1. Transformation Tools for Inner Health

Table of Contents Introduction to Intensity Becoming Vs Being Intensity in anger Living intensely Intensity is independent of the nature of the work Intensity and the four states of consciousness How to get enlightened? I want to...real bad and urgently Intensity prepares you for the ultimate The deep spiritual experience Meditation techniques Intensity

1. Introduction to Intensity
2. Becoming Vs Being
3. Intensity in anger
4. Living intensely
5. Intensity is independent of the nature of the work
6. Intensity and the four states of consciousness
7. How to get enlightened? I want to...real bad and urgently
8. Intensity prepares you for the ultimate
9. The deep spiritual experience
10. Message of Living Enlightenment - 'how will master behave?'
11. Meditation techniques To know what is intensity To learn how living intensely improves us in outer world and inner world To understand intensity and four states of consciousness To live intensely by practicing meditation techniques
12. Introduction to Intensity Whether we lead or whether we follow, in order to be fulfilled in whatever we do, we need to be intense. A Zen master and a disciple were walking along the banks of a river. The disciple, as he had done a few times before, asked the master very longing ly, 'Master, please give me enlightenment.' Suddenly the master turned, held the disciple's head in his hand and pushed it into the river. The disciple was shocked and started struggling to get his head above water. The master continued to strongly hold his head in the water. Now the disciple started gasping for breath. The master then released the surprised and completely shaken disciple. The master asked, 'Do you feel you want enlightenment with the same intensity that you felt you needed air to breathe when your head was in the water?' Only when the urge becomes urgent, when the question becomes a quest, does the Ultimate happen. The key factor needed for enlightenment to happen is intensity. 1.1 What is Intensity? You see, usually we feel a terrible restlessness towards the outer world, 'I have not done this, I have not done that' and so on. The same restlessness when directed to the inner world is called intensity.

Intensity

1. Introduction to Intensity
2. Becoming Vs Being
3. Intensity in anger
4. Living intensely
5. Intensity is independent of the nature of the work
6. Intensity and the four states of consciousness
7. How to get enlightened? I want to...real bad and urgently
8. Intensity prepares you for the ultimate
9. The deep spiritual experience
10. Message of Living Enlightenment - 'how will master behave?'
11. Meditation techniques To know what is intensity To learn how living intensely improves us in outer world and inner world To understand intensity and four states of consciousness To live intensely by practicing meditation techniques
12. Introduction to Intensity Whether we lead or whether we follow, in order to be fulfilled in whatever we do, we need to be intense. A Zen master and a disciple were walking along the banks of a river. The disciple, as he had done a few times before, asked the master very longing ly, 'Master, please give me enlightenment.' Suddenly the master turned, held the disciple's head in his hand and pushed it into the river. The disciple was shocked and started struggling to get his head above water. The master continued to strongly hold his head in the water. Now the disciple started gasping for breath. The master then released the surprised and completely shaken disciple. The master asked, 'Do you feel you want enlightenment with the same intensity that you felt you needed air to breathe when your head was in the water?' Only when the urge becomes urgent, when the question becomes a quest, does the Ultimate happen. The key factor needed for enlightenment to happen is intensity. 1.1 What is Intensity? You see, usually we feel a terrible restlessness towards the outer world, 'I have not done this, I have not done that' and so on. The same restlessness when directed to the inner world is called intensity. You do not know what is happening, you do not know what should be done, but the deep dissatisfaction about what is there in the inner space is what I call intensity. You may be wondering why I am teaching dissatisfaction. I am supposed to teach satisfaction, right? I tell you, your dissatisfaction, which is now directed towards the outer world, has to turn towards the inner world, and only then it will lead to satisfaction. First thing which needs to happen is not satisfaction but the turning of direction, the psychological revolution. Restlessness should become intensity. If it is towards the outer world, if your consciousness is constantly moving towards the outer world, it is called restlessness. If it is moving towards the inner world, it is called intensity. The meaning of intensity is that desperate feeling that something needs to be done immediately, to break free from the clutches, or to break free in the inner world. Intensity is not emotion. When you are intense, one part of it may be emotional. But intensity cannot be called emotion. It is like heat. The part of intensity that melts and comes out can be called emotion. For example, when you integrate yourself with intensity, one part of you melts. Let us say the heart melts, then that can be called emotion. Along with your heart, your intellect will also melt, your being will also melt. The side-effect of intensity is emotion. Do not bother about what your intensity should be about. Do not bother about 'towards what'. It should become a quality. Anything you do, whether you touch something or somebody or some object, let the intensity be there, even in that touch. If you are talking, let the intensity be there. In your relationships, in your decisions, in your memory, in your thinking, in your desires, even in your fears, be intense without escaping from this moment. That is what I call intensity. Intensity means radiating the energy that does not create any conflict inside and outside. Intensity is intensely being inside you. Intensity does not create conflict inside or outside. It flows smoothly and yet very strongly. We always think if it is flowing smoothly like a river, it will not have intensity, and if it is intense like a stone it will not be flowing freely. No. Intensity is like a flood which is intense and flowing. I have seen some people intensely creating conflict every moment! Anything you tell them to do, they will be ready to create a conflict. A prisoner escaped from prison after twelve years and reached his home. The moment his wife opened the door she started shouting, 'How dare you come so late! You escaped from prison twenty four hours before. Where have you been? You should have come straight back home!' All that the woman was bothered about was why he was not back home right after he had escaped. She certainly was intense, but only in creating conflicts. Real intensity does not create conflicts. It is flowing but intense. Intensity is integration. Intensity is sincerity. The father of Yoga, Patanjali, says, 'Success is nearest to those whose efforts are intense and sincere.' You see, no river needs a navigator to the ocean. There are no signboards needed for any river, 'Here is the ocean.' Yet all rivers reach the ocean. They reach the destination. When your whole energy moves in one direction as a whole, you can move easily. When you are intense and ready to flow you will achieve the goal, that's all. Usually intensity leads to a solid feeling. You may be intense but you may have lost the ability to flow. Or you may be flowing but may have lost the intensity. See, you may be intense but you may have lost the ability to flow, because you are driven by your ego. You are determined to achieve what you want but you have your own rigid ideas about how to get there. You fail to understand then that Existence can make events happen in a much more beautiful and effective way than you can plan. I tell my disciples, plan in the best way to the best of your ability. Then, leave it. It may seem that all your plans are being completely trampled. Don't get frustrated at that point. Something much more beautiful than what you had planned will come to life. The other possibility is that you may be flowing but may have lost the intensity. This is the case with people who have no focus and waste their energies getting distracted by anything that comes by. Understand, water becomes steam only at 100 degrees Celsius. Even at 99 degrees C, it is still water. It does not transform to steam. In the same way, if you are not integrated in seeking, all your energies are not integrated. The total transformation cannot happen. Take up something and follow it with full intensity. Intensity does not mean acting rigidly without scope for updating and change. Only when you are open to change you can make your way like the river flowing intensely towards the ocean. A man moved into a small, remote county. One day while driving he stopped at a gas station to fill gas. The gas station owner started talking casually and started complaining about the local mayor. This man who had come to the city newly just heard him and did not reply. After some time, he drove further and stopped at another place to ask for directions. There also, he started enquiring about the county. That person also started complaining about the mayor. After half an hour, he reached his destination. There also the people were talking ill and complaining about the mayor. The next day, the man decided to meet the mayor. He got an appointment with the mayor. In his conversation, he asked the mayor curiously, 'Sir, if I may ask, how much do you get paid for your job?' The mayor replied, 'Money? I accepted this job just for the honor of it!' Understand, the mayor is thinking he is doing the job for the honor of it but the people who are living in the county are experiencing something totally different. You decide and take up something to do. You do not verify whether that decision is being executed or not and whether the purpose for which you decided is still relevant or not. 1.2 The burning Intensity There is a beautiful story from one of the ancient vedic texts: A disciple goes to a master and asks him, 'Master, give me enlightenment.' The master just says, 'Tat tvam asi' nine times. 'Tat tvam asi' means 'That Art Thou'. It is called a mahavakya, the statement that straightaway gives enlightenment. The 'vakya' or the statement that straightaway leads you to the experience of the 'mahat', the cosmos, is mahavakya. Nine times, the master repeats 'Tat tvam asi' and the disciple is enlightened. The story ends. Is it so simple? Then why is it not happening in us? What is missing in us? What is the difference between us and that disciple? The disciple was fully integrated, burning to receive the truth. Look at the oyster. It is waiting for the rain water to make the pearl. When the rain water falls, she just carries the rain water into her womb and goes down into the ocean. The process happens on the rain water, and the pearl results. The oyster will be waiting with the mouth wide open on the waters of the ocean. She will be just waiting for the rain water. She cannot take the salt water and make the pearl. She needs pure rain water. The moment one drop of rain water falls on her, immediately she will go into the deepest layer of the ocean and she will start doing the process. She will come out with the pearl. In the same way, those words the master utters will straightaway enter only into that person who is seeking intensely with open being for the initiation. He carries those words with him and sits inside his inner space. The process happens and out comes the pearl of enlightenment. For the intense seeker, even a few words are enough. He will suddenly see the being blossoming, expanding and expressing itself. The intensity and the openness of the disciple are like the wide open mouth of the oyster. The words of the master are like the rain water. When the words of the master enter the being of the disciple intensely burning for the Truth, the pearl of enlightenment happens.
13. Becoming Vs Being When you are intense, you just are. You don’t need to become, you just need to be. We know so many ways of becoming. Becoming is totally different from being. To become a doctor we know what has to be done, to become a lawyer we know what has to be done, to become a politician we know what has to be done. All our knowledge is all about becoming. Becoming is d i r e c t l y related to the mind. Being is directly related to your nature. Becoming is related to society, being is related to you. We know only how to become something. We forgot an important factor, how to be. Because our inner space has become too much corrupted with the concept of becoming, we lost touch with the idea of being. We lost touch with our very truth which is being. 2.1 The healing touch of being If you can experience your being at least for one moment, so many things that you accumulated when you wanted to ‘become’ something like physical illness, mental illness, suffering, sorrow, and all those things - will be washed away. You will experience the inner healing. Whatever was disturbing you, all the wounds, will be washed away. Above all you will have a real, concrete solid base to become something. Even becoming something will be a great success if you start after experiencing being. Without experiencing being, if you start or if you try to become something, you will be an utter failure. 2.2 ‘Being’ is Intensity What is being? Being complete, total, integrated, expressing your full energy, is what I call ‘being’. If you are partial in your experience or expression, be very clear you are being hypocritical.
14. Intensity in anger Even your anger is hypocritical. You just choose whether to express your anger or not. Your anger is also directly related to your logic. You never get angry beyond your logic. It is always managed by your logic. You analyze, ‘Am I going to lose anything here in this situation?’ If you are sure you are going to lose something, you just suppress your anger. If you are clear, ‘I am not going to lose anything. I can shout at this person. What can he do?’, then you just explode and express much more anger than what is necessary. Whatever you have stored in stock, you open up everything and give! Not expressing, not suppressing - just be and get liberated Be very clear, when your logic manages your anger, you will have two problems. First, you unnecessarily shout or unnecessarily show your anger when it is not necessary. Second, even when you are not expressing, you will be suppressing it. First, if you are expressing, you will be expressing too much, much more than what is necessary. Next, if you are not expressing, you will be suppressing it. Be very clear, both are wrong.

Suppressing and expressing both are not going to help. You may ask, 'Then what are we supposed to do?' You are not asked to do anything, just be. J. Krishnamurthi1 says beautifully, whenever an emotion overtakes you, if even once you can just be without moving your body, without co-operating with your emotion, you will be liberated from that emotion. If you stay without moving your body when you are flooded or overpowered by any emotion, even once, immediately you will be liberated from that emotion. I am not saying you have to constantly practice this. No, just once, only once, and you will be liberated from that very emotion. 4. Living intensely You cannot feel fulfilled by offering sense pleasures to the senses. Living intensely does not mean fulfilling your senses, pouring pleasures into your senses, or living as you wanted. Somebody asked me, 'Since bondage and liberation is relative, why not just eat, drink and be merry?' That is perfectly all right. Be intense. That's all. Eat intensely. When you are eating, only eat. When you are sleeping, just sleep. When you are drinking, only drink. When you are making merry, just be merry. If you can be merry, you don't need anything else. The whole problem is because you can't really be merry. That is why you need so much of teachings and ideas about liberation. See, that's why here you think, 'Why not just eat, drink and be merry?' You think it's very easy. No! The problem is you can't be merry, which is why you drink the things that are not directly needed by your body, which can't be accepted by your body. Understand, master's words should be understood completely, with intensity and clarity, not superficially. Eat, drink and be merry is not such a simple issue as you understand, as you think. If you do that intensely, that's perfectly alright. A small story about this intensity and understanding: After twenty five years of married life, one day when the wife was going through the closet of her husband in his room, she discovered three soy bean seeds and thirty dollars in cash. She went to him and asked with a lot of curiosity, 'What is this? Why three soy beans and thirty dollars cash? How did it come? What is the meaning?' He said, 'Now I have to confess to you. Whenever I cheated on you, I put one soy bean in that.' The wife was shocked but was a little consoled that he had cheated on her three times only in twenty five years. She then asked, 'Now what about the thirty dollars cash?' The husband replied, 'Well, whenever the soy beans were ten dollars per kg I sold them!' So, eat, drink and be merry, these three words, if you understand like three soy beans, you will not be able to understand the truth. You have to see the thirty dollars behind it! Only then you will understand the truth, you will understand what liberation is. 1 J. Krishnamurthi - Renowned Indian philosopher. When you live intensely, automatically you will be liberated. 4.1 Karma and Samskara If you don't live any moment intensely, what happens? Your mind looks for repeating the action in that moment. Why? Why does your mind pull you to the same experience again and again? You may crave for a particular candy or you may be addicted to something. Why? Actually if you look deep you can see it is because you never eat the candy or cater to the addiction completely with full involvement. You hold back from throwing yourself into the action fully. Maybe you feel guilty about it or you have too many confusing thoughts at that time. So you decide to just do the action ignoring your thoughts and feelings that are coming in the way of your pleasure. You see, part of you wants to indulge in the action. Another part of you argues why you should not. You are caught in too many thoughts, many of them self-contradictory. You lose energy in fighting with yourself. Finally, you are not integrated whether you do the action or not. You are not intense. So the desire is not completely fulfilled and leaves behind its memory in your inner space. Engraved memories of desires that are not completely fulfilled are called samskaras. These engraved memories have the power to make you return and travel in that same path. Whether it is coffee or champagne or smoking, whatever engram you create will have the power to make you do the same action again and again, till you feel completely fulfilled with that habit or with that enjoyment or pleasure. If you enjoy your addiction intensely even once, only once, you will be completely liberated. That engram will never ask you anymore to travel in that path. It will liberate you. You keep your body alive, you keep your mind alive, because still you have hope that the body can give something to you, the mind can give something to you. Still you have the hope you can enjoy something, or something needs to be fulfilled through the body and mind. That is what I call karma. Karma is nothing but unfulfilled engrams and desires, which are inside your being, which constantly make you again and again to travel in that same path, trying to give the experience of fulfillment in your inner being. If you do any action with complete involvement, if you follow any desire totally, there will be no craving for repetition and you will be liberated from the desire once and for all. You can now direct your energies to exploring and enjoying new, unexplored experiences of life. You will not be caught in the vicious circle, your life will move towards growth and fulfillment. You can experience for yourself that life is presenting something new and fresh every moment. For all this, there is only one thing needed on your part: live intensely. 4.2 The way of the buffalo and the way of Buddha There are two ways of living. One is living like a buffalo, just being alive and breathing but with no intensity and passion in life. The other way is like a Buddha, living intensely in the present moment in the current action. Have you experienced a nightmare? During a nightmare you will experience that even if you want to open your eyes you cannot. You want to move your hands but you cannot. Then the nightmare becomes so intense. It may be that a lion is chasing you and has almost caught you or you are falling down a deep chasm or you are in some such life-threatening situation in your dream. When it comes to its maximum intensity, the very intensity wakes you up. If the nightmare is not that intense, you cannot wake yourself up and come out of it. If it is very intense then that very intensity wakes you up, and suddenly there is no nightmare. It was only a dream, but you thought that it was reality. Understand, even when you were falsely thinking it is happening, you were actually out of it. It was only a film going on in front of you. 5. Intensity is independent of the nature of the work Intensity does not depend on the nature of the work or action. It can be as complex as running a billion dollar company or as simple as cleaning the floor. It is not the ‘what’ that is important, but the ‘how’ that is important. If you can do what you are doing with a totality and intensity that you are completely lost in the action, you have caught the thread of intensity. The moment you are lost in the action, you become like a flute on the lips of Existence itself. The air that goes into the flute comes out as music because you become a channel for the energy of Existence to flow through you. Be total and intense. That is all that is needed for the arrow to hit the target, whatever it may be. 5.1 Interest Vs Intensity What qualifies to be called as intensity? What is the difference between intensity and interest? An interest can be lost, but never the intensity. Interest comes from the mind. Intensity comes from the being. After a while, maybe short or long, you get fed up with your own interest. With intensity, it is a thirst of your being. It transcends the rationale of your logic. Intensity is a call from deep within. The more you have to wait for it, the more the thirst grows, the more the fire flares up. See the difference between light and laser. Both are made up of the same light rays but the single-pointed intense focus of the laser comes from the coherence and the common frequency of the light rays. The power of this intensity is what gives the laser the tremendous power to even burn a hole through metal. At the same time it is a controlled focus. This is what gives it the power to do even a delicate task like removing a cataract in the eye. 5.2 The story of Bayazid A beautiful story from the life of the enlightened master Bayazid2: Bayazid had been with his master for twelve years but the master had not spoken a single word to him. One day after twelve long years, the master spoke to Bayazid, 'Go to the hall. There is a book there. Bring me the book.' Bayazid had been passing through that hall for twelve years every single day while coming to see the master. He replied, 'I have never seen the book. In fact I have never looked in the hall. I was interested only in you, not in anything else. But, if you say I will go.' The master replied, 'No. Stay.' Bayazid's whole interest had turned into focused intensity. His whole interest was just the master. The master said, 'There is no need for the book. I was just trying to find out how completely focused you are.' That night, the master told Bayazid, 'Tonight sleep here.' Bayazid lay down by the side of the master but he could not sleep. He was filled with so much intensity, his mind completely stopped in that intensity. Next morning Bayazid was dead. A new man had emerged. No instruction was ever given. He just had to wait for twelve years. That was the method for him. If it was just an interest, there was no way Bayazid could have stayed on for twelve years without even a word from the master. Very naturally, his mind would have strongly protested saying, 'What are you doing here? You are just wasting time. Nothing has happened till now. He is not even interested in you. How long are you going to waste time like this?' It is the intensity that holds you on because deep down you understand, not twelve years but even twelve million lives are worth waiting for the Ultimate that the master leads you into. Even that would actually be cheap. If in a desert your thirst for water becomes really intense, you are ready to pay with your life for a glass of water. When your thirst for realization becomes that intense, you are ready to pay with your life for the Truth. A beautiful Zen story: A student approached a Zen teacher to learn Zen. The teacher told him, 'Hear the sound of one hand clapping.' The student tried for three years and did not succeed. He was depressed that he could not do what his teacher had told him. He came in tears to the teacher saying he had to leave because he could not do what he had been told. The teacher said, 'Wait for one more week. Meditate constantly.' The student stayed for one more week and meditated. Nothing happened. The teacher said, 'Try for five more days.' The student stayed further, yet nothing happened. The student came in despair begging to be released. Then the teacher said, 'Meditate for three more days. If you don't get enlightened, you had better kill yourself.' The second day, the student was enlightened. When your whole being is burning with the single intense desire to realize the Ultimate, you will simply absorb the master's instructions. The magic of transformation is bound to happen. Only then will you be open to receive him. Till then it is just an interest. 2 Bayazid - A Sufi saint

5.3 Be intense in whatever you do Tantra3, the mystical science of meditation techniques, says that to know the truth one needs only one condition, intensity. Be total in what you are, what you do. Live intensely in the moment and taste the real life. Otherwise, you are not living. You are just waiting for death. When you eat, intensely eat. Let your whole attention and energy be on the food. Do not divert your attention and thoughts to what you need to get done at work tomorrow or where you want to go for your next vacation. Enjoy the food with all your senses. Taste the food in your mouth, enjoy the feast in front of your eyes, touch the food with love, and smell the aroma of the food. When you eat this way totally, you will enjoy every morsel and you will actually feed into your system the living energy the food is meant to give. If you are drinking water, drink it intensely. Become the thirst. Feel the coolness of the water going into your mouth, throat and down your food pipe. Let each drop of water that goes into your mouth give you the feeling of fulfillment. The Tamil classic, Periya Puranam4, describes the stories of the Nayanmars5, the ardent devotees of lord Shiva. There are so many instances of the devotees realizing the Ultimate by simple activities like making garlands for the Lord. An example is Gananaatha Nayanaar, a devotee of Shiva, engaged in simple services like plucking flowers for worship, making garlands for the Lord, sweeping and washing the floor of the temple and keeping the lamps in the temple burning. Just this simple life led him to reaching the Ultimate and brought him his name ‘Gananaatha’ meaning the chief of the ganas (attendants) of lord Shiva. When you pray, be real and spontaneous. Whatever you feel, feel totally and offer it to the Divine. Don’t cheat yourself and be hypocritical by not admitting what you feel. You cannot hide anything from the Divine. He knows you better than you know yourself. Your intensity is the only thing that decides when your object of seeking will happen. If the intensity is total, it will happen that moment. If the intensity is not integrated and total, it will take more time because the intensity has to gain strength in that time. A beautiful story: 3Tantra - Ancient vedic tradition of achieving enlightenment through spiritual techniques or practices, meditations and ritual worship. 4Periya Puranam - A Tamil classic by Sekkizhar on the lives of the 63 Nayanmars, the devotee saints of enlightened master Shiva. 5Nayanmars - Tamil devotee saints of enlightened master Shiva, 63 in number, whose life stories are told in the book Periya Puranam. The Sufi mystic Junaid6, was taking a walk one morning when a man came up to him asking, 'I need to reach the capital of this kingdom. How long will it take?' Junaid just looked at the man and continued walking. The man was going in the same direction. He followed Junaid thinking maybe he did not hear him properly. So, he asked Junaid again, 'Can you please tell me how much time it will take me to reach the capital of the kingdom?' Junaid continued walking. The man gave up trying to ask further. After some distance, Junaid said, 'You will have to walk at least ten hours.' The man was surprised and exclaimed, 'You could have said that before!' Junaid replied, 'How can I say before? I needed to watch your speed first. Then only I could tell you how long it will take to reach the capital.' In the same way, the time it takes to realize also depends on your intensity. If you are intense enough, it does not need time to reach the Ultimate. Where you are, who you are is irrelevant. You can reach here and now. A beautiful story: There was a dreaded bandit who was a terror in the kingdom. After looting a large number of people, he started feeling restless and uncomfortable with his actions. He approached a master and asked him, 'Master, I am a sinner. Is there any way out for me? Can I be liberated?' The master looked at the bandit and asked him what he was good at. The bandit replied, 'Nothing.' The master asked, 'Nothing? You must be good at something!' The bandit thought for a long time and then said, 'Master, I only know stealing, that is what I have done all my life.' The master smiled and said, 'Good! Then you will use exactly that now. Go to a quiet place and rob all your perceptions and ideas and opinions. Steal all the trees and rocks and rivers on planet earth. Steal all the planets and stars in the sky. And dissolve them in the vast emptiness inside you.' The bandit sincerely followed exactly the instructions of the master. Within 21 days, the bandit realized his true nature, he became enlightened. 6. Intensity and the four states of consciousness There are four states of consciousness. When you have 'I' Consciousness and thoughts, you are in the waking state, the state in which you are right now. In this state, 'I' has more frequency than your thoughts. So you can control your thoughts. When you are without 'I' consciousness but having thoughts, you are in the dream state. In the dream state, your thoughts are at a higher frequency than your 'I' consciousness. That is why you have thoughts in your dreams but you are not able to control them. When you are without 'I' Consciousness and not having any thoughts, you are in the deep sleep state. Normally, we are aware of only these three states of waking, dream With 'I' Consciousness Without 'I' Consciousness With Thoughts Jagrat Wakeful State Thinking Turiya Blissful State State of Full Awareness Without Thoughts Swapna Dream State Dreaming Sushupti Unconscious State Deep Sleep 6 Junaid - 9th century Sufi master. and deep sleep. The fourth state is where you have I consciousness but no thoughts or turiya. 6.1 Intense seeking - Awareness in the three states Intensity means being intense every moment in whatever you do. So first you need to be aware of yourself in all the states. Then only you can be intense throughout. Now you experience who you are with awareness only during the waking state. You feel, 'I am a doctor,' 'I am a lawyer,' 'I am an engineer' and so on. Only if we are aware of the identities that we carry and enjoy in all the three states, we have caught the thread, the center line of all the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. When we catch the thread of all these three states, suddenly we realize our identity in all the three states. Somebody asked me, 'I don't think that in the deep sleep state I am aware.' Then who is the person who comes back and says it was deep peace during my deep sleep? Who is the person who is reminiscing about it saying, 'It was filled with darkness. It was as if I was not there at all'? Who is coming back and remembering even this idea, 'I was not there at all'? If the person is not there in that state, then who is coming back to connect all these three states? No, we cannot say we were not there in the deep sleep state. We were there, but we were not aware of the identity that we had in that state. Understand, a person who is aware of all these three states is conscious. If we are aware of the identity in all these three states, then we are conscious enough, our seeking is intense enough to be answered, we are intense enough to be initiated and blessed. If we are not already aware in all these three states, if we have not experienced all these three states with the same identity, then naturally we need to now intensify our seeking. An intense seeker will carry the identity about himself throughout all these three states. If even once or twice you have experienced your waking identity in the dream state then you are intense. In the dream state suddenly sometimes you remember that you are beyond the identity which you think as you in the dream state. I have seen seekers going through this experience in the dream state. They will be dreaming and suddenly they will identify themselves with their identity in the waking state. Then they will think about the dream state, 'Hey, this is too small. This is nothing.' If you have had the experience of your waking state identity in the dream state, then you have the intensity. Your seeking is intense. 6.2 Wake up! During a nightmare, a very wild dream, just one thought or one click such as, 'Hey, this is a dream' is enough. You will be awakened. You will be out of the dream. In the same way, if you are intense in this dream you are living, called the waking world, then one click is enough and you will be out of the dream! If you think, 'No, I need some more technique,' then you are not really going through a nightmare or an intense dream. You are just having some casual flow of thoughts. Sometimes in the dream state you will be seeing without any clarity. There will be some casual black and white shows which will be going on. You will neither feel like watching it nor feel like coming out of it. If you are in those kinds of dreams, then you are just wasting your time. If you are not really intense, you are in these kinds of dreams. Neither will you go down nor will you go up. Please do not be in that state. Understand, if you are in such an intermediate state, then this click will not happen. It will not be a sharp, strong shift. Just like you can get up from your sleep by just an intense desire to wake up at a particular time, you can also get up from the deep slumber you have been for so many millions of lives. If you have an intense total desire to wake up, you can wake up this moment. Kabir7 says so strongly and beautifully, ‘When you look for Him, you will find Him instantly.’ There are people who say ‘What is there in our hands? When god wants us to be awake He will wake us up. It is our destiny.’ Understand, these are nothing but cunning tricks of the mind. God knocks every moment at the door of the prison you have built for yourself. If you don’t open, what can be done? I always tell people, god is a gentleman. He never interferes with your freedom. If you choose to remain asleep, He will simply wait till you wake up. He respects your freedom. Till you are bored and realize the futility of the fantasy world you are in, He will patiently wait. Look inside yourself and you can see that you are choosing to remain asleep in your fantasy world. Reality is knocking on the door every moment but we choose to ignore it. We are so used to our dream world we don’t want to wake up. So when the master tells you that reality is much more beautiful and ‘real’, you still remain in the inertia of sleeping. You have to understand, it is only you who can choose to come out of your long dream. It is your choice and your responsibility. 6.3 Intensity in the state of sleep Have you ever tried this simple experiment? Suppose you want to get up early in the morning at say 4 am. Suppose you don’t have an alarm clock. At night, when you go to sleep you simply make a deep and intense will, ‘I am going to wake up at 4 am.’ At 4 am, you will find that you are awake, your eyes are open and sleep has just disappeared. Your body clock responds directly to the intensity and the sincerity of the desire. If you are not sincere and deep down you think, ‘I will try this as an experiment. It is ok if I don’t get up also,’ then it will not happen. Be sincere and intense and it will simply happen. Intensity has the power to penetrate your states of unconsciousness including deep sleep 7 Kabir - Mystic devotional poet of India. 6.4 Attention shift from the states to the seer In all the states, one factor is common, the one who goes through these states or the seer. If you look little deeper, you can see that in all these three states of waking, dream and deep sleep, we are trying to change reality as it exists. We are trying to change the scene happening every moment in our lives. A small boy went to a watch a movie with his parents. He was watching a kids' movie about a lion cub and other animals in a jungle and was thoroughly enjoying it. There was a scene in which the lion cub was trapped by some hunter and was terrified. The boy was not able to bear this scene. He just jumped from his seat and ran down the hall closer to the movie screen. He started throwing his hands and legs at the hunter in the movie who was about to cage the lion cub. Anyways, the movie continued and soon the other animals in the jungle joined together and drove away the hunter and rescued the cub. The boy came back to his seat and proudly told his mother, 'Mommy, see how I went first and all the animals followed me and we saved the cub!' It may look childish to think that you can change the scene on the movie screen by jumping in front of it. Just look little deeper into your own lives. Like the small boy, in your life also you are under the illusion that you are in control of your life. Life is actually a movie, moving in these three states. You, the seer, are the projector. Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, you create your reality. When you try to change the events and world outside, you are trying to change the scene by jumping in front of the screen. To change the scene, you need to change the film being projected on the screen. When you realize the futility of all the three states and the futility of trying to change the scene in all these three states the whole attention will fall on the seer. Then the awakening will happen. If instead you think that there is some utility in all these three states, your attention will be on them. You will continue to be engaged in them. You will continue to try to alter the scene. If this understanding clicks in us, then it does not take more than one click to wake us up from our state of sleep, whether it is dream sleep, deep sleep or waking sleep. All we would need is one click, 'Hey, this is a dream!' That's all. We will be awakened. 6.5 The gate to the fourth state There are some people who carry the same awareness even to the deep sleep state. Or them, when the very understanding of these three states happens, suddenly they will come back to the center to awaken themselves to the fourth state, turiya8. 8 Turiya - Fourth state of consciousness in which there are no thoughts and only awareness.

A small story: One day early morning, a Zen master started crying the moment he came out of his bed. The disciples were really surprised and asked him, 'Master, why are you crying?' The master said, 'Last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly.' The puzzled disciples asked, 'But that was a dream. Now you are here sitting in front of us. Why are you crying?' The master replies beautifully, 'I do not know whether I dreamt that I became a butterfly or that butterfly is dreaming now that it has become a master.' Understand, it is true and very rare that a few individuals can carry the same intensity to have the same connected, undisturbed identity in the three states of mind. If you can carry a connected, straight, undisturbed, unbroken identity throughout these three states, then you are a seeker. Then the individual consciousness is awakened. The pratyakatma chaitanya jagrat has happened. These are some of the Sanskrit technical terms. I have always wanted to express the Sanskrit words also because I want all of you to know that there are many non-portable things in the Vedic tradition. Non-portable things mean the non-expressible dimensions of the experience. Some of these Sanskrit words cannot be expressed with mere translations to another language. Some of the dimensions of the experience cannot be expressed when we attempt to translate these words into English. The Sanskrit word itself represents the understandings of the multiple dimensions of the experience. 7. How to get enlightened? I want to...real bad and urgently Question is a word. Quest is a feeling. Man is born as a quest. The rest of Existence cannot reflect the Divine like man can. Man is like a mirror. He has the choice to face and reflect the Divine or to turn away. Man can make a conscious choice, which is why he can grow. Man can choose to realize the Divine through his human form. No other being in Existence has this choice. If these words, 'How do I get enlightened? I want to... real bad and u r g e n t l y,' have come out, if this question has come out as a deep quest, then you don't need anything. Just boil, let the whole being burn with this quest. That is enough. Nothing else needs to be done. Let this boiling be intense. Allow this boiling. Allow this burning. Allow this intensity. Allow this urgency. Let the urge become urgent. Let the question become your quest. Let it just eat your ego, eat your inner space. People ask me, 'Have you been enlightened by the divine grace or by your effort or by your quest?' I tell them, your having the quest is the first sign that you are having the divine grace. Unless you have the divine grace, you will not have the quest. Understand, this quest or seeking is like a seed. It is like a seed feeling suffocated inside the shell. See, unless the life that is inside the seed feels suffocated inside the shell, it won't open up and become a tree. The moment the seed starts feeling that it should open up, the moment it starts feeling the seeking, the urgency and the quest to open up to become a tree, it means that already the tree inside the seed has started expressing itself. If you have the feeling that you should get enlightened, the Buddha in you has started waking up. All you need to do is open your eyes! Allow this seeking. From morning till night let it boil, let it create a deep dissatisfaction in you. Let every pore in your skin, every nerve in your body, every cell in you vibrate with that intensity. Let it swallow all your depressions you may have in life. In life you may have so many other depressions and sufferings of not having so many things. Let all those sufferings be swallowed by this one suffering. A beautiful Zen story: A Zen student was intensely studying under her master but she was not able to experience true meditation for a very long time. One full moon night, she was carrying a bucket of water suspended on a bamboo stick. She saw the reflection of the moon in the bucket. Suddenly, the bamboo broke. The water fell out of the bucket. The reflection of the moon disappeared and so did her ego. When the seeking is intense, it will remove the juice from your ego. The green grass becomes like a haystack. Just a match is enough to burn the whole haystack down. The Ultimate can happen in a split second through a simple happening. So understand: let this seeking, let this quest, your saying, 'How to get enlightened? I want to...real bad and urgently', let this seeking burn all your other sufferings, all your other depressions, all your other desires, all your other concerns about life. Let it happen and suddenly you will see that the seeking suddenly disappears, it is not there. When the seeking disappears, you are enlightened. You have achieved what you are seeking. 7.1 Living intensely If you really want to experience life, if you really want to know the ultimate mystery of Existence, if you want to dive into the ocean of bliss, then the way into it is intensity. Be intense in whatever you do. Let you dissolve in it. Do not be partial. Be integrated in yourself. If you dance, dance so totally that you become the dance. There will be no dancer remaining then, only the dance remains. If you paint, paint so intensely that the painter disappears in the painting and see how that piece of art becomes so exquisite. When the ego dissolves, the false sense of identity disappears and you can see the flow of the intelligent and total energy of Existence through you. There is a beautiful story on Bodhidharma9, the enlightened master who took Zen Buddhism to China, Japan and other parts of Asia. It is said that Bodhidharma sat for nine years facing the wall of his cave. He just sat silently, not doing anything for nine years. His legs withered away as there was no movement at all. He would not accept any disciple unless he showed a burning intensity. After nine years his first disciple, Hui Kujo, came. It is said that he cut off his hand and offered it to Bodhidharma, saying 'Master, please accept this. If you don't look at me now, I will cut off my head as well.' Bodhidharma turned to face the disciple. He said, 'The man has come to who I can deliver my message.' 7.2 At once see the Divine Kabir says beautifully, 'If thou art a true seeker, thou shall at once see Me.' How can you identify whether you are a true seeker? If the fire is there, if the intensity is there, if the urgency is there, and if the quest is there, then you are a seeker. As Kabir says, what is important is the genuine desire. What matters is the intensity, passion, sincerity and integrated seeking. If you have this, you will 'see' the Divine surely. If you are not able to, be very clear, your intensity is not yet complete. You are calling Him half heartedly. 7.3 Intensity to seek god Many of us claim, 'I have been praying so intensely. What is the way to see god?' Just look closely at yourself. Is god your very first priority? For most of us, more often than not, god is somewhere down in the list. Actually, you feel, 'If I have good food to eat, if I have a house to live in, after I provide for my family, and if there is time, I will add god to the list of what I seek.' God is the last in the big list of desires. Of course, the list never ends. It is a vicious circle. God can never make it to the top of the list because your desires are endless. You do some action to fulfill a desire. The seeds of many further actions are sown in that action because you are not total in that action. Then, god gets pushed further down the list. 7.4 Intensity decides age Once somebody asked a master, 'How old are you?' He replied, 'Three hundred years'. The man could not believe it. He said in surprise, 'What! You hardly look sixty.' The master replied, 'Physically, by the calendar time, I am indeed sixty. But when it comes to living, I have lived life at least five times more intensely than the average person.' What matters is not the quantity of life, but the quality, the intensity of living. 9 Bodhidharma - A disciple of Buddha and mainly responsible for spreading Buddhism as Zen Buddhism. 8. Intensity prepares you for the ultimate Initiation The Upanishads, the ancient Vedic texts by the sages and mystics that happened as revelations, say that for the person who is initiated, the whole world is heaven. Understand the word 'initiation'. It does not mean doing some ceremony or ritual. Initiation means that 'click' happening in you. When a master expresses the truth, if the click, the realization, happens in you and if you suddenly feel, 'O god! What he says is right. I was always thinking exactly this. He put it in the right way,' that is what initiation is. If you feel whatever I am speaking is what you always thought about but I am verbalizing it and properly putting it in words, the initiation has happened. Please understand, only after all the preparation is done and only when you are in the state of high intensity, the truth uttered by the master just clicks. When the master says there is no need for any seeking any more and just liberate yourself right now, you will be able to do so only if you have done enough of seeking and created the intensity. That is the paradox! The technique is to get the right attitude of intensity. Actually, if you have high intense energy, you will automatically have the right listening. You will be just waiting to catch one glimpse. You will be just waiting to listen. You will be just waiting to imbibe. That is why masters speak again and again and again for years over years. I started speaking only a few years ago. Buddha spoke for over forty years. But the message was the same. His first sermon and the last sermon are almost the same. You may then think why thousands of disciples sat everyday and heard the same sermon again and again. Because the click happens only when you are in intense energy. Only with intensity it clicks. You just catch the flame and the awakening happens. 9. The deep spiritual experience 9.1 Requirements for spiritual experience For the spiritual experience to happen, two conditions need to be fulfilled. One is that you must be completely open and available to the surroundings. The other is the intense energy field. Sometimes even if you are open, if you are not in the intense energy field, the first cracking of the coconut of your ego does not happen. The first spiritual experience is just like breaking open a coconut. Once the first opening happens, it is not difficult to break the rest of the coconut. The first opening needs an intense spiritual energy field. These two factors are what resulted in my f i r s t spiritual experience. I was open and available to the surroundings; and I was in the intense energy field of Arunachala. Fortunately, I was attracted to the beauty of that hill. Normally, if you see a hill or a river or an ocean every day, you will take it for granted. Somehow I never took that hill for granted. I never thought I knew about it. I was continuously open, available. Understand, being open and available every time, seeing it every morning with the eyes of freshness or with the mind of openness is what I am calling 'being open and available'. Many times, we completely close ourselves to the society. We just come to some conclusion, some understanding and after that we never update our understanding or our effort with the result. Every day, the Arunachala hill was living for me. Everyday it was never the same old hill that I saw yesterday. I had a very funny routine. In the morning when I got up I would not open my eyes. I would slowly walk from my room to outside the house holding the parapet wall. I would come out and stand in a place from where I knew the hill could be seen. Only then I would open my eyes so that the first thing that I saw in the morning would be that hill. Somehow my brothers knew that the first thing that I wanted to see was the hill. They would want to have fun teasing me. When they knew that I was out from my bed and slowly walking, they would come and stand in front of me. If I opened my eyes and did not see the hill and instead saw their faces, I would go back and lie down again. I would lie down again, sleep for half an hour, then again get up and slowly walk back to see the hill and open my eyes. Only if I saw the hill the first thing in the morning, I would carry on with my routine. It may look funny and superstitious but I always felt I took birth, I took this body, because of that attraction and pull that hill has got for enlightened beings. There is a very beautiful verse in Tamil that describes the hill as 'the hill that attracts enlightened beings around it'. The hill is especially respected for attracting enlightened beings not only from this planet earth, but also from other planets and spaces, towards planet earth. I never took the hill for granted. It was an ever living presence. 9.2 Encounter with the Divine One day I was trying to sit and meditate. It was a full moon day (Poornima) and the moon was rising as the sun was setting. I was just sitting on a rock on Arunachala hill, trying the meditation technique that the disciple of Ramana Maharishi and enlightened master Annamalai Swamigal10 had initiated me into. I was sitting on the rock trying to find the source from where the feeling of 'I' was rising. On that day I was sitting for a particularly long time trying to find the source in a deep way. Suddenly something happened and I felt like I was being sucked inside, pulled inside. I was sitting with closed eyes but I saw very clearly that something opened inside. The moment that opened inside, I was able to see whole 360 degrees around me. My eyes were closed but I was able to see complete 360 degrees, whatever was happening in all the directions - front, side, back, up, and down. Not only was I able to see, but I was also able to feel very clearly with the same intensity how we all feel alive inside our skin, that I am alive in everything I was able to see. I was able to see 10 Annamalai Swamigal - Disciple of Ramana Maharishi in the temple town of Tiruvannamalai, South India, whose teachings inspired Nithyananda towards his deep spiritual experience as a young boy. whatever was around me, all the plants, rocks, trees and everything. I was able to feel that I am alive in everything. In the same way you all feel you are alive inside your body I felt alive with the whole cosmos, with the whole Existence. Till then I was just a mere body. After that, I realized I am body also. Understand, 'I am body also'. It was a very deep experience. If it was just a word or imagination, it won't have that much impact on your inner space. It was an intense conscious experience. You see, now you know you are inside your skin. You will listen to anything as long as it does not disturb you. Naturally you know how to protect yourself because you are alive inside and that is your conscious experience. No matter however many people teach you that you are not just your body you will only listen but you will not allow them to work on you! Because your conscious experience is your body. My experience that 'I am this whole Existence' became my truth. That is why I started living according to that. People are surprised that I lived such a strong intense life in such a young age. They feel that it is very difficult and unimaginable. It is unimaginable for you because it is not your conscious experience. It was easy for me because feeling the whole cosmos is me became a very solid experience. 9.3 Ramana Maharishi's death experience There is a beautiful example of the power of intensity in the life of enlightened master, Ramana Maharishi. When he was sixteen, spontaneously this happened to him. He was in Madurai near his native place called Thiruchuzhi, which is in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Suddenly one day he started feeling that he was going to die. The great death fear arose in him. We also sometimes feel that fear of death when we hear about some relative's or friend's death or when we see an accident or when we come across some news about death. We are so well-versed or trained to suppress our emotions and control ourselves that we never allow this fear to come out. We are such hypocrites that we don't even know we are cheating ourselves! Many times we can see the fear rise but we are an automatic mechanism of suppression. Over time we learn how to balance ourselves or suppress ourselves. We suppress ourselves and just forget about it or try to do something. We just turn the attention elsewhere. But Ramana Maharishi did not do anything. He used the door to take the jump. We are also again and again going near this door. Whenever we hear about somebody's death or whenever fear attacks, we also go near the door. But we are afraid to take the jump. We have trained ourselves so much to be hypocrites or not to be intense. We somehow balance and we escape. We switch on the television or we just move our attention towards something else. Ramana Maharishi used that door to take a quantum jump into deathlessness. He just lay down on the floor and did not move his body and allowed death to happen. After the enlightenment, he says beautifully about his experience: Suddenly for no reason I felt the deep fear that I am going to die. I was not sick. I was not having any mental problem. Physically, mentally I was healthy. Suddenly the thought came, 'I am going to die.' I just cooperated with that fear. I did not try to jump, I did not try to run away, and I did not bother about anything else. I did not feel like doing anything else. I just sat and allowed the feeling. I just sat and allowed death to happen to my being. I lay down, and I decided let me see what happens. What can be done? I just accepted and I consciously started moving into that fear. The fear started working on me. I could see that I am dead. My body is not moving, nothing is happening in me. I could see very clearly that I am out of the body. Suddenly like a flash the intelligence or the truth descended on me that my body is dead but I am alive. 'I' am not dead. My body is dead, but I could see, I could feel that I still exist. It means I am something beyond the body. That single experience of the truth shook me completely and I realized I am not just the body, and that I am something beyond the body. After that I never faced the death fear or any other fear. Once and for all the fear had disappeared from my being. The moment I understood that even after my body dying, there is something in me that is not dying, why should I bother about my body's death? Why should I bother about the death of my body? Because even if it dies, I am going to continue, I am going to exist, I am alive. That means I am something more than what I think. I am something more than this body. This realization has never left me. I have never moved away from this realization after that one experience. How can a fear create such a big transformation in Ramana Maharishi when in our lives it happens yet we are unchanged by it? The answer is intensity. Such an ultimate experience can suddenly happen without any reason. It is purely your intensity. 9.4 Motivation for social service Be very clear, if you want to really serve society, the first thing you need is intensity in your purpose. I have seen many people doing something in the name of social service, just because they can't sit with themselves. Be very clear, if you are not able to sit with yourself and do social service like going to some temple, going to some social service organization or doing some such service, you will never be able to experience the truth. Going to the temple or doing some social service should be like overflowing. You feel so full, you feel there is nothing more to be done and think, 'I have so much of time, let me do some service to society, it is beautiful.' Then it will lead you to enlightenment. The service itself can lead you to spiritual experience. You feel overflowing and think, 'God has given me so much, this whole life is so beautiful,' and you go to a temple or church to offer your gratitude. Then it will just liberate you and you will become enlightened. If you are going to the temple or for social service just because you don't feel relaxed within yourself, you can't sit quietly. There is so much of restlessness within you that you just want to do catharsis in some way.