That is okay. Here is an elephant named Ashwathama. Bheema, your brother, will kill him. You just say Ashwathama, the elephant, is dead. When you utter the word elephant, I shall blow my conch, so that your words are drowned out. This will take care that you are not lying and at the same time will get the job done.' Yudhishtra agreed to do this as he was only stating a fact. He announced loudly, 'Ashwathama, the elephant has fallen and is dead.' When he uttered the word elephant, Krishna blew the conch. Note here that the blowing of a conch signifies victory.

When Krishna blew the conch as Yudhishtra announced the rehearsed words, Drona believed him and went into deep depression. The death of a son is the very painful. He lost all his energy…laid down his arms and went into meditation. When a son dies, a part of the being dies. It was just too much to handle, even for Drona. One of the Pandava warriors then killed Drona, who refused to offer a fight. In his way Krishna had Drona killed leading to the defeat of the Kauravas.

If you notice here, Yudhishtra was totally factual yet not truthful, though he was not lying. Now, there is a clear distinction between being truthful and being factual. Everything factual is not truthful. Though Yudhishtra, who was also known as Dharmaraja, the King of Righteousness, did not lie, he did not speak the actual truth either. The next part of this interesting story goes like this.

It is said that Dharmaraja used to walk above the Earth; free from its bondage because of his truthful nature, and even the chariot he rode in, never touched the ground. Now, this is not the literal truth. Please understand that when one is in ecstasy…in bliss, he feels light, as if he is flying. Physically he would be on the ground but he would feel so light that it is a feeling of flying…a feeling of total boundaryless consciousness. The moment he uttered the statement about Ashwathama's death, even though it was a fact, he came down to Earth; his chariot which was flying above the ground…touched the ground. The story states that he lost his state of boundaryless consciousness, and he touched the ground. Truth was lost. His honesty was lost.

In real life, why do we lie so much? Why does a husband always tell his wife that he loves her? If he really loves her, then the body language should show that. By declaring again and again that he loves his wife, he is only reminding himself that he is supposed to love her.

When you are speaking too many words, please be very clear that you are lying; you are not speaking the truth. You are simply covering a lie with a lot of decorations.

Speaking the truth is very dangerous, really very dangerous. If you speak the truth you will have space in the inner world but not in the outer world. If you speak the truth, you shall have space amongst the enlightened people but not the other folks. Mind you, it is that dangerous. That is why I never wished to speak on this subject of Collective Consciousness.

Understand that Collective Consciousness is a great truth. I believe that for any truth to stand logical questions and answers, it will have to stand the test of logical analysis. You see…if one needs to verify that something is pure gold then it needs to put it in acid and tested. This is called the acid test. This acid test is required to test the truth of gold. In the same manner, if you wish to find out whether something is pure truth or not, you need to put it through an acid test of logical analysis. If is the truth…your logic will simply fall and fail.

When logic falls, realize that it is the truth. Anything that is the truth will simply destroy our logic. This means that our logic will become so tired, it will fall by itself. If it is the ultimate truth then it will have to stand the test of logical analysis. It should be able to withstand all the logical acid tests that it would be put through.

I have decided to bring these few truths and present them in this discourse. However, more important are the questions and answers as well as the discussion session that follow my talk.

After the talk, how much you will be able to internalize is the bigger question. The question and answer session is similar to eating in a restaurant. If you are satisfied with the menu card, you will make your choice and then proceed to eat. If you want to internalize what you hear as answers to your questions…it is once again only your choice.

Now, I shall present the great truths about Collective Consciousness. This may surprise you or it may be something that you already know. Irrespective of whether this concept is new or old for you, try to analyze this truth…try to internalize as much as you can…try to question until the logic falls.

All our minds are interlinked. Not only are they interlinked but they also directly affect one another. This is what I call Collective Consciousness. Our thoughts are as infectious as the common cold. People may escape from another's cold that is not so infectious, but our thoughts are more infectious than the common cold.

If we catch a cold from someone, we may suffer physically for a few days and then finally get over it. However, when we catch thoughts from people, not only do we suffer mentally but the suffering is also forever. Be very clear…not just once, but forever. Similarly, anything that we think, affects all those around us. Our thoughts touch not only those staying around us but also everyone living on this planet Earth.

Understand that our intellect will definitely resist this truth now. How can these statements that I have just uttered be true? We shall analyze this later during the question and answer sessions, one by one…inch by inch. I have declared the first truth now. All of us are not different beings or different minds. We are all totally interlinked…closely networked. Any of my thoughts can transform you and any of your thoughts can touch me. We are not separate individuals, we are not an island. Please be very clear, we are not individual islands, separated from each other and uninfluenced by each other! There is only one truth that links all of us. This truth is Collective Consciousness.

You are connected not only at the mental level, but even at the deeper conscious levels. The deeper you go, the deeper you are connected.

I shall explain this truth on the basis of the diagram 'Seven Energy Bodies'.

The first layer is the physical body. The second is the Pranic body, the layer of energy comprising breath. There are 7 such energy layers of the body, ending with the Nirvanic layer, which is the energy layer of the Universe. You can see that these are actually concentric circles representing the layers.

Now, in the physical layer, you, God and I can be represented as three different points in the concentric circle, quite far from each other, say 120 degrees from one another. In the physical layer, the distance is too much.

If you come down a little bit to the Pranic level, the distance is reduced. If you come down deeper to the mental level, the distance between you and I is further reduced and so is the distance between you, God and I. When you travel deeper and deeper, and finally reach the Nirvanic level, these three entities finally merge into one.

Please be very clear that at the deep end of all these layers, God, you and I are one. There is no distance.

Yes, it is very hard for the intellect to believe this and therefore it will resist. However this is the Truth. As I have already said, nobody wants to hear the truth as it leads to a transformation of the self.

Be absolutely clear that when you reach this inner level, God and you are one, you are God, God is you.

Let us go a little deeper into this truth. We all seem different entities at the physical level. When you love someone intimately, his or her love and suffering affects you. It comes and goes out of your being. At a deeper level, there is no individual entity; and each one of us is a part of the Collective Consciousness. You do not want the suffering however you cannot escape from the suffering. Have you noticed that whether it is a physical pain or mental suffering or spiritual bondage, you get it again and again? This is because you are not aware that you are a part of the Collective Consciousness. Once you become aware and realize that you are a part of the Collective Consciousness, that you don't have an individual identity, you realize that you do not have a separate ego.

All of us think that we own our intellectual identity. However the simple truth is…in existence, no such thing as a separate individual identity exists. Once we know this truth, we go beyond pain, sufferings, depressions and diseases. Understand clearly…that as long as we have concepts, we are individually conscious; whether physically or mentally, at the being level, we shall be continuously suffering.

Have you noticed that man is continuously resisting nature? Whatever nature offers, we resist. There is a beautiful saying that goes like this.

Man as a rule is a fool When it is hot asking for cool When it is cool asking for hot Always asking for what IS not?

When it is cool, we resist. We think we are different from existence. I have seen Sanyasis(ascetics), enlightened masters living in the Himalayas, almost nude in the cold, in the snow. I have myself lived like that. However the body was never disturbed. It never had a problem. I never thought that I was different from the atmosphere, never had the feeling of separation from nature. It is only when we start thinking that we are different from the atmosphere, from the air that is around us, we start resisting it.

Let us test this very simple concept now. If you are feeling cold, just relax, identify the area where you are feeling cold and simply witness that area. In that specific area, do not resist the atmosphere, the air, the temperature, nature and existence. Just say to yourself, 'I am not going to resist nature, I am not going to resist the temperature, I am not going to resist existence…let me relax'. Be conscious and decide; with this you shall see the body relaxing and the idea of cold disappearing from that part of the body. You become completely comfortable.

We may wonder whether we can extend this experiment to an extreme condition, and checkup whether we can do this in snow and ice, and resist the cold. It is the mind…it likes to always think of extremes. We can do it…if we can do it with totality. However, we do not have that much totality or that much clarity. If we can fall totally in tune with nature, we can surely be comfortable even in extreme conditions. There are many human beings who do that and so can we. It is only when we think that we are something different from nature that we are disturbed by nature.

The air is full of all possible bacteria and viruses. At any given moment a single virus or bacteria can cause a disease in us. However if we are in total tune with nature, then even if the viruses or bacteria get inside our body, they leave us alone. We will not be disturbed.

The moment we start thinking that we are an individual body, which is separate from existence, our whole body becomes our enemy.

Be very clear about this…you are a part and everything is the whole. If you fall in tune with the whole, the whole behaves as your friend. The moment you start thinking, discriminating or behaving with the whole in opposition, it starts acting like an enemy. Remember, the whole isn't here to kill you or destroy you.

The whole…the universe, is a hologram of which we are a part. Just as in a hologram, every single part of the hologram, even if split, reflects the totality of that hologram, we reflect the totality of the whole that is the universe.

Take another example. When a person falls into a well, drowns and dies, the dead body floats. The dead body is heavier than water! Yet, it floats. However a living body does not float. It drowns. Why do you think this is so? As long as we are living, we are not able to relate with water as a part of ourselves. The ego prevents that; the mind prevents that. In the dead body there is no mind and no ego and so very light.

I repeat…we should think that we are a part of the whole. We should relate ourselves with existence.

The other day I read an interesting interview of this man who survived his jump into the Niagara Falls. This being an unusual event and a very daring one, there were all kinds of journalists questioning him. If you have been to the Niagara Falls, you can imagine the depth of the fact that someone survived jumping down the Niagara Falls. I cannot imagine someone surviving the Niagara Falls!

This man answered beautifully, 'When I jumped I became a part of the Niagara Falls. I felt like I was a part of it. I never felt that I was different from those Falls.'

When we are in tune with the Collective Consciousness, when we become a part of the collective consciousness, nature is with us, nature is our friend, and nature protects us. Nature will not harm us.

When we start thinking that we are different from nature; that we are individual consciousness, nature will not protect us. Let us be clear that as long as we are in tune with the Collective Consciousness…nature protects us.

Wherever we want to achieve success, either in the social or economic world, when we tune in with the whole group, fall in tune with the Collective Consciousness; we will achieve whatever it is that we want to achieve. As long as we feel that we are separate individuals, we want to keep that identity distinctly and we wish to have an idea that we are somebody… an identity, be very clear that we will be resisted and we will be resisting. The moment we start resisting, we make a hellish experience out of it.

Whether in the home, office, workplace or industry…this is bound to happen. However, if we disappear into the Collective Consciousness, we will be protected and taken care of again and again. We will attain complete success, not only socially and economically, but we will also experience it. It would be a feeling of fulfillment which is inexplicable.

A small story:

A man is told that his wife has fallen into the river and he needs to jump and save her. He immediately jumps and starts swimming against the current. Everybody is surprised and asks him, 'Hey, why are you swimming against the current?' He replies, 'You guys don't know my wife. Even if she falls in the river, she will float against the current. She resists everything so much that she will also resist the current.'

As long as we resist the current, whether it is our workplace, our house, our company or any other place for that matter, as long as we do not disappear into the Collective Consciousness, we will be continuously creating hell for ourselves and for others.

Tao, the ancient Chinese philosophy contains the same teaching. Tao is all about flow…it is about flowing with nature. Water is the greatest illustration of such a natural flow. Water simply flows with the landline, around obstacles…smoothly and energetically. Tao talks about the reeds in the water that bend with the flow and straighten up once the flow is less. That can only happen when we do not imagine ourselves be different from our environment.

Even in the physical layer, if we think we are something separate, be very clear, we shall be inviting diseases. Another point here is that in the mental layer…if we think we are separate as an individual, we shall be sowing the seeds of violence again and again.

Seeds of violence are created whenever we feel we are an individual, unconnected or unrelated to others. We turn selfish, dogmatic, and violent. We turn into terrorists. With individual consciousness, we dissect, we cut things into pieces and such logic always breaks. However, with Collective Consciousness, we unify.

Be clear…intuition always unites!

At the soul level, if we think we are separate individuals, spiritually, we cannot even take the first step. There is no possibility of any spiritual growth.

First of all, remember that at the physical level, we are not independent individuals. Our body and the body of the Sun and the Moon are pre-connected. Any small change in the body of the sun can make changes in our body. Any small change in our body can change the body of the Moon and vice versa. Some of us may have noticed that the phases of the Moon affect the state of our mind. We may not be able to logically relate these changes… however it is true.

In the mental layer, also, we are not alone. At any given point of time, any thought rising from anyone else's head comes and touches us and any thought created in someone else's mind goes and touches someone else. This is going on continuously.

Be clear…any thought sowed by someone else can touch us and affect us.

Thoughts are like ripples created on the surface water of a lake. If we are creating a strong wave, we shall be creating an impression with our thought. We shall be leading and inspiring others with our thoughts. However if our thoughts are not solid enough, other waves will impress us.

Either we live as leaders or as followers. There is no in between. The mind might think, 'I will not be a leader as I cannot do that much. I will not be a follower either so I shall maintain my own stand.' This is simply impractical. There is no such thing as 'my own stand.' Either we lead or we follow!

At the mental level also, if you continuously think that you are a separate individual, you shall be resisted, again and again. The moment you understand that you are a part of the Collective Consciousness; you will not be resisted instead you will actually be welcomed and accepted.

Finally, at the spiritual level, the moment we understand that we are deeply, totally, and intensely connected to the whole group, to the whole universe, not only do we start experiencing the bliss, but we also really start to live. This opening up leads to the opening up of the many different dimensions of our being.

Right now, we are stressed out and disturbed continuously, at the same time we also have to think too much. With this one body, we have to think so much and enjoy so much. Do we have the time or the inclination to go deep into our layers and expand?

We cannot even begin to imagine the many different dimensions and possibilities that will open up to us when we disappear into this Collective Consciousness. See, now with one body, it is a feeling of joy and you can enjoy so much. Imagine what can you do if you have two bodies? Just imagine what you can do when you have so many bodies! Imagine that one body is an air conditioner and the other one is a heater….imagine three different bodies in different countries enjoying different cultures. Similarly if the multitudes of bodies increase, so would the joy…the bliss. Whatever we experience as individuals, we will be able to experience far more when we are a part of the Collective Consciousness.

During the entire THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program (NSP), you will realize that you are a part of the Collective Consciousness. It will not stop there as you will realize that not only are you a part but you are the collective consciousness.

Remember that you are not just an individual consciousness as you think. As you start traveling deeper and deeper… layer by layer, the realization dawns that you are just one with everything. As a result, you start feeling a sense of well being in the mental layer, the pranic layer, the etheric layer, the physical layer and all the other layers and automatically all diseases disappear.

When you really experience that you are the boundaryless consciousness, it is an unbelievable experience that is difficult to imagine.

I have seen people at the end of the program in such ecstasy that they forget their name, their identity, their social status, their education, their qualifications, their wealth, their religion… everything that they are and they have. They basically respect the other person… respect everyone and they fall at each other's feet.

I have seen the father-in-law falling at the feet of his daughter-in-law. In Bharat this never happens. It is too much to ask for as per the traditions followed here! However this has happened at the end of the program only because he is able to see the divinity in her. The mother-in-law sees the divinity in her son-in-law and falls at his feet. Grand parents touch the feet of grand daughters. Bosses or owners touch the feet of their staff or the persons working under them.

This experience of oneness or Collective Consciousness makes us forget all differences of name, wealth, social status, and prestige. Whatever we think of ourselves, all of it just disappears and what we truly are is revealed. I have seen that by touching the feet of their worst enemies, they forget the past, they are raised, they experience such a deep level of consciousness…such bliss that literally the ego disappears. They just go around and see God in everyone and they are in bliss…ecstasy…Collective Consciousness. Mind you, it is not that they are visualizing or hallucinating. When the experience happens, the whole group realizes that they are all one and the same. They are not different entities.

Understand this clearly…only when we experience Collective Consciousness, we can realize and experience the meaning of the word bliss...eternal bliss…Nithya Ananda.

I pray to the ultimate divine to allow you to experience this ultimate bliss…Nithya Ananda. Thank you.

Q: According to Science, vacuum is absence of matter. But according to you, vacuum is energy. If matter is manifestation of energy then how would you define vacuum?

A: Please understand that now science has changed its view. Now, scientists are coming up with a clear cut idea that no such thing as a vacuum can be created. Even in space where you say a vacuum exists, Ether is present. Ether is a form of energy. Scientists are also coming up with the understanding that Ether is also matter. It can be measured and handled.

Science has evolved so much that it can now catch up with spirituality. It can understand spiritual truths and they have started understanding that vacuum is not the absence of matter. It is the absence of certain parts of matter. There are 5 elements in nature. These are Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether. Vacuum is the absence of 4 of these elements; Earth, Water, Fire and Air. That's all. It is not the absence of matter; it is the absence of only these 4 elements. So, Science has changed its opinions. This answers the question. My stand has been accepted by scientists and they are also coming up with concepts to work on Ether.

Thousands of years ago the sages of the Eastern world had developed Vāstu Śāstra (a practical application of elemental energies to buildings, similar to the Chinese concept of Feng Shui) to utilize the power of Ether in daily life. The power of Vāstu Śāstra, the technique of building houses, is all based on the science of Ether. Scientists are now working on how to use the power of Ether effectively.

According to me and according to science, vacuum is energy. Vacuum is not absence of matter. According to me, energy and vacuum are one and the same.

Q: If non-living things like rocks have intelligence, is there any difference between the intelligence of human beings, non-living things and animals.

A: There is only one difference…human beings have the ability to make a conscious choice. He can decide whether he would like to live with that intelligence or not. Animals and non-living things do not have the choice. They are intelligent by birth and remain intelligent. Human beings have a choice; they have a choice to become fools! That's the only difference. By nature intelligent, human beings have a choice to be intelligent or fools. Except for this one difference, there is none other.

The very nature of animals and non-living things is intelligence. They are in the intelligence of nature, which cannot go wrong. Human beings have a choice to be intelligent or not to be; invariably and unfortunately they misuse that choice and choose not to be intelligent in the way of nature.

What humans consider to be intelligence is contrary to nature and a tragic error of choice.

Q: I understand that as we go deeper into the 7 bodies, the distance becomes less. How does one move down in levels of the body and stay there so that one can truly experience Collective Consciousness?

A: It is as simple as saying 1, 2, 3. I really mean it; it is as simple as 1, 2 and 3. One, after this lecture go and find a volunteer. Two, register for the NSP. Three, be here tomorrow morning for the NSP. Just 1, 2, 3!

You can experience and stay there.

Q: It has been said that an individual has control over his mind. Does this mean that outside minds can still influence an individual's mind and thought process? How can we control this so as to prevent this and control the anger and depression? This refers to the first truth you stated. Thank you.

A: Nice question. It is said that an individual has control over the mind. May I know who that individual is? Okay, do you have control over your mind?

Alright…this is the answer that I get from almost everyone. How can you believe the first sentence that one has control over one's mind? This is only said, not practiced, and never experienced. So that particular statement is wrong. The next thought then, does this mean that outside minds can still influence an individual's mind and thought process?

The answer is yes. Are you married?

Since you are married…quite simply, by now you know that your husband can influence your thought process. One small fact…this is not only by giving orders but also without giving orders.

Let us say that you want to come for meditation…it need not necessarily be you, but could be anybody else…when you say that you want to go for meditation, he does not refuse, however he puts on a long face. He can influence your meditation here even though he is not here. When you are sitting here, you will be continuously meditating on his long face! Mind you, you will meditate upon his very energy, which is negative.

Let us assume that you wish to come here again. This next time, you don't bother with taking your husband's permission. He has not said anything and there have been no negative physical or verbal signs, or discussions about this matter. When you are here and are in a joyful mood, just imagine how you will feel if you suddenly get a thought about him. It is true that your energy will change. Your memory, just a memory of thinking how he will react negatively will put you into a low and negative mood. So understand that it is very real that others can influence your mind even without expressing their thoughts, or expressing their mind. This stands true even if you have not seen them or never met them. The very awareness of their thought structure and thinking process is enough to change your mood.

Q: How do we control these influences of mind so as to avoid anger and depression?

A: The answer is again the same…only Meditation!

Just analyze the 7 chakra (energy centers) of your body's individual consciousness. You are nothing more than an onion. Please be very clear, you are nothing more than an onion. Peel the onion…layer by layer. What is there inside? Just emptiness! The onion thinks it has got something solid but when it is opened layer by layer, it is empty. Similarly, man thinks that he is only individual consciousness, but if the individual layers are peeled, we experience that we are nothing but Cosmic Consciousness…the Collective Consciousness. Experiencing the Cosmic, Collective Consciousness is the one and only definite way to prevent anger or depression that sneaks inside your consciousness from others…through others…by others. Thank you.

Q: Why do we have to have to suffer? In our childhood, we are trained to be separate from others. In schools, we are taught to be somebody. As adults, we are then taught to compete with others. If the ultimate truth is that we are all one and we are pure bliss, then why cannot mass consciousness also reflect this joy, peace and love?

A: This is a beautiful question and has a lot of potential meaning. Therefore I shall answer this question step by step.

Those people who have created the present system of education are not enlightened. The system of education designed and developed by the ancient sages in the East, the gurukul structure (a type of ancient Hindu school that is residential in nature with the shishyas or students and the guru or teacher living in close proximity, many times in the same house) is totally out of practice. It is no longer alive today.

Let me highlight a few points about the Gurukul system of education that was initiated by the enlightened masters. In this system, any child who belongs to the country belongs to the master, the guru. The guru takes care of all of them and parents have no rights over them. Let me explain a few rules here to elaborate on this.

Up to the age of seven children in the gurukul were not allowed to wear clothes. You will definitely laugh at this. But this was done so that they do not get the idea that they are individual bodies. They were allowed to relate with existence…with Ether straightaway. They were allowed to relate with flowers, forests, trees, and Earth. This ensured that until the child's seventh year the idea that they are somebody; or that they are somebody as asked in the question did not form itself in the mind.

This also taught them not to suppress the opposite gender that is alive in them. They were not given the idea that they are male or female. Understand that when we are born, all of us have the characteristics of both the genders within us. A man is only 51% male and 49% female. Similarly a woman is only 51% female and 49% male. It is our upbringing, dictated by societal rules that classify us into rigid gender differentiation right from birth. Therefore we end up suppressing the opposite gender within us.

In the gurukul system, children were encouraged to keep their gender commonality open. This system made sure that children were not given the idea that they are some body. They were also not taught to separate their body from the environment.

Try to follow only these few things with your kids. First of all do not separate their upper and lower body with clothes at the waist. Make them wear clothes that cover the whole body. Next, do not keep continuously encouraging them to develop the idea that they are somebody. We

believe that this is what builds their identity and self esteem, and this is where we are making disastrous errors.

Of course, it will be very difficult for you to do this as you need to send them to school and have them relate to the society around.

In the ancient gurukul system, at the age of seven, the children, both boys and girls, were given a meditation technique. Even if they formed such an idea that they are male or female, they used this meditation technique to dilute that imbibed feeling. This meditation technique helped them to flush out the feeling of gender uniqueness out and again and again helped them tune into the Collective Consciousness. This is what we now call the Gayatri Mantra (a sacred chant or mantra taught before adolescence). From seven to fourteen they practiced the Gayatri through which they continuously connected to the Collective Consciousness.

By the age of fourteen, by the time they reached adolescence, they would have had a glimpse of the Collective Consciousness and its blue print. After they have had the glimpse of the blue print, depending on the intensity of their glimpse, they would be given deeper meditation techniques, so that they could go deeper and deeper into these techniques. Thus by the age of 21, they had every opportunity to become enlightened.

I'll tell you honestly, there was a time when 70% of all the people were enlightened. The remaining 30% were working towards it. The social structure created by the enlightened masters consisted of people either already enlightened or others who were working towards it. There was no other category. Just two categories: achieved and working towards it…Enlightened and Seekers! Unfortunately, we have lost that system.

That is why I have to conduct the NSP every week all around the world and it is not very easy to conduct this program. Everyone who attends, says, 'Master, you get so little rest in these two days.' There are also people who come and say, 'How is it possible for you to retain such energy?' Of course, these people are not tired as they are energized throughout the program through various meditations. They wonder about their energy level and ask me how despite the long hours in these two days of NSP they do not feel tired at all. I tell them this is just one weekend for you. But for me, this has been every week for the last year. Every weekend we are busy with such programs.

If you observe the calendar , you will notice that there is absolutely no weekend when we have not conducted such a program. The calendar is full until the next year and we are totally committed for each weekend. In Bharat, it is a four day program and we are continuously conducting these programs. I conduct the Ananda Spurana Programs (ASPs) and the NSPs as there is no longer a Gurukul system today.

Well, we have already started a Gurukul system in the Bidadi ashram in Bharat. We have some devotees whose children are a part of the Gurukul system here in the ashram. We expect to revive the Gurukul system soon, without disturbing modern education and without disturbing their link to the Collective Consciousness.

Q: Master, do you think undifferentiated Nirvikalpa consciousness is more or less suitable for us compared to Savikalpa collective consciousness? (These terms refer to two of the three commonly understood states of enlightenment of great Masters, the third being Sahaja Samadhi). A: Let me tell you from my experience. I don't know about yours, but from my experience I find that there is no difference between Savikalpa Samadhi and Nirvikalpa Samadhi. When you reach enlightenment or Samadhi there is no difference between Savikalpa Samadhi and Nirvikalpa Samadhi. When you reach 99%, there is no difference in the 99% level and 100% level. These are just words. In my experience, when I reached Savikalpa Samadhi, I just dropped into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. It is not that I had to do something to reach Nirvikalpa. When I experienced Savikalpa, I just dropped into Nirvikalpa. This is my experience; this is how I achieved enlightenment.

Another point here…if I look at undifferentiated consciousness and collective consciousness, I did not find any difference between them except the words.

In Bharat, a big fight goes on between the Savikalpa Samadhi group and the Nirvikalpa Samadhi group. The Savikalpa Samadhi group is this Ramanuja group of Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita, the bhakti and the duality category (philosophies that consider man and God to be separate unlike advaita which states that man is divine and God resides within). Nirvikalpa Samadhi group is the Shankara or the advaita group. These two groups are always fighting.

A small story within this small story:

There is a tank in the middle of a village. There are four new people who come to the village and are about to enter into the tank. One person says, 'There is water here, I need to drink.' The second guy says, 'This is paani (water in Hindi), I need to drink.' The third says, 'This is thanni (water in Tamil). The fourth guy says, 'No, this is neeru (water in Kannada). I know it. This tank was built by my grandfather.'

The four guys start fighting with each other over the word water as they perceive it their own languages before entering into the tank. The four of them fight so badly that they finally kill each other and mind you this happened even before they go anywhere near the tank. Had they been patient and entered the tank or at least peeped into the tank, all four would have understood that they are only juggling between words that stood for water in different languages but it's all the same! Water, Paani, neeru or thanni…they are all the same.

Similar is this fight between these words regarding samadhi. Both are one and the same. It is nothing but a misunderstanding within the same category. In the story of the water tank, the guys claim that their grandfather said this and their grandfather said that. They continue to fight even before entering the tank. Be very clear, if we just have a little bit of patience and courage to peep into the tank, we can drink the water and also supply it to everyone else. We can experience the bliss and radiate it to everyone else.

This fight between the Ramanuja groups and Shankara groups is just as amazing. The Ramanuja group guys carry a big bell. If someone utters the word Shankara they ring the big bell and shake their heads. If someone utters the word Narayana, the Shankara group guys go and have baths to cleanse themselves.

Now in such a scholarly shop, there is a version of the Brahma Sutra (a great scriptural work in Sanskrit, where the teachings of Vedanta are set forth in a systematic and logical order) by Ramanuja and another version by Shankara. Once a scholarly gentleman went there and asked a volunteer, 'What is the difference between these two, the Brahma Sutra, the Ramanuja version and the Brahma Sutra, the Sankara version?' The volunteer replied, '45 Rupees.'

The difference is a mere 45 rupees…one dollar! Let me tell you, this fight has been going on for the last one thousand years. The whole fight is solved by this one single answer…45 rupees or one dollar. Understand clearly that this is my experience. When I fell into Savikalpa Samadhi, I just dropped into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. You would know whether there is a difference only from your own experience.

Q: How can you live in truth when it is so hard for others and so difficult for us to hear it?

A: You see when I say that you would know better about your experience, there is a good chance that you might get hurt or feel bad, but that's the truth and there is no way around it. Even if it is so hard for others and for us to hear, there is no other way to live with the truth.

Q: Is it possible to skip layers to attain the Nirvanic body. You mentioned sudden enlightenment. I am confused with this. Please explain.

A: Please be very clear that sudden enlightenment happens by penetrating the seven layers. There is no shortcut. There is no skipping of layers. You cannot skip the seven layers as you have them; you cannot skip the seven layers because that is the truth. Even if you attain sudden enlightenment, you will penetrate all seven layers in a second. If one could create a short cut, I would have done that and abridged my programs. I do my best to abridge all my programs and I find that there is no room for more editing or updating.

Only the most up to date version of consciousness is being offered by me. I can say for sure that the program Nithya Spurana Program (NSP), with meditations focusing on layer by layer, is the updated, the most updated version of consciousness. You can decide for yourself whether its software or hardware!

Q: I have heard and read that you have the ability to heal men and women of their physical ailments but can you heal minds that have been corrupted by the materialistic world? Is it possible to get rid of the mind's imperfection so that one can search for God with a pure mind?

A: First of all you should understand that I do not heal. It is my presence that heals. When the sun rises, the lotus blooms by itself. The sun need not go and open the petals of the lotus. Similarly, in the presence of the master, healing happens. Be very clear that healing is not done…it happens. I can heal your body as it is in my presence. In the same way, if you open your mind, it can be healed. In the NSP, that's what we do…opening of minds. You are asked to write for yourself about yourself, about your pains, desires, guilt and pleasures and you are not going to show these to anyone else.

People ask me why I ask people in the NSP program to write all this. Understand that you are not going to show what you write to me or anyone else. People also ask me, 'When I know all this, why I should write it down?' I reply that by writing it all down you are opening your mind in my presence. You are opening your mind and hence I can heal your mind. If you open it, the sun can heal it. The energy heals all the wounds. NSP is opening up your energy layers one by one and your pains, pleasures, guilt and desires are opened up. When these open up, you experience God; not only do you search for God but experience God, since a pure mind is God itself and not something separate from It.

Q: If we are all a part of the Collective Consciousness then how does God come into this?

A: Collective Consciousness is what I call God. The whole is what I call God. When you are whole, you are holy!

Today is the Hindu festival day of Holi (the festival of colors), raas purnima(the night of full moon when a special type of folk dance is performed), when Radha, the consort of Krishna and the gopis (women cowherds) experienced Collective Consciousness; when Krishna gave the experience of Collective Consciousness to the groups of gopis and Radha. We have a very wrong idea about this *raas leela…*the romantic play of Krishna. We think that this raas leela is something where Krishna had a sexual relationship with so many women.

This is a very wrong concept. Krishna was only 10 years old then. We have not read the original scriptures and yet we have come up with our own conclusions. We do all this interpretation to support our own qualities. We pick up and support what we want to experience. We just want some support from some scripture and some master so that we can do something behind his back. So we just start blaming Krishna. What actually happened was that he gave the experience of Collective Consciousness to whole groups of gopikas and Radha. This Collective Consciousness is what I called God.

Q: God has not created us, therefore if all of us are one, who created us?

A: If you had attended yesterday's discourse, you would have understood. If it is possible for you, listen to the discourse, 'Chaos is Order, Order is Chaos.' Nobody has created you. Nobody is creation, nobody is the creator. Nobody has been created. This Universe created itself!

There is only one thing…which is Creation. Creation itself has created itself by its own intelligence. Creation, Creator, Created… all the three are one and the same.

When someone asked Buddha as to who or what created the Universe, He replied, 'The Universe creates the Universe. The Universe has its own energy, its own intelligence and its own power to replicate, grow endlessly and evolve limitlessly.

There never was a time when it did not exist; there never will be a time when it will not exist. This is the Truth…This is the Truth I experienced. For more on this, listen to my discourse 'Chaos is Order, Order is Chaos.'

I pray and bless you all. May you all have this eternal bliss…Nithya Ananda.

What is alchemy?

Let me start with a real incident.

I met an old sadhu (an ascetic), during my wandering days. He had no clothes on; he was a naga sadhu; ascetics who go about without clothes. I had been told that these sadhus are violent and they do look fierce with matted hair and wild looks. He was sitting on the banks of the river Ganga. I started talking to him. He was smoking *ganja (*a form of opium). As I was about to walk off, he placed two copper coins inside his pipe and started smoking. When he had finished smoking, he emptied the pipe and two gold coins fell out. He sold the gold coins, bought more ganja and repeated the process of producing gold coins. He did this about 10 times in the next two days.

The sadhu offered to teach me the technique. I asked him to teach me meditation instead, and said that I had no use for gold coins. He wordlessly gave me his pipe. I refused it. He then playfully blew smoke rings into my face. After this for 3 days I was in deep bliss.

At the gross level of metals changing, the process of changing a lower level metal such as copper or iron into gold is alchemy.

I asked him how he did it. He replied in Tamil without my ever telling him who I was or where I was from: angam pazhuthal thangam pazhukkum; if your being is ripe enough then gold will ripen.

At the subtle level when our being is ripe, lust changes to Love; a base feeling transforms into the highest emotion we are capable of.

This is the ultimate alchemy that can happen to us!

Ramana Maharishi, the enlightened Master of Arunachala recounted this incident:

'A bank manager asked me, please give me the power of performing miracles. I told him, 'You can not handle even whatever power you have now; why do you ask for more?' The man asked in reply, 'What power do I have?' I told him, 'You are a manager; you can hire people; dismiss people and do many other things. Are you handling these well now? If you are, you will not be stressed. You will already be at peace. What you need is intelligence, not power.'

Be very clear…inner transformation is the ultimate alchemy you need! Transform from being a mere animal and discover that you are God…travel from lust to love!

What is lust?

We only know how to reproduce, we do not know lust. When animals copulate, they experience pure lust. They enjoy themselves without any previous impressions of lust coloring their thoughts. Our lust is taken from imagination, from movies, from books, it is not natural. From early on we form ideas about how our 'would be' should be. This contaminates the relationship.

We relate to a person in our imagination, not the person next to us. The real husband or wife becomes a poor substitute to what is in our mind, our cerebral layer. This leaves a feeling of being cheated. Males feel they are deprived. On the other hand, females feel exploited, used and disrespected. Men operate out of their Muladhara Chakra (the first of the 7 main energy centers in the body), out of contaminated lust and greed. Women receive them through their Swadishthana Chakra (the second energy centre in the body) with fear and insecurity. Your lust and the very act of sex are contaminated with the dirt of imagination. You relate with your partner only mentally. The Shiva Sutra says, 'In bed you are four, not two. Each of you is accompanied by the other's fantasy of yourself.'

In ancient times, because they had the capability to enjoy their pleasures fully before 40, lust and sex left the householder when they entered the state of Vanaprastha(the fourth stage of retiring to the forest in the four stages of life). How many of you understand the mantras chanted during marriage? These days only the priests or purohits get married, not the couple they marry as only they understand the meaning of the chants.

During the Saptapati ritual (the seven steps taken by the bride and groom together around the fire), which is most essential part of the marriage, the wife tells the husband, 'Become my eleventh son' and the husband tells the wife, 'Become my eleventh daughter.' In the eleventh year their intimacy is so great that they become each other's child. This level of deep intimacy leads to a wonderful relationship unimaginable today. These words are not mere poems to be read by the priests during the marriage ceremony; they are living guidelines to be put into practice by the couple who have taken the marriage vows.

Nowadays marital relationship has been reduced to a business, for security or material benefits. Couples live in the same home, yet not in a homely way.

Many of us are ashamed of our body, we hate it. All body pains and chronic skin diseases arise out of low self esteem and disrespect to our own body. We would like to be someone else. We would like to shape our body and dress like someone else. We start looking at role models of supermodels, or movie actors start the hellish process of morphing our physical selves and matching it that idea of physical beauty as dictated by society. We do not stop at this…we also go the extent of imagining our future partners to also be like them. Now imagine what will happen when you get married and find out the partner is not what you imagined and vice versa. Hell breaks loose in the mind!

I say remove the imagination and dreams from lust; both about the partner's body and one's own.

Another common trait in us is that we start staying within our boundary. Whenever we hear our name, we think of our face, not our whole body, because we are not comfortable with our body as a whole and therefore identity ourselves only with certain parts. We have been conditioned mentally right from childhood, not to think of our private parts as a comfortable part of the body. We have never been comfortable with it and if at all someone is…society ensures that guilt is felt.

Understand that when we copy someone else artificially and not accept ourselves fully, we can at best be beautiful but never graceful. Remember…grace comes from within!

For the next few days get into the mode of watching your body after a bath with love…start feeling comfortable with it. Understand that our body oozes bliss all the time. Sadly however, we feel only the pain. If we are relaxed with our own body, our mind will not wander. It is very common that when we are at home, our mind is in the office, and when we are working in the office, we wish we were at a party.

Talking of grace, Tulsidas, the saint poet who rewrote the Hindu epic Ramayana, said of Sita, the heroine in that epic, 'When Sita entered Janaka's court all the rishis including Vashishta, the royal sage and her own father stood up to pay their respects to this young princess, such was her overwhelming grace.' That was the great level of comfort that Sita had with her own self.

During the Tantra meditation instructions are to touch ones body, at every point with deep love first thing in the morning after waking up. The purpose behind this is to allow the subtle body to settle into the gross physical body.

Very often we love someone as long as that person does whatever we say or rather obeys us. A mother says, 'I loved my daughter very deeply. But she married someone not of my choice. I don't feel that much love for her anymore. How could she go against my wishes?' Is this love? As long as the daughter was an extension of mother's personality she felt love. It is nothing but slavery to one's own ego!

Be very clear…as of now your lust is mere violence, deep rooted violence; to own another person; to conquer another person while there is resistance. It is war. What is needed is that we add friendliness to our relationship. Don't just accept but welcome the partner just as they are. Don't stop there…welcome and accept your own mind, body and Being as it is.

Let us ask ourselves this question. Are we friendly to ourselves? The honest answer to this would be, no, we are not. If we watch carefully, we disrespect and abuse our body. We stay up and watch TV even if our body cries out for sleep. We gorge ourselves with food even if our stomach is full. We smoke even if our lungs cry out. We drink ourselves to unconsciousness. Our body is a garbage dump. We are like pigs which shove their noses into filth and no longer able to smell the filth start enjoying it.

We torture our body in the name of enjoyment!

We are so bothered about the terrorism that happens outside. We ignore violence at home and violence against our own body. Sadism and masochism do not bother us, terrorism does. We are torturing ourselves with guilt; we torture others through our perfectionism.

A man once told me, 'My wife is a lawyer.' I asked, 'Does she go to the courts?' He replied, 'No master, she argues at home.'

Drop your imagination and dreams now! Add friendliness towards yourself and others, towards your body and their body, mind and Being. Carry with you words that heal others. Carry your body in a way that heals others. Carry friendliness with you always. This is a spiritual process. Carry the grace and goodwill of Goddess Lakshmi with you instead of undergoing fasts and performing endless pujas (elaborate rituals for external worship of God).

The first time around when you approach others with your friendliness they may not receive you openly because of your past behavior. Persist and persevere. Do not stop even if others do not reciprocate. Carry on until others believe you and reciprocate.

I repeat drop the imagination about your body, mind and Being and also that of others. Add friendliness towards yourself and others…persevere in this and Lust will turn to Love…your being will be in eternal Bliss.

I pray and bless you all. May all of you have this eternal bliss…Nithya Ananda. May you all undergo the ultimate alchemy and transform from mere lust to divine love!

Someone once asked me, 'Does the type of food we eat affect the pursuit of enlightenment? What are the types of food that we should avoid?'

Based on my findings, I can say that garlic, onion and green chilly are natural steroids and hence, they are recommended only for medicinal purposes. Daily intake of these as food will bring down your energy. As far as coffee and tea are concerned, I have not experimented with them. All I can say is…these are not good for your system. Meat, alcohol and cigarettes are considered as tamasic (laziness inducing) foods; they disturb your energy flow and make you dull. All these foods create a feeling of depression in the morning.

The first 20 minutes just after we wake up in the morning, play a vital role in our entire day's activity. The mood that we are in these 20 minutes decides the mood of our entire day.

You can check this out for yourself. Try a diet of Satvic food (foods that promote a sense of calmness) such as vegetarian food and foods devoid of garlic, onion and green chilly for the duration of time that you decide upon. Notice the effect that it has on your moods. You can compare for yourself the state of mind that was before this kind of a diet and during the diet.

Notice how it keeps one light and active throughout the day. Believe me it will break the depression in the morning!

However if we argue from the point of view of ahimsa (non-violence) though, eating vegetables and greens also is not correct since plants also have life. We can support the cause of vegetarianism only from the point of realization. If an enlightened master declares that vegetarianism is the best, it is the ultimate truth. Otherwise, all your arguments can be counter argued. According to my personal experience (of course, there is no proof that I can show you!), vegetarian food allows more sensitivity and ecstasy in the energy flow that happens in our system.

Right from my birth, I have been a vegetarian. I have never tasted non-vegetarian food. I know how the body works with vegetarian food and what happens to the energy flow in the body with vegetarian food. So, from my personal experience, I can tell you that vegetarian food increases the joy and sensitivity in the flow of energy and definitely one feels light and ecstatic.

Definitely, vegetarian food is better for meditative people.

The idea of vegetarian food, according to me, must have developed only after Buddha's time. He was so compassionate and believed strongly in Ahimsa.

During the time of the rishis (sages), there is no mention of the word 'vegetarianism'. Even in the Upanishads, there is only mention of sattvic food; there is no mention of vegetarian food. Further, there is enough proof to suggest that cows were offered in the sacrificial rituals. The meat offered during the sacrifice was also eaten by those performing the sacrifice. There is no mention of nonvegetarianism as being detrimental to enlightenment. So, I strongly feel that the concept of vegetarianism came into vogue only after Buddha's time.

One thing I am certain about is that it is good for the modern generation and hence I tell people to follow vegetarianism. However, if you eat non-vegetarian food once in a while, please do not create a sense of guilt in yourself. Be very clear, this guilt is worse than eating non-vegetarian food itself!

Understand this clearly…there is no ultimate rule as to what is right and what is wrong. All of us follow certain rules to understand and live a happy and peaceful social life. To this end we have an agreement amongst ourselves…do not kill me and I will not kill you…just follow this simple social law.

Even if we know that we are not going to be punished for killing someone, will we start killing others? No! If we do so, we are no better than wild animals; we have not grown!

The idea of punishment or reward should not influence any of our actions or decisions. That is what I call morality that will be from our Being, our consciousness. On the contrary, if we try to follow certain rules and regulations because of our social concept of morality, we will feel constrained and bound by them and attempt escaping them.

Remember that it is our innate nature to resist any rules and regulations. However when one starts to regret over violation of rules and regulations, this in turn inspires deep guilt in us. Do not carry any guilt! Be very clear…there are no rules or regulations which are the ultimate on this planet Earth. Therefore do not internalize any rules just because somebody laid them and said that it should be followed. Only agony and guilt will follow when you regret not following them if it is taken in this spirit. Remember that all rules have been created only for better harmony in society. Only when the understanding happens, you will follow rules!

One night, a thief knocked on the door of an ashram which was located in the middle of a forest. The master opened the door and allowed the man to spend the night in the ashram. The next morning, the thief thanked his host and asked for permission to leave. He also confessed to the master that he was a thief and had burgled the King's palace the previous night. The master was aghast. He started weeping loudly, 'What a great sin I have committed by allowing a thief to spend the night in my ashram! I not only gave him shelter but also food. What can I do to atone for this sin?'

At that moment, he heard a voice from the sky, weeping even louder than him, 'You are upset and weeping because you have looked after him for one night. What about me? I have been looking after him everyday for all these years and I have to look after many others like him!'

All our concepts of sin are social concepts. Instead develop a sense of morality that is born out of a clear understanding of what is right and wrong from the point of view of ones own awareness. Do not internalize rules and codes of morality blindly and create wounds in your Being. Have a morality based on understanding and not out of greed and fear. Be very clear any morality based on greed and fear is only skin-deep!

Let me narrate a small, humorous story:

Three women died and reached the court of Yama (God of Death and Justice), for the final judgment. Yama asked the first woman, 'Did you lead a pure and faithful life?' The woman replied, 'Yes, I led a very chaste life.' Yama then checked her life record and verified her answer. He gave her a golden key and sent her to a special room in Heaven. Then he questioned the second woman to which she replied, 'Maybe once, mentally, I have committed a sin. But, physically, I have been pure.' Yama gave her a silver key and sent her to an ordinary room in heaven. When it was the turn of the third woman, Yama asked her the same question about her chastity. She replied, 'I have done all sorts of things, some of which may be even beyond your imagination. I am quite prepared for the punishment.' Yama quietly whispered to her, 'Alright, have my room key!'

Some people drop drinking here because they feel that they will get soma ras (the nectar of Gods) in heaven. I tell them, don't be foolish. Who knows whether you will get drinks in heaven or not! Even if you do…it might not be of the same quantity or quality.

Thinking that we are going to get something better there, we try to drop it here. Let us not do that…let us not give up something in the anticipation of getting something better or something more. Be very clear…thinking that we are going to get something better; we will lose whatever we have. In the end, we lose both!

Let our morality be based on understanding and not on our perception of rules.

We started with a discussion on the type of food we should eat…we discussed the merits of vegetarian food and the demerits of non-vegetarian food. Let me give you one more understanding regarding food.

Overeating is not good for our system, even if it is vegetarian food. It creates problems. Eat only what is required and how much is required. Never overeat because of greed.

Feeding me is considered a great prestige by many of my devotees. They fill up my plate with so many varieties of food and expect me to eat them all…they even advice me not to waste it! Be clear…wasting food outside is better than wasting it inside. When you are wasting food outside, you are only wasting food. But, if you stuff yourself with food just because it should not be thrown away or because it is very tasty, you are not only wasting the food but also wasting your body's resources in processing it. Food in the garbage bin is better than converting your stomach into a garbage bin! However, if one is aware of the quantity one needs, neither of these will happen.

Through awareness when our intellect is heightened, it becomes common sense or intelligence; however, the most uncommon thing on this planet Earth is common sense!

When emotion ripens, it becomes faith. When the Being ripens, it becomes Enlightenment.

We have three levels in which we live. The first level is our head from which we operate using our intellect and logic. The second level is the heart operating from our emotions and feelings. The third level is our Being which is our very identity.

If we work continuously using our intellect, it becomes intelligence. There are many meditation techniques with which we can work on the intellect. Similarly, there are a number of meditation techniques to work on our emotions. These will change our emotions to faith.

Remember this clearly…if we believe in a particular God or guru, do not bother about whether he has power or not. Our faith has the power!

A beautiful incident from the epic Ramayana will help you to understand this idea better.

Rama, the hero of the epic, had to go to Sri Lanka to bring his wife Sita back from the clutches of the demon Ravana, who had kidnapped her. However to do this an ocean that divides the two countries, Bharat and Sri Lanka had to be crossed. There being no bridge to connect Bharat with Sri Lanka, a bridge had to be built across the sea. Rama requests one of his devotees, Jambavan, to take care of the construction of a bridge across the ocean. He asks another devotee, Hanuman, to fly across the sea and locate Sita. At this, Hanuman says, 'Oh Lord, you are asking Jambavan to construct the bridge and you are asking me to fly over the ocean to Sri Lanka. How can I do it?' Rama replies, 'You just chant the name Rama and you will be able to accomplish the mission. Chanting the name of Rama is more powerful than my physical form.'

Interestingly, talking of the Ramayana…there are two versions of the Ramayana: the Tulsi Ramayana by Tulsidas (a great 16th century poet who wrote devotional poetry in a dialect of Hindi) and the original version by Valmiki (a common thief turned poet devotee of the times of Rama). The latter is only a recording of history whereas the former is very interesting and enjoyable. In the northern part of Bharat, especially in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, even the sweepers recite the verses of the Tulsi Ramayana, while sweeping the roads.

Now coming back to the original discussion, according to me, none of our activities or actions is related to enlightenment. Enlightenment is within the reach of one and all. There are no special categories for this.

An alcoholic or woman is also eligible; they have the same chance of achieving this status. At the same time, a man who claims to have led a pure and chaste life may not get enlightened at all.

Enlightenment is related to the understanding and experience of our inner energy. It is not based on our physical activities as we presume. This concept is not understood by many people. That is why it is not generally spoken about in public. If misunderstood, it can lead to unwanted complications. Many people will take it as a license to do whatever they want. They can turn out to be anti-socials and create bigger problems in the world. However if it is properly understood ones life can change for the better as did Valmiki's.

Vivekananda, a great enlightened master, used to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. Many may wonder how an enlightened master can do such a thing as it is very unbecoming for a person of his stature. Unfortunately, they do not know or understand that the enlightened masters have to create some desire to keep themselves in their body. When they are at the peak of ecstasy, they expand and lose their boundaries. At such times, these desires will help them come back to their bodies.

Vivekananda had to smoke or drink to be within the confines of his body. It would have been very difficult for him as otherwise the ecstasy is too great. Who would like to forego that unimaginable ecstasy and come back to the body? It is their sheer compassion which makes enlightened masters return to their physical form. They have a mission to complete on this planet Earth. Their presence is required for the good of mankind.

Instead of taking Vivekananda as an inspiration for Enlightenment, some people imitate his habits of smoking and drinking. They do not realize the reason why he did that, instead they take it as a license to do the same things. Forgetting that he did these things only after enlightenment they pick up only the smoking and drinking and drop enlightenment!

Ramakrishna, another great enlightened master, had a desire for jalebis (a type of Hindu sweet). When he was in an expansive mood, he used to ask for this particular sweet. People around him used to wonder why he was taking so many jalebis at certain times. They found it very amusing as it did not gel with the conventional image of an enlightened master. Never did they realize that he was doing it not out of greed but out of compassion! He had to be in his body to serve humanity…he had to live to accomplish what he had come for.

That is why I say physical activities are in no way related to enlightenment. An enlightened man can never fake his feelings. He can only be natural. However be clear…an ordinary man can fake anything…even his naturalness!

I have traveled all over Bharat: about 2000 miles, at a stretch. I did the Narmada parikrama (going around the Narmada River on foot) and visited many of the jiva samadhis (the resting places of enlightened masters) in Bharat. I ask my devotees to visit particularly 4 samadhis: Ramana Maharishi's in Tiruvannamalai, Raghavendra's in Mantralaya, Shirdi Saibaba's in Shirdi and Sadashiv Brahmendra's in Nerur. In all these places, you can feel the living energy of these masters. That is why a lot of healing takes place in these jiva samadhi locations.

Saibaba, too, smoked a chula (a pipe). Sadashiv Brahmendra used to take a concoction made of bel (considered a sacred tree in Hinduism) leaf and ganja (opium). He, too, was a great master.

When I was wandering in the Himalayas, I met an elderly sadhu who was very compassionate, blissful and simple. I stayed with him for about 6 months. He used to smoke ganja and I hated the very smell of it. It used to make me feel sick. One day, I summoned up enough courage and asked him why he smoked it and advised him on the bad effects it would have on ones health. He just laughed and asked me, 'Can you tie a big elephant inside a small hut? Similarly, unless I take ganja, I can't stay inside this body.' Then, I understood that enlightened masters had to do this reverse process to try and stay inside the body.

I have to relate to you another very interesting aspect about this Baba. He had a pipe made out of clay. He used to fill it with a copper coin, then put in the ganja and light it. After finishing smoking, when he cleaned the pipe, the copper coin turned into a gold coin. It was unbelievable…alchemy had taken place! He would then take the gold coin, go to the market, sell it and buy some more ganja. This was a regular feature. It may sound too far-fetched to you but I can bear testimony to it. It was from him that I learnt the art of solidifying mercury…of energizing the mercury.

In our ashram, we have an idol of Dakshinamurthy (the human form of God Shiva and the teacher instructing on absolute Truth). Before consecrating the statue, 50 kilograms of solidified mercury were used. Anyone who touches the idol can feel the energy given off from the idol. Both mercury and poison can hold and radiate energy and therefore both were used while consecrating the idol of Dakshinamurthy.

So, do understand that physical activities are in no way related to enlightenment. We cannot judge a master by his habits. Enlightenment is beyond body and mind. For example, when we learn cycling, we have to sit straight, hold one handle properly and keep our feet straight on the pedals. But once we master the art of cycling, we are able to balance ourselves well and we can perform any stunts on the cycle. Similarly, when we start sadhana (spiritual practices), we have to practice a few things a few times. Once we master them, we will learn to balance our energy and run our life.

A devotee once asked me about free will. I told her…if you have grace, you will have free will. If you have free will, it shows that you already have grace!

Another popular question put to me is, 'What is destiny?'

I reply…your present is a totality of all your past decisions and your future is the totality of all your present decisions.

The purpose of human life is to learn the techniques to live blissfully, without the help of the body and mind. Learn that. That is what I mean by 'being with God'.

Now you may ask…who is the creator? The words created, creator and creation are very confusing and lead to arguments. Actually, these are not three separate things! Creation itself is intelligence which is continuously creating. Only creating exists. Our ultimate goal is to live joyfully and learn to live without the help of body and mind. To this end we focus all our pursuits including following the different paths of yoga.

That yoga, which is the path leading to the understanding of divinity within us is Bhakti Yoga (science of devotion) and Jnana Yoga (science of wisdom). Our understanding of both these forms of yoga is wrong. We think that Jnana yoga means the intellectual process and independent of Bhakti Yoga. However, great masters like Ramana Maharishi, a great intellectual, express bhakti at its peak. He says learning to live ecstatically, blissfully without the help of the body and the mind is the only thing we have to learn because this is the ultimate goal.

We have other great masters like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Ramanuja who expressed great wisdom through bhakti. Both of them were great intellectuals. According to me, Ramanuja's Sribhashya is a greater intellectual work than Shankara's Bhashya. So, there is no difference between Jnana yoga and Bhakti yoga. Understand well…if we do not have faith, nobody can liberate us. We have to liberate ourselves by the power of faith. We have to work on ourselves. Then, the guru's grace descends on us and we get enlightened. Both these forms of yoga are not different.

It is not important on which path we travel. What is important is how sincerely we travel! Be very clear…if our travel is sincere and during its course we express our intelligence, there will be no conflict at all. There will only be harmony.

A certain someone who had met me only recently told me, 'Master, I have a problem. I am not yet comfortable. We have just met and I have known you for a very short time….therefore I am not able to accept what you say totally.'

You may also not be able to accept whatever I say; you may question me since you have doubts about the truth of what I say. I have no proof or certificates of the experiences I have had. It is a deep subjective experience. It is more intimate than a love affair. Even a love affair is between two people. Here, it is between one and the same one. Will you talk about your love affair to your acquaintance? You need a certain degree of intimacy before you can open up to others. Some of you may not believe what I am going to say. It is fine with me. You can listen and forget it all. Of course, there are a few people who are interested in knowing the truth. I relate my experience for their sake.

When I was a small boy, about 10 years old, I went with my family to see a sadhu. His name was Annamalai Swami. He was a close disciple of Ramana Maharishi. Just like any other child of my age, I was expecting only a candy at his place. When we reached his place, he was talking to a group of people about how we are not the body but something beyond it. He further explained that pain and suffering are beyond the body and that they do not affect us. I was surprised to hear this theory and I thought to myself …how is it that when my mother slaps me, I feel the pain? Why is he saying otherwise?

When I returned home, his words were still ringing in my ears. I could not forget those words. There was an intense urge inside me to experiment and see whether his words were true and so I cut my thigh with a knife. It started bleeding and I was in terrible pain. My parents were livid with me. As the bleeding did not stop, they took me to a hospital to stitch up the deep cut. I still have a big scar on my thigh as proof of this incident!

After a few days, I went back to meet the swami. I asked him why I had felt extreme intense pain when I had cut my thigh when according to him we are beyond the body and hence pain and suffering do not exist. The swami was flowing with compassion. He consoled me and taught me a simple meditation technique. All I had to do was to see where my thoughts were coming from, to search for the source of my thoughts. Though I had never done meditation before, I decided to try it out. He then blessed me and said, 'You might have had the pain…however you had the courage and curiosity to experiment. You were ready to take the risk. This attitude of yours will lead you to experience that you are beyond the body.'

I went back home and started trying the meditation technique. I did it in the most relaxed way and did it more for fun for nearly for two years, though not regularly. I was about twelve years old when I had my first experience. It was Buddha Purnima (the day Buddha got enlightened)…I was sitting on a rock below the Arunachala hills (in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, Bharat), meditating. It was sandhyakal (dusk, between 4:30 P.M.and 6:30 P.M.)…and I was searching for the source of my thoughts.

Suddenly, something happened to me. I realized I could see 360 degrees around me. Normally, all of us have a 120 degree vision…but here I was with something very much more than that…I had lost my very identity…there was no 'me'… Everything was 'me'. The stones, the hills, the trees, the sky… had all become 'me'. Everything in me started vibrating with the feeling that 'I am that'. I felt the whole existence with the same sensitivity with which we feel the body. For nearly 3 or 4 days, I remained in this state. Of course, within 3 or 4 hours after the experience, I started moving and walking. I became physically normal but mentally the ecstatic feeling continued for another 3 days.

The moment I came out of this, my first thought was that I had been possessed by a ghost…I never connected it to a spiritual experience. Out of fear, I never went near the rock for the next 3 or 4 months. But, soon, I was longing for that experience again. When I came out of the experience, I ran to an elderly sanyasini (female ascetic), who had a small ashram near the rock. She took care of me for a few days. She was the one who convinced me that I was not possessed by a ghost but that I had had a spiritual experience.

The moment I came out of the fear fully, I started meditating in earnest. The search had begun. The longing to know the 'truth' took me over completely….I started chasing it. I was around 13 years old when I ran away from home to North Bharat in search of truth. I had to come back after a while though because I was too young to cope with the hardships of such a life. Getting food became a big problem. However, the pull to know the truth was so strong in me that I ran away from home again within a short time…gradually I started taking these trips, especially to North Bharat, at regular intervals.

By the time I was 18, my parents, who were tired of my escapades, decided to get me married. Fortunately for me, a suitable bride could not be found for my elder brother and it was a custom, especially in South Bharat that the younger son should not get married before the elder one. I also made it clear to my family that they should allow me to follow my path. They soon realized the futility of their hopes and allowed me to follow my quest.

The next time I left home, I traveled the length and breadth of the country. I did all sorts of meditation techniques. In Gaurikund near Kedarnath (a temple town in the Himalayas), I had a vision of the great enlightened master, Mahavatar Baba.

That was a turning point in my spiritual journey. It gave me tremendous inspiration. It gave me a great boost because at that time, I had almost given up my spiritual pursuit. I was angry and disappointed. All the rigorous spiritual practices which I had religiously practiced were in vain. The ultimate realization had not happened to me. Mind you, the search had not ended…however; Baba's vision was like a new lease of life to my spiritual pursuit. I felt a tremendous surge of energy and courage in me…this gave me new vigor to continue with my search.

From Kedarnath I went to Varanasi (a holy city on the banks of the river Ganga). Here, at the Manikarnika Ghat (a place earmarked for bathing), I had another experience. While I was traveling from Tapovan in the Himalayas, in an army truck, I broke my back when the vehicle went over a pothole. In North Bharat, swamis are greatly respected by the army and they immediately offered to take me to a hospital for treatment. I refused. I just kept my hand on my back and felt the tremendous energy emitting from me. Within a few days, the fracture healed….for the first time; I realized I had the power of healing!

I came down to Madhya Pradesh (a state in North Bharat), from the Himalayas. I was traversing the Omkara hills when one night, on New Year's Eve, I had my ultimate experience. It was a full moon night and I was sitting on the banks of the river Narmada…totally relaxed. I had given up all my meditation techniques, mantras and tapas, just a week earlier…I had decided to relax totally and let go of everything…I was just sitting and enjoying nature's beauty. Maybe around midnight, the level of relaxation became deeper and deeper and the amount of verbalization grew lesser and lesser…the inner chattering totally stopped and an unimaginable ecstasy took over me. There was no body, no boundary…I had become one with the cosmic energy…the Divine…I had reached the ultimate goal…Enlightenment!

Now, I am like a tape recorder. When the tape recorder is switched on, it plays and you hear sounds. When it is switched off, there is only silence. Similarly, when I stop talking, a space is created…there are no words here…there is only blissful silence!

With enlightenment, the very basic idea of sex disappeared. The idea of male and female simply died. Though I have a male body, my being never identifies with a male or female body. Just as I am holding a handkerchief with the tips of my fingers, similarly, I hold on to my body.

There was a young woman of 28 or 29 years who stayed in our Bidadi ashram. The door to my cottage is always open. One day as no other assistants were present, I requested her to bring my dinner. She brought my dinner and left it on my table. Just as she was leaving, I asked her, 'Are you not scared to come to my room? After all, I am a young man!' She just started laughing. She said, 'Master, I have been with you for the last three years and not even once have I had the idea that you were a male. Now, for the first time, I am made to understand that you are a male.'

If you don't have the idea that you are male or female, others will also have the same feeling.

The enlightenment keeps me in tremendous ecstasy 24 hours…365 days a year. The word 'ecstasy' is not enough to describe the bliss that I am in. Whenever pleasure is stimulated in your system, a chemical called dopamine is released. Doctors call the point where it is released as the D-spot. When it is released, your body is flooded with enormous energy. The doctors at Oklahoma University realized that this phenomenon was happening in my system while I was in a meditative state.

When one is in that state of enlightenment, any idea of a boundary is lost. The sensitivity with which I feel with my body is the same sensitivity with which I feel with this entire cosmos…any feeling that my body ends here and the rest of the world starts here is totally lost.

When I had the first experience, the heightened ecstasy lasted only for a few days. It was the first glimpse. But, after enlightenment, I am in this heightened ecstasy continuously!

There are thousands of enlightened masters living on our planet Earth. Their energies are all one and the same. Only the expressions of it are different.

Understand clearly…when one is enlightened, one will stop being judgmental….there will only be compassion for everyone. One's very presence and energy will touch everyone!

As far as my educational background is concerned, I studied in a Tamil medium school. After finishing the tenth grade, I did a diploma in Mechanical Engineering….here again; the medium of instruction was Tamil. I never studied Sanskrit or English. I spent all my time in meditation.

Before enlightenment, I read just a few books to give me some knowledge about the Upanishads. After enlightenment, the whole scenario changed. I could access Sanskrit, English and information about various things in the past and present whenever I needed them. The moment I needed some information, it simply got downloaded. It appeared to me as if there was a CD package in my memory and all I had to do was to download it whenever necessary!

When I came to the US for the first time, I could hardly manage a sentence in English. This was the only apprehension I had when I was invited by an NRI devotee to visit the US. She promised to travel with me and be a translator. I readily agreed. Then, within a few days, I decided to talk in English. I felt there was no need for any translations. I conducted my first Ananda Spurana Program (ASP), in the US in English.

If you have an enlightened mind, there is no need for a formal education at all. Things will just flow. With my limited educational background and limited knowledge of English, I manage around the world…giving many discourses…taking so many classes.

Understand clearly…our memory is like a library. If we are attached to only one subject or one memory, we will never have the freedom to access other memories or subjects. But, if we have the emotional freedom from memories, we will have total access to any memory we want. We can download any CD and start playing it. No memory when it is downloaded should create any emotional bondage. Remember if we are emotionally free from any memory, we will be able to access any information we want…we will have a tremendous memory!

Ask our ashramites(inmates of an ashram) or close devotees and they will tell you about my busy schedule. I hardly find any time to read. So, where do I get all this knowledge from? I speak to thousands of people all over the world…hundreds of questions are asked and I am able to answer each one of them. Be very clear…it is my enlightened state that helps me download all those mountains of information.

A devotee once asked me, 'Master, how do we overcome karma?'

My reply was…I will give you a simple technique. Right from this moment, try and remember all the incidents in your life. Start going backwards from this moment till your childhood days. Remember what you can. Don't bother about what you cannot remember. You must realize that what you can't remember is only a hangover. It has not touched you deeply and that is why it is not retained in your memory. Try this technique for a year…re-living is a wonderful way of relieving! Put this into action and see the difference it makes.

I pray and bless you all. May all of you have this eternal bliss…Nithya Ananda.

Aloneness is the very basic nature of man…of the Being, from and even before the birth! This is the reality. In the womb the Being is alone, blissful, and peaceful. Scientists say that even the quest for enlightenment is the imprint of one's life in the mother's womb. That was the happiest moment of a Being's existence.

Be very clear on this…through out our life, even when we live, grow and die within a society, we are alone.

'I am the thread among the beads,' says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. The beads are the incidents in our life strung on the thread of aloneness. All cultures and religions speak of a time long ago when there was joy and peace. In Hinduism this was the Satya Yuga…in Christianity… the Garden of Eden. This was not real…just the impression of one's life in the womb, where the past was spoken of as being golden and just an imagined memory stored away.

In Mesopotamia 6000 years ago it was written, 'It is now the age of sin. Morality is bad. Children do not listen to parents. Wives do not respect husbands…' The Vedas written 5000 years ago says, 'This is the Kali Yuga. Everything is sinful…'

Understand that these statements are all just memories of a golden past that the Being yearns for in its search for aloneness. You mind can not be alive when you are lonely; it can only flourish in relationships.

The mind, ego and personality are all societal and are alive only in the various relationships that we build up within the society. Within this vortex of relationships we forget that our individuality is aloneness…that it is our very nature…whereas our personality is societal!

Have you noticed that our mind is starved when we are alone and it struggles? This happens when we think of ourselves as a personality and therefore end up feeling lonely.

'Personality' is only a title given by society. Individuality is what you are…this is your natural state.

What others think of you…what you have earned…what comforts you have…all these are only a part of your personality. It is a sad fact that most times we nurture our personality ignoring our individuality. Our personality is merely external whereas our individuality is internal. The cry of one's individuality to be heard above the clamor of your personality is what is expressed as the pain of your loneliness.

Let me narrate a small incident here…

Jane was seated in the doctor's waiting room waiting to meet the doctor. She was getting treated for depression. The lady next to her started a conversation with her and came to know that she was the mother of 12 children. The lady exclaimed, 'Twelve children and you look so young and beautiful!' Jane got her prescription and felt instantly better.

Attention is the food for personality…good or bad…it does not matter! Whether positive or negative…attention is what we seek! We seek and suck attention…we demand or beg for attention.

When we are alone there is no one to praise or blame us…and therefore our ego and personality are shaken.

The moment we realize that we are not our personality we immediately feel alone and shaken… however when we realize we are more than a husband, more than a Doctor, more than a Hindu or any other part that we may be playing…and these are just parts of our total Being we start feeling alone and yet very comfortable.

Our different roles are only different labels of the different parts of our total Being! Imagine a parcel being posted from the US to Bharat. At various points there are stamps and marks placed on the parcel to identify it and speed it on its way. Now the parcel may think it is these stamps…but it is not! It forgets that it is the stuff inside. Similarly we are not merely labels…we are the Being inside the labels.

As mere labels, we are continuously engaged in parties, shopping, or watching T.V. We read and reread the same newspaper. Old people having grandchildren who are married would still read the matrimonial column! Why? The sad truthful reason is …we are afraid of being alone with ourselves. Be very clear…entertainment is an avenue for running away from ourselves. However, have we ever pondered on how long we can run? We always believe that we will be joyful at some point or other, having achieved something or the other. By the time we are about forty we may get all we want…but we do not understand what for we wanted all this. We are still unhappy…we have reached the depression of success!

The more affluent we are, the more our chances of being afflicted with this depression of success.

The greatest illness in developed Western countries is the depression of success. Material success fails to make people happy and they end up experimenting in their search for happiness. Therefore they change possessions…change cars every year…change houses every second year and change spouses every third year… still they remain unhappy!

Addiction, suicide and meditation are the only three ways out of this depression.

Addiction is just not drugs or cigarettes or alcohol; it can be food or any other craving. When the empty feeling takes over men generally pour and fill…women generally dump and fill; one with liquor and other with food. It is a psychological craving that never gets satisfied. Be clear… increasing consumption can never satisfy the addict.

In developed countries, people who have everything that they can ask for and have seen everything else generally move to suicide. Meditation as a way out is rare!

Meditation is an intelligent way of living. It is nothing but sravan, manan and nidhityasan or in other words listening to, contemplating upon and expressing great truths. Meditation helps us realize that we are far more than a mere personality… that we are individuals. It helps answer the question of who we are rather than let society decide and answer it.

The query 'Who Am I' helps to let go our past ego. In this process the mind will definitely resist it. Understand clearly that it is adding the 'i' to our running; it ruins us.

Only when we understand our own Self and how we are just aloneness…can we really love ourselves and others. Otherwise whatever we express as our love it is only psychological slavery…a contract…a business deal.

Be very clear…between personalities only contracts can happen…only between individualities can contacts happen…only between Beings can relationships bloom!

The essence of the ecstasy that oozes out of that realization of our individuality is love.

To reach that core of individuality, of moksha, kaivalya, nirvana or liberation…we need to contemplate; we need to sit alone and think 'Who Am I?' Not just mentally; not as an intellectual exercise; but as a question that you ask within your Being… 'What Am I? What am I, if all my labels are taken off me?'

Express that feeling…do not give up even if it is painful to realize that you are alone… experience that pain again and again. Like a seed that has to suffer the pain for the tree to grow, you will give birth to yourself once again …you will be reborn to that natural state as you were at the time of your birth!

Understand this very clearly…aloneness is our very nature. Keeping asking, 'Who Am I?' Through experiencing the pain of the answers we grow and realize.

This inner journey alone will help us grow from ego to Self…from personality to individuality… from depression to expression…from loneliness to aloneness….from pain to bliss!

Welcome and enter loneliness without resisting, achieving Nithya Ananda or Eternal Bliss.

I pray and bless you all. May you all have this eternal bliss…Nithya Ananda.

An English teacher teaching the last class of the academic year in Literature prepared a few questions to get feedback from the students on the effectiveness and style of teaching. One of the questions in the list was, 'Have I influenced your attitude towards the subject?'

One student had written, 'No. I still like it.'

Many a time the answers we get in response to our questions may not necessarily be what we expect. One such question is, 'Who Am I?'

Of all the questions we ask in our lives this is perhaps the most important. There are many questions we ask during our lifetime…some out of innocence like a child out of curiosity… some to exhibit our knowledge and ego…some to check if others know, and some out of ignorance… without knowing why… expressing our confusion.

Most people who meet me start asking me about enlightenment and God. They express their wish to follow the spiritual path with my guidance and ask esoteric questions on karma and moksha. Without their awareness; I change the subject to other matters, and we talk about their personal lives, their families, their businesses, everything except anything spiritual! They never come back to their original question on spirituality. It does not matter to them really. The fervor with which they started their queries to impress me with their keen interest as well as their knowledge evaporates very quickly.

Now instead of asking half a dozen questions, if they took sincere interest in asking themselves the question 'Who Am I', it will answer all their other questions. The questioning attitude itself will dissolve. Be very clear…our mind survives by questioning. More answers means more questions.

'Kim tat Brahma kim atyatmam?' 'What is Brahman?' asks Arjuna of Krishna. Krishna says, 'if I ask you to repeat the question, you would have forgotten what you asked.'

We keep asking questions about all external objects and issues such as, 'Who is this?' or 'Who is that?'…however we never turn our questioning inwards to 'Who am I?'

Understand this…the fuel of our minds is questions. Unless we question that state of our mind, we can never come out of questions. What ever answer is given to a question can lead to another question. In a child that reflects curiosity. In an adult it reflects lack of wisdom. I tell my disciples that the answers I give to question posed by new comers are mere brain candy, aimed at keeping them happy. Once I find that the seeker is serious, I stop answering these questions, and the questioning stops. A mature mind does not need brain candy!

If I ask you, 'Who are you?' you will tell me about your status and relationships. These answers however do not answer my question. When you are by yourself, close the door of you room and start asking 'Who am I'? If you are well read in philosophy you will think you are the Atman, the Brahman, or the body. You think of yourself as your body out of sheer instinct as a body or if you think through intellect, that you are the Atman. But have you experienced this thought, either as body or as Atman?

We play with identities. We practice spiritual pursuits, also to establish an identity. To our boss we are obedient, when we turn to our subordinate we put on another identity, another mask; we continue to play with pseudo identities. Our life is a journey between birth and death. We have no idea why we were born. We have no idea when we will die. Our life is a bridge between two unknown points. This is because we play with pseudo identities, we have never asked ourselves the question, 'Who am I? ...What am I doing here?'

Who ever asked Ramana Maharishi a question, he would counter pose the question, 'Who is asking this question?' Questioning would then stop.

The smallest, but the greatest, book I have ever read is the sayings of Ramana Maharishi titled 'Who Am I?' When you ask this question, your questions become a quest, and your urge becomes urgent. Any questions that lead to answers will only add to your confusion. Only questions that lead you to experience, lead to bliss.

Have you noticed that the first few days after we acquire anything new, a car or a house, we are very excited; however once we achieve, that excitement disappears. Ramana says, 'Before you get it, even a mustard seed looks like a mountain; after you acquire it even a mountain looks like a mustard seed.'

Until we know who we are, the question of what we want cannot be answered. Till we know what we want, we will never be satisfied with whatever we achieve and acquire. Otherwise, at the end, we will find that whatever we have acquired is of no value to us.

The desires that lead us on this path of wants is not our own, but those borrowed from others. The feeling of 'mine' is the most dangerous trap that mind can set for us. It is never ending, never fulfilling, always leading to suffering.

Mahavira Jaina, the enlightened master who founded the religion of Jainism, said that each being that takes birth in this world, comes into this world with whatever is needed for its living, which is already provided by the Universe. Universe never denies. Yet, we are grabbing all the time… not because we need…but because we want, out of sheer greed, jealousy, and lust.

Ramana says, 'This Universe has enough to fulfill the needs of every single being who occupies it; however it can not fulfill the wants of even one being.'

Let me share a true incident with you…

Towards the end of his life Einstein was very depressed. He had turned to spirituality after his discoveries were put to destructive uses. One of his assistants asked him what he would do if he were to live his life again. Einstein replied, 'I would like to become a plumber.' Shocked the assistant asked, 'Why? You have been extremely successful as a scientist, why would you want to be a plumber?'

Einstein replied, 'All my life I have worked for all this and achieved what ever I wanted, but now…at the end I understand that my life is a big lie, a sheer waste. Right from my childhood I have always wanted to be a plumber, and I have been denied the joy of doing what I wanted. That's why I want to be a plumber when I am reborn; to be what my Being wants to be.'

You see, the problem with winning a rat race is that even after winning one is still a rat! Be very clear….the depression of success is worse than the depression of failure. At least with failure we can continue to hope that we can succeed; but if we are successful we have nowhere to go. We may have climbed very fast yet that climb would have led us no where, or some where that made no sense.

People ask me in what way meditation help achieve ones desired goal…and whether it will give us whatever we desire.

I tell them that it may help in giving the required shakti (strength) to make all one's dreams a reality, but will certainly give you the buddhi (intellect) to know that your entire reality is only a dream!

Vivekananda put it very beautifully in his statement 'Until inner intelligence is awakened no book will help you; once it is awakened you do not need any books.'

Ramana says, 'Once you start asking 'Who am I?' you will feel that you are not this body. You are the observer not observed. If you witness your thoughts you can experience the moods and emotions of your mind, so you are not your mind. If you search deeply you realize you are something else. That pure awareness is where your search ends.'

The space where you have neither answer nor any questions, where there is pure awareness, is enlightenment…is freedom!

I cut my thigh to experiment with what I had heard from Annamalai Swamigal : we are not the body but something beyond it. I went back to him and said that I indeed felt pain. He gave me a mantra and asked me to follow my thoughts to their source. I started playing with this technique and when I was twelve I had my spiritual awakening, as I tried to go to the source of my thoughts. I felt that I was neither the experiencer through intellect nor the experienced through instinct, but the experience itself. That experience is the Being.

If you keep questioning yourself constantly, 'Who am I?' the question leads you to that ultimate experience…the experience of the awareness of your Consciousness. It will not solve your questions, but dissolve all of them once and for all!

Q: When I ask 'Who Am I?' where does the answer come from?

A: If you ask just because a book says so, and ask for intellectual satisfaction, it stays only as a question. It has to become a quest…an urgent quest without finding the answer to which you can not rest. Your mind has to turn inwards and search desperately for the answer. Your questions

will have to become a quest. Your urge has to be urgent. Let the question settle from your head to your heart and your Being. Meditate…you will then get the answer.

Q: What is Man's Eternal Quest?

A: Man's eternal quest is to find himself. Somebody once asked me if I am God. I replied that I am not God, I am above that. God is your imagination; the Self is real and superior!

Q: If I say that will I not be sent to an asylum?

A: Jawaharlal Nehru went on a visit to an asylum. There he met an inmate who thought he was Nehru. When Nehru introduced himself as Nehru to this inmate, this guy came up close to him and whispered, 'Don't worry. That's what I too said when I came here. If you stay here for 6 months they will cure you too.'

Q: How can you be above Balaji (the deity in the temple at Tirupati, AndhraPradesh, Bharat)

When you talk about God, you are talking only about the concept. When people go to the temple of Balaji, they go with faith not with understanding. Understand clearly that this is only business.

A small story:

Three businessmen took Balaji as a partner in their business venture. They agreed that one fourth of all the profits would go to Balaji. That first year, their profit was 4 million, however; they did not want to give Balaji one million as his share. The first man said, 'What will Balaji do with all this, he has no children, we are his children.' He said, 'Let us dig a pit…throw the money in the air and give him whatever falls outside that pit.' Another said, 'We will dig a larger pit and retain all that falls into it.' The third man said, 'Let us keep it simple…let us throw all the money up, whatever Balaji wants he will keep, whatever comes down let us keep. We can not offer to Balaji what has fallen on soiled Earth.'

Understand clearly…all our prayers are business. In spite of it we feel energy. All our prayers, all our pilgrimages and rituals are only techniques to awaken our own internal energy.

Remember this…if you experience what your being is, it is Balaji himself; when you only think of Balaji as a deity, it is no more than a concept…nothing more than a word.

Q: How do you reach Aloneness?

A: If you try to search for Aloneness you get into one more bondage. Just let it be. When you feel lonely do not resist. When you are alone you will try to relate mentally with others. Drop that. Do not blame others for your loneliness. Allow the loneliness to happen to you without resistance. You will then feel alone even when you are surrounded by people. To start with, you need to experience physical loneliness. Once the joy of aloneness happens it stays with you even when you are not physically alone.

Q: I understood in a way, but not fully …

A: To have aloneness you need to do nothing; it's your reality. For material comforts you need to work and struggle. A disciple asked a Zen Master, 'How long does it take to enlightenment?' The Master replied, 'Just the time it takes to blink you eye. You are already enlightened. You only

need to declare.' The disciple asked again, 'What happened when you attained enlightenment?' The Master replied, 'Nothing, I decided that from that day I shall live my enlightened state.'

People often ask me, 'What will happen to my children, what will happen to my business when I get enlightened?'

I tell them…nothing will happen…however; you will be better than what you are, in whatever you do. You will not go to an ashram or to the Himalayas and run away from your life commitments. Do not be afraid of your own transformation!

A Man who was blind from birth went to a doctor. The doctor told him, 'I can give eye sight and you will surely walk without a stick.' The man replied. 'I understand all you that say, but how will I walk without a stick?'

You can keep going round and round with no understanding happening. It is not something that you understand with the intellect…you have to experience to realize.

Q: What about nāma smarana or repeating a mantra?

A: Repeating a mantra creates a relationship with a concept…it is again bondage…it is upassana or focusing outwards. Instead do vipassana, which is watching your breath, turning your mind inwards rather than upassana which is watching a name.

Q: Do I become spiritual upon enlightenment?

A: No, neither spiritual or material. Only till enlightenment, you are one or the other. All becoming is material, all Being is spiritual. Upon enlightenment you are as you are. You are enjoying everything; you are joyful; yet you are not attached to anything. It is not a state of mind; it is beyond mind. Do not bring words into this. Do not define it. Enlightenment is not anything.

Just ask what yourself what you have to do and not what others have to do? This is a high level technique. Do not ask for a method. Just declare that you are enlightened…accept yourself…that I am in the state I am supposed to be. Express your utter relaxation. Tell your mind…your emotions…your Being…I am enlightened. If your mind expresses doubts, accept the doubts and move on. Like a dog that barks at an elephant, doubts will recede as you face them and accept them. Change the focus to enlightenment…realize that you are enlightened…accept the doubts of your mind and move on.

I pray the Divine to bless you all. May the almighty bless all of you with Nithya Ananda! Thank you.

A parable of Ramakrishna goes thus:

Once there were two brothers. One decided to become a sādhu and the other went into business. After 15 long years the younger brother who became a sādhu came back to the village. His elder brother who had stayed back in the village to become a businessman received him well. They started discussing what they had both achieved in the span of 15 years.

The elder brother told the younger about how well he has done materially and asked the sādhu how he had fared. The younger one stood up without a word and walked to the river near by. He started walking on the waters of the river and reached the opposite side effortlessly. The elder brother took a boat and joined him on the opposite bank. Crowed the younger brother, 'This is what I achieved in these years.' The elder brother responded, 'In all these years what you learnt was what I spent two rupees (5 cents) for. What a waste!'

Understand that miracles are foolishness. There are no miracles. They just happen in a different plane. People ask me again and again to materialize objects. Mind you doing it becomes a habit for some. People then come only for the magic show, not for transformation. When people asked me to materialize an object, I only had to clap my hands and produce an idol of Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth in Hindu mythology. I told the group that it was only a trick. I can not create anything. I can only teleport it. I only moved the idol from my room to my hand. It is similar to waves moving between cell phones and how it transports voice. I converted the matter of the idol into energy, teleported it, and reconverted energy into matter.

Be very clear…there are no Miracles in Life!

At one time or another we all experience the phenomenon of precognition. We feel that some one is about to call us, and sure enough that person calls.

We are watching TV and suddenly we feel that the character we're watching is about to say something, and sure enough she obliges. We are about to sit down for dinner, the door bell chimes, and we know who is at the door; sure enough, it's the old school mate one hasn't seen in years.

I find that in my discourses often over 50% of the audience responds positively when I ask if they had experienced a similar phenomenon at any point in their life. When this happens, most of the time we brush it off saying that it is a coincidence. When to some this happens repetitively we attach the tag of a 'gifted' person, similar to those who see auras and sense the vibrational energy of people and places.

When the magnitude of the experience is far greater we no longer term it a coincidence. Some one predicts disasters accurately time and again, and forecasts deaths. Others heal people given up as lost cases by doctors. Some produce substances out of thin air. We then call them miracles.

What we see as coincidences or miracles, depending on the degree of the unexpectedness of the incident, are those where we do not see the causal linkage between these incidents and what we understand to be scientific laws. Anything that is not supported by what is termed as 'science' is either barbaric or a miracle.

I repeat…there are no miracles in life.

It is just that we do not yet understand the laws that govern the occurrence of such incidents which seem to defy 'scientific' laws. Once we understand that this universe supports laws that go beyond the 'scientific' laws that have been so far discovered by humans, we start understanding the cause and effect linkages behind many of these inexplicable happenings and start appreciating the mysteries of our Universe.

Astrophysicists now talk about a parallel universe. They have discovered that each time a star system dies as a black hole another start system is born in a big bang somewhere else in the universe. Every action produces a reaction.

The Chaos Theory now says that action and reaction do not need to be proportionate. There is no linearity in nature. A butterfly fluttering its wings in China causes a tornado in Mexico! This is science, not imagination.

Matter and energy were totally different entities until Einstein established their linkage. Even after Einstein, it was either matter or energy, never both in the same time and space. It is only recently that the principle of 'singularity' that allows matter and energy to exist simultaneously in a common time and space framework has been understood. 'Singularity' is the common universal platform, the Collective Consciousness that we call Brahman.

Making contact with Brahman is not impossible, once you know how. With thoughts crowding our mind, all that we normally do is to flit from one zone to another, from regrets to speculations, with no time to ground ourselves in the present. However, once we allow ourselves to settle in the here and now, in the present, thoughts gradually disappear. When thoughts disappear there is an expansion of our ability to expand in time and space, which allows us to traverse the past, present and future simultaneously.

Once we are in the present miracles become common place, and we understand that they can no longer be called miracles but are a natural flow of the universe.

Imagine a scene where all cell phones except two are destroyed. The two owners will surely become Gods in the eyes of those who do not know how a cellphone works or what a cellphone is. When we do not understand the cause we call it a miracle. I had a disciple, a magician, who used to produce vibhūti, sacred ash, from my feet. To people who cannot understand or make causal linkages this will seem to be a miracle.

Personal transformation is the ultimate miracle that we can get from a Master…but mind you this will happen in a state of heightened awareness, where you are conscious of the changes happening to you and your mind!

If alchemy comprises removing, adding and processing from base metal to get gold the ultimate alchemy is personal transformation…from the state of lust to the state of divine love, where you understand that you are a part of the whole existence…this whole universe…that you are God.

To attain the ultimate alchemy you may adopt any of the paths before you. In Tantra, which actually only means technique, there are two practices. The first is Dakshinachara which is just meditation; the other is Vamachara which relates to use of sex, meat, liquor etc. to realize divine power.

Human beings, as I mentioned earlier are gifted with the ability of choice as they are by their very nature intelligence. Nature has infused intelligence and choice in us…therefore the task of choosing the path to the ultimate goal is left to us.

I pray to the divine to bless you all with the intelligence to choose the appropriate path and attain Nithya Ananda…Eternal Bliss!

A small story:

An old man went with his whole family and his grandsons, to a movie theater. When the movie was moving towards a climax, the old man was found crawling on the floor and searching for something.

The grandson shouted, 'Grandpa! What are you doing? The whole row is getting disturbed by you.'

Grandpa replied, 'I have lost my toffee I am searching for it.'

At this the grandson shouted, 'Sit silently…I shall get you a new toffee.'

For a minute, Grandpa was found sitting calmly in his seat…then again he was found on the floor, crawling on his hands and knees.

Again the grandson shouted, 'What are you doing? Why are you disturbing the whole show? Sit silently! I shall get you a new toffee.'

'I can't!' said Grandpa, 'I want that same toffee.'

The grandson could not understand what was so special about that toffee.

Grandpa wailed, 'I need to find only that toffee because my teeth are stuck in it!'

Have you noticed that most of the time not understanding what we have lost…we do not know what we are searching for. Similarly in our life…not understanding how to live here and now in the present…we reach nowhere.

Now, Here or Nowhere…is the title of today's discourse.

Before we enter into the subject…let me explain a few basic concepts regarding time. We have a very wrong concept, a wrong idea on which we built our understanding of it in our mind. We always think there are three time zones… past, present and future. This is totally a wrong concept and a lie. Such a division has been created by us for our convenience of dividing the events happening around us into clear cut compartments. How many of us have been troubled by these compartments while learning languages? These concepts of past, present and future certainly help us to classify events so that there is no misunderstanding as to when the event happened.

But at a subtle level understand clearly that there is no past…no future. There is only one time zone which is the Present. Either you live the present or you don't live at all.

You may say: Tomorrow I will do something. But when tomorrow comes, it will arrive only in the form of today, now; never in the form of tomorrow. If you say tomorrow I will be happy; tomorrow I will become enlightened; tomorrow I will do the meditation…please understand that the tomorrow you are thinking about is never going to arrive as this very concept of tomorrow that is of the future will present itself before us as a today, as a now…as a present.

Forgetting this, again and again, you continue to say 'Tomorrow I will be happy; tomorrow I will be enlightened; tomorrow I will be joyful.' Do you honestly believe that these predictions will ever happen? Simply because you do not know the technique of living in the present, giving the present your 100% your cunning mind is merely locating reasons to postpone them.

A small mythological story from Bharat:

Sani (Saturn) is one of the nine planets and is revered as well as feared as a minor deity. Ganesha, the pot bellied elephant headed son of Siva, who is loved by all Hindus, is considered to be immune to Sani's evil intents. It is said that Ganesa has a big board outside his home that says 'Go away today and come tomorrow', and whenever Sani comes around, he reads that notice on the door and goes away. The next day when he returns, he sees the sign again and goes away!

Similarly, whenever we want to live, whenever we feel like expressing our being, whenever we want to live as we truly desire, our mind always insists 'No No No No No…Now is not the time; let us wait; let us do it little later. Let us give it a little time till tomorrow... tomorrow.'

By putting it off for tomorrow we never do anything now, in the present moment. We never achieve anything. We end up being cocooned in the comfort zone of searching for those reasons that our mind dishes out to satisfy us and hooking our postponement to this reason.

Be very clear…once the habit of postponing begins, it becomes a mental habit, a mental addiction…our mind will then be solidified into this comfortable zone of postponing things to a tomorrow that is nonexistent.

Our mind gets used to again and again postponing everything. To ensure that this is real we also start collecting arguments; busy finding some more reasons to postpone. We end up moving in an endless loop of postponement and never ever do we enter into the act of action itself.

Make a list of the all those things that you have promised yourself that you will do tomorrow… maybe some other time as you have no time now. Topping this list you will a number of things that relate directly to your own growth process. You will also notice that you have done everything for everyone else…yet have always postponed action where you yourself are concerned.

I repeat it is the nature of our mind that we wish to do many things, know that there are things to be done for our own growth which should be the priority. That there are many things which we say we shall do tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow and never ever do…never do till the end.

Let us plunge into the topic…Now, here or Nowhere right now!

A small Zen story:

A man went to the Master and asked, 'When I will become enlightened?'

The Master replied, 'Now.'

The disciple could not understand and endless questions started whirling in his head. '…How can I become enlightened now? I need a lot of practice. I do not know all the methods. It needs lot of

meditation for long periods of time. So, how can it be now?' were only some of the endless questions in his list of questions.

Then the Master says, 'Never, go away.'

Why is this story relevant here? As I said earlier our mind is very cunning and comes up with endless reasons for postponement. We need to understand this one story whenever our mind says that we are not enough unto ourselves. We are not complete by ourselves. We are not full by ourselves.

Our mind will always be telling us the same thing. I repeat it will always be telling us the same thing. Ask yourself the same question 'When will I get enlightened?' and observe the answers that come up The mind will definitely come up with 'No No No No No…I have to do that meditation, this meditation, that practice, this practice; only then I can become enlightened; only then I can realize my self. Only then I can achieve my life*.*' Ask yourself the same question tomorrow and sure enough tomorrow also it will be telling you the same thing.

Understand clearly…we will never feel, we will never see that we have reached somewhere or that we have achieved something, if we have the postponing becomes our very nature. Let us forget about enlightenment; let us talk about normal life.

A Zen Master asked his disciples, 'How many of you have taken bath this morning? Every day, early in the morning he asked the same question. Almost all the disciples raised their hands dutifully.

The next question would be, 'How many of you are aware that you took bath when you took bath?' Not even one hand would go up. Merely taking bath all of us do, as a mechanical chore every morning. However, taking a bath with awareness is a different thing altogether. Surely, all of you must have taken a bath today and all of you must have brushed your teeth too. How many of you were aware of what you were doing when you did that? When you brushed your teeth how many of you were aware? When you took bath how many of you were aware of the hot water and the hot shower pouring on your body? Were you aware that your body was just getting ready after the bath, and that your life was getting rejuvenated after the bath? How many of you were aware of all these things when they happened?

A small Zen story:

A king went to a Master, and asked him, 'Master How can I become enlightened? What all the practices you follow? What did you do to become enlightened? Please teach me'.

The Master replies, 'Oh! I eat when I eat, I sleep when I sleep; this is all what I do'.

The king could not understand.

The Master explains patiently, 'When I eat I only eat, I do not do anything else when I sleep I only sleep I do not do anything else'.

Let us now examine what we do. Recall the scene of how we eat. We will remember that either we would have been watching T.V. or we would have been sitting with some magazine or talking to some one or continuously thinking of something.

If however you had been calm, sitting quietly, your spouse would have been there to tell you of some problems in the house or there would have been some other action that would take away your focus from the food that you are eating. In many western countries the pressure of time is so high on individuals that people end up having their breakfast while walking to the bus stop or while driving to work.

In some way or the other, when you eat your mind does everything else except focus on the eating. You do everything except eat with awareness, focusing only on the food, on every grain and morsel that you are placing in your mouth…chewing and swallowing.

Let us take act of sleeping. When you sleep you do everything else except sleep. Only when you sleep you dream and you have your fear strokes. You then end up having a have disturbed sleep. Understand that whatever you do, you do everything else except sleep.

Psychologists say that a man or woman, in a Western country, never sleeps more than 14 minutes at a stretch. 14 minutes is the maximum time and many times it is often less. Just after 14 minutes they come back to the dream state or wakeful consciousness or just float in the dream level. Again they goes back to sleep for only a maximum of 14 minutes and again come back to the dream level and again go back to sleep. This is called the rapid eye movement or REM sleep pattern.

We never sleep totally, when we sleep. However there are levels of mind in which we will never have dreams. We never need to have any dreams. We can just directly enter into deep sleep, if we know how to live in the now. We will then know the art of eating; the art of sleeping…the art of living.

Living here and now, always in the present, is the art of living.

Recall all the events from morning till night about how you live. You almost live like a being that is half asleep. You do brush your teeth; but, do you remember the cold water touching your mouth? Do you remember the feel of the taste of the tooth paste in your mouth or the pressure of your toothbrush upon your gums? And how did you feel after brushing? Or how was the water being poured on your body in the shower? How did the whole thing happen? What is happening after you have eaten your food?

We do things, but we never fully know what we do.

After our eating, nothing is recorded. Nothing is felt. Nothing is enjoyed. Just like a wave our mind lives. When we brush our teeth we are already in the office. When we take our breakfast we are already at the workplace. In the mind, when we are working, we are already back home. When we are home our mind has already planned for tomorrow's office work.

It is a vicious circle…a never ending vicious circle. We live in one way but our mind is working in another way. Our body and the mind do not dovetail into each other. We do not live where we live. We live in one place, but our mind lives in another place. If we are here, the only truth we can be sure of is that we are not here.

Ramana Maharishi, a great enlightened master, says beautifully 'If you sit for meditation, you can be sure your mind will be walking. Better you walk; you will see the mind stills. Mind will sit.'

He used to tell his followers to go round the hill, the hillock on which he stayed.

Part 2: So... You Want To Know The Truth..._English_part_2.md

People used to ask him, 'Why are you asking us to go around the hill? Why can't we sit and meditate?'

He would reply, 'If you sit your mind will wander. At least if you walk, your mind will be still.'

We live in a half hearted manner. Never do we live totally. Never do we live with our full being. Our mind will be always thinking of something else except where we are at that moment in time. That is why our eyes have no glow. Just look how bored we all look. Just look at your face in the mirror and see how bored you are. This boredom is in tune with our life…very dull…terribly dragging…constantly living in the tomorrow instead of living in the now.

A small story:

After a long dry sermon, the priest announced that after the benediction, immediately, there would be a Parish Board meeting in the next room. After the benediction, when the priest entered that room he found an old man sitting there whom he did not recognize. Worse still he did not even seem a local, not even a Catholic. This guy was dressed like an Arab and sitting there in the adjoining room.

The priest went near him and quietly asked, 'Did you misunderstand? The board meeting is going to be held here. Are you sure you are part of the Board?'

The man replied, 'I do not know about your Board meeting. I thought you said a meeting of the bored. I came here to see how many others were also bored like me after your sermon.'

The priest said Board and the man understood bored. Note how the man replies that he wanted to meet others who too were bored like him.

Look at your life; look at your face; you are all bored. Somehow you are pulling along… attempting to infuse joy or pep into your life which sadly is not there in you. It is just a drag. Why? Because, all you do, all that you know to do for everything is how to postpone. Your mind never sits with your being. Your mind never lives the moment. Your mind never lives in the same moment that you are in.

You are always in the space of tomorrow or in the space of yesterday. It is never in the space of today, now, the present.

Your tongue never lives when you eat. Your eyes never see when you look. Your ears never listen when you hear. Your body never feels when you touch. How many times you shake your hands in a dead way? Remember, all that you do is to stretch your hands but never your being. It is just a dead hand; a dead man's handshake. Never has your being penetrated through it.

People ask me, 'Master, how does your touch heel so many people? How can just your touch do so much? So much healing is done physically, mentally, emotionally.'

People ask me: 'Do you chant any mantra when you heal? Do you chant any mantra? Please teach us we will also do.'

No, actually I don't chant any mantra. No chanting at all. When I touch you, I just became the touch that is all. My whole being touches. There is nothing else. My whole being feels the touch. I tell you there is no other secret.

Our being is nothing but pure energy. Whether we believe it or not, our being is energy. If our being is not energy, how will we be alive? We are alive and we are moving, because our being is energy. Our being is pure energy; nothing else. Just the touch; when I am touching I am totally in tune with the touch. It's total. That's all. That is the only thing that heals.

Totality is always energy.

Why do we touch the feet of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM? Simply, because he is total. His being is truly in the present. His being is in the field of now. He is in the present, now and here. He is present in this space, here, in the time, now. In space, he is here. In time, he is now.

However, all our life, throughout our life, from the moment we are born till we die, even after the death, we never face the moment of now.

Facing now means taking the responsibility of our own life; living with full of energy. But the cunning mind never allows us to take that responsibility and hypnotizes us into the habit of postponement. As I said earlier, humans are intelligent by nature and it is up to us to use the choice of living now or living later.

Let us observe how our mind works. Even before going to our friend's house, we do a complete rehearsal in our mind about what we should speak and if they ask something, how we should reply. We are afraid of facing even our friends; leave alone our boss; leave alone other managers and colleagues. Even our friends, we are afraid to face! We are afraid, because, at any moment we may express the truth and we feel afraid to express our true self.

You see, if you have to speak the truth, if you have to be truthful, there is no need to prepare the rehearsal. There is no need to prepare the script. We have to show something which is not, so we have to prepare a big script. Do we need a script, if we have to tell the truth? We don't need anything. We don't need to remember all these premeditated scripts.

I tell you if you speak the truth there is big freedom. We don't have to remember what we have spoken; because the data will always be the same. Only when we speak lies, there is a big problem. We need to remember the whole script. We need to remember the whole thing which we have uttered or plan to utter. The next time also we have to repeat the same thing.

If we live with the truth there will be no need for any more activity of the mind. There will be no need for any more hide and seek games. We will see that we can be relaxed. We can be total. There is no need for any script writing before entering into friends' houses or in any other situation.

Can you remember an incident when a friend would have left a message for you to call him or her back immediately? What suspense for you! Now recall how your mind will starts its gymnastics…before you ring him up, how many thoughts come in your mind? How many assumptions? How many fears? How many expectations? Before you ring back in just that two or three minutes, you can see the rush of thoughts happening in your system, in your being. Why? You want to be sure of your script before saying anything. You want to project yourself as only how you want to be projected, as per your ideas of yourself and in this process you resist being projected as you are. That is the reason you go ahead creating entire scripts. Continuously you create scripts, and when you are there in the middle of the play, sadly, you don't remember the script!

You can only once, may be twice, project your own scripted views. The next time or another endless time try repeating the performance…you will fail! That is why almost all love affairs end in failure. How long can you continue to act out? How long can you continue to prepare? How many times? How many days? How many times can you remember what you said the previous time? Not more than once, certainly. You will see that truth comes out eventually. In most failed love affairs the lady will say she has been cheated and the man will say that he has been cheated. Both feel that the other has cheated.

Be clear…there is nobody who cheats. It is just that your reality has come out. Love affair is like a dye and powder. When you walk in the rain, the color changes as the dye runs. Black runs here, and white goes there. How long can you maintain the pretense? Naturally the truth has to come out.

The truth comes out when you relax.

Once truth is out, you will be in greater trouble as you are now in a confused, agonized state.

I repeat, if we fall in tune with the truth, then there will be no need to remember what we had said before. Then there will be no problem. Then there will be no fear of having to create the script. We can live as we are. We can continue as we are. Otherwise we will have to be continuously finding arguments and in arguments, we do not know the mistakes we commit.

One lady after two years of her marriage goes to a lawyer and tells him, 'I want a divorce; please arrange for it.'

The lawyer is surprised and asks, *'*Divorce? You must have some reason for it.'

The lady replies, 'Oh! Reason! What sort of a reason?'

The lawyer explains. 'Reason…as for example, he doesn't give you enough money*.'*

The lady replies, 'Money? It is I who gives him money'.

The lawyer continues, '…or, if he beats you continuously and tortures you'.

The lady interrupts, 'Beating me! No, I am the one who beats him'.

The lawyer continues, 'What about faith? What about being truthful? Is he truthful to you in love?'

The lady replies, 'In love? Yes. Now we have got him rightly. This is the right reason we can get. No. He is not the father of our third child.'

When we try to give reasons, when we try to find reasons, we end up in only this type of logic and fault finding. If we do not live the real life, we will be only living with these false reasons. Our mind goes in one direction and we go in another. When this happens and we don't live truthfully, we create a new energy field around us called a pain body.

Understand this one thing clearly…pain is nothing but the unawareness.

If we don't live now, here, in the present, our body will not be attended to. Our body will not have the attention of our being. Just imagine, living continuously outside our body! Our body is here; but we are somewhere else. Our body is in the house; but we are already in the office. When we are in the office your body is in the house. If we continuously live outside the body, our body will go without any attention…without being attended to.

Pain is nothing but the feeling which is created in the body when it is not attended properly. Understand this important secret…attention is energy.

Notice how good we feel when somebody attends to us. Recall the number of times you have felt that you are flying in the air just because somebody complimented you, appreciated you or praised you. How dejected you have felt when you have not been appreciated or praised?

When we are attended to; when somebody attends to us; when somebody serves us, we feel so good. We feel elated. We can see that politicians seem to be continuously energetic. Do you know why? Everywhere they are attended to. Thousands and thousands of people listen to their speech. You can see that if the crowd is more, their voice will go up; because the attention creates energy. If we are attended well, we feel energetic. We feel alive. Attention is energy. When we don't live inside our body, when we don't attend to our body, we will see that our body feels shrunk. Our body really contracts, it shrinks. It just begs us, 'Please give me your attention, please.'

The begging of our body, the begging sound of our body is what is called pain. Pain is nothing but the begging sound of our own body asking for our attention; asking for our presence.

We need to understand that if we continuously live in the past or live in the future; we are not present inside our system. When we are not present, the energy flow inside our system never happens totally and properly. Blood flow has nothing to do with energy flow. Energy flow is far deeper.

It is something like this…if our presence is here; the energy flow is present. If our presence is not here, then the energy flow is absent. If the energy flow is perfect, our intelligence will be perfect. We will be spontaneous. We will have the ability to respond spontaneously. The energy flow creates a tremendous awareness of spontaneity. Whenever we live outside our body continuously, some portion of our body does not get enough attention. So it just begs you for more attention through more pain. That begging is created in the form of pain. When we give our attention, we will see that the pain simply disappears.

I have given a discourse called 'Pain to Bliss'. If you feel that you wish to live in the now in the here and in the present without pain, listen to that discourse, and understand how to remove the pain just by meditation.

Some doctors in LA did this meditation. They said: 'It works miracles, Master'. And one oncologist, who is our devotee, also says that it works miracles. Every one should listen to that cassette. That cassette guides you on to how to create your awareness; how to create your attention, and create your presence in that place where you have pain.

Our pain is nothing but unawareness.

Not merely the physical pain but emotional pain also. Physical pain and psychological pain are both nothing but unawareness. If we don't live here and now, we will see that our pain body keeps growing. The thickness of pain body increases beyond control. Whenever our suffering is attended to, whenever our depression is attended to, we can see that it disappears immediately.

When we do not attend to ourselves, then it becomes deeper and deeper. If our suffering is not cared for then the wound only grows deeper and deeper. If we attend to our body and our mind and emotions we will see how totally our being transforms. The pain body totally disappears leaving behind a beautiful you. Sadly, many of us do not want the pain but only the beautiful self. How many of us are ready to work on ourselves to see the beautiful self?

The concept of the pain body is something new. We understand it as the gap between our real body and our mental body. I repeat…the gap between the body and the mind is what the pain body is. If we live out of our body for a long time, the gap becomes too much. If the gap is too much the strength of the pain body will also become too much. If the gap is less you will see that the strength of the pain body also grows less.

If we continuously live in the now and here throughout the 24 hours, if we live in the present be sure that not only we don't have pain but we have continuous bliss inside our being. We feel continuous bliss inside our system. Whatever pleasure we feel, whatever joy we feel in the form of pleasure, in the form of enjoyment are nothing but the reduced gap between the pain body and the mental body.

When the gap between the pain body and the pleasure body is reduced we feel pleasure. When the gap between our body and the mind is reduced, when we come to the present moment, we feel that pleasure. Whenever we do not live in the present moment we feel the pain.

There is a beautiful Zen saying, that if you bring your awareness to your body and to your pain, you will see that pain disappears…any pain!

Pain has no positive existence. It has only negative existence. It is like darkness. If we just bring light into darkness, it has no other option but to disappear. In the same way, pain is low energy darkness. It is low attentiveness. When we bring our attention to the pain, our energy to it, we will see that pain simply disappears.

What you think as pleasure is nothing but a present moment happening. Let us say that our mind continuously asks for a special kind of sweet. If we get that sweet, when we put the sweet in our mouth, immediately the mind which continuously asks, comes to the present moment. So, when it comes to the present moment, it continuously feels pleasure. We feel a kind of relief. We feel a sensation of peace. Immediately we start thinking that the pleasure or peace has come from the sweet. Note here that the pleasure is not from the sweet. It is from the mind which is a little calmer after having got what it asked for. It is from the being which has centered itself into the body.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'If a dog bites a dry bone continuously, blood starts pouring out from its mouth. Then the dog thinks that the blood is coming from the bone and it starts enjoying it'.

It works the same way with all the tastes of the world; all the pleasures of the world. We think that our joy comes from the outer world. When we enjoy it, our mind gets settled, gets a little calmer. It just goes inside our being and pleasure arises. However, when we come to the present moment, when we come to the now, here the pleasure and joy happens to our being. We are just like that dog, we do not understand and we start thinking that the pleasure arises only from outer comforts or outer objects.

No! It is not from outer objects that pleasure arises; it is just from our own inner being; from our mind; it is just from our own inner consciousness.

The past is something that is like the dead. The future is nothing but a promise, a potentiality…a seed. The present is the only the real moment. That is why the present is called present. God has given that to us as a present. It is a gift but the great sorrow is that it is unopened. We never live in the present moment. If we only live for 24 hours, just 24 hours, if all of us take an oath that we will live in the present for only 24 hrs…see what happens. Don't take the oath that I will live in the present for the next 1 year. That will not happen. No. Take just one oath; give a small trial only for the next 24 hours…until tomorrow evening. Try to live in the present moment.

Consciously choose to live in the present moment. When you go to the bed, sit and feel the bed. When you lie down, feel the comfort of the pillow. As soon as you wake up early in the morning from your bed, feel the carpet or the floor under your feet. When you go to the bathroom, when you brush your teeth, feel the water. Feel the paste. Start living throughout your body for the next just one day; then you will understand how by being in the now and here, how much of power and energy is created in you.

There is a beautiful book called 'Miracle of Mindfulness'. One famous Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says in 'Miracle of Mindfulness', that when you start living in a mindful way with every moment, then you will understand how big a miracle this life is. The bread that we eat becoming blood in our body is a great miracle. Thousands of miracles are continuously happening within us, but we never understand that life itself is a miracle. Only when you understand that life is a miracle, it is worth living. As long as you do not understand that life is a miracle, it is nothing much worth living. This is just a simple statement that I am making here…It needs to be understood and applied in practice to actually taste the fruit of the power of now.

We will understand the power of now, when we understand that life is more 'here'; that life is more 'now'. When we understand that life is now, not only all the pains, physical and psychological, disappear, but we will also see a tremendous sense of freedom happening to us. Because, if we live now and here, we will never bother about the next moment or about future fears; because, every moment is going to come to us only as now and here. If we can manage now, here, we can manage very effectively the next moment which will also come as a now, here.

Every moment takes birth only from this moment. Birth of a moment is only from this moment and this new moment is what becomes the next moment which is the new now or here. If we can live this moment, then the next moment also we can live. We will then live happily with no regrets, no guilt and no expectations and no surprises.

Our mind has conditioned us to killing this moment we live in. In the same way, we kill the next moment and the next. Killing the moments is what is happening to you now. As long as we don't live now here, we do not live in the present moment. We kill the moment. We kill life. We don't live it. When we come to now and here, we start living life. We start enjoying it. Unless we come to the now and here, we can't enjoy our whole body. We can't enjoy our whole mind. We will only live as a dead, dull mechanism. Being now here makes us alive and makes us live.

Now here or Nowhere. If we cannot, I repeat, if we don't live now here, we will reach nowhere. We will be nowhere. A man who lives now here, only lives. Everybody else is more or less like a ghost walking in sleep. Of course, we do not know what is happening, because our body is going in one direction and the mind in another. I repeat a man who lives now here only lives. Other persons…they think they live…they never live…they only live a lie deluding themselves that they live.

May you all enter into the space and time of now and here.

Let you enter into Nithya Ananda, eternal bliss. Thank you. We will now have a question and answer session followed by a meditation.

Q: Why do we sometimes while doing a job which is pretty boring like driving, we do something else, like listening to music, which takes the boredom out of it?

A: A great Master was living in Maharashtra. In the last phase of his life, for ten years, he was asked by doctors to eat only a certain type of rice and grains. Everyday he used to have the same type of food. One day his cook got bored out of her wits. She came and told the Master: 'I am bored just by cooking the same food. Are you not bored by eating the same food'?

He responds beautifully: 'No I don't eat the same food everyday. No I am not eating the same food everyday. How can I eat the same food everyday? Once I eat, it is over. Every meal I eat, I know is a new meal. It is a new '.

It is not the nature of the mind to make things as habituated. The mind never takes things for granted. However you condition your mind to take driving for granted. Then only you feel bored. Live the moment. Live the road. No moment is old. Especially driving can never become old because of new cars, new vehicles, new things, and new sights on the road. Is the road always the same? Is the sky above you always the same? Is nature around you always the same? You have fallen into a rut of being the same and wanting the same. You do not want changes and you do not want changes around you. Why don't you enjoy the new around you? Take time to observe, be sensitive and you will notice that it can never become old. Be in the present and live in the moment totally. You condition your mind to make things old and now because it makes things old, you feel bored.

Q: It is very stressful here, Master. You come to the USA thinking okay it is going to be a very comfortable life. Finally you end up finding that it is more stressful here than in Bharat. You have to kind of get up and do all the work at home and then go to office which is more stress and then come back. When one is doing all the things by oneself, it really helps when you do two things at one time. If I do something else while I am waiting I can get the work done faster.

A: One thing, be sure, you can never have efficiency by two things together. You can never have efficiency. You see it is not as if I am in a forest and do meditation whole day. If you live around me for two days, then you will understand how many hours I work. How many hours I work, you will know. You say it is stressful here; you think in Bharat they are not busy?

You see they may not have business, but they are busy. Busy without business. It is not that they are not busy. They don't have business, but they are busy in their own way. Yes, of course, they are busy in their own way. Of course, sitting in the same tea stall and speaking about the same

politics. That is also in a way, business. It may not give dollars, but they are busy. It is not that in some place you are stressful and some place you are not stressful. It is just your mental habit.

Live totally. You see, you feel stressed only when you don't live totally. If you live this moment, you will never be afraid of other moments. Stress is nothing but psychological fear, just psychological fear. If you live this moment totally, you will never be afraid of next moment. You will never be afraid to face the other moments.

Now when you do this work itself your mind is continuously being boggled, burnt worried about the next moment. The question…What to do? What to do? What to do…keep swirling in the mind. You mark these words as a golden sutra, as a key word for your life. 99% of your worries never come true. Whatever 1% comes true is always good. It is actually true. 99% of your fears and worries never come true. 99% of your stress is just your own creation. Drop this folly of living in the future through worry and start living totally only in the now. Take care of the now and the later will take care of itself!

As I told you yesterday, you feel good if your enemy is too big, and bored if your enemy is too small. So, you know how to create stress. It is just a knack. You see when you put on your awareness cap and the level of awareness increases in your mind, naturally you will understand how much stress you create for yourself. Then all these things will be healed. All these things will be cleared.

Putting on this awareness cap is not easy as your pain body will never allow you to create your awareness. If you put on your awareness cap on your self, the pain body has to die. The pain body also wants to exist just as the other bodies exist. Every body wants to protect its existence. So does the pain body which wants to live. To be alive, the pain body never allows you to turn your awareness and attention on it. Experiment this for your self. Turn your awareness on the stress. Look into it as deeply as is possible. Ask yourself the question 'What is stress actually?'

Search throughout your body and the mind with awareness; search for any symptom of pain and the associated problem. Whenever you get into a somber mood, whenever you get into states of tiredness, irritation, anger…whenever you get the feeling that you want to shout at others, whenever you feel the headache… whenever you feel like giving headache to others, watch it carefully…observe it minutely. Watch what is happening. Observe the thought circuit of how you are planning. Why are you planning? What for you want to do this?

Turn your awareness and pay close attention to the thoughts in your mind… on the pain and you will see that in this process of close attentive observation the pain simply melts away like ice. Ice can remain as ice only as long as the sun rays do not touch it. When the rays of the sun touch it, it cannot be alive.

Your energy, your consciousness, your being present, your being now and here has the same effect as the rays of the sun. They just melt the ice. Go ahead… put your cap of awareness and you will see miracles happening in your system…just miracles. Don't bother about anything else. Just for 24 hours do this. Just 24 hours…only till tomorrow evening.

All your psychological pains, all your emotional pains, and all your physical pains, watch them keenly…do not ignore any one of them, however painful they may be. Remember I told you right in the beginning of itself that truth frightens us…do not be afraid…courageously go on watching them. Remember you need to just watch them. Do not anything to suppress them. Don't do anything to avoid them. Simply watch!

If you have a headache just watch it without thinking about the word pain. Watch as it is. Look at what is happening. If you have any emotional problem watch it as it is. Look what is happening. See if you have fear; any fear, watch…look…be here. Be in the present. When you start living in the present you will become a presence.

The master, because he lives in present, becomes a presence. You are no more a person when you start living in the present. You become just a presence. You become energy. You become God. As long as you live in the past or in the future, you just drag your pain body. You are being pushed from this side to that side. When you stop living in the present, you see that you just become a presence. Thank you.

Q: Can you explain what you said about your discourse 'Pain to Bliss'?

S: You can get the cassette and listen. It is a long explanation. The idea is from Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. It speaks about day dreaming and night dreaming. You have two types of dreaming; day dreaming and night dreaming. It is about, how to go beyond day dreaming and how to go beyond night dreaming. That is a discourse given in Los Angeles. The cassette is easily available. You can listen. It will be surely useful. The meditation is there in the cassette. We did that meditation in LA and after that in just two three days many people came and reported: 'Master, for a long time I was using pills; sleeping pills; now I don't need. I am totally having my rest. Two three days I am feeling quite comfortable. I don't need the sleeping pills'.

Many people reported, 'My sleep time has been reduced. The quality of sleep has been increased.' So it can work miracles for you. Of course, that also speaks the same thing; living in the present, but from another view point. I speak the same thing, however if you are aware you will notice that there are different, different connotations…different, different titles and different, different meanings.

For the next 24 hours do only this one thing; whenever you remember just start living in the present. Whenever you remember just bring your mind back to your body to where you are. And live just with this body. Over the next 24 hours, you will see just how many miracles can happen because of this mindfulness. Somebody was asking me: 'Master, can I do the Ananda Spurana Program. Already I have done one ASP. Can I do this ASP also?'

I want to tell you: Just by once attending ASP, just by doing once the 7 meditation techniques don't think that you can become God. Most of you think just once if I attend, that is enough. If you attend two or more sessions, then you will understand how much you missed. Many people come and ask me after attending the second ASP,' Master, these meditations in this ASP, you didn't teach us in the first ASP'. I tell them all that ASPs teach the same technique. Now in the second level called THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Program or NSP contains a different set of meditation techniques. Yes…all ASPs teach the same meditation techniques. In this context what the psychologists say is interesting. Only 2 % of what happens around you, the mind can grasp, which means you would not have harnessed the total benefit from your first ASP. So don't bother if you have done it earlier; if you can find time this weekend, even if you have done ASP already, do it once more; then you will understand how much you have missed last time.

Q: What is the difference between imagining and dreaming?

A: They are two different things. Imagination is different. Dreaming is different. Imagination is like creating your own future. Creating here means that not only do you imagine, but also you

start working for it. You have a solid method. See, if you can imagine yourself 10 kilometers ahead of the same route in which you are traveling, it is absolutely certain that you can reach there. If you imagine yourself just floating in the sky, it's a dream. Imagining that which cannot happen, just fantasizing is in no way going to help you. Imagining which can happen in a creative way is going to help you. Creative visualization will always help you. Dreaming is like fantasizing about your future. Just dreaming and fantasizing is in no way going to help you. I have seen many people fantasying about being with great actors and actresses. That is in no way going to help. But imagining your own steps, leading you to where you are going to reach, is of great help as it will lead you to the goal. Please take the decision now here or nowhere what you want to do…imagine and create or just dream!

At the end of the NSP you will have a small compliment from the ashram; a rudraksha (seed from a tree strung together and worn around the neck), an energized rudraksha. Earlier, I was telling you about the total touch. Whenever Master touches something, it is total. The whole touch; that which is touched becomes holy; it becomes energized.

People ask me, why do you wear all these beads? Why these beads? You know, whenever the battery gets discharged, you plug the battery into the power source to recharge it. Much in the same way whenever your body gets discharged, whenever it reaches a low energy depression, these beads can supply energy to you. These beads, when they are energized by the Master, can supply energy to you, to your system. They can supply energy to your body. There are a few energized beads which were presented to the ashram, by one of our devotees from his own rudraksha trees.

So, each one of you will be given one rudraksha bead; a bead energized by the Master. You can wear it around your neck. If you feel in the work place you cannot wear it, at least in the night time you can have it on your body. You will see that it works miracles. It does lot of good things physically and mentally. The amount of good these type of beads, the rudraksha or the raktha chandana (red sandalwood) can do to you, you cannot imagine. It works with your body for 24 hours.

Not only that, it again and again reminds you to live now and here. You can use this as a one more tool. You can use it as a technique. Whenever you remember the rudraksha on your body, immediately, you can bring your mind to now here. It can remind you of the spiritual nature of you. So, you can have it around your neck or have it in the hand and or even if you have the mangal sutra (necklace Hindu women wear as a sign of being married, similar to a wedding ring for a Christian) attach this with it. Where ever it is possible, under the pillow, anywhere if it is near your vicinity, it can radiate and give you tremendous energy. All of you will have this as a compliment. Thank You.

'i' or 'I'?

There are thousands of problems that one faces in this life…each one of us faces one problem or the other. Nobody is an exception. Though problems may vary from person to person, there is one problem that is common to all of us…the 'I*'* problem…a universal problem.

Someone asked Ramana Maharishi 'Bhagavan, I want peace.' Bhagavan just smiled and replied, 'Just drop the 'I' and the 'want' and what remains will be peace'.

Throughout his life, he gave only one solution to all the problems. He believed that only selfinquiry or asking oneself 'Who am I?', will lead to the ultimate experience. Almost all the religions and Masters have spoken at length about this universal problem. They have addressed this problem in great detail. When Jesus says, 'Be still and know that I am God' and Buddha says, 'Atman is light; I is the light', and Islam says, 'I am the Truth' and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita says, 'I am Everything'…they are all speaking from a different level of Consciousness. They are in the ecstatic state of Enlightenment.

Some ardent Krishna devotees once asked me 'Master, do you believe in the Bhagavad Gita?' I replied…yes, the Gita is the ultimate expression of spirituality; it is the unabridged dictionary of world philosophies. There can be no other book better than the Gita. Hearing this, they said, 'If you think so, then Krishna is everything. Why are you then worshipping other gods? Worshipping Krishna will suffice.' I then explained to them that when Krishna said 'I am everything', He was in the inspired Consciousness mood. It was not Vasudeva Krishna, the son of Devaki and Vasudeva who was speaking; it was not Krishna the man, but the energy called Krishna…Parabrahma Krishna who was speaking. It was the Divine Energy. He was in the ecstasy of the state of Enlightenment. It had nothing to do with the form.

When you are enlightened, you feel that the whole world is you and you are the whole world. The energy which moves the sun, the moon and the earth, moves your body too. When you experience the Ultimate Experience, you will understand this Truth.

When I said that Krishna was in an enlightened state when He spoke those words, they immediately asked me to give proof that he was speaking from that state and not as an ordinary man and I had to substantiate this theory with an incident from the Mahabharata.

Two to three months after the Kurukshetra war, Arjuna and Krishna met to spend some time together. Arjuna asked Krishna to deliver the Gita once again to him. He said 'Krishna, I was so involved in the war when you delivered those beautiful truths and understandings to me. I have not been able to retain most of them. Can you please repeat them? If it could be recorded, it would be of immense value to future references.' To this request, Krishna just smiled and said, 'I have also forgotten. When I gave you the Gita, I was in the state of inspired Super Consciousness…the Enlightened Energy was working through me. I was Parabrahma Krishna and not Vasudeva Krishna.' Of course, Krishna promised to remember and recollect whatever He could. Whatever he recollected was compiled as the Anu Gita. This is a much smaller book and does not have all the teachings that are in the original Bhagavad Gita.

Sometimes I say that an Enlightened Master is God. When I say that, I am not referring to this body or form but I am referring to the energy that is moving their body. So, don't catch the form. Go beyond it; otherwise, you will get stuck. You will catch the Ego. Many devotees tell me…you are God, you have solved so many of our problems; you have healed us. Thousands of people perform arti (traditional offering of prayer lamps) to my photograph and chant my name as a mantra.

Someone asked me 'How do you feel when they do such things? How do you feel when you are being worshipped?' Honestly speaking, I don't feel that this body is mine. I don't feel that this form is me. If you feel that this body is yours, it means that you have ego. That is why when somebody worships my photograph and performs an arti, I also do a namaskar (joining of the palms in respect) to the photograph. Sometimes, when I visit a devotee's house, I perform a puja there. My photograph is also there along with those of other deities in the puja room! So, when I

perform the arti, I do it for my photograph too…I cannot ask my devotee to remove only my photograph. Understand clearly… I don't associate myself with this six-foot body.

If the 'I' is understood, it becomes Divine, Bliss or God. If it is misunderstood, it creates enormous troubles. On the one hand, people are saying that it is creating trouble. On the other hand, Masters are saying, 'I am God, I am everything.' Most of the religions say that the Ultimate Truth is 'You are God'. Both the statements are true. Then, what is the difference between the first and second I? The Upanishad beautifully says 'I have known the Ultimate Truth, that you people are the embodiment of Consciousness. You are the expression of the Ultimate.'

There is a mahavakya (literally, great saying) in the Vedas "Aham brahmasmi" or 'I am God'. There is another mahavakya in Shankara's commentary 'Shivoham Shivoham' or 'I am Shiva; I am That.' The Devi Sutra says 'I am the Goddess of the Whole Universe'.

What do they mean when they say I?

In the ordinary sense, it is this I which creates all the troubles, however in the Master's life, it is treated as God. So, what is the difference? We continuously suffer with the I. In any situation or in any incident, if the I is pushed to the front, it smells foul. For example, some of the fluorescent lights in the temples have the names of the whole family that has donated it. So, when you switch on the light, you will see only the black lines created by the names! We never get to see the light. In whatever we do, we have a vested interest in it. 'What is there for me in it?' This question drives all that we do. Whenever we work hard to keep this I in front, we only get blows. In our life, the I creates so many problems. If this were not enough, this very I becomes a problem.

Why should we suffer because of this sense of I and Masters enjoy the bliss of I? Taitreya Upanishad which deals with the I problem in detail says, 'Ordinary people do not use the I totally. Only the Enlightened persons use it totally. There is no difference between you and the Enlightened Masters.'

If only we know how to use the I totally, we can expand. We can do so by understanding certain methods and techniques. If the I is not used totally, there is one more trouble…it becomes the cancer in your Being. Anything which is not becoming of our Being becomes a cancerous growth. Anything which is not absorbed in our system becomes the seed of the cancerous growth. Be clear…all of us carry the cancer of the I…the unused I…which can be named as Ego.

Have you noticed how when the river is flowing, it continues to be pure and whoever comes near it is also purified. However, if the river is stopped in its flow, it forms a pool. When this happens, the water gets dirty and contaminated. Those who come near it also become dirty and contaminated. Similarly, if we use the I totally, it will expand. There will only be joy and bliss. We will be in Nithya Ananda or Eternal Bliss…making everyone around joyful and blissful. If we don't use it totally, we become like the pool. We will be in a low mood and dull and others who come near us will also be disturbed.

How do we become the flowing river? How do we expand to become the big I? For you, it is the small i and for the Masters, it is the big I; that is the only difference. Once we start using the tremendous potential in our system, we will expand. We will reach the state of the big I.

Taitreya Upanishad gives five techniques or understandings by which we can use ourselves totally or to the maximum. Let me tell you that the Upanishads are nothing but the research reports of the great Enlightened Masters; it is the report of the scientist working on inner science.

Note that there are two types of scientists…the outer scientist and the inner scientist. Outer scientists research on the outer world on aspects such as weather, genetics, physics, chemistry etc whereas the rishis are the inner scientists who research on the inner world. When they became Enlightened, they published reports on how they traveled, how they lived, what they did, what problems they faced and finally, how they had the Ultimate Experience. These reports are called the Upanishads. For example, Buddha's report to the world is Dhammapada. Shankara's reports are all His commentaries.

Coming back to the Taitreya Upanishad, it gives five levels to live life to the maximum. It describes the five layers of the I and how our small i can become the big I. The first layer is called the Annamaya Kosha. It deals with the body which we use. The second layer is called the Pranamaya Kosha. It deals with the breath and air circulation system. The third level is called the Manomaya Kosha. This deals with the continuous inner chatter that happens in our system. The fourth level is the Vigyanamaya Kosha. It deals with the sleeping hours. Finally, the Anandamaya Kosha deals with Ananda or Bliss. When you reach the fifth layer, you become the big I.

When you don't use all the five layers, you become a Buddhu (an idiot) and when you use all the layers, you become the Buddha (the wise one). This shift is available to everyone. It is entirely up to us to use it or not. It is our individual decision. Let me give you few explanations and understanding about these layers and how to use them totally. If not used totally, we run the risk of a cancerous Being.

Now, let us examine each layer one by one.

The Upanishad says, 'Food is God. Don't waste it.' The actual meaning of this statement is the opposite of its literal meaning. Whenever I visit a devotee's house, it is prestigious for them to

serve me lunch. They even advise me not to waste it! Remember when the food is wasted outside…only the food in the plate is wasted. However, when the food is wasted inside your system, the whole system gets wasted! From the moment you get up in the morning till you go to sleep, you should be alive and energetic. It is a sad fact that we have forgotten the very concept of health.

Right now recall and examine if your steps are slow when you get up in the morning and go to the toilet. Be clear your steps should be as if you are dancing. Your body language and all your movements should be joyful and ecstatic. You should be bubbling with energy…only then can you call yourself healthy. If you feel otherwise, you are ready to be diagnosed as being ill.

Look at nature and its creatures closely. Early in the morning, we can see hear birds chirping; see the cat stretching its body, the dog verifying its boundary and the calf going around the cow. Man is the only animal who wakes up in the morning, pulls the sheet over him and goes back to sleep. Man is the only animal who needs an alarm clock to wake him up! He is the only animal who has lost touch with nature. He has lost his way. Man is the only being who is obese. Have you seen any other animal that is obese?

A small story:

A man who was over 40, wanted to get rid of his wife and her cat. He could not get rid of his wife…however he thought that at least he could get rid of the cat. He took the cat along with him in his car and left it in the street next to his. Even before he came back home, the cat was back. The next day, he took the cat and left it a couple of streets away. Again, before he reached home, the cat had returned. Finally, he decided to take it to a far-off place. He put the cat inside a bag, crisscrossed the roads and left it near a forest. On his way back, he called up his wife to confirm whether the cat was at home. She replied, 'Yes'. Sheepishly, he asked her to find out from the cat the way back to his house because he was lost! This is exactly what has happened to us. We have disconnected ourselves from Nature.

Since we are in the habit of getting disconnected from nature and getting lost I shall will now give a few tips about the food you eat to keep these koshas alive and active and remain connected to nature. There are 3 types of doshas (defects) in the food we eat. There are certain foods which by their own nature is not good for the system as they cause jaati dosha (defect based on birth). If we feel uneasiness after we eat a certain type of food, it is not good for us. All junk food and drinks containing soda belong to this category.

Have you noticed how vigilant we are…we are busy watching everybody else's system but not ours! We keep watch over what the husband…wife or child eats but never on what we eat! All the Masters say 'Speak to your body'. We never do so. We never relate to our body. Knowing the nature of man there is a meditation technique prescribed in tantra to relate to our body.

Be clear we are supposed to talk to our body, sense it and feel it if we want the best for it and for us.

Foods that can be avoided are meat based non-vegetarian food, onions, garlic, green chilly etc. Alcohol and smoking also come under this category. These substances make us tense. While we are eating some spicy food, our eyes may be watering; our body may be begging us to stop. Yet, for the sake of taste, we continue to eat. It is sad that we do not respond to our body's call and ignoring it we pamper our taste buds!

Understand clearly that I am not giving you any rules or regulations…I am just giving you some understandings. Follow them and see if it makes a difference to your body. I don't believe in morality. I believe in Consciousness and not Conscience. These understandings have come about only after practice and verification and are only the research reports of the rishis.

Interestingly…people come to me for healing and when I ask them to follow this diet (especially cancer patients) they ask for exemptions. I ask them to avoid these things so that the healing takes place faster and they reply, 'I have to go to parties and I can't avoid alcohol and I cannot avoid these types of food.' What can I say? It is their choice…choice to get healed fast or suffer. If doctors ask them to give up something, they do it without questioning. But, when the Master asks them to give up something, they think…He is doing it out of morality.

Remember…if you take something as a rule, you will try to go beyond it because it is your very nature. Your instinct is asking for freedom. If you take it as an understanding, it becomes your blood and bones. If it is taken as a rule, be clear it is only skin-deep and our laziness and misunderstandings will make us shift the onus of breaking the rules to society.

The second dosha or defect is called the nimitta dosha (defect based on reason). This is all about cleanliness and hygiene. We have a proverb that says 'Cleanliness is Godliness.' We forget this and treat our selves most of the time as a garbage bin by dumping all sorts of things into it. Even outwardly, cleanliness and hygiene we forget unless it is forced down our throat right from our childhood and we are forced into it.

The third dosha is ashraya dosha (defect based on reality). Recently, I read a book called 'Mind Matters'. It says that if you eat food cooked by an enemy who has continuous negative thoughts about you, your stomach will get disturbed. You will land up with ulcer within 21 days.

Be clear…when you cook, you not only put in the ingredients, you also put in your thoughts into the food. Your thoughts play a major role in all your deeds. Two physicists conducted the same experiment on a person with the same instruments at the same temperature but the reports showed different readings. It only proves that thoughts…the Being plays an important role in all deeds.

The great saint Ramanuja says, 'Never eat the food even touched by an enemy or by the wrong person.' Thoughts not only play a major role in your deeds but you also radiate your thoughts. That is why you feel attracted by some people and get disturbed by some. Your thoughts radiate energy around your body. This makes you feel attracted or disturbed by the person. So, don't think that thoughts are mere dead energies. They are live energies. Remember never to disturb your cook or driver. Keep them in a good mood. Even if you cook, have the Divine name in your thoughts or at least good thoughts. Then, you will see that all the members of your family have good health. You will have no stomach problem. When you are eating outside of your house, meditate for a few minutes and send positive energy to the food before you eat it. You will have no problem…your body will feel light.

A small story:

Once a king went to an Enlightened Zen Master and asked him, 'I heard that you are an Enlightened Man and you radiate energy around you. You are always in bliss. What do you do?' The Zen Master replied, 'I eat when I want to eat and sleep when I want to sleep.'

Have you noticed that in our life only at the time of eating, we bring in all our worries and all our problems? Our mind is constantly engaged in mentally planning our whole life! We shove in the

food in because we are hard-pressed for time. When we are eating, our Being never feels the

food. Be clear…if we eat without paying attention to the food, we are disrespecting the food. We are treating our stomach as we would a dust-bin.

When the Upanishad says, 'Don't waste food', it only means eat food with respect. When you disrespect food, you are just wasting the food. Give at least 10 or 15 minutes for eating or drinking. You will notice that the food is tastier and you become alive.

If food is eaten with awareness, we will never feel the heaviness or nor will we overeat. Our body has its own intelligence to control it. We can very clearly find out which food suits us and which does not only if we eat with awareness. That itself is a great meditation and through this our whole body cycle will be regularized.

The Upanishad says, 'Prana is God. Don't waste it.' Don't think Prana means just air. It means Energy. The subtle energy, which is carried by the air in and out of our system, is called Prana. Though we breathe throughout the day, we are never fully aware of our breathing. Our breath is always short. Ganesha is the God of Muladhara charka (the third in the series of the 7 main energy centers of the body). He is also the God of Intelligence. If we breathe deeply, we will also become intelligent like Ganesha and our Muladhara will also be awakened. All the energy centers will be alive.

As of now, only when the Muladhara is active…that is when you are in the act of sex or fantasizing, your energy is at its peak…your whole Being is alive and active. However, through deep breathing, your body can be alive throughout the day and throughout the year. When you do the Dukkha Harana meditation technique that we teach at our ASP programs for energizing the charkas, many people experience the orgasmic experience happening in their Being.

People ask me 'How can meditation take a person to such an experience?' I tell them it is nothing to do with the outside system or being with a man or a woman. It has got everything to do with your energy system.

There is a book called 'Discovering Love'. The back of the book carries a quotation 'When I say surrender to love, I don't mean surrender to the partner. I mean surrender to the experience which is love.'

We always feel that we derive joy because of the man or woman with whom we are. However this is not so…ecstasy is because of the inner alchemy happening in your system. Your energy is awakened and you feel ecstatic.

Ramana Maharishi relates a beautiful story of a dog where a dog gets hold of a dry bone. It bites and bites till it causes a cut in its mouth. The blood starts oozing out and the dog licks it thinking the blood is coming from the bone. Like the dog, we also think we get joy from outside.

Actually, we get joy from our own system. It is the ultimate alchemy where you can be in this orgasmic joy for 24 hours provided you are willing to choose to rise from the state of mere lust to the divine state of love.

An elderly, intellectual person asked me, 'According to the Sastra, the first 25 years should be spent in Brahmacharya (bachelorhood), the second 25 years in Grihastha(life of a householder)

and the next 25 years in Vanaprastha(life of retirement in the forest). So, according to the rule, you should have become a Grihastha. Then why have you become a sanyasi?'

I told him…According to the rule; you should have become a sanyasi since you are above 75. Since you have not become one, I have become a sanyasi to compensate for people like you.

He pitied me by saying, 'You are missing all the joy of enjoyment of your youth.'

I replied…Only you are missing something. You don't know the joy, the ecstasy I am in. Don't feel sorry for me.

You are still suffering in the world, being caught up in its bondage. An Enlightened person is in ecstasy for 24 hours…365 days. Every cell of his body emits joy. I don't need the outer joy. This is how renunciation happens. When you are bubbling with so much joy inside your Being, you don't need anything from the outside world. You are totally at ease with your system.

When we breathe with awareness, our muladhara chakra will awaken. If we continuously chant the beeja mantra (gam) of Ganesha, the ruling deity of the muladhara chakra, the vibration produced by the mantra will hammer the muladhara and awaken it. If we breathe deeply, our

second layer, the pranamaya kosha expands.

Whenever you are relaxing, sitting, walking or whenever you remember, breathe as deeply as possible.

As you do this, you will notice that your whole body is getting awakened and throbbing with life. Notice, how whenever you are alive, the pace of your breathing turns fast…when you are caught up in situations of anger, sex, violence, or whenever you remember someone you hate, your breathing becomes alive rather than monotonous or mechanical. Your Being is flooded with life.

If you breathe deeply throughout the day, be sure you will become more active and more alive without having to be in states of anger, violence of sex. All that is required is for you to breathe… pay more attention to how you breathe…do you have the time and the inclination?

I pray to the almighty to bless all of you…may all of you attain the Ultimate experience of Nithya Ananda. Thank you.

As I understand it, laughter is one of the greatest meditation techniques. Almost every intelligent individual has recognized the power of laughter and the transformation it can bring to our body, mind and soul. The healing effect of laughter can be felt almost immediately.

One does have to believe in this mediation technique to know its full effect on our being. However, there are two aspects to its effect which prove the power of laughter as a meditation technique. Firstly, unlike with other techniques where we first need to believe that the technique will help, with laughter as a meditation technique, the effect is immediate. The next aspect is that we hardly need to practice laughing…it is spontaneous. We may need to practice other techniques to see its results. However with laughter the result being instant nothing more is required. It does not need our faith, it does not need our belief in it…we don't need to wait to experience its results. We experience the effect that is created by laughter, both physically and mentally… immediately!

Almost all great mystics and Masters realized the effect and understood the transformation which happens through laughter. It is a subject that has been analyzed by all great Masters. Yet, somehow, man has never taken note of laughter as a meditation technique. Sadly enough… laughter is never understood as a spiritual quality because we always associate spirituality with seriousness.

Spirituality is taken as something dead…something serious…something only for people who put on a long face. But according to me, spirituality has everything to do with life and the joy of living. We always think of spirituality as something for people who are old. Countless number of times we have thought to ourselves, 'I shall make time for this when I am old and retired and have nothing else to do.' When you don't have anything else to do except knit sweaters, you feel you need to pick up the bible or go to church.

Incidentally, there is a saying, 'Go to church by yourself, and don't wait to be carried by four men'. We always wait for someone to take us to church; we don't actually go…we wait to be carried by four men. We always think of religion as something old…something to do with dead

things…to do with rituals and monotonous prayers. Whenever we think of religion from these angles…it too complicated…too serious and the juicy portion of religion which is spirituality is lost. Who says that religion is only old people and it has to be serious and boring?

Understand clearly…there are two important aspects of religion, religiousness and religion itself.

Religions based on fear have nothing to do with religiousness. Rituals constitute a religion,

while the juice which is inside religion is the religiousness. Religions based on religiousness

have always emphasized the beauty of laughter and use laughter as a technique for transformation at the deepest inner levels of the being.

Be clear…whenever religions are based more on rituals, rules and regulations… then the juice that lies within is totally missed. Understand that religion is a living entity, a part of our everyday life. It is not a part time job or only for old people. Our understanding of it and exploration of the religiousness in it is the quality of our entire life!

Laughter is not taken note of by intellectuals and serious people because it is so innately simple. We miss the importance of something so simple. We miss many things because they are simple and take more notice of things that are complicated. It is just as Woody Allen once said, 'I'm astounded by people who want to know the Universe when it is hard enough trying to find your way around China Town.'

Our egos feel satisfied by doing complicated things but whenever something is simple or ordinary, we miss it. Anything simple always escapes our eyes and we don't look deeper into it but instead we gloss over it. When you tend to forget this, remember the saying, 'the greatest truths are the simplest.'

There are so many beautiful things that can happen to us …to our being, through laughter. The most intelligent communities of the world are also the communities that have produced the most number of jokes. One such community is that of the Jews and the other of Sardarjis or Sikhs from the state of Punjab in Bharat. These two communities have produced many jokes and the beauty of it is that most of the jokes are about them. Strangely enough, you will find that they are also very intelligent communities.

Let me explain this through an example. There are only three fields in the world. One is the outer world which belongs to logic, mathematics and science. The other is the inner world of religion, mysticism and spirituality. The third one, which is psychology, lies between the two. Einstein, a genius in the field of science belongs to the outer world. Jesus Christ belongs to the inner world. Today, more than half the universe follows Christ. Sigmund Freud, a notable person dedicated to the study of the mind or psychology belongs to the third field that lies between the outer and inner world. While all three are different fields, if we draw a parallel between them we find that all the three are Jews. Intelligence and humor are deeply connected…do you see it?

My understanding is that laughter and jokes play a major role in intelligence. Communities which created more possibilities to laugh…to joke, to open up energy have created intelligent people. They have presented geniuses…intelligent minds to the world simply because when you

laugh your whole being opens up and a new kind of energy enters the being which pushes us to explore unknown exciting frontiers and areas!

Here is a simple understanding about jokes…how they work and how jokes make us laugh. Actually when we listen to a joke, our mind is gradually tuned to a certain kind of rational thinking and we come to a conclusion. But the last word, the punch line is always something beyond our expectation. The moment we listen to something beyond our expectation, our logic is turned off; our rationality is relaxed…immediately we open up and burst into laughter. There is a willing suspension of disbelief for anything logical that happens here and remember that to create and tell a joke you certainly need intelligence.

A short story about someone telling a joke…

There was this fellow telling a joke to a group of his friends who were sitting and chatting with him. But somehow he missed the punch line and nobody felt like laughing. Everyone fell silent. Suddenly one fellow in the group started laughing uproariously…a full bellied laugh. The others were not able to understand why he was laughing. One of them said, 'Why are you laughing? Neither did we understand the joke, nor did he understand his own joke sufficiently to relate it to us.' The guy who was laughing managed to control himself enough to say, 'Laugh now or he will tell us the same joke once more.'

Understand that our logical expectation is different and the punch line gives a totally different view. The moment our logic is put off, the moment we see something different from what we expect, we open up. Whenever our logic is pushed aside, we open up. A ray of energy enters our being. It is like being in a dark room through which a ray of light shines through. Laughter is just like that. A ray of energy connects to our body from our atman (Self), the source of all energies. The moment our logic is pushed aside an ocean of energy is supplied to our body.

This is what happens when you laugh or when you listen to a joke. However, there are a few hard nuts that are continuously intellectual…who are continuously thinking. It is very difficult to make them laugh. Understand, when I say the word intellectual I don't mean they know everything. I mean they don't understand anything. They don't have sensitivity towards reality. They are continuously thinking and analyzing the logic.

Once, an unusual competition was held in Bharat. A group of five persons had the job of continuously cracking one hundred jokes. The people taking part in the competition had to withstand laughing at any of the hundred jokes to win a million rupees. All that they had to do was stand on the stage without laughing.

One of the competitors, in the competition somehow managed to remain straight faced through forty jokes. At the fortieth joke he laughed. The second one managed eighty jokes. The third fellow was a really hard nut to crack. He managed ninety, and then went through to ninety-five, ninety-six, yet the jokes carried on and people could not understand how he could remain without laughing. They had prepared really funny jokes from all possible sources. The people who were watching the program were laughing through the jokes so much that their stomach started aching. While they were all continuously laughing, the third competitor remained standing poker faced all through it, without cracking up.

By the ninety-eighth joke, a small smile appeared on his face. His wife who was sitting in the front row of the hall started shouting at him, 'Hey, keep quiet, keep quiet…don't open your mouth. There are only two more jokes, don't miss a million rupees…don't laugh.' But

somehow, at the ninety-ninth he could not control anymore and started roaring with laughter and so lost the competition and the million rupees. The moment he came down from the stage his wife shouted at him. 'You fool; you missed the million rupees just by one joke. Could you not

keep a straight face for just one more minute?'

The guy said, 'No, no…I had to laugh as it was only at that point that I understood the first joke!'

Hard nuts! They are not very intellectual. When we don't have the sensitivity towards reality, when we don't have sensitivity to what is happening around us, we put on long faces. And I tell you, a man who is alive cannot keep a long, unsmiling face for long. When you are continuously thinking, if your entire energy is sucked by our mind, if you are great intellectual, just thinking continuously, you actually stop living…living in reality. Those people who have become great intellectuals, by disconnecting themselves from reality miss the whole joke of existence…the whole universe. They miss the whole joy, the whole play that is life!

Existence is the ultimate joke. Existence is also the ultimate bliss. If you have the sensitivity while in this human body, the sensitivity to see and hear things around you, the sensitivity to feel about what is going on everywhere; you will find that your life will be filled with laughter. Laughter is an important quality through which existence expresses itself. When you laugh, for that one moment you become one with energy!

A great story of Bodhi Dharma, Buddha's disciple says that when he became enlightened the first thing he did, the next thing he did, the last thing he did was to laugh.

Be very clear…when you laugh, you fall in tune with existence. When you fall in tune with existence you start laughing!

You may wonder, 'What is this all about?'

The story goes that early one morning; Buddha arrived to give his daily discourse. Ten thousand sanyasis were sitting in front of him. (It has always been believed that Buddha had ten thousand enlightened disciples with him, even when traveling.) He sat for some time looking at the flower without speaking. In one of the rows sat a disciple who was yet to become enlightened. Suddenly Buddha called him forward and giving him the rose told him 'Do you understand?' The disciple began laughing uproariously. He didn't give Buddha any answer but continued laughing. Buddha then told him, 'Yes, I can see that you have understood.'

Zen Buddhist scholars and Buddhist scholars have been writing volumes and volumes ever since, about this exchange between Buddha and Bodhi Dharma. They question, 'What was the reason the disciple laughed...Was there a deep meaning to that instance…' So many volumes have come out about this; however note that these volumes are totally serious!

My understanding of that whole incident is a simple one. It was a mere moment of simple clarity. Bodhi dharma had been in search of the centre of consciousness for enlightenment, himself. The moment Buddha gave him the rose he immediately understood that it is himself, so when he stopped searching he got it. Then he might have laughed with the thought, 'Oh, in what foolishness, in what rot I was wasting my life. I was searching everywhere for myself, except where I am presently…my own inner being.' Very simply the moment he turned himself inside his inner being, he experienced himself and the total simplicity of it all made him laugh.

Understand clearly…this whole existence is nothing but a great joke.

When you continuously think intellectually, you cannot understand the play of existence. A great professor of philosophy once went to a Zen Master and asked him, 'Master, please teach me the secret of the universe. Why do all these things happen? Why is there so much suffering? Why did God create the world? Please teach about all these things.'

The Master started laughing uproariously. You do not know how these Zen Masters laugh. Their laughter is so strong and infectious. It is said that Zen Masters don't only laugh with their mouths, they laugh with their whole being. It has been recorded that they roll on the ground and laugh. Seeing this, for the first few minutes the professor felt uncomfortable. He was wondering what had happened to the Master and whether he had gone mad. Of course, for thick heads you need a few minutes! After a few minutes he slowly began analyzing to himself…He is a Master after all…he will not do anything without a proper reason*.*

After a few minutes the Master's laughter was so much the professor too could not control himself and began laughing. You must have notices that when you see someone laughing you cannot stay for long without joining. You either have to leave the hall or you have to join in the laughter, there is no other way. The story goes that at one point the professor became enlightened and never stopped laughing till his death.

Of course, logically we cannot understand the last line, because we are also professors. You may not be professors literally but we are professors by nature. So much of our energy is sucked by our heads. So much of our energy is stored in our heads…we almost stop living. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with being a professor professionally. But being a professor twenty four hours a day is wrong. Let me narrate a small incident that actually happened.

The other day someone came to me and started weeping. He said he was having marital problems. He introduced himself as a Doctor. I asked him what his wife was doing. He said she was a B.A. B.L (Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law). I asked him if she went to the court regularly and he replied, 'No, no, Master. She argues in the house itself.'That was their whole problem.

You see, if you are a professional in your professional place of work, there is nothing wrong. But when you bring your profession into your life and home, then things can go seriously wrong. There is a small method to find out whether you are a professor or not throughout the day...try it out on yourself. If you see a rose, immediately the word 'rose' comes to mind. You start thinking about the roses you may have presented to someone, or the roses presented to you by someone. The next thought will be how he reacted or how you reacted. The third will be the loving moments or memories or disturbing memories which are associated with that incident. The

fourth is how you related with that person, lovingly or not so lovingly. The memory goes on and on until you reach a stage where you have forgotten the real rose at hand and are lost in the thoughts of associated memories. You have missed the real rose.

Now you are lost, having missed the real rose which was smiling at you, which was welcoming you to appreciate it, which was giving its being to you to enjoy. What happened here? Simply put the moment you start arranging the words, the moment you associate thoughts continuously, be very clear, you are a professor twenty four hours. When I say you are a professor, I mean you

are continuously playing with words and not with reality.

Sigmund Freud says beautifully that all our thinking is through association, it has no logical clarity. For example, when you see a dog in the street, you then remember the dogs you may have seen when you were a child. You remember the teacher who taught you lessons when you were a child. Then you remember where your teacher used to live. You then remember your school. Logically there is no connection between the dog you saw on the road and your teacher, even though both of them may have barked at you. There is no logical connection…yet the mind associates. If you continuously think based on association not based on logic, then be very clear, you are a professor for twenty four hours. This is the perfect path to lose the live connection, the live experience of existence.

The story of the professor recounts how just by laughing hard and long, he became enlightened… and he never stopped laughing until his death. You may wonder how laughing can make someone enlightened. According to Zen Buddhism, if you laugh continuously for 42 seconds you can become enlightened because laughter brings us back to the Now, Here…the Present!

People may think, and naturally so, we are all laughing sometimes for one or two minutes, but we have not become enlightened!

Understand clearly…what the Zen masters mean by laughter…it is total laughter. When you really laugh, your mind stops thinking. For that one minute, that one second, that one moment, that kshana, you fall between the gap of one thought and the next.

You can do only one thing at a time, either you think or you laugh. If you think, laughter cannot be complete and wholesome. Your being is not totally into laughter. Laughter brings you to the present moment. By thinking you travel into the future or you think about something in the past. However when you laugh, you are automatically brought to the centre of your being, in the present moment. You experience the consciousness of the present.

Doctors, who have done research on laughter, have amazing reports to give. They say that it is the least expensive means to slow down the ageing process. Have you noticed …there are some people who even after reaching the age of seventy continue to look very young and healthy, full of enthusiasm and spirit. They have a curiosity to learn and are always engaged in knowing new things. They are alive and vibrant with life. On the other hand there are some who are out of it all by the age of forty.

Why does this happen? A good question…let us look at the reasons. One of the reasons for this is the main ingredient which we add to life which is 'laughter'. We add so many things to extend our lives, but of all of these, laughter is the most important. Many Doctors who have done research on this aspect and they give vital proof of the importance of laughter for longevity. How many of you have ever given serious thought to the old proverb 'Laughter is the best medicine?'

Another important reaction of our system is that anti-depressing chemicals are released into our system. In other words, chemicals that alleviate depression pour into our body and mind system. Biologically also changes take place. In the process of the act of laughing, endorphins and other chemicals essential for the brain are released…giving us a sense of well being. At the same time, we inhale deeply providing extra oxygen to our entire system. Understand clearly…laughter is a catharsis for negative emotions to be harmlessly released.

The third and most important effect of laughter is that our body starts radiating a beauty.

Laughter is an important ingredient to become beautiful…even without make-up. According to me, laughter brings more grace to a person. Beauty comes because of make-up but laughter brings grace to this beauty and your being. Notice how many advantages …even from the physical point of view laughter brings to our being…to our body.

Another school of research says that laughter can rejuvenate our whole system. It can balance all components of the immune system, helping to fight off diseases. Any other refreshing technique whether it is yoga or exercise or any other system takes care of only some parts of our body. However, laughter is such that it takes care of our whole body. The whole body is flooded with energy. We can see it in our own lives. That is why every now and then Laughter Clubs are being inaugurated all over the world!

I see a tremendous appreciation for the importance of laughter. People have begun to realize the importance of laughter on our health…both physical and mental. People are now making it a point to gather in the mornings at a particular time, laugh loudly together and then go their way.

Laughter is known to heal a number of diseases, especially those diseases that related to the nervous system and the Vishudhi or throat charka. I have personally worked with laughing meditation Techniques. I have seen so many people getting healed just by this one meditation. It is such a powerful meditation…almost every person feels the effects from this, except the 'twenty four hour professors'. And even they too somehow open up and cannot resist the powerful effects of a hearty laugh. The group energy is so infectious that few can resist joining in. It is only if you are alone or only with your spouse where you can tell your partner to keep quiet or behave that laughter can be resisted. However when you are with a group it is difficult to resist. The beauty of this meditation is that when you laugh as a group it brings in energy as laughter is infectious. When you laugh alone, it is like having ten dollars and spending the ten dollars…that is all. However if ten people put in ten dollars at the same time it becomes a hundred dollars. If it is a real amount of one hundred dollars, all cannot enjoy it at the same time. Only one person can enjoy those hundred dollars. If each one is to benefit and enjoy the hundred dollars then it

All of us place so much emphasis and effort, give so much importance, spend so much money and energy…only to cure diseases. However, we do not spend even one percent of our effort to prevent diseases.

This is not only as an individual, but even as groups, as societies or as a country. All the governments of this world build so many hospitals…spending so much time, effort and money in curing diseases. We do not do anything to prevent diseases because for what ever reason we do not believe that they can be prevented. Medical people…scientists or doctors…either in psychology or physiology, are constantly working only with patients. They finally have come to the conclusion that man, as such, is illness. There is a poignant letter written by Sigmund Freud considered by many as the father of Psychology, after 30 years of research, that in his experience, man as such is sickness and cannot live happily.

Of course, the specimens on whom he did his research were all sick people, his patients. He did not have an opportunity to interact with a Buddha…a person who has achieved spiritual bliss in himself. Since he did not have this opportunity he came to the conclusion that life is misery; and human beings cannot be healed, therefore a human is nothing but a bundle of suffering. He arrived at this conclusion only because his exposure was so limited!

Eastern mystics, the Rishis, however have declared 'Amrutasya Putraha' which means human beings are the embodiment of immortality by nature, and the embodiment of energy and bliss. After so much of research, psychology has concluded that the nature of human beings is sickness, but the rishis have declared the opposite…that the nature of human beings is bliss. Be very clear…depending on which point of view you take your whole life will be changed.

The rishis speak of potentiality whereas Sigmund Freud speaks of the reality in which we live… and the reality is sickness, be it physical or mental. Even though we may have sickness, life itself is not suffering. Can you say that the sky is nothing but clouds, just because you see a cloud? There is some space beyond the clouds which we call 'pure sky'. This is the space in which the sun shines, and where the silence, beauty and bliss of space prevail. The rishis declare that any disease is nothing but a cloud in your mind and body.

Just like the clouds, these too will pass…they will move on. We work intensely on cure once we fall sick but somehow we do not ever think of prevention…we take our health...our body for granted. We do not even remember our body when we are healthy. A simple definition of health is that if we are able to tolerate our boundary, to tolerate our body, be at ease with our body we are healthy. When we are unable to be at ease with our body we reach the state of dis-ease or disease!

A beautiful saying in Taoism goes like this…'When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits the belly is forgotten; when the chain fits, the neck is forgotten!' When we are healthy, we forget our body and boundary and do not think that we need to maintain the body.

Another point in this context is that we always think of health as no diseaseness…the absence of disease. Have you noticed we place a lot of emphasis on not going to any hospital, not taking any medicine, managing the day to day routine well, to think we are healthy? However, according to me the definition for health is positive; it is 'well – being-ness.' It is not merely no diseaseness. No diseaseness is only part of health; there is something more than no diseaseness; a positive well-being, a state of ease going beyond the state of no diseaseness. This is what I call health.

If you look at life from the point of view of the ancient masters, the rishis, they say that life is to be lived in a blissful way .They say 'Anandam Paramaha Nabhyajaanaath'. In Sanskrit it means existence is bliss; do not waste it by missing it. The very existence, the very life and breath is bliss. They say that the body is filled with nectar and life is bliss. Therefore ensure that you do not waste it by not enjoying it…by not experiencing it.

If we are experiencing life as only misery, as a totality of clouds, we are missing life somewhere seriously. We are sick somewhere. Only when we feel that life is a great blessing, we feel that it is an overflow of energy. This is when we are living life….understand clearly…Existence is bliss! We cannot exist without bliss as anything in the world can exist only in the hope of achieving bliss. Bliss is the one and only inspiration…joy is the one and only hope with which human beings are still alive on planet Earth. Only when we understand that life as such is bliss will we be able to move ahead in our journey of preventing diseases!

As long as we believe that life is misery, whatever we do will be against life; we will be going against the current to escape from the misery that we perceive. However, if we perceive it as bliss we will try to relax more and more. There are only two options for us. Either we can think of life as misery and try to escape from it…or think of life as joy, and relax more and more and enjoy it in the state of 'well-being ness.'

Meditation…when I use this word, I mean putting your mind totally at ease with your body and your consciousness. Now, our body and mind are not at ease with each other. Let me give you a scale of what is ease of mind and body with each other…if you are living comfortably within the boundary of your body, your mind is comfortable with your body.

Have you ever noticed how does the mind live with our body? Observe your now. When we are in our house, we are thinking of our office. When we are in the office, we are thinking of, say a beach. If we are in the house, we can be sure our mind is not in the house. If we are here, we can be sure our mind is not here. Wherever our body is, we are not. Our mind is not comfortable with our body which is why it keeps moving here and there. We are not happy or totally in the present moment!

This is why we are either in the past or in the future. The pull towards the future or being caught up in the past happens because we are not happy with the present. If we are happy with the present moment, we will see that our mind is naturally at ease with our body, without any botheration of the future or the past.

A vast majority of our time we spend in two kinds of thinking. It is either planning or worrying. Planning happens based on our body. Chronological planning is what we are to do today, tomorrow and so forth. This is perfectly alright. This happens keeping our body as the centre. Our consciousness stays inside the body and it works. Planning never drains our energy; it does not tire or depress us…we do not feel bored or disturbed about life. It continuously gives us energy.

People who are in the field of construction or engineering feel a deep satisfaction of creating because an important part of planning is creativity. Understand, only God can create; so whenever you plan and create, you are experiencing a moment of Godliness. That is why great poets, dancers, musicians or any creative person has such a deep satisfaction within their being…a deep fulfillment…the joy of creating. Even in the field of art, so many thousands travel the path of art, however not all of them get paid! Many of them do it as a hobby. They do it as a hobby because it gives them fulfillment. Fulfillment can come only when you experience the Godliness that is inside you. Only those people who experience Godliness can create. When a woman becomes a mother she feels totally satisfied…she reaches her fulfillment, as she has created and realized her potential. When a seed becomes a tree, it gets a deep satisfaction because it has realized its potential. So when we create, we realize the God within us. Creativity makes us realize our potential energy and rejuvenates us constantly.

There is a second type of thinking, which is worrying. Note that in this type of thinking, we will not be the centre of our mind while worrying. Our mind will be centered elsewhere thinking and brooding over the future. Our imagination is based on greed or fears, and phobias based on fear. When we travel in these two zones, greed and fear it is sheer hell on the mind. Is it any wonder that the rishis have described the travel through greed, fear, anger, and jealousy as our journey through hell!

We must understand that hell is psychological, not geographical. It is just a state in which our mind stays, the space within which our mind is stays. When we are filled with greed and fear we are definitely worrying…we are in the space of hell. We are not comfortable with our self or our body. Naturally we end up with a deep feeling of discontentment. This is how we create more trouble for our body and mind.

Understand very clearly that when I use the word meditation, I mean that your mind is living totally at ease with your body…you are living totally at ease with your body and that you are living inside your boundary comfortably. And mind you, there are thousands of meditation techniques to reach that state of ease.

Let me explain how meditation can cure us and how it can prevent us from contracting sicknesses. Physically there are thousands of researches which have proved that meditation cures ailments. I have seen this not only in my own body but in that of others too…how meditation effects miraculous cures!

Just a month before I left for this trip, a lady came to meet me. She had been suffering from psoriasis for the past 20 years. She had tried every possible medication but in vain. Now she had come for my help. As I sat talking to her, I realized that she had a deep sense of self contempt and a very low self esteem. I suggested that she should stand in front of a mirror and scream at herself for 15 minutes every day, to bring out the anger and self condemnation she had for herself. She resisted…saying that this was impractical.

I again asked her to try it just for 21 days which she did. Amazingly enough, it has been medically recorded that after 15 days she has been totally healed! This technique which I gave her is from Sufism.

We have similar testimonials attesting to the power of meditation to cure many other sicknesses.

Mentally there is no need for a testimonial…to know that an apple is tasty, we only need to take a bite. Likewise we only have to meditate to know what miracles it creates. Almost all our psychological disorders are based on greed and fear. Excess of greed and expectation always leads to hopelessness. Any hope leads to hopelessness…hope is the path and hopelessness is the goal. If we hope to have some money, we have been saved if we have not achieved it! Achieving money only leads to depression of success. We never achieve the joy that we had hoped to achieve on achievement of money. It is an endless trip for the mind which keeps searching for newer and newer achievements…and endless journey of 'what next'.

We do not work solely for money…we think we will have something through the money. Only when we have achieved that status we sought through money, only then do we feel that we are fools; that we have gained nothing. Only when we achieve our hope, we understand that it has ended in hopelessness. This may sound very radical or contradictory…be very clear…till we achieve our hope; at least we have a hope.

Once we have achieved what we hoped for, we realize the hopelessness of it. This is why people who have enough of the outer world of material and money…turn to the inner world having seen that fulfillment of hope only leads to hopelessness.

Only meditation takes us beyond fear and greed…it gives us a deep sense of fulfillment and well being…it shows that life itself is ecstasy and life is too short to be spent in worrying…that the present moment is too valuable to be spent chasing the past or the future. Meditation makes us realize the value of the present moment. It makes us feel and experience the ecstasy of the present moment.

However, we rarely experience the present moment. Buddha calls this 'Thathaatha', which means 'suchness'…*that which is…just is…*now and here. We are nothing but a link between the past and the future. We are never an entity, an individual in the present moment and therefore never experience the 'suchness'. Only when you experience the suchness will you understand the beauty and grandeur of it. Only then you can begin to understand my statement that life is bliss… it is joy…it is ecstasy! The rishis have declared just this.

When we experience the bliss of the present moment we feel such a deep contentment…such a deep fulfillment…such a deep satisfaction, that not only do we prevent diseases from happening, but also the basic disease of the feeling that 'we are the body' is cured. There are two kinds of diseases in us: one is sickness related to the body and the other is the sickness related to the idea 'I am the Body'. Sickness relating to the body can be cured and prevented by meditation.

Dr. Muralikrishna from Oklahoma, whom I know personally and who has done research on the mind, has in his report called 'Mind-Matter', given many scientific proofs as to how wrong thinking and wrong mental set ups can disturb one's health. In moments of anger, violence, and vengeance we have a 220% greater chance of a heart attack!

The mind has so much power over the body. If we look deeply there are no two separate entities called mind and body. There is only one entity called mindbody. One end of our being is mind and the other is body. What we experience is the mind, what we express is the body. Expression of the mind is body and experience of the body is mind. Be very clear that it is the same thing… outer end is body, inner end is mind; they are not two separate identities at all!

When we understand how to handle our mind, it can do wonders on our body and our health; to cure and prevent diseases, including the ultimate disease, the idea that 'I am the Body'.

Once we start feeling 'I am the Body'… we start feeling the boundary and very simply this feeling the boundary is nothing but sickness. When we forget the boundary, we are in health. When we are in total health, we seem to be flying. In Zen Buddhism, it is said that when somebody walks he cannot be Buddha as Buddha floats. Understand that it is not physical flying…it is the being which floats. When we are really healthy, in bliss and in ecstasy, we do not walk…we float because our being is so light, like a flower!

Normally all communities, societies and governments work to cure the people but do not work to prevent the diseases. What is totally missed by them is the fact that meditation will prevent and destroy the very root of diseases. There is another fact to be noted which is that people want sick people so that they can serve. I used to ask voluntary organizations why they could not invest in preventing diseases to which they replied they would have no more business if they did! They wanted people to fall sick so that they could serve and cure.

Meditation is a wonderful technique to prevent illnesses because it never allows suppression or repression in our system. Meditation continuously rejuvenates and cleanses our whole being. Why spend so much money on this when it can be done with a little investment of time for yourself ?

Do give that much importance and time to yourself…take up a little bit of meditation…some technique as a part of your life, not only to cure but also to prevent the illnesses and reach the state of eternal bliss…Nithya Ananda.

Q: What do you mean by bliss?

A: Bliss! I can describe in two ways; one is, not feeling caged or bound, 'Swatantra'…this means freedom. The second is feeling blessed to have this body. You have a deep feeling that the Divine has blessed you…that the existence has blessed you… that your very life is a blessing…this state of feeling is bliss.

A young man…poor and unemployed went to church and prayed to God, 'O God! Please have mercy on me; help me…somehow give me 100 dollars. I will be able to manage for a week. I shall then get a job and repay you'.

The Priest, who was passing by, heard this prayer and felt sympathy for the man. He placed 50 dollars in an envelope and gave it to the man, saying that this was a gift sent by God to be given to him. The man rushed home, opened the cover and saw the money. He then prayed to God, 'O God! Next time you send me money, please send it directly; the priest has taken half of what you sent as his commission!'

Notice that this man is looking at what is missing, not what is given! He feels life is a suffering even when he gains. He is not able to enjoy life even when he gets something. When this attitude is set mentally within you, whatever you gain makes you feel the same way as this man.

A person came to me and said, 'Master, you say that life is bliss…but I have lost my diamond ring! What do you have to say to my suffering?' I replied, 'Fool, feel happy that you have not lost your finger! Enjoy…feel the joy…the bliss of being alive. Can you earn your life, even a single breath as you do money and material things?'

Life is a pure gift from existence. You must feel blessed for having this body and life. First feel that you are not bound or caged…feel a tremendous freedom…inner freedom. Next, feel blessed for having this life itself.

These two put together and something more, is what I call bliss. In Sanskrit there is a word called 'ananda'. I broke it and gave you the meaning. 'Aa' means a feeling of blessedness, 'ashirvada' and 'nanda' means a feeling of freedom…unboundedness. By your very nature, you are in bliss. That is why you work for it. If you get a headache, you try your best to come out of it. Why? You know that this is not your nature therefore you take a tablet, tie your head tight, apply balm….do all sorts of things just to be rid of it. Your nature is headacheless-ness. If your very nature were to be with headache, would you try to get rid of it? You would not even be aware of a headacheless state. You would simply be in it. You now work intensely to come out of the headache by taking medicines, by resting; because that is not your nature and you want to go back to your true state.

In the same way you know for sure in your heart of hearts that bliss is your nature. You work for it…strive for it. Whether you search for it through the outer world of money and material benefits or through meditation…it is still the search for bliss. Search for money is also nothing but search for bliss. You want to expand your boundary because you have more choice. That is the reason for your desire of wanting more money…because you have more freedom to choose, your boundary is big. Money as well as meditation…both are nothing but paths to bliss.

If you strive for money you work through the outer world, and when you work through meditation, you strive through the inner world. Both are techniques to achieve bliss. But the trouble with money is that you get a choice of sufferings instead of the bliss you seek, whereas meditation puts you in choicelessness, which is the ultimate bliss!

Q: Can you explain the difference between pleasure and bliss?

A: Pleasure is that which rests between two pains. Bliss, when it is marked and limited between two pains is pleasure. The gap between two wars can never be called peace; it is merely a truce where in preparation for other wars are made. Similarly, the gap between two pains can not be bliss…it is merely pleasure.

To put it more clearly…bliss is eternal, but a small portion of it is pleasure. Bliss experienced for a very short time is pleasure. When you try to hold bliss, it slips away from you; this is pleasure. Anything which is experienced for a short time is pleasure. Be clear…part time bliss is pleasure whereas full time pleasure is bliss…nothing more…nothing less!

Q: Is this why we greet people as 'It is a pleasure to meet you'!

A: (Master laughs)...See, bliss itself is choicelessness. People around me are greedy for the state I am in! It is not that they do not know of my problems. I have enough of them. Just yesterday somebody asked me after seeing the way we work, 'Are you a spiritual master or a CEO? How do still live in such a continuously joyous state?'

I answer...it happens because I do not have a choice. Choicelessness is bliss. When people choose bliss consciously they suffer. When you choose choicelessness, you are trapped. Therefore drop the idea of choosing the idea of choicelessness. Drop even the choice towards choicelessness. You will then see that bliss just happens to you. Bliss is like a breeze…you cannot make it happen…you can only open the door to let it in…you can only make space for it. Drop the choice between choice and choicelessness; then you will see the bliss happening to you. Just open the door and let the breeze in! Be in that state of Eternal Bliss or Nithya Ananda!

Meditation is the ultimate gamble of our existence and the meditator is the ultimate gambler!

What are the qualities necessary for the ordinary gambler and how are they applicable in the ultimate sense to the ultimate gambler, the meditator?

An ordinary gambler requires three qualities …the courage to start, the power to proceed and the energy to let go.

Courage is necessary to understand the laws of gambling as these are themselves intimidating…a sense of fear that any gain is uncertain…if it goes it goes, if it comes it comes. Once he has this courage to overcome this fear he needs the power to proceed with the play and stake what is necessary. The outcome being uncertain energy is needed to let go and accept the positive or negative outcome…understand well…it requires energy to let go both the positive as well as the negative.

A small story:

A man with a weak heart won 5 million dollars in a lottery. His wife heard of it but did not want to tell him this on account of his heart condition fearing that he would collapse and die. Wondering how to break this news to him, she went to the local priest and apprised him of her problem. The priest assured her that he would handle the situation as he had known her husband for the past 25 years. The wife did not want to leave it to chance, but the priest was confident. The priest accordingly met the man and after a long chat slowly opened the subject of the lottery. He asked the man what he would do if he won 5 million dollars in a lottery. The man said he would give half of it to the Church. On hearing this, the priest collapsed of shock and died!

You see, it is not so easy to accept even positive things. You need the power and energy to accept even positive things in life.

How are these qualities required in the ultimate game of gambling that is meditation?

To begin with, an understanding of the laws, the structure of the universe and meditation as related to the universe is essential. These include why and how to meditate, what are the benefits and what would happen if one did not meditate.

Someone once asked me, 'Master, if everything in life is evolving, as reptile into a mammal, and monkey into a man etc, by a natural process would man not ultimately evolve into God? Where then, is the need for inspiration and meditation?'

My reply to this…It took 5 million or 50 million years for the monkey to evolve into a man and it would take equally long for you to become God. If you are willing to wait this long, it is alright with me! Godhood can be achieved only by revolution and not through evolution.

Take up meditation and revolutionize the process of evolution. Enlightenment can be achieved only by revolution.

The very the word 'meditation' makes many people reject this idea, saying they are too modern or too practical for this concept. A truly logical person would see the truth behind meditation or spirituality.

In Tamil Nadu, Bharat, there is a group of people who are fundamentally atheists…who believe there is no God. To believe there is a God, one does not need to be a fanatic or illogical. But to ignore all the proof and continue to stand your ground that there is no God, only an illogical person, a true atheist or a fanatic can have such a strong belief. Being logical only leads one to the ultimate search. Be very clear…only people who are logical, have the courage to seek !

People who understand that their life would transform or change after meditation, still hesitate to take the step. By doing this, they show their fear of transformation. This fear is one of the major obstacles in spiritual life. If people complain of not changing despite meditation, they only believe themselves to be meditating, but are not actually doing so.

For example, you have set the alarm to wake up early in the morning to take a flight but you wish to sleep just a few minutes more after the alarm rings. In this state, you have a dream during these few minutes that you are actually awake and taking the flight! This is a suggestion of your mind. Likewise, if you think you are meditating, but do not have any transformation, you need to check again what you are missing, what it is that you are failing to do.

The fear of transformation is deep and one needs real courage to face this reality. Like a scientist, only a truly logical person has the courage to seek the truth.

The fear of transformation is such that most times we do not want to follow the truth. We are experts at giving some reason or other to not let it penetrate our lives.

One of our devotees asked me, 'Master, what is man's real duty in life?' I replied…the real purpose of a human being is simply to achieve bliss inside his being.

Unless he achieves this, he cannot give this to others…even if he were to live to fulfill all his responsibilities. Without this, he will only be living for others constantly either pushing or pulling. Achieving bliss is therefore, the first duty. Understanding meditation leads us to this path and after doing so, leads us to the courage to take the first step.

Why is the power to put things on stake so important?

When people see me in my joyous state, they request me that I should bless them to be like me. However being in an ecstatic state entails responsibility. Be very clear that energy and responsibility come in the same package. One of the ashramites, tired of the long hours of work, wanted to know why he should work and serve at all when he could meditate and be happy! I told him that energy descends on only one who is ready to take the responsibility of serving the world and has compassion for others. The energy…the power and ultimately enlightenment, descends only on one who is ready to take this responsibility…this feeling for every being. This realization dawned on me on my enlightenment. When people see me they are inspired to meditate but are not prepared to put their lives at stake.

A small incident:

An atheist once went holidaying on a mountain .He fell from a cliff but somehow held on to the root of a tree. He screamed for help as the root slowly got loose and he realized that he would die. At the last minute, he appealed to God for help. God replies that He would take care of him only if he would just let go of the root. The man immediately shouts, 'Is there anybody else who can save me?'

We are not ready to put our lives on stake!

We say we do not have time to meditate but the truth is that we do not want to admit that this is not one of our priorities…that meditation is not important enough for us…that I am not important enough for myself to spend time on this!

One night I got a phone call at about 2 A.M. from a District Collector…an IAS officer, asking for guidance for a problem which was of life and death importance to him and he insisted that I see him immediately. I agreed to see him early in the following morning but he replied that he had to go to his office then!

Do you see what I mean by priority? I understood his problem was not serious after all.

A person once asked me if I had seen God. When I answered in the affirmative he wanted me to show him God. I told him that he could have the experience if he was ready to practice. If it was first on his list of priority then of course without doubt he would drop everything else and start to practice. Each of us has a list of priorities and we take our decisions based on this. What is on top of the list in your list of priorities?

A story from Buddha's life:

One of his devotees asked Buddha why he did not enlighten one and all, since he had the power to do so. Buddha asked this devotee to get a list of the people in the village who wanted to be enlightened. This devotee, after a survey, brought a list of some 10 people for the first day. This soon reduced to five people the next day and it is anybody's guess how many people would have remained on the subsequent days! People are unwilling to take this step. They tend to think of enlightenment too as one of the possessions in their house but are unwilling to pledge what it takes.

You need power to undergo meditation, power to stake, power to decide to live the truth, to transform your life. Truth as we know of it now, has only one meaning; that of speaking the truth.

In reality it has three meanings…three dimensions. The other two are thinking and living it. Thinking of truth means constantly looking for it and living the truth means the readiness to live truth as we perceive it. Just as you know that on touching fire it burns you, truth will likewise transform you when you know it. If it has not, be sure you have not known it. The power to understand and go after truth is the power to put on stake what it takes.

The last quality of the gambler is the energy to let go. This is the real test.

There is one major difference between ordinary gambling and ultimate gambling. In the game of ultimate gambling, there is no loss…only gain! Herein lies its greatness. However, do you have the courage to start, walk and let go to gain?

When I say let go, it means you would be on space, you float free. That moment a seed fears to let go, it fails to go on and to become a tree. This is why we call Nirvana the last nightmare.

If a dream is too wild, you can wake up….similarly when you get a jolt or shock in life, you wake up to enlightenment. Enlightenment happens when there is a sudden shock to our dream state. You will be surprised at some of the strange techniques used in Zen monasteries to enlighten a person.

A master was walking on the third floor. A disciple sincerely asked him for enlightenment. Suddenly the master turned and pushed him from the third floor. But the disciple who had total faith in his master was entirely calm and relaxed. He fell like a flower and got up to dance. Strange as this may seem, research says that it is our body's heaviness that causes a heavy landing. Have you noticed how when children fall they never hurt themselves badly?

When you fall and drown in a river, your dead body though filled with water and therefore much heavier, floats, whereas a living person drowns. Research says that it is your ego, your solidness, which causes the damage. There was a whirling Sufi dancer who used to be airborne in moments during his dance, but never ever hurt himself on landing. Levitation done by yogis is similarly achieved by their state of egolessness (featured in the Time magazine, Aug 2003 edition).

Swami Ramatirtha, in describing his experiences in the US mentions an incident when he ran faster than professional sprinters in a course. He explained that his practices of yoga made his body lighter and he could move very fast…almost fly. Likewise, such was the egolessness, courage and trust of the disciple, to put on stake his whole life, that in that moment, he became enlightened.

The wonder with masters is that there is no failure…ever. This is a fool proof system. A naga disciple was so fond of his master that he had the habit of constantly imitating the hand and body movements of his master. The master knew this and tolerated it on account of the disciple's sincerity. Once when a discourse was on, the master suddenly turned and cut off the disciple's finger with a sword. But so great was the disciple's devotion that along with his finger, his ego too fell and he was enlightened. The other disciples wondered if this was not too high a price to pay, to which the master replied that compared to the number of lives people take to achieve this enlightened state, this was a very small price indeed!

Only people who are ready to put everything on stake are the real gamblers…the courageous ones…the ones qualified to play this ultimate game!

Meditation does not mean changing your routine by half an hour. It means change in the very quality of your routine. If you take up meditation, your very understanding will change; your life itself will change and become new. When you meditate, you gamble your whole life, you put your whole life on stake; only then transformation happens. Only when you commit the whole, can you become holy. You need the energy to let go, to allow the transformation to happen.

Like the seed which lets go of its fear to become a tree, you too must have the energy to let go… to allow the transformation to happen.

In Christian theology they call the last moment 'the dark night of the soul' (this is termed by Buddhists as the 'last nightmare'). At that moment when your ego is dying, you must be willing to let go of the past. Enlightenment never happens as continuity but only as a new birth. The Hindus call it 'vishada' and the 1st chapter of the Gita is called 'Arjuna Vishada Yoga' . Arjuna was in utter vishada or, depression, facing the 'dark night of his soul'. His dilemma was so very great yet he was willing to trust Krishna and let go.

In such a situation no decision taken is correct and when the master guides you, you must be ready to let go and follow what he says completely and implicitly. Arjuna had the courage to believe totally in Krishna and let go, which was how he had the 'Vishwarupa Darshan', seeing Krishna as He filled the universe with His divine form of 'Universal Form'. You must have the energy to let go, to allow the dark night to happen to you.

Only if we have trust in the master can the ultimate gain happen to us.

The enlightened Western master George Gurdjieff had strange techniques to enlighten his disciples. He had a stream inside his ashram and he had a rule that anybody engaged in any activity, on hearing his cry, 'Stop!' should immediately stop whatever they were doing , sit down and meditate . He would then release the special energy to touch everyone.

Three disciples were once in the water in the stream when he cried 'Stop'. As soon as he cried out, the water in the stream began to rise. Seeing the water rise, one of the disciples panicked and immediately ran out of the water. The second disciple sat in the water for a while longer, but got frightened when the water rose to his neck and ran out to save himself. However the third disciple continued to meditate; his ego drowned with his body and a new being floated.

You need trust to experience the unknown space; at that moment, you have only the master to hold on to; the energy to accept the new experience happening to you and the energy to transcend your old personality. When you do this, you then have the third quality to play this ultimate gamble.

People will meditate till the family members do not object. Ramakrishna says it is perfectly alright to go against father, mother, husband, wife, duties or responsibilities if need be, in the path to spiritual progress; this is the power to put things on stake; the second step you take towards spirituality.

When you go beyond society, you go towards enlightenment. The power to put your life on stake is the second step, that which makes you walk towards spirituality. Finally, you need to let go of your ego, your being, your old personality totally, and repose trust in the master even at the last moment, to face the last nightmare.

Just as the seed is in a moment of deep insecurity at the time of 'seed-breaking', you too will have the same feeling of doubt and insecurity…questioning yourself on whether you have progressed enough…whether you are worthy of enlightenment, are spiritual enough. To survive…to withstand the 'vishada' of the soul's squeezing depression, the most important quality required for this ultimate gamble is the simple fact that you need to trust the master completely.

Understand clearly that when you play this ultimate gamble, you cross all the three steps. The only great things I can promise you in this game of ultimate gambling are that there is will be no losers…only winners…no losing, only winning! This is the only difference between ordinary gambling and the ultimate gamble.

May you understand the methods of gambling and stake yourself to achieve and attain eternal bliss. Through this gambling may you achieve Nithya Ananda!

Questions and Answers:

Q: What is Samadhi?

A: Sama plus Adhi is Samadhi. Adhi means the original source from which we have all come. Sama means becoming that original source…or becoming one with the original state.

Q: Are there many other enlightened people? If yes, where are they and what are their roles?

A: There are many who are enlightened. At your level there are many who are enlightened whereas seen from my state there is only one single energy. All enlightened people have the responsibility of enhancing the positive energy on this earth. All negative energies create terrorists such as Bin Ladens and all positive energies create Buddhas.

Understand clearly…enlightenment possesses you and drives you towards this responsibility. You cannot and do not possess enlightenment…instead it possesses and drives you.

If a situation arises where there is no more positive energy produced on Earth, there will be no more Earth left. In the epic Bhagavatam, Krishna is asked why the earth still exists after the age of Kali. Krishna replies that enlightened people still walk the planet and as long as they do so, the planet will always live as their very being on Earth is a great blessing.

Q: Master, what do you say about this saying, 'Work is Worship'?

A: Work is worship when you do it intensely, totally. But most of the time, we make worship as work. Remember two points when you work…work without any fear or greed and while working work without any thoughts. If you live and work in the present moment…involved… absorbed in your work totally, that work is worship. It becomes a technique to bring you to the present moment.

If a professor teaches seeing only the faces of his students and not the dollar bill, the quality of his work would be greatly enhanced and with it the dollars would follow of their own accord. However, most times we try to find some short cut and are thinking only of our salaries at the end of the month, which affects our work.

When the whole being is involved in the work, that very work becomes worship. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, 'Karmanye vadikaraste mapaleshu kadachana'…you have freedom only to work, not to expect the results. If you expect results, the very expectation will hinder the results.

If Vivekananda says, 'Arise, awake, stop not till the goal is reached', I tell you, 'Arise, awake, stop! The goal is reached!'

Come to this moment…this present moment…be intense in your present work totally…not even thinking of it as worship. While reciting the saharanama or the thousand names in praise of God, we always start with the 'Phala Sruthi', or the statement of 'phala sruthi' which talks about the fruit of action…of 'what will happen'.We begin our worship only knowing what is going to be achieved. However when we worship…with all our thoughts only on the fruit…expecting the fruit, it is reduced to mere work. If you do your work intensely, forgetting the fruit…giving total attention to what is done rather than what for it is done…then it becomes worship.

Understand clearly…if you work expecting results, even worship becomes work. Living in the present moment is what is emphasized by the words, 'Work is worship'.

Any work done with this attitude of totality only rejuvenates and never tires us. You have the capacity…whatever is your iccha or desire, can become kriya or action. Desire can be simply translated to reality. Whether you believe or not, you are God and have the power to translate desires into reality. This happens only if you work intensely…where you will neither be tired nor bored. Both tiredness and boredom are byproducts of expectation of results. This deep understanding that will help you to live in the present.

Q: I sometimes have doubts, sometimes faith… why does mind have this personality?

A: Understand…if you do not doubt me, you cannot have faith in me. Doubt and faith are two sides of the mind. Both faith and doubt are given by the master…simply surrender both at his feet. Then you will see that you have a new experience called 'knowing'. After this you don't have to believe, you will know.

Q: How does one surrender?

A: Feel that both doubt and faith are from the master. Don't associate yourself with the doubt or its roots. Do not follow the decision of the doubts…surrender both…you will see how the knowing happens.

If I say that the sun rises in the East, do you need to doubt or believe it? You will know it just by getting up in the morning. Only knowing can transform you. Open your eyes and see…practice. Faith will not allow you to know. Like doubt, faith too is an obstacle.

People who have doubt and faith will not benefit from me. At the most they will add my photo to the already existing 33 crore Gods of Bharat!

Dropping both and knowing the truth of my statements and teachings is the only real achievement you can have in your life. When you know…you experience a transformation…then, beyond your doubt and faith, you will feel a sense of gratitude flow towards me.

It is this gratitude which is devotion.

Let me narrate a small and beautiful story from Ramakrishna, the great Hindu master and mystic.

Once upon a time, there lived a poor woodcutter near a forest. He used to cut the trees in the forest and sell them as firewood for his livelihood. One day an enlightened master suddenly appeared before him and told him: 'Go Deep'. The man went deeper into the forest and discovered a copper mine. Mining the copper, he earned enough money for a very comfortable life.

After some time, the enlightened master appeared again and repeated what he had said earlier, 'Go deep'. The man went deeper into the forest and this time discovered a silver mine. He mined the silver and now became a rich man.

A few months later, the master appeared again and repeated the words, 'Go Deep'. Intrigued, he did as he was bidden and went deeper into the forest to discover a gold mine. By mining the gold he was now an immensely rich man.

The master appeared for a fourth time and predictably said, 'Go Deep'. No longer wondering as to what and why, he followed the instructions and found a treasure trove of diamonds. He was now as rich as a king.

When the master appeared a fifth time, he forestalled the master before he could speak and asked him not to ask him to go any deeper, as he done all that and achieved everything that any person could possibly wish for.

The master simply laughed and said once more, 'Go Deep'. It was then that the woodcutter realized the true implication of the master's words and began to look within himself to finally realize the ultimate wealth of enlightenment.

This story is simple, however it has a significant meaning. When we start digging into the minefield of our mind, we begin to achieve some useful things in the outer world and also some extraordinary powers…however towards the end we achieve something which is beyond the comprehension of our mind.

At the initial level, we achieve sakti or, the power to convert our dreams into reality. When we go deeper we achieve the buddhi or intellect to realize that whatever we think is reality is nothing but our dream. There are two things for us to note here…first…converting our dreams into reality and second…realizing that the reality is but a dream. Now let us know more about the sakti to convert our dreams into reality.

A doctor once told me, 'You masters have the sankalpasakti' (The power to translate decisions into reality). I tell you that sankalpasakti is not the ultimate quality of a master…an enlightened person. Translating dreams into reality is just one path. Realizing that whatever we think is a dream…now this is the real path!

Sakti and Buddhi…these are required…the former to give us the power to achieve our dreams and the latter to realize that the reality is our dream. A person becomes a master only when he realizes that whatever is termed as reality is nothing but a dream. A person, who has sankalpasakti, or the power to convert his dreams into reality, could be called a yogi, an adept. But only when he realizes that the reality is but a dream would be become enlightened…when the experience of the ultimate happens to him.

It is apparent that as the woodcutter went deeper into the outer world, he kept reaping the benefits of that world. The power of the mind is such that it can help fulfill any desire. But the master kept repeating 'Go deep'. He conveys that there is a world beyond what he is seeking and he is inspired to go further till he realizes the ultimate in himself. The sakti serves as a beacon light to travel the path of the outer world, however understand clearly that this path itself is not the end.

Patanjali speaks beautifully of siddhi, or the extraordinary manifestation of powers that meditation can achieve by exploring the mental powers of the human. Let us look into the aspect of powers that can be achieved by working on the mind, or rather, with the mind after we look at what is concentration.

Patanjali uses the word, samyama or concentrating the mind completely on a particular object. The word 'concentrating' is itself intimidating, as something not within reach of the normal person. We say we cannot concentrate because we often choose the wrong object to concentrate on. Let us analyze therefore, what concentration means, with an open mind.

A small story:

An elderly lady once went to Ramakrishna for help as she found that she could not concentrate on anything.

He asked her what it was that she was attached to so much that her concentration was affected. She replied that her attachment to her grandson was the cause of the disturbance. Ramakrishna then advised her to concentrate solely on her grandson and not to think of him as a disturbance. By doing so, her concentration would become a power by itself, so much so, that it could be wielded as a separate energy. An object for concentration is required only in the initial stage… later on this would not be necessary and one could divert the concentration into oneself.

Another person approached Ramakrishna and told him that he had a drinking problem and wondered if this technique would work for him! Unfazed, Ramakrishna advised him that if he concentrated hard enough on his problem it would simply disappear. The people around were shocked as to how a Paramahamsa, an enlightened master, could advise a person to indulge intensely in drinking? But to everybody's surprise the person returned after a week to say that he could not drink anymore.

It is important to understand the theory of karma. Anything half done leaves a samskara (impression in the mind) in our being. Anything not lived fully leaves an imprint or samskara in our being, which time and again pulls us back, attracts us to travel the same path and fulfill it. This is a very important concept of yoga which explains the cause of addiction. In my own

experience of having worked with hundreds and thousands of people individually, at least a few thousand cases of addiction have been healed by meditation. The basic truth about addiction is that it is due to something lived vaguely, of not having lived fully or with the whole being. This creates a samskara which pulls one back to fulfill the experience.

Any emotion lived intensely simply liberates us of that emotion…be it anger, fear, desire to eat, attachment to any object or person. One is liberated fully of anything when one lives it fully.

If a person keeps going back to a problem pattern time and again, it only means that he or she has not lived out the problem fully.

Patanjali has propounded what may be termed as a law in human behavior which states that when we live, half our mind is elsewhere.

When I first read this, I wondered how this could be possible. For instance a man who is addicted to sweets would surely eat more of it. One would try and enjoy what one likes as much as possible, focus on it with all one's mind and body.

Patanjali says beautifully, 'the more the quantity, the less the quality'. The moment the quality of enjoyment of any object increases, its quantity decreases in direct proportion, of its own accord. Therefore, it is the quality that needs to be increased.

Ramakrishna asks an addict to concentrate intensely on drinking to the exclusion of everything else. I have given this technique to many people who are addicted to smoking and drinking. They simply dropped the habit, or rather, the habit drops them. Drinking and smoking can happen only when we are unconscious. It is not possible for a conscious person to blow smoke into his own system. The moment one becomes aware of the harm these habits do to his system, he automatically drops it, rather, the habit leaves him. I tell you this from the conviction and experience of having worked with a vast cross-section of humanity.

We have a very wrong idea of concentration because we choose the wrong objects. One of the noteworthy predicaments of the mind is dilemma. People coming to the Bidadi ashram in Bharat to attend discourses ask me if they ought to attend the weekend workshop. When I say yes, they immediately bring forth reasons or excuses as to why they cannot attend it. But if I ask them to go ahead with their work, they again begin to talk of the experiences they would be miss in the workshop if they did not attend it!

The mind is such that if you were to sit on one side, the other side immediately argues why you should sit on its side. The nature of the mind is dilemma which is why when you choose an object for concentration, you are always in a dilemma as to which object to choose. This is why Patanjali says 'Concentrate on whatever gives you a beautiful, comfortable feeling'. I feel he is the first and last person to offer a solution to the problem of concentration. Concentrate on whatever gives you a feeling of comfort or relaxes you.

People are shocked and say, 'Master, how this can be? Are we not supposed to concentrate on the Divine, on what is right?'

Patanjali says that the moment we concentrate on anything, the object of our concentration simply disappears. Even if our notion or idea is wrong, the moment we concentrate on it intensely, the object disappears. It is the concentration itself which is important, not the object of concentration.

That is why Ramakrishna says that when you have concentration and bhakti, even a stone becomes God and blesses you. When you don't have concentration, even if God Himself appears in front of you, you would probably ask him his for identity card!

There is a beautiful verse in the spiritual book Narada Bhakti Sutra or Aphorisms on Divine Love, which states that whom you surrender to is not important...it is surrender itself that is important. You can surrender even to a stone and you will see that God speaks to you through the stone.

Vivekananda, in his commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, says that the object of our concentration is not important; the concentration itself is enough. He adds that all our prayers to God serve only one purpose…that of awakening our own inner potential energy. When we pray intensely, banishing the thought that our prayers are heard somewhere and someone blesses us... our own inner potential energy is awakened and it showers its blessing on us in the form of God, irrespective of what form we worship.

Vivekananda reveals that when we pray intensely the kundalini sakti, the inner power within us, is awakened and this energy showers us with blessings and guides us. So it is the concentration that is of paramount importance. We may concentrate on whatever gives us happiness.

Patanjali says that once we master the art of concentration or samyama, the object of our concentration would disappear and the light beam of concentration could simply be turned into us.

He goes on to say that it does not take years or months to achieve *samyama…*a few weeks are enough. Any person with normal, average intelligence can achieve samyama in 21 days. All one needs to do is choose the object towards which one's mind automatically flows.

To be alive…attachment to something is essential, be it a house, God, money, comfort, relationship and so on. Begin concentrating or meditating on whatever it is that you are attached to for 21 days. Patanjali is the first and last master who liberates us from the problem of concentration.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a struggle at all. It becomes a struggle only when your mind is in a dilemma. Here is another technique for you to follow…tell your mind not to remember the object of your concentration and you would not be able to forget it. For instance, if you want to spread any secret, according to popular belief,, whisper it to a few middle aged Hindu women who are free the whole day and swear them to secrecy…in less than an hour the whole city would know of it! Our minds are no different.

There is a beautiful story explaining the workings of the mind.

A man wanted the siddhi or extraordinary powers…that of reading others' minds, walking on water and flying in the air. Mind you, people who seek such powers are invariably asking for trouble! He went to a master in the Himalayas and requested him to grant this power. The master advised him not to ask for such powers but seek enlightenment instead. The man insisted that he wanted only the powers. The master relented and gave him a medicine which would infuse him with these powers but warned him that the medicine will have no effect if he thought of a monkey when he took it. If he did so, he would have to take a bath and repeat the process.

This man thought it was a simple thing to do. Just a he was about to take the medicine, the thought of a monkey came to him; unbidden even as he was trying to avoid it! He tried again and

again. To his utter chagrin the man found that he could not take the medicine without thinking of a monkey; so much so, he was engaged in constantly taking baths. He was reduced to a state where he could think of nothing but monkeys! He returned to the master and begged him to take the medicine back and liberate him from monkeys!

This is the way of the mind.

If Patanjali's instructions appear to be paradoxical, it must be understood that the mind itself is paradoxical. It is like using a thorn to remove the thorn already in your mind.

Patanjali was a person who completely understood the working of the mind. That is why he asks one to concentrate his mind on any object that attracts him. After research on this subject for many years, it is my own conclusion that by concentrating on any object it drops or disappears, but leaves the power of concentration with you like a beam of light. This beam of light can be directed on any subject for it to simply open itself to you. In Patanjali's words, what one needs to do is create this light beam. The beam could then be directed on any subject to know it completely. If this can be achieved, it is possible to achieve anything in this mortal world that is worth achieving.

Vivekananda says that by studying a handful of clay intensely it is possible to know about all other types of clay on earth. Similarly the moment you concentrate on any object, the object itself dissolves leaving the beam of concentration with you and that is enough for you to direct it towards any subject.

In the Mahabharata, there are three versions of the Gita given…the Bhagavad Gita and the Anugita , both delivered by Lord Krishna and the third and important one called Vyadagita which is the song of a butcher. This Gita is delivered by a butcher…a man who is considered a low born sinner, a chandala, an untouchable. You will be surprising to know how this was delivered.

There lived a great Yogi, a spiritual adept, who was meditating under a tree in a forest. The droppings of a crane sitting on that tree fell on him. Disturbed, he opened his eyes and looked angrily at the bird. Instantly the crane was burnt down by the power of his gaze.

Here it must be noted that in real meditation it is inner silence that is necessary. Egoistic people like this yogi who do not have the inner silence, create outer silence to the discomfiture of all around them.

The yogi was proud of what he has done and his ego was now on a high. He went to a house and begged for food as he was required to by his spiritual practice, chanting bhagavati biksham dehi or please give me some food. The lady of the house called out from inside the house and asked him to wait as she was serving her husband. The yogi was upset that the lady, instead of giving food to a great yogi like himself, should be serving her husband instead.

He was only thinking these thoughts when the lady's voice is heard again as if in answer to his thoughts, 'I am not like a crane to be killed so easily. Your powers may be used against birds but not with me…so relax!'

Shocked, he apologized to the lady when she came out to give him food and wanted to know how she had divined his thoughts, and how she knew about what had transpired in the forest. She replied, 'You achieved only sakti…I have achieved buddhi". He begs her to teach him buddhi, whereupon she directs him to the butcher for his lesson.

The butcher explains to the yogi how he himself had achieved buddhi, the ultimate experience. By concentrating intensely on his job he could achieve samyama and the moment he did so, the object disappeared leaving the beam of concentration in its wake. He realized that the light beam could be directed towards anything. Thus the truth was revealed to him.

In a way, the Vyadagita can be considered to be higher than the Bhagavad Gita because in the latter you receive instructions from God Himself. And you know God can never be practical for he is so loved and pampered! But the Vyada, the butcher…is a working man earning his livelihood from day to day. Such a person's experience is therefore more practical than Krishna's.

This is why the basic qualification of a Master in Bharat is that he should have traversed the length and breadth of the country on foot. This is a basic necessity and the only way he could gain an insight into the practical problems of the people, by seeing for himself how the people really lived their lives. Only when he knows and understands this can he teach them.

Most difficulties can be attributed to people who have the ability to teach but who lack the practical knowledge of what they teach. Such people always teach the academic knowledge they have learnt but seldom with a view to benefit the people whom they teach. This is why in Bharat the qualification for any religious preacher is that he should have wandered at least a few years from city to city, village to village, begging from house to house before he can teach or preach.

I wandered for nine years doing my research towards enlightenment and spirituality and not contributing anything useful to society. I had taken a vow not to touch money or carry the next meal with me. But the culture of Bharat is such that I was supported during all these nine years, with respect and honor. This is something unimaginable in any other country.

In other countries I would have been called homeless and hounded…but in Bharat I was respected as a parivrajaka sanyasi, a wandering ascetic. This is also why so many enlightened masters are born time and again in Bharat. Bharat is to an enlightened master what an incubator is to a premature baby. This is why the Vyada is in a way, superior to Krishna.

Patanjali says that it takes thousands of techniques to realize the different energies, powers and sakti of the mind. He shows how the mind can be a minefield. Amusing as it may sound, it is possible to achieve anything with closed eyes. He not only declares but also proves it.

Be clear…the outer world is nothing but a projection of the inner world and it is the eye which projects it. Whatever is visible as the outer world is but a projection. For instance, if there was a scene in a movie that we did not like, we would not be able change it by trying to clear the screen; instead, what we would need to do is switch off the projector or change the reel. Likewise, all our frustration and depression in trying to change our life is owing to our attempt to manipulate the screen and not the projector as is needed. We try without success to change things in the outer world instead of changing ourselves!

We fantasize of holidaying on a beautiful beach in Hawaii and imagine it to be the ultimate in bliss but when it really happens, our thoughts are not of the beach but of our office and deadlines! I often tell people that if you sit in the house and worry, it is homework. If you sit in the office and worry, then you call it office work and when you sit on the beach and worry, it is vacation!

The mind is the same, only the location is different. How can you change the mental state by changing the place? We are engaged all the time in changing the status, not the state.

We need to work to change the state, not the status!

When we begin to change the state, we would be working with the projector and would make progress, but if we changed our status it would be like working with the screen. Changing our spouse, house or car is like working with the screen and does not help us. Changing our mind, our state and therefore our fantasies is the only way.

This is why Patanjali says that it is possible to achieve anything simply by closing the eyes. This naturally poses the question…how can one live by just closing the eyes? I assure you that if you learn the art of sitting with closed eyes, you would earn ten times more than what you earn now! Both, method and creativity would find expression within you. All negative energies like exhaustion, depression and worries would disappear.

We will become far more effective in the outer world than we are now. However the sad reality is that we never trust ourselves to transform ourselves.

We look at ourselves as a chain and we always try to judge our strength by our weakest link. Understand well that this logic is applicable only to a chain and not to ourselves. We disrespect ourselves by constantly judging ourselves by past mistakes and decisions.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi was once asked the qualification for enlightenment. Bhagavan replied simply that being alive was the only qualification.

If we are alive, it is enough to concentrate and achieve the samyama.

If you sincerely wish to reach the Ultimate all you need to do is in three steps.

First, do not create a dilemma on what object to concentrate.

Next, concentrate your mind on what naturally makes you happy and comfortable. The moment you achieve concentration, the object of your concentration will disappear leaving behind the light beam which is what you must pursue to achieve. In Zen Buddhism they enlighten people through archery…concentration by aiming…directing the concentration to within themselves and ultimately gaining enlightenment.

Above all, believe that that we can concentrate as we have convinced ourselves that we cannot concentrate. Dehypnotize ourselves by saying that we can!

Let us carry this message in our life. Let us pray to the great master Patanjali, the Divine energy to bless us all with the Ultimate Experience, Eternal Bliss, Nithya Ananda. Thank you.

From time immemorial, human beings have been constantly searching for miracles or extraordinary happenings, as we call them.

Almost all religions or spiritual societies have answers for the multitude of happenings which are beyond the scope of logic. Incidents that we cannot explain logically, we term as miracles simply because we no longer need to explain them or understand them once we start calling them miracles.

Whenever a miracle was understood and explained…a new religion came into being. The search and efforts to seek solutions or to demystify the happenings beyond logic resulted in the formation of new religions and an understanding of these energies.

Miracle is only 'cause and effect'. Let us look beyond it by first understanding the word 'miracle'.

Patanjali, the greatest spiritual navigator ever, declared emphatically that there is no phenomenon on the planet Earth called miracle as every happening is due only to a cause and its effect. If the cause is unknown, it is understood to be a miracle.

One of Patanjali's major contributions to mankind was to show how spirituality is a science by itself. Man by nature has a curiosity for the extraordinary and the supernatural which he could not understand. He has been obsessed by the power that could be derived from exploiting these events. Patanjali for the first time showed scientifically how these events happen…what kind of power could be achieved by understanding these events and which technique would yield certain kinds of power. He first taught how miraculous powers could be achieved; then proceeded to demonstrate that whatever then happened was a miracle.

He has given us a two-pronged solution for life…first, the power to achieve miracles and next, the technique to see everything in life as a miracle.

One can adopt any one of two lifestyles…either to live as if there were no miracles in life or to live as if everything was a miracle. Patanjali has explained both kinds of lifestyles.

However, an analysis of whether or not a search for miracles would be of any help to us in our day to day life would be in order. It can create inquisitiveness or an idea that there is something beyond what is perceived or understood by our five senses. While it can serve as an inspiration to look for the extraordinary, the search for a miracle itself, as an end by itself, can hardly be of any use. The search should lead towards the realization that there is a higher dimension to life. This slowly and inevitably leads one to the conclusion that it is necessary to look beyond the miracle.

Go beyond Śakti, to Buddhi!

A miracle is nothing but the power or śakti to make dreams into a reality. Next is buddhi or the intelligence to realize that what is perceived as reality is actually a dream. Our search is right if it begins with śakti and eventually leads us to buddhi. If our search stops with the achievement of merely powers to perform miracles, we have missed the real miracle, which is Existence or the Universe. The greatest miracle is in realizing the universe in our being, or our being in the whole universe.

The past and future are both mere projections of the present!

In this path, on this spiritual search for the unknown as it were, we encounter miraculous powers at several stages but if our energy settles at the second step of intelligence, we get the power of intuition, which is the power to see things before they happen. This may appear to be illogical but in reality, is not so.

Whatever we think of as past or the future, is actually a projection of the present. For instance we now have a new theory in physics, that of a parallel universe…that if there is a black hole somewhere, there is also a big bang happening simultaneously elsewhere. When we cannot connect the two, we think of them as two independent incidents. If we can, we understand them to be simply cause and effect. It is concluded that even the movement of an atom has an opposite reaction elsewhere in the universe. If this concept is understood, you will also realize that the future and past are not independent of each other, but deeply related to the present.

Try to conceptualize time as a shaft, the past and future at its two ends with the present in the centre. We never really touch the shaft but are always pulled either to the past or the future. That is to say, we always live either in the past or the future, never in the present. When we live in the present, we touch the time shaft. Eternity is the past, present and future…we can touch eternity only when we are in the present moment. When we do so, we understand that the past and future are not independent of the present, but merely extensions of it.

For example, there may have been instances when we experienced the present situation sometime earlier in our life, an incident of déjà vu, as they say. When we experience the present moment at least once, when our consciousness drops into the present moment, in those moments we get a glimpse of the future and we feel as if the same situation has happened already. At that moment we touch the time shaft.

We experience the whole universe as a projection of the present moment, that the past and future are deeply dependant on it. We understand the bridge between the past and future. But we always miss the present moment. We always try to find the wrong solutions in life by trying to alter the past or develop the future. But this exercise is pointless as we have control over neither the past nor the future. This is possible only when we do something about it in the present moment; but sadly, this is something we never do.

Let me repeat…Heaven and Hell are psychological, not geographical!

Doing something related to the present moment is meditation. While sitting quietly with our eyes closed can be meditation, and most often understood to be meditation, any technique, be it eating or walking, which brings us to the present moment is also meditation. Our problems can be solved only by that technique which brings us to the present moment.

In the ancient Hindu system of Vedic time measurement, there is a concept of a unit of time called kshana. Sages of ancient Bharat measured time through the concept kshana. Kshana is not chronological time. It was not measured as the amplitude of a pendulum or the frequency of an electronic chip. Kshana was not generic time, but individual time. Kshana is the time between two thoughts. My kshana and your kshana are different.

In the case of the average person, in whom the mind is constantly active, desires and thoughts pour out without a stop…the time between two thoughts is very small, extremely small. In the case of an enlightened being, who is a no mind state, in whom there are no thoughts…kshana is infinite.

Kshana is the time between two thoughts. It is the space between two thoughts. This is the time and space that Buddha referred to as sunya, and that which Shankara referred to as purna. It is the no mind zone…the mindful zone…in which you touch base with yourself. It is that present moment in which you come face to face with the divinity within yourself and recognize the cosmic energy that you are part of.

When we are in that kshana, we are truly aware…we are energized and refreshed. Meditation takes us into that awareness.

When we are in front of an enlightened Master who is in a no mind state without thoughts our own thought level comes down, and kshana becomes longer. Without even trying we become calmer…more peaceful, and more aware.

To elaborate on this, if you were to sit with someone whose company you enjoy, you are scarcely aware of the hours that have flown by. On the contrary if you were to sit with someone whose company is distasteful to you, even a short period seems like an eternity. They say Hell is eternal…this is because time never moves in Hell!

Let me present a simple equation that might seem paradoxical at first…if the number of thoughts is more, time moves slowly and if it is low, time appears to fly. In the East, the basis for measurement of time is the mental state. This is why it is said that for the devas or heavenly beings, a year of a human being's time is equal to a day for them. This means that if the number of thoughts is less, if the frequency of thoughts is low, we would be in Heaven!

It must be understood clearly that Heaven and Hell are not geographical concepts but psychological. More number of thoughts signifies Hell and less number signifies Heaven. It is the psychological time which decides whether you are in Heaven or Hell.

If we can touch the time shaft for 21 kshana, we will know our whole future. But we never let ourselves to be in the present moment…we are never where our bodies are. For example, if we are physically at home, we are mentally in the place of our work or if we are at work, we are thinking of something else. If we are here, we may sure that we are not here! If we have nothing to worry about, we invent reasons to worry. For instance, if today has gone well for us…we are worried that something unfortunate may befall us tomorrow!

When we touch the time shaft, we get a glimpse of the past and future and we achieve the power of intuition.

In the first level of energy, we therefore get to know the future. In the next level of energy as our being solidifies further, we achieve the state called siddhi, which is the power…power of altering the future.

Part 3: So... You Want To Know The Truth...

This begs the question, if there is a future, how can it be changed? Or, if there is a free will how can there be a destiny or vice versa?

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa explains this as a cow tied to a 5 metre long rope. Within the ambit of this length, the cow has the freedom to do what it wants. Beyond this length it is destiny. If the cow behaves itself, there is every possibility that its owner may extend its rope or even set it free. Likewise, if your free will is handled properly so as not to hurt others or yourself, there is every possibility that our rope too can be extended and we may be liberated. Such liberated persons are called Jeevan Muktas.

Another thought for us to pay heed to is that our negativity works by our own power supplied to it!

When we live in the present moment, it is inconceivable for us to hurt ourselves or others. Our being is filled with life…it overflows with energy. All disturbances are possible only in the unconscious level. Masochism and sadism are the same. We have only one mind which acts as a double edged sword. Remember…one trait is not exclusive of the other. If we hurt ourselves, we hurt others too and vice versa.

We need to understand that even hurting ourselves, such as worrying continuously, is a sin. The Upanishad verse says Ānandam Brahmayedi Nābhya Jānath, which means…do not waste this life which is bliss or ānanda, which is our birthright. Every moment spent without bliss is a waste and disrespect to our life. While puja or worship done sincerely can bring peace, living in bliss and joy is true puja.

When we come to the present moment, we experience a new dimension…a new space in our being. We are longer bound by the past and the future begins to heed us. When we carry guilt, we have pre-determined that we cannot change the future; we project the past into the future. Conversely, if we have the confidence of changing our future, we do not carry our guilt. Only when we are free from the past, we have the energy to change the future.

In the Hindu epic Ramayana, anybody who opposed the monkey king Vali lost half his power to him just by facing him. Likewise, we lose half our power to the past when we oppose it and face it. Our guilt sucks half our energy. Understand clearly…our negativity works only by the power supplied by us, by our own faith in it.

The stronger our resolve to fight a habit, the greater the strength we are giving it to fight us. Time and again, the same mistakes are committed directly in proportion to the guilt associated with them. Like fighting with our shadow, it is a no win situation. When we are in the grip of the past, naturally the future cannot heed us. Therefore drop the past and come to the present moment and we will see that our future is available to us and that we can penetrate it. When we live in the past, it is the past that will penetrate the future and live it.

Understand that it is from this moment that the next moment takes birth. If in this moment, we believe that we cannot drop a habit from the past, we obviously cannot drop it in future. Coming out of the past into the present moment, gives us an understanding of the future. When we sincerely attempt to be in the present moment the time shaft stops moving.

It is said that Buddha was once asked his age. He replied that 'eternity' was the only age he could think of. In the 9th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that the same science was earlier delivered by him to Ishvaku, the Sun God and now to him. An astounded Arjuna asks how a person as young as Krishna could have possibly delivered this science to the Sun God who was aeons old. Krishna tells Arjuna that the time shaft never moves when one is in the present moment.

When we enter the present moment, we become the past, present and future…time stands still. As of now we are now familiar only with the horizontal component of the time shaft; that of past, present and future.

Our idea of the past and future is just an idea!

When you are in the present moment, you experience a different dimension, the vertical component. In this dimension there is no time; no past, present or future. It is Eternity. This state is otherwise called enlightenment. In my opinion, the Cross of Christ itself denotes the horizontal and vertical dimensions of time. Christ was a person who had experienced both these dimensions and experienced a different space and being. He was dead in the horizontal shaft but always was alive in the vertical shaft. This is what is shown in the incidence of crucifixion and resurrection.

The deeper underlying philosophical meaning to be understood is that when you die in the horizontal line, you experience Chitakasha, the vertical dimension which is timeless, space less zone. When you experience that consciousness, you become Christ. This is why the ancient masters repeatedly declare, 'It is Eternity, It is Eternity, It is Eternity'. Our idea of the past and the future is just that; an idea, not reality. If you can get just a glimpse of the present moment, the past and future becomes clear to you.

The experience of the present moment is what I call meditation. Meditation does not require anything extraordinary…just an awareness of your body and its actions in the present moment lead you to meditation, to the vertical dimension of the time shaft. Just a glimpse of it can change your whole life. However because of its very simplicity it escapes us time and again!

Sitting by ourselves is meditation!

We can all do complicated things for the simple reason that they satisfy the ego. People undertake dangerous crossings of oceans in boats, scale formidable mountains, expeditions to the Poles etc, but if only they could sit with themselves for some time! We can sit with anyone, except ourselves! Be clear that sitting with ourselves is meditation. If we sit with ourselves without any thoughts or words, we experience the glimpse of the time shaft. The future comes into our control when we experience this moment.

Do not take these words as merely a pleasant evening's discourse from a Master, for the mind has all the cunning methods to deceive you to escape from the present moment. Just as any living being has its own survival instinct, our mind too has its own survival instinct. It provides us with ample misunderstandings, doubts and confusion to keep us under its control. This is exactly the reason why we are constantly in the grip of the past or the future. When we experience the present, we experience a different dimension of our being. In the first level we have the power to know our future, in the second the power to change it and in the third level, we realize there is no past or future.

At the intellectual level is the power to see the future, and at the emotional level, is the śakti or the power to change dreams into reality. At the third level, is the buddhi or intelligence to realize that reality itself is a dream.

There is a nice story of the Zen master who, on waking up from his bed one morning, starts weeping. His disciples are surprised and ask him the reason for his behavior as this was not becoming of an enlightened person. The master replies that in his dream he saw that he had become a butterfly. The disciples do not understand the significance and ask him to explain. The master says he did not know whether he dreamt that he was a butterfly or whether the butterfly dreamt that it was now a master! He was weeping because he did not know which was which. Likewise, there is every chance that your listening to this discourse is just one more dream.

You are either a Buddha or Buddhu!

When your conscious level is raised to the third level, you realize that what is perceived as reality is actually a dream.

The person who has realized this…is the Buddha or the Awakened One. There are only two kinds of people in this world…Buddha or Buddhu (a fool)! You are either awakened or in darkness. When you experience the time shaft just for a glimpse, you get the power to see the future, when you penetrate it a little deeper, you get the power to change the future and when you enter it totally…you realize that the idea of a past and a future is itself a dream.

The search for miracles should lead you beyond them. When you search for miracles…you miss the mystery of mysteries, which is God or Existence. It is a good place to start your search but not a good place to end. Let your search for miracles lead you to the energy which is a miracle by itself. Let it lead you to the space where you experience the whole Universe, the prapancha or Existence itself.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully that the bread becoming blood in your body is the greatest miracle. But taking all this for granted, we search for something else.

May you experience the glimpse of the present moment in your being…your space…the Eternal Bliss, Nithya Ananda.

Q: Can you elaborate on how to live in the present moment?

A: A simple technique. Live inside your boundary…that is all! You are the body, start living inside it. People ask me whether they need to renounce anything to gain enlightenment. I tell them they need not renounce anything they already have, only renounce what you do not have! The future is not in your hands…just renounce the future.

Live what you have. The body is what you have and that is your boundary. Live within it. The question follows that if you stay within your body, how do you plan your day to day activities? Understand that chronological planning does not take up your energy. Almost all your energy is sucked by psychological worry. Even as you drive a car, be aware of every muscle and fiber of your being and your actions. Witness what is happening inside your body and your mind…as often as you can remember. You will glimpse the time shaft.

Q: How to drop the guilt from the past ?

A: There was a rishi meditating in the forest, who was not yet enlightened. One night, a thief begs shelter at his ashram. Not knowing his identity, he readily agrees. The next morning when he realizes the identity of the thief, he is filled with guilt and remorse at having helped a thief. Suddenly he hears an equally remorseful voice from above. When he asks God for the reason, God in turn asks him that if he felt he had sinned in giving food to the thief for one night, where could He, who gave the thief food and shelter his entire life, go to wash his sins?

It is only we who have the idea of saint and sinner. Society stamps us with this idea. All these rules of society are only created for harmonious living. In course of time, they become law. As long as the rules are understood and followed in this context, all is well. The moment you start internalizing the letter more than the spirit, beyond the understanding, you start creating guilt. You fall into the trap of guilt whenever you catch the letter instead of the spirit.

There is small story about a Swami in a South Hindu monastery who had a pet cat. But as the cat disturbed the morning puja, he had it covered with a basket during puja. As days went by, the Swami passed away and so did the cat. The devotees were at a loss as to how to continue the puja without a cat, which ultimately led to stoppage of the puja itself. The puja stopped for want of a cat! This is an example of catching the letter and not the spirit.

The Master is like the finger pointing towards the moon. If you see the moon, you have reaped the benefit as that is your purpose of having come to him. The problem is that you catch hold of his finger and miss the moon and because you do so, the next generation also misses the moon. I always say…Do not catch THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, catch Nithya Ananda. Catch the spirit, the energy, not the form. When you stop imbibing the energy, you will miss the form even when it is before you.

Our ancient sages, the rishis are the only people on Earth who had the courage to declare that their literatures could be updated. Śruti and Smruti are two kinds of literatures in Vedanta. The Śruti are Veda or Upanishad which are the ultimate teaching. The Smruti, such as Manu's codes, speak of social law and day to day life. The sages have boldly declared that Smruti can be updated at every age or yuga. When you catch only the Smruti, it creates guilt. Do not get caught in it. You need to understand and update the Smruti. Truly speaking, there is no rule of right or wrong. What is food for one is poison for another. What is right in one society is wrong in another. Morality is to be based on consciousness, not on conscience. Conscience is just skin deep…based on fear and greed. It is time you stood up to base your maturity on consciousness, not on Heaven and Hell or the idea of Fear and Greed.

Conscience is given to you by society whereas Consciousness is natural.

Drop your guilt which is simply foolishness and mature to a deeper understanding of your self.

A parable of Ramakrishna goes thus:

Once there were two brothers. One decided to become a sadhu and the other went into business. After 15 long years the younger brother who became a sadhu came back to the village. His elder brother who had stayed back in the village to become a businessman received him well. They started discussing what they had both achieved in the span of 15 years. The elder brother told the younger about how well he has done materially and asked the sadhu how he had fared. The younger one stood up without a word and walked to the river near by. He started walking on the waters of the river and reached the opposite side effortlessly. The elder brother took a boat and joined him on the opposite bank. Crowed the younger brother, 'This is what I achieved in these years.' The elder brother responded, 'In all these years what you learnt was what I spent two rupees (5 cents) for. What a waste!'

Understand that miracles are foolishness. There are no miracles. They just happen in a different plane. People ask me again and again to materialize objects. Mind you doing it becomes a habit for some. People then come only for the magic show, not for transformation. When people asked me to materialize an object, I only clapped my hand and produced an idol of Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth in Hindu mythology. I told the group that it was only a trick of hand. I can not create anything. I can only teleport it. I only moved the idol from my room to my hand. It is similar to waves moving between cell phones and how it transports voice. I converted the matter of the idol into energy, teleported it, and reconverted energy into matter.

Be very clear…there are no Miracles in Life!

At one time or another we all experience the phenomenon of precognition. We feel that some one is about to call us, and sure enough that person calls.

We are watching TV and suddenly we feel that the character we're watching is about to say something, and sure enough she obliges. We are about to sit down for dinner, the door bell chimes, and we know who is at the door; sure enough, it's the old school mate one hasn't seen in years.

I find that in my discourses often over 50% of the audience responds positively when I ask if they had experienced a similar phenomenon at any point in their life. When this happens, most of the time we brush it off saying that it is a coincidence. When to some this happens repetitively we attach the tag of a 'gifted' person, similar to those who see auras and sense the vibrational energy of people and places.

When the magnitude of the experience is far greater we no longer term it a coincidence. Some one predicts disasters accurately time and again, and forecasts deaths. Others heal people given up as lost cases by doctors. Some produce substances out of thin air. We then call them miracles.

What we see as coincidences or miracles, depending on the degree of the unexpectedness of the incident, are those where we do not see the causal linkage between these incidents and what we understand to be scientific laws. Anything that is not supported by what is termed as 'science' is either barbaric or a miracle.

I repeat…there are no miracles in life. It is just that we do not yet understand the laws that govern the occurrence of such incidents which seem to defy 'scientific' laws. Once we understand that this universe supports laws that go beyond the 'scientific' laws that have been so far discovered by humans, we start understanding the cause and effect linkages behind many of these inexplicable happenings and start appreciating the mysteries of our Universe.

Astrophysicists now talk about a parallel universe. They have discovered that each time a star system dies as a black hole another start system is born in a big bang somewhere else in the universe. Every action produces a reaction.

Chaos Theory now says that action and reaction do not need to be proportionate. There is no linearity in nature. A butterfly fluttering its wings in China causes a tornado in Mexico! This is science, not imagination.

Matter and energy were totally different entities until Einstein established their linkage. Even after Einstein, it was either matter or energy, never both in the same time and space. It is only recently that the principle of 'singularity' that allows matter and energy to exist simultaneously in a common time and space framework has been understood. 'Singularity' is the common universal platform, the Collective Consciousness that we call Brahman.

Making contact with Brahman is not impossible, once you know how. With thoughts crowding our mind, all that we normally do is to flit from one zone to another, from regrets to speculations, with no time to ground ourselves in the present. However, once we allow ourselves to settle in the here and now, in the present, thoughts gradually disappear. When thoughts disappear there is an expansion of our ability to expand in time and space, which allows us to traverse the past, present and future simultaneously.

Once we are in the present miracles become common place, and we do know that they are no longer miracles but a natural flow of the universe.

If all cell phones except two are destroyed, the two owners will become Gods. When we do not understand the cause we call it a miracle. Personal transformation is the ultimate miracle that we can get from a Master. I had a disciple, a magician, who used to produce vibhuti, sacred ash, from my feet. I told him, you are doing what I can not do.

People asked me how they could be sure that I had moved the idol of Lakshmi from my room. I then produced a mala, a necklace*,* and told them to check their stock in the store room…to their surprise, one was missing.

In Tantra, which actually only means technique, there are two practices. The first is Dakshinachara which is just meditation; the other is Vamachara which relates to use of sex, meat, liquor etc. to realize divine power. Alchemy comprises removing, adding and processing from base metal to get gold. It is our choice which practice we wish to take up to reach the ultimate goal. It is ultimately our own choice whether we wish to transform ourselves from lust to divine love or not!

I pray the divine to bless all of you with courage to reach the ultimate…Nithya Ananda! Thank you.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is reviving Hinduism as the 1008th Acharya Mahamandaleshwar (the head for all spiritual leaders) of Atal Akhada (ancient apex body of Hinduism), coronated as Mahamandaleshwar (Supreme Spiritual Head) of

Maha Nirvani Akhada (largest apex monastic order) and the youngest Mahamandaleshwar, ordained as the 233rd Guru Mahasannidhanam (Pontiff) of Thondai Mandala Aadheenam, ordained as the 293rd Guru Mahasannidhanam (Pontiff) of Shyamalapeeta Sarvajnapeetam, ordained as the 23rd Guru Mahasannidhanam of Dharmamukthi Swargapuram Aadheenam, and coronated as the 203rd Emperor of Suryavamsa Surangi Samrajyam.

The Srimad Karana Agama, Purva bhaga, Patala 71, Sakalotpatti vidhi, Sloka 8 & 9 (Sacred Ancient Hindu scripture) declares:

इत्येवं नि ष्कळं प्रो क्तं परं भा वमि ति स्मृतम्। सृष्टि स्थं लो करक्षा र्थं लो कस्यो त्पत्ति का रणम्।। सा धका नां हि ता र्थं तु स्वेच्छया गृह्णते तनुः ।

In this way (Shiva) who is Nishkala - without any body and parts, who is the Ultimate Supreme Being, who is established in the Creation, who is the Cause of the creation of the Universe, assumes a body out of His Free Will for the protection of the Universe, and for the welfare of the Spiritual seekers and Devotees.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is the reigning spiritual emperor of 17 ancient traditional Hindu kingdoms and the reviver of the most ancient, most peaceful, stillliving and long-lasting demonstrable system that shows the possibility of peaceful coexistence amongst people. Following the coronation to establish KAILASA worldwide at the age of 16, for the past 27 years, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, as the face of the unified Hindus, has been single-handedly, tirelessly inspiring the dispossessed

Hindu Diaspora to reclaim their Hindu centric freedom and stand unified for the centuries-old Hindu genocide.

The 1008th living incarnation of Paramaśiva, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM stands as the unifying force for the 2 billion born and practicing Hindu diaspora worldwide and established the Hindu State, KAILASA for the persecuted Hindus in over 100 countries.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM has made resolute efforts towards recognizing and legitimizing the Hindu genocide which has been receiving scant consideration by global leaders and international bodies, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM founded KAILASA Uniting Nations. For the past 27 years, this international body has been responsible in building relations, bridging dialogs, inspiring leaders, uniting nations towards acknowledging the Hindu policies which are universal, life positive as referenced from the ancient text of Hinduism. This is the 'ahimsa' (non-violent) way of bringing acknowledgment to the horrors of the Hindu genocide, the untold facts of the darkest act of mankind on Earth to the most contributing civilization - KAILASA.

KAILASA is an apolitical nation whose vision is enlightened living for all. Towards this goal, KAILASA is the only Hindu nation on planet Earth today bringing legitimacy to the principles of Hinduism. Social principles, economic principles, judicial principles, Hindu medical principles, and Hindu economic principles. KAILASA is THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's response to humanity's global problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, violence and global warming and the continuing ethnocide and genocide of over 80 million Hindus worldwide since 7 centuries.

Over the last 50 years, the effects of meditation and its significant impact on stress, crime rates, violence, political decision making and even war in local and global consciousness is well established. Unfortunately, in the last two hundred years, forcibly we are made to believe Hinduism is a functional principle only for enlightenment and spirituality. It is absolutely dysfunctional for the political, social, economical system. Making Hindu family structure, Hindu social structure dysfunctional is the greatest crime done against humanity.

Sanatana Hindu Dharma has faced both historical and ongoing religious persecution and systematic violence, in various forms including assassination attempts on living incarnations, targeted elimination of Hindu pontiffs through bio war and lawfare, cyberbullying, Hindu phobia, forced conversions, documented massacres, demolitions, desecration and grabbing of worship temples and monasteries, looting of Hindu temples properties, destruction of Hindu educational institutions, elimination of well known Hindu libraries, the gross violation to the freedom to practice the Hindu school of liberated thinking (Sankhya), Hindu schools of living enlightenment (Jeevan Mukthi), gross violations of the right to freedom of religion that includes violations of the right to life, personal Hindu integrity or personal Hindu liberty, mass execution, looting and enslavement.

Hinduism was once practiced freely in over 56 nations across the continent from Afghanistan, Bharat, Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka, all the way to Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia and Indonesia, and in 200 states, 1700 samasthanas (provinces) and 10,000 sampradayas (traditions). Over several centuries the combined forces of foreign invasion, political upheaval, colonialism and religious persecution systematically ended millennia of Hindu Swarajya, or self-rule. Today Hindu temples remain in a few countries but the Hindus who worshiped in them have been ethnically cleansed.

The revival of Hinduism through the civilizational nation of KAILASA globally irked vested interests of atheistic terrorist militant elements, caste supremacist terrorists and other anti-Hindu forces who executed a massive persecution and genocide on SPH and His followers on 2 March 2010 that continued for the next whole decade and comprised of over 70 assassination attempts, over 250 sexual assaults on SPH and his monks and disciples, lawfare of 120 false cases over 10 years, massive hate propaganda in electronic media of over 14,000 hours and print media of over 25,000 articles in 5 years, destruction of heritage properties worth over 27 million USD, and the continuing ethnocide and genocide of over 80 million Hindus worldwide since 7 centuries. Specifically, the lawfare involved:

Delegitimizing SPH by hate propaganda, disenfranchising Him of His civil and human rights, prejudicing Him from fair representation and fair trial

Repeated illegal imprisonment, with brazen torture, custodial assassination attempts, supported by system justification in various forms, including the common processes of bureaucracy, indifference, self-deception, diffused responsibility and has resulted in continued systemic complicity with torture, murder and genocide

Well-planned multi-layer false hate propaganda by the 'fourth estate' media sustained by moral disengagement, leaving the broader public in a state of willful ignorance, motivated denial, out-group victim-blaming, dehumanization and bystander apathy to even genocide.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM stands in solidarity with the untold, multi-level - social, political, intellectual, religious, cultural, linguistic, economic, legal, digital persecution done to Hinduism and faced by Hindus and Hindu minorities worldwide for the past several thousands of years continues through the modern day. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM has been recently acknowledged by the United Nations for the persecution of The SPH and the KAILASA global community, especially the affected women and children.

The KAILASA with de facto spiritual embassies operating across over 100 countries and having presence across the globe as the largest spiritual knowledge source on Hinduism is spiritually governed with the life positive, all-inclusive, universal policies sourced from Hinduism revived by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. Having enriched and enreached more than one billion individuals over the past 27 years the KAILASA raises the voice to protect Hindus, defend Hindus and preserve the Hindu narrative for the world.