1. Why Intensity

There are three qualities that are absolutely essential for anyone on the spiritual path. These are: one - intensity, two intensity , three - intensity!

Have you ever had that feeling that something needs to be done immediately, right away, without any delay? That is what I call intensity.

Intensity is the desperate feeling that something needs to be done immediately, to break free from the clutches, or to break free in the inner world.

You have never experienced the joy of giving your life to anything! Understand, it is not necessary that you should have intensity only towards enlightenment. It is a quality that should pervade everything you do.

If you are working, work intensely. If you are enjoying, enjoy intensely. If you are depressed, be intensely depressed!

The same intensity, the same yearning will become integrated and will get directed to the unknown, to enlightenment.

Not only that, your unfulfilled desires can be simply burnt with the intensity.

Whatever you experience as fulfillment, yearn for that.

The intense yearning is enough; it will evaporate you. And the fulfillment you experience will be many times more than the fulfillment you may have ever experienced before.

What is the difference between intensity and interest?

Interest comes from the mind. Intensity comes from the being.

An interest can be lost, but never the intensity. 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, and 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.

A beautiful story from the life of an enlightened Master Bayazid:

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.

Not twelve years, but even twelve million lives are worth waiting for the Ultimate that the Master leads you into.

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. 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 your time like this?'

It is the intensity that holds you, 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.

We tend to 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 it is directed to the inner world it 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.

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.

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 will it will lead to satisfaction.

The first thing that 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.

Intensity is intensely being inside you.

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 longingly, '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.

Below is a technique to shift your focus from the outer world to the inner world to experience intensity through the breath.

In this meditation, we focus on the neutral zone in breathing. The neutral zone is the gap between two breaths. This gap is the space of pure Consciousness. There are two neutral zones.

When the incoming breath takes a turn inside your body to become the outgoing breath that is one neutral zone.

When the outgoing breath takes a turn outside your body to become the next incoming breath, that is the other neutral zone.

These neutral zones are the space of great potential. In these neutral zones, life takes a turn to become death, and death takes a turn to become life!

The neutral zone is the silent space between life and death. In this zone, you experience yourself as the consciousness that is beyond life and death.

Your incoming breath is life. Your every incoming breath floods you with life-energy.

Sometimes, even a single desire can bring life to you. For example, on a weekend, you may be sleeping late. You don't feel like getting out of bed. But suddenly, you may remember some friend whom you wanted to see. This single thought can bring your whole body alive. You will jump out of bed and be ready to run.

This life-energy is coming to you in the gap between the incoming and outgoing breath.

When you inhale, your body is infused with life energy. Before you exhale, in the gap between inhaling and exhaling, your whole system is vibrating with life. Whenever you are flooded with energy, be aware that it is happening in this neutral zone.

In the same way, your outgoing breath is death. Your every outgoing breath brings you greater intelligence.

Understand, whenever something is taken away from you and you reconcile yourself to it, you are flooded with intelligence. If you lose something, immediately you are given some message, some understanding about life, and that adds to your intelligence.

This intelligence is coming to you in the gap between the outgoing and incoming breath.

When your breath leaves the body, in the gap before it takes the turn and returns to your body – in this space, you are flooded with intelligence. Whenever you are flooded with intelligence, be aware that it is happening in this neutral zone.

Every moment, you have both energy and intelligence. You are functioning as both energy and intelligence.

At one moment, you are flooded with iccha shakti, the power of desire. The next moment you are flooded with kriya shakti, the power of action. One moment you are flooded with energy, the next moment you are flooded with intelligence. If you can be aware of the gap, you will achieve jnana shakti or the power of wisdom.

The whole binary system is based on this constant flux – the duality of intelligence and energy, energy and intelligence: zero-one, one-zero!

Constantly, in your inner space, matter and energy are dancing. The power of desire and the power of action are both dancing in your inner space. Not only inside you, but also in the entire cosmos, this dance is happening.

This is what we call the cosmic dance of Shiva (intelligence) and Shakti (energy). The whole movement of the Cosmos is nothing but this dance.

This grand Cosmic dance is what you experience so intimately, in every breath! The Divine is constantly enjoying itself, expressing itself in your inner space. If you can be aware in the neutral zones, you will experience this eternal consciousness.

21 minutes

Sit straight, preferably on the ground. Close your eyes. Inhale and exhale as slowly as possible and as deeply as possible.

Step 1: (3 minutes) Slowly, very slowly, put your attention only on the incoming breath. Be aware of the incoming breath.

Step 2: (3 minutes)

Now slowly, put your attention only on the outgoing breath.

Now forget about the incoming breath and the outgoing breath. Slowly, very slowly, put your attention between the two breaths. Just be aware of the gap, the neutral space between the breaths. Keep your attention on the gap between the breaths.

When the incoming breath becomes the outgoing breath, in the neutral zone, become aware. This is the time when you are flooded with energy.

When the outgoing breath takes a turn and becomes the incoming breath, again be aware of the gap. This is the time when you are flooded with intelligence.

In the neutral zones, you are being constantly flooded with energy and intelligence. Continuously be aware of both these zones. The whole day, let your awareness stay in these two spaces.

When you watch both the gaps of your breath, when you are aware of both the gaps, you will be constantly flooded with energy and intelligence. When your awareness rests undisturbed in the gaps, you rest in eternal consciousness and turn your vision from the outer world to the inner world.

Intensity is not an emotion. When you are intense, one part of it may be emotional. The part of intensity that melts and comes out can be called emotion. But intensity cannot be described as an emotion. It is like heat.

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.

Understand, intensity is not seriousness. Intensity means deep passion and deep patience, and strong will and strong prayer. Strong will is passion. Deep prayer is patience.

If you understand intensity as just will, passion, you become serious.

All seriousness is a sickness!

I have seen many so-called spiritual people who are very serious.

Yogi spirituality is suffering with this one constipation: Long Face! Yogi means a long face. If you see a yogi or some spiritual guy or someone who claims to be a spiritual guy with a long face, you don't need to pay your respects to him; he needs medicine for constipation!

Really, so many times seriousness is associated with intensity. No! Intensity is sincerity but not seriousness. You will be intense and be relaxed.

If you have only passion without patience, it will raise the number of your thoughts. It will lead to outer world-success, but never to inner world success.

Same way, just a deep patience and acceptance, without having thoughts, may lead to inner-world success, silence, peace, but not to the ultimate enlightenment itself. If you have only patience, you will deeply accept everything, you will be successful in having peace in the inner world. However, you will not have the ultimate success, the enlightenment itself, which gives you the outer and inner world fulfillment.

So enlightenment is the totality of the passion and patience. Intense number of thoughts, with the deep silence – means, your very frequency will be different. In intensity, you do not have just passion, but you will have patience also. You will become complete. You will become fulfilled. You will just radiate the truth.

Dancing is a powerful form of meditation for experiencing intensity! Both formal dance and free dance can be meditation techniques.

Free dancing is also a great cathartic technique. Here, the idea is to lose yourself in the dance. A seasoned dancer will be able to do this even in formal dancing, because he or she is no longer conscious of the rules. Just like we speak correctly

without feeling grammar as a hindrance, the seasoned dancer will dance naturally, even when the dance form is formal. But if you are an amateur, then it is better to enjoy 'free dance', or you will feel restricted by the rules.

Free dancing means that there are no steps, no rules, nothing. Just let your body move as it pleases. Let the dance flow freely. Be playful and enjoy yourself.

Become part of the tremendous energy of dancing.

There are two stages in free dance: dancing and resting.

Step 1 (21 minutes)

Close your eyes and begin to dance. Don't bother about the steps. Let your body be free to move as it wishes. Play music if you want.

Don't be concerned about how you look, how your clothes look. No one is watching you. This is not a performance.

As you continue to dance in this fashion, more and more energy will surge inside you, and you will keep going. The more you dance, the more energetic you will be! You will not feel tired at all.

Enter deeply into the dance. Dance as fast as possible, as freely as possible. Forget yourself totally. Just become the dance.

At the end of twenty-one minutes, wherever you are, in whatever position you are, just drop down on the floor. Lie down. Be silent and still.

In the sudden change from frantic motion to sudden stillness, you will experience a moment of blankness. There will be no thoughts. You will experience a deep silence.

In a few moments, the thoughts will start coming back. Watch the thoughts calmly. Don't fight with them, don't get lost in them. Just remain aware. You will become aware of a lasting peace inside you, a great silence that remains even after the thoughts return.

Carry this peace, this silence with you throughout the day. Carry the silence into your sleep. You will wake up feeling new and refreshed.

This is a beautiful, natural meditation to center your energies. It is an ancient and powerful technique, drawn from Sufism, a mystic sect of Islam.

This is as simple as a technique can get. All you have to do is whirl, turn round and round and round – the way you used to do as a child.

Whirling is a powerful centering technique.

The beautiful thing about this technique is that your body will be whirling, going round and round – but your Being is right at the center, unmoving – like the unmoving center of a moving wheel.

Do not have any food or drink for at least three hours before this meditation.

Some people may experience a sense of nausea during this meditation. This will disappear after a few days of practice. If it persists, discontinue the meditation.

The meditation has two phases: whirling and resting.

Step 1: Whirling

Minimum 21 minutes

Whirling is usually done in an anti-clockwise direction, with the right arm held higher, palm facing upwards, and the left arm lower, palm facing downwards.

If you are uncomfortable whirling anti-clockwise, switch to clockwise.

Whirling can be practiced for hours – for as long as you feel comfortable. But you will need to whirl for at least one hour to experience the 'energy whirlpool'.

Start with whirling slowly, let your whole body be soft and

unresisting. As you whirl, the passing images will become blurred. Let them flow past. Don't try to focus on anything – it will make you dizzy or nauseous.

For the first ten minutes, go really slow. Then build up speed over the next ten minutes. After twenty minutes or so, you will feel as if the whirling has taken you completely over.

There will be action and movement on the periphery of the circle, but at the center will be certain stillness. You will feel as if you are a witness to all this action, not a participant in it.

Step 2: Resting

10 minutes

Resting cannot be planned. It has to happen. When you are whirling very fast, you may feel as if your body is going to fall.

Don't be afraid or resist the fall. Also, don't plan the fall.

If your body is soft and pliable, you will not get hurt. Just fall lightly and easily.

Lying down, just feel your body's contact with the earth. Feel your body has become one with the earth.

Keep your eyes closed. Remain silently in the same position for ten minutes.

After this meditation, remain silent and meditative for a few hours.

Intensity is a strong feeling that I should achieve, and a strong prayer that I should achieve. It is like when you put your whole being, you put all your effort, and you know that the ultimate is supporting you.

Intensity is a deep will, a strong will, and a deep prayer. If either of these is missing, it will not be called intensity: a strong will and a deep prayer.

If you understand the Divine is supporting you, the effort you put in even if it is a little, suddenly you will see the success happens. Just by remembering that the Divine is supporting you.

You don't even have to bother whether it is factual or not, or you don't even have to measure am I supported or not, or how many hours he stood with me. It just happens!

A small story:

A man asks a boon from God: 'God, you should always be with me.' God says, 'Alright, I will always be with you.'

Whenever he was in joy, the man used to see two sets of footprints, his and God's. Whenever he was in suffering, he used to see only one set of footprints.

So he calls God again, 'What is this? Whenever I am in joy, you are following me, but when I am in suffering, there is only one set of footprints. You are not following me.'

God laughs and says, 'Fool! when you are in joy, you are walking and I am following you. When you are in suffering, I am carrying you. So the footprints that you are seeing are mine, not yours!'

So be very clear when you are intense, when you just remember He is there supporting you, even a simple effort, suddenly becomes reality. It will become successful.

You always feel that you cannot live your life without planning. Planning is a disease of the mind!

You never realize, whenever you plan, you can only succeed to the limit of your planning. You are limited by the known.

When you do not plan, you allow life to happen spontaneously. You enter into the space of unlimited possibilities. Be intense in whatever you are doing and leave the results to God or the cosmos, knowing that He is there supporting you.

All 24 hours

Just for one day, decide that you will do everything with intensity and surrender the results of your actions at God's or life's or the Cosmos' feet. Just move with whatever life brings.

Decide that you will not use your intellect to plan and judge and make decisions.

After all, it is just twenty-four hours!

You are not going to lose everything you have in just twentyfour hours. If something can leave you, if you don't guard it for just twenty-four hours, let it go. It is not worth keeping.

For one day, consciously decide that you are not going to use your intellect to solve your problems. It is your intellect that tells you that you don't have the natural intelligence to solve your problems spontaneously.

The moment you find your mind planning ahead, just drop the plan. Allow things to unfold on their own. Act from your being, not from your intellect. Again and again, have the courage to remain in the space of not-knowing.

You will find that you have enough clarity, enough spontaneous awareness to run your life. When you drop the thinking, planning, worrying, you will find that a higher intelligence comes into play.

Understand, this higher power is not outside of you. The intelligence that is running this universe is also inside you. It can take care.

Time can make you intense. How does this happen? For example, everyday in the morning from eight to nine o' clock you do guru puja - offerings/ritual to the feet of the Master. So you are intense for that one hour. You do not do any other work for that one hour.

So everyday when your perform the puja, that mere remembrance that at this particular time you have to do puja makes you intense for that one hour.

In the morning when you set aside time to do yoga, you intensely do yoga during this time and not think about anything else. In the same way everyday you eat two to three times a day. Again this remembrance to eat at a particular time makes you intense.

Whether as a concept or as an understanding when time

enters it makes you intense. Remember the concept of time. Now you are sitting here. You have to be sitting here till I finish my session. Why not sit with complete awareness, so that the whole benefit happens in you intensely, instead of sitting in a lousy way.

While eating why not be intense, instead of eating in a lousy way. Taking a shower everyday, you have to take a shower so why not be aware of the whole action, instead of being in a lousy way.

You have to eat, you have to do guru puja, you have to do yoga, you have to take a shower once a day, and you have to sleep. Just with these five actions, which are inevitable in you, bring intensity. They are life's inevitable actions, like driving to your office.

When you understand with the boundary of past and present it makes you passionate. When you understand that there is no boundary of past and present it makes you passive. Both are a blessing.

If you are passionate you will achieve in the outer world. If it makes you passive you will achieve in the inner world. Both are a blessing.

Even if you understand time with the boundary of past and future, that understanding will lead you to the experience of boundary-less time. So through passion become passive.

Understand, I am opening another one door. Understanding about time with the boundary of past and future will naturally make you intense in the outer world, for example I am going to be here at this time why not be intense.

Let me be aware intensely, fully alive intensely.

Bring time consciousness into all your activities. I have to sit in this office for eight hours, so why just be an engineer's clerk for ten years, in a lousy way. Why not be intense and rise in the ladder. This brings intensity in the outer world and success. The concept of time and understanding time brings intensity to you.

When you decide let me be intense and chant the mantras. Suddenly in a few days you catch boundary-less time: which is not packed by the past or by the future. So the present gives you the opening freedom.

The suffocation-less inner space is what I call the Vedic mind. Which leads you to inner world success. When you understand time with boundary of past and future it brings you the responsibility of being intense. When you understand the time without boundary it brings you the tremendous freedom of in-action.

When you understand time with past and present with boundaries you become responsible in the outer world. When you understand time without boundary you can become free from the inner world.

Intensity without intention!

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.

This is a simple way to bring intensity into your day-to-day activities. It is a way to live your life in meditation.

Every activity that is performed without intensity is a waste. Every moment that you are unaware of is a wasted moment. Every act, every moment that has your intensity is meditation.

You will be surprised to know that even simple, day-to-day activities like eating and drinking can be turned into deep meditation!

We always use our senses in a superficial manner. We use them as gateways to pleasure.

In reality, they can be gateways to deep intensity. Beneath each of the senses lies the center of our being, the seer who is seeing through the particular sense. All senses reach to this level although we are not aware of it.

When we become aware of this phenomenon, every sense activity can be a way to fall deeper in. Everything we perceive, we start perceiving with deep intensity. We fall in tune with our very being.

Whenever eating, drinking, and day-to-day activities.

When you start eating a meal, do it as if it is the first time you are tasting food in your life!

Normally we don't chew our food, we just throw the food into our body. We hardly taste the food.

Now whenever you eat, eat with intensity!

Be aware when you are picking up your food. Enjoy the feel of it in your mouth. Roll it on your tongue and taste it.

Taste your food completely. Become the taste. We never really taste our food, because our attention is somewhere else.

When you really feel the sweetness of the food, you can feel it not only in the mouth but also in your entire body.

While drinking water, feel the fluidity, feel the coolness of the water as it goes down your throat and into your stomach. Close your eyes and drink it slowly, enjoying every sip. Feel the coolness intensely, not only in the mouth but also in the entire body.

When you eat with intensity, with awareness, with respect, your food itself becomes amrut, the elixir of immortality.

In Sanskrit there is a saying, Annam Brahma (Food is God). When you approach these simple activities with intensity and reverence, you will experience this truth.

How do I live enlightenment in every moment?

There are two things that you need to do to achieve enlightenment. One, work intensely, and the second, continuously when you work meditate on the unending infinite Cosmos.

This means unclutching and aligning with the Cosmos. If you unclutch, surrender the results of your work, and work, you will align yourself with the Cosmos.

Work at least twelve hours a day, let there be no physical and mental activity, for at least twelve hours a day. Oh God, it looks too much! I tell you, for whatever reason either to be productive to the society, make your life rich, or through social service in some way work at least twelve hours a day.

The funny part is that you will never be able to work for twelve hours if working for profit. Your body will say after a maximum of six hours of work, 'no enough work, this is enough to keep myself comfortable. I don't want to work for that comfort. It will strike.'

Then how to work for twelve hours? The remaining six hours decide to work for some non-profit activity. I tell you non-profit activity is the ultimate creativity service. It is the ultimate creativity.

If you learn the trick of service, means the knack of serving without remembering the result. Non-profit work is the expression of the highest form of creativity. You get all the opportunities and possibilities to express your creativity.

Please understand, an empty mind is the devil's workshop. An empty body is the devil's residence. Devil works for a few hours and resides in his house for a long time.

A lazy body is the devil's residence. An empty mind is the devil's workshop. I am giving a completely different insight into some of the orthodox translation.

Reduce the activity that comes out of the idea that you are the body. When you unclutch you will start living, being active, alive, and intense. So understand the ultimate aligning to the awakening happens by intense working.

When the aligning for the awakening happens, even the words you utter will be a great service to the world. You can even serve the world not only physically, but also by uttering

the right words.

Giving the right truths, the right understanding, to people. Even that can be a very powerful, amazing service to the world.

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 that Existence can make events happen in a much more beautiful and effective way than you can plan.

It can be described as a river that flows intensely and smoothly through various paths and courses to reach the ocean. It is indeed remarkable, that rivers always find their way to the ocean, without any navigators.

The river is so intense in its purpose, that even when an obstacle presents itself, it flows around, to reach the ocean. The river, unlike the human ego, does not get hurt when an obstacle presents itself.

Often times, human beings feel hurt by an obstacle on their path and stop flowing. They then become like a lake that has decided to remain where it is, without achieving its goal.

If like the river, people decide to continue persistently on their path, making necessary modifications or turn on their life course as and when necessary; they will achieve their goals.

If obstacles frighten or hurt the ego, then people may stop flowing completely. This can lead to stagnation in growth and possibly depression and frustration.

There are people who are intense but who lost the ability to flow; similarly, there are people who just flow but are not intense.

In Sanskrit there is a word – "Jnanavarishthaa bhakti", used by the famous Hindu enlightened master Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. This means that it is important to have devotion or deep bhakti, but it is also important to have the intensity with knowledge.

It is important to have both the qualities of intensity and flow to achieve life's goals.

This technique will teach you how to flow with everything around you. It uses external movement for inner centering.

Whenever you are in a moving vehicle, on a plane or in a car and when you are not driving, you can try this technique.

When we create a movement ourselves, it is easy to direct it. We are in control. Whether we are walking, running, dancing, the direction of movement is in our hands. We can handle it.

But when a current of movement that you cannot control is carrying you, you will observe that your entire body resists the movement.

Actually, your body enjoys being in a state of inertia. Once a movement is set up in the body, it likes the same speed and direction to be maintained. In a moving vehicle, like a train or a car, your body continuously resists the natural swinging movement. We always try to hold on to something so that we don't get hurt.

You don't like uncertainty. That is why even a small jolt in a moving vehicle can upset you so much - because for that one moment, you are not in control!

Not applicable.

Sit comfortably in the vehicle.

Mentally decide that for the duration of the journey, you will not resist any movement of the vehicle.

Don't be afraid! You are not going to get hurt. No big accident is going to happen in the next fifteen or twenty minutes. We always love to visualize the worst scenario, especially when we get into a vehicle!

Now, allow the movement of the vehicle to move your body. Flow with it.

Initially, your body will try to resist. Even if you keep yourself physically loose, not holding anywhere, your mind will be trying to hold somewhere.

Just drop this holding. Move with the natural movement of the vehicle.

Allow your body to sway back and forth. Allow the small jolts to happen.

Even if your body bumps slightly against the sides of the vehicle, don't bother.

Understand, it is not the contact that hurts; it is your resistance to the contact that brings pain.

If you are unresisting, even if you fall, you will fall like a flower. You cannot get hurt.

So drop your fear. Just flow and enjoy the rhythm of movement.

As you enter deeply into the movement, slowly, you will find that you are apart from the movement!

You are not your body, you are just witnessing the movements of your body.

Suddenly, you will see you are disengaged from the 'I'. You will realize that you are beyond the body; you are the pure witnessing Consciousness!

With this one understanding, the fear of losing control of your body will simply leave you. You will experience a deep relaxation in body and mind.

Only when you are open to change, you can make your way like the river flowing intensely towards the ocean.

I tell my disciples, plan in the best way, to the best of your abilities, and then leave it. It may seem that all your plans are being completely trampled. Don't get frustrated at that point. Something will happen that is much more beautiful, than what you have planned.

Understand, water becomes steam only at 100 ºCelsius. Even

at 99 ºCelsius, it is still water. It does not transform to steam. In the same way, if you are not integrated in seeking, and 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 small story:

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 for the first time 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 and whether the purpose for which you decided is still relevant or not.

When was the last time you sang with your eyes? Danced with your smile? Threw your whole body and being into anything, just anything?

If you notice children, their whole body is one organic unity. Whatever they are doing, their whole body just flows into that action. They don't create separation in the body.

It is not as if the head is important and the feet are unimportant.

The truth is that there is no division in your body; no natural demarcations exist.

But by and by the demarcations start coming up. Then the head becomes the master, and the whole body is divided into parts.

We stop experiencing our body as a whole. We create roles for each part of our body, and then limit them in these roles. We forget to be total and intense in anything.

In the martial arts tradition, students are told, 'Your whole body should become an eye!' Just imagine! This is the kind of sensitivity that needs to be developed in the body! This is what is being total and intense.

Totality and intensity is the way to live.

Your mind is always limiting you. Drop your mind and be intense in whatever you do.

Then there will be no hangover in anything. Everything will become a joyful meditation. You will experience fulfillment in whatever you do.

When you miss the intensity, you become fragmented. When you are intense, you become integrated. Being integrated is your true nature. Remember that!

This is a twenty-four hours, seven days a week meditation.

Whatever you are doing, it naturally becomes your meditation for that moment.

When you are looking at something, look with your whole body.

Understand, you don't just see with your eyes. You can see with your whole body! When you are looking at something intensely, totally, your whole being flows towards that.

But we rarely enter into anything totally.

Now, be total and integrated in all your body movements.

When you are listening, listen with your whole body. Let a deep silence be created in your center. Let your listening happen from that center.

When you are laughing, feel the laughter rising from deep inside you. Let your whole body bubble with laughter!

Even when you are working, using only your hands, feel the movement in your whole body.

Experience your body as an integrated whole. Experience every pore of your skin looking, listening, and laughing.

Don't think, how can I see with my skin?

There are many interesting incidents where blind people have taught their fingers to 'see' colors!

You don't realize, your body is an integrated intelligence! You never use all the possibilities of your body.

When you are total, integrated, and intense a new sensitivity

Part 2: Why Intensity__English_part_2.md

flowers in your body. Your body responds as a whole to life. You begin to live completely with your body.

Not only that, you will find your body expressing abilities that you never imagined. Your body has a tremendous potential that you have never used.

When you fulfill all the possibilities of your body, naturally you become ready to go beyond the body.

Keep intensity alive in you through inspiration. Your heart should be a temple for constant inspiration and not a tomb of inspiration. We don't want cemetery for intensity, we want a temple for intensity.

I tell you honesty, inspiration, integrity, and intensity is the essence of every thing. Intense action should not become second priority in your life whether for money, pleasure, and luxury. Nothing should take priority over intense action. It cannot be second priority.

Intensity has to be the first priority, because it is qualitatively responsible for all your goodness. For example, if you have two cars, two houses, and then ten houses, you will have more quantity added to you. But intensity-based action by the very quality is good for you. Its very existence brings auspiciousness to you.

If you are living an intensity-based action, you contribute so much to the world and to yourself. If intensity-based action is missing, it leads to corruption, dilution and poison.

How did the Devas (Gods) become demons? When the inspiration intense-based action was lost, the gods became demons. When humanity's thinking changes, they become the source of perspiration instead of inspiration..!

This knowledge of intense based action, with honesty and intensity, was kept alive as long as it was being passed on from generation to generation; father to son, father to son, by the royal sages. When some sons did not receive the knowledge, the chain got broken.

This is where intensity-based action, the great knowledge, the science of inner awakening, was lost. The science of having wealth, health, leadership consciousness, radiating intense life, and living in your body and mind, got lost.

So let us not lose this science of yogic body, Vedic mind and enlightened living. There is no justification for losing the inspiration to live this kind of lifestyle. We justify everything we do by comparing to others: if this person doesn't do yoga, and it is tolerated, then why not me. That is the reason why the death of inspiration happens.

If you do not have intensity-based action, understand you are not walking alone; you are carrying the dead body of inspiration, and going around.

The inspiration given by the Master from His very tongue, His master child, you have killed it, if you are not living it. You have killed the Master's child, the Master's gift to you. Take care that you don't do that in your life.

Intensity means the ability to stand for what you believe and break free from the past method of functioning, the past attitude of functioning, and the past way of functioning.

Please understand the ability to break free from the past way of functioning, and live in a new way, to start in a new way, that is what I call intensity.

Otherwise, you go on and on and on in the same way. You can see in your life even inside your house, you will walk in the same route, sit in the same sofa, go to your bed the same way, lie down in the same way, come back and sit in the same chair on the dining table, you come out of your garage, and you will drive in the same way. You will not even be alive and creative.

You need intensity to do new things. Otherwise, you will do the same old thing. The only difference may be in the quantity, big or small, but not the quality. I always tell my ashramites to at least do some new mistakes, so that I will get some entertainment..! But we don't have creativity even for that.

A small story:

A cowboy rode into a town and went into a saloon for a few drinks, when he came out again his horse was gone. He stormed back into the saloon and shouted, 'Who stole my horse?' There was no reply. He was getting angry, and said, 'Rise, otherwise you don't know what I did in Arizona?' Still there was silence. The cowboy was fuming, 'This is your last chance. If no one owns up about stealing my horse, I am going to do what I did in Arizona!' Just then a lone voice said, 'What did you do in Arizona?' The cowboy said quietly, 'I walked home.'

When there is no intensity, you will be doing the same thing.

You hold so tightly onto your possessions, your relationships, your experiences, your identity, only because you have never really confronted the truth that none of these can be with you forever.

A single, intense experience, that all this can be utterly, irreversibly destroyed in a moment, is enough to disillusion you about all that you are clinging to. Then your awareness will be centered on that which can never be destroyed.

21 minutes.

Before going to sleep at night, lie on the left side of your body with your head facing East.

Visualize and say to yourself, 'let my breathing pattern become one with the cosmic breathing pattern.'

Then visualize that your own physical body, thoughts, and emotions are burning with fire to ashes. Next visualize that the bed that you are lying on is also burning. Then everything in your room is burning.

Keep on visualizing as much as you can that everything is burning, the street that you are on, the neighborhood, city, country, etc.

Visualize everything around you and within you being burnt by kaalaagni : the flames of annihilation. Whatever you experience on the outside, and whatever you experience on the inside, it is burning and getting extinguished by this mighty fire.

Flaming tongues of fire are consuming the whole material

world. The entire inner world - all your thoughts and feelings about people, situations, experiences, all are burning to ashes.

Visualize continuously that whatever you think about the world, about anything, is burning, it no longer exists. Your attitudes, your interests, your passions, your greed, your desires, and your fears are all being consumed in the fire.

When everything is burnt, what remains?

Only your awareness: I am!

Before falling asleep, say to yourself, 'Oh God, my Guru, remember whatever I have done to achieve oneness with you and whatever you did to achieve oneness with me.'

With this remembrance fall asleep into restful awareness.

This experience can drastically break your conditioning and push you into enlightenment.

On the spiritual path, intensity is a war with yourself. Intensity means fighting with your patterns uncompromisingly. If you are fighting with your own patterns, you are being intense. If you are fighting with others' patterns, it means you are in-tension, not intense!

Fighting with your patterns is intensity; fighting with others'

patterns is tension.

It is time we fight with our own patterns, our own inner enemies. Everybody comes and tells me, I have transformed so much. Why don't you tell the other person also to transform? Everybody knows what their own patterns are, but nobody wants to fight with their own patterns. Everybody wants to fight with others' patterns!

You have enough enemies inside, so why don't you fight with your patterns? Look at your own patterns instead of others' patterns. Identify and break your own patterns.

But you will say – No, no, no, no! This person is not fighting with his patterns, so I have to fight with his patterns! So you fight with the other person's patterns and he fights with your patterns!

You fighting with your own patterns is peace. You fighting with others' patterns is war! That's all!

So whenever conflicts arise, you decide if you want to be in war or peace!

Below is the process in which you can identify your major patterns.

As much time as needed.

Think of a recent conflict or a time when you felt powerless or when you felt your energy was down or when you felt depressed or felt fear or anger.

Now visualize that event vividly as if it is happening right now and relive the situation. Recall what was said, how you felt, everything you can visualize of that event.

Identify three things in the conflict:

· Mamakara – what you think you are inside at that moment. It is the image you carry for yourself; what you felt as you at that moment. For example: I am a loser, I always let my parents down, etc.

· Ahankara – what you project to others as you: the way you react, your body language, your actions, and the statements you gave about yourself to others at that time. For example: I project friendliness even when I feel I am a loser.

· Swa-anyakara – what you cognize as Life at those moments. What is it that you felt life was for you at that moment? For example: life is humiliating me, because people are laughing at me at that time.

When you identify these three statements, you will see that they have been there inside you during many situations in your life before.

These statements are only the branches. They are the sign of the pattern that exists deep inside you. The root is hidden from your own view due to your current cognition. But we can start with cutting off the branches.

The next step is the process of self-completion – swapoornatva kriya. The purpose of self-completion is to make you whole or complete. When you are complete, you will feel light as if the heaviness inside you is lifted. You will also feel energized and feel your inner space expanding.

When you are incomplete or not whole, you will feel powerless, upset, lifeless, and have low energy.

As much time as needed.

Have a medium-sized mirror in which you can see your face comfortably. You are going to have a conversation with yourself!

With the mirror in front of you, sit in a relaxed way and cognize that you committed for completion to happen. The complete part of you is holding the mirror. The incomplete person is the image in the mirror.

Look at the image in the mirror and bring up the situation again that caused you conflict. Listen intently to what the incomplete person in the mirror has to say to you about the conflict.

Keep listening till there is nothing else the incomplete person has to say.

Now, as the complete person, say to the incomplete person in the mirror that you heard what has been said, and that the incomplete person was functioning from a cognition that was created in the past, and that it is not the cognition you now have as a complete person.

Say to your mirror-image that you are functioning from this new cognition, and that you will not be functioning from the old cognition you had at that time.

Heal the incomplete person in the mirror completely. Tears may come and/or laughter may come. Allow both to happen.

On completion, you will feel a lightness, an expansion or a deep feeling of relief or a sigh. You may have sudden clarity about other past events, which are based on the same pattern you were dealing with during the completion process.

Repeat the same process for any other major pattern you want to complete with.

Go on completing every day if needed. This technique is especially useful when done at night before sleep where you can review your conflicts or patterns or actions for that day!

Every action either releases or creates certain patterns in you. If your actions are done without the influence of the patterns, but through meditation on the infinite, it will lead you to the ultimate consciousness.

Through the process of working for twelve hours a day, while being unclutched, all the patterns that are not letting your body align to the awakening, will leave your system. Every action releases some pattern from your system.

A small example, during the levitation process that I do, where the kundalini energy is awakened, all the stored and suppressed patterns leave your body. You will see that a lot of violence will leave your system, and a lot of fantasy and greed will leave your system.

Just by intense physical vibration, your deep craving for physical pleasures and fantasy will leave your system.

You may think, how does levitation help me transform in this way? When you are encaged by the patterns, gravity pulls you down. All I am doing when I awaken your kundalini is to make your short-sighted intellect into vast-sighted intelligence, to bring your life energy alive.

Naturally, your ego dissolves into the life energy for those few moments, and your intense bio-energy (consciousness) gets awakened. When the bio-energy gets awakened, the patterns that were holding you down get removed from your system, and you levitate.

Levitation is an intense conscious experience. See the people who levitate, the amount of joy they radiate the whole day, and conscious coherence in which they live!

When you have heavy patterns, your body becomes heavy, not physically but internally. You will become deeply depressed. With levitation it brings so much of joy, because the patterns just leave your system.

The exact same thing happens in you when you work intensely for twelve hours a day, continuously contemplating on the infinite. You will experience the same feeling that you get when you are levitating. The same intense kundalini awakening happens in you. You will experience levitation everyday.

For the next two months, try working for at least twelve hours

a day. Work as a lifestyle, not for a purpose. You don't breath for a purpose. You know it is your life. In the same way, work for twelve hours a day.

Take up for-profit or non-profit work.

But work for twelve hours a day in an unclutched way. Whenever you remember, let the inner space be unclutched, while the outer body will be intensely working. You will see the aligning to awakening will happen.

Do your regular job for survival - for food, clothes and money. But apart from that, continue to do more activity, work by meditating on the infinite.

Living with intensity is living without inner or outer conflict.

When a person is strongly connected with an idea or thought, they feel they can overcome any obstacle. They can flow towards the positive achievement of their goals.

However, people can also intensely create conflict! This is not the expression or radiation of true living energy within the self.

I have seen some people intensely creating conflict every moment! Anything you tell them to do, they will be ready to create a conflict.

Intense people who constantly create conflict are not flowing smoothly with people and life. They have the intensity, but it is used to create blocks and obstacles. There is no natural expression of life energy.

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.

In the Shiva sutras, intensity is described as a form of living energy that rises and flows through the seven chakras in the body, which are the main energy centers. This form of energy does not create conflict, but flows smoothly and strongly.

Intensity is like a flood that is intense and flowing. We always think that 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 that is intense and flowing Real intensity does not create conflicts. It is flowing but intense. Intensity is integration. Intensity is focus. Intensity is sincerity.

When you are intense and ready to flow, you will achieve the goal, that's all.

Close your eyes and sit with your spine straight. Inhale and exhale as slowly as possible but as deeply as possible.

Visualize yourself as a light ball in the Mooladhara chakra or root center, at the root of the spinal cord. Forget all other parts of your body. Forget everything. Just be the light. Do this for one minute.

Intensely bring your awareness, bring yourself to the Swadhisthana chakra, two inches above the root center. Be in the Swadhisthana chakra intensely. Forget the other centers and the other parts of the body. Just be in Swadhisthana, spleen chakra. Do this for one minute.

Slowly move up to the Manipuraka chakra or the navel center. Now be intensely present in the navel center. Let your focus be on the navel center. Do this for one minute.

Move to the Anahata chakra or the heart center and stay there intensely. Do this for one minute.

Move to the Vishuddhi chakra or the throat center. Live intensely now in the throat center. Let the intense light ball be in the throat center, which is you. Do this for one minute.

Move your energy to the brow center or ajna chakra. Be centered on the third eye, Ajna chakra. Be living in the Ajna chakra. Do this for one minute.

Slowly, but intensely, bring yourself up. Lift yourself up to the Sahasrara chakra, the crown center. Be intensely present in the form of light in the crown center. Do this for one minute.

Relax.

We all have times when we are feeling closed, isolated, and

alienated from everyone else.

At other times, we feel open and flowing. We welcome differences and change. We are conflict-free. We fall into meditation easily.

When we are feeling closed, we cannot relate to anyone. We don't even feel like meditating. Nothing wrong! The important thing is just to be aware that you are going through this.

Not applicable.

In any situation where you experience some inner conflict, just ask yourself, 'Am I open or closed right now?' Chances are, you will find that you are closed!

Most of the time, it is not the external situation that is causing the conflict. It is your level of receptivity and openness to the situation.

This technique is not for judging yourself, it is only for becoming more aware of your own state.

As you work with it, you will become more and more conscious of the subtle fluctuations of mood you go through all the time. You become conscious of your mental patterns.

Just being aware can help you make the transition from being closed to being open, at least most of the time!

Once you understand this constant flux inside yourself, you will be able to see and understand that it happens in others

also. Then you will know when exactly another person can be approached for a discussion; when he will be open to you and when he won't!

The problem is, we always see others from the outside, never from the inside. Once you see the same pattern playing in others as well, you begin to notice the mood, not the person. You get out of the blame-game.

With this simple awareness, you will find yourself becoming less judgmental and more compassionate in your relationships.

When your thirst for realization becomes intense, you are ready to pay with your life for the Truth.

If you are in a desert and your thirst for water becomes really intense, you are ready to pay with your life for a glass of water. Same way, when your thirst for realization becomes 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, 'Listen to 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 another 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 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.

There is another 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 gets enlightened. The story ends.

The disciple was fully integrated and burning to receive the truth. Is it so simple? Then why is it not happening in us? What is missing in us? What is the difference between that disciple and us? The disciple was fully integrated and burning to receive the truth.

There are different techniques, different methods, different deities, and different paths. Then what is the point that decides a person's enlightenment? Intensity!

Intensity decides a person's enlightenment, the higher

experiences. Intensity in whatever you do will be meditation, without intensity even if you meditate it will just be a ritual. Whenever I teach meditation to a hundred people, I will learn hundred versions of the same meditation.

Success depends on the person, not what he is doing, but what he is. It depends on the intensity he carries. I just want to drill this one point again and again, and again, you can become intensely intense. You will become intensely intense.

Look at the oyster. It is waiting for the rainwater to make the pearl. When the rainwater falls, she just carries the rainwater into her womb and goes down into the ocean.

The process happens on the rainwater, 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 rainwater.

She cannot take the salt water and make the pearl. She needs pure rainwater. The moment one drop of rainwater 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.

When the words of the Master enter the being of the disciple who is intensely burning for the Truth, the pearl of enlightenment happens!

In the same way, the words of the Master will straight away enter only into the person who is seeking intensely with his being fully open for the initiation. He carries those words with him and it 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 rainwater.

When the words of the Master enter the being of the disciple intensely burning for the truth, the pearl of enlightenment happens.

Why do you carry your body like a shield?

If you look closely, you will see that you are carrying your body like, a defense against the world.

We never release our body. We are so afraid to be vulnerable, to be open.

If you observe children, they are so light, so comfortable inside their body. They don't feel their body as a load. They don't have an idea of 'body' in their mind!

You feel the solidity, the load of your body because you are clinging to it.

It is not clinging to you; you are clinging to it!

Not only are you carrying your body as a shield against the world, you are feeding and nourishing this idea continuously. When you become aware of this, you can simply drop it.

I don't mean that you should drop the body! Drop the idea you have of it in your mind. If you don't carry it as a protective shield, your body will disappear from your mind.

In the night, when you go to sleep, just imagine that you are dropping the shield of your body. At least at night, you don't need to wear a shield!

Your body feels so stiff and solid! Just release it! Let it drop away from you.

Take a few deep breaths. Feel the weight of the body falling away. Don't imagine that you don't have a body. Just experience your body as soft and vulnerable, not as a shield.

Feel your body to be as delicate as the body of a newborn baby.

Let your body fall gently on the bed, like a flower dropping on the grass. Go to sleep in this way, light and free.

When I was a child, my mentor Ragupati Yogi, used to train me in the path of yoga. He used to make me shift stones from one place to another, from one corner to another, and back to the same place, or climbing the pillars in the temple using just one hand!

It is not directly productive, but he used to insist that I do it. When I felt exhausted, he used to ask me to do the same work in an unclutched way, meditating on my all-pervasiveness.

I noticed that I used to feel tired by working for six hours, shifting a stone from the right corner to the left corner. But when I meditated on the infinite, I used to very clearly experience that I am able to work without tiredness for the next six hours, shifting the stone to one corner and back.

I tell you: mediate on the infinite continuously though unclutching. Go on and on and on. Take this as a process, as a spiritual practice, and work for twelve hours a day. Do anything, whether it is physical or mental action.

Take this as a spiritual practice.

All of you have discontentment about your own existence; but you never look into why, what, who is having that discontentment. Even if you try to look in, you get distracted by something and forget about it. Then you try to look in again and get distracted by something else. Again you forget about it. Very easily the questions about 'Why, What, Who is so discontented?' are forgotten.

The person for whom these questions has become the number one priority is a "Seeker".

All of you know that when fear takes you over, you experience a panic attack, and you just do things. Later on you feel guilty and ashamed about it. You repent for it. You don't know why you did it.

In the same way, when lust takes you over or when greed takes you over, you do things that you can never logically justify, even to yourself.

When fear takes you over, it is called "panic attack". When greed takes you over, it is called "restlessness". When authenticity takes you over, it is called "Satori (a glimpse of the enlightenment experience)!"

When authenticity takes you over, it will be ten thousand times more intense than fear taking you over or greed taking you over! It will be ten thousand times more intense and powerful.

When I was six, my Guru once asked me, 'Do you want to become sannyasi (monk) or grihasta (householder)?' I stood up and said, 'Sannyasi!'

Still I remember, I just stood up, because I didn't want him, even for one moment, to take the decision of grihasta (householder).

I stood up and said, 'Sannyasi', with such force and power. And then he touched my head and did something.

After two or three days, I asked my Guru, 'Did you purify my brain to live a Sannyas life?' He said, 'No, no, no. I just increased the frequency of your intensity, that is all.'

This is the word he used, the reply he gave. Then I asked him, 'What do you mean by increasing the frequency of intensity?' He said, 'Just increasing the intensity is powerful enough. That is enough, all the morals, discipline, values, everything,

will become your body language automatically. It will become your muscle-memory and bio-memory.'

When I was twelve years old, I was once sitting on a rock in my hometown in Thiruvanamalai. I used to just casually sit on that rock sometimes. To tell you honestly, I was not even doing some serious meditation that day.

The whole ambience of that place and space was so calm and so beautiful, so I decided to close my eyes. Once I closed my eyes, the intensity of my yearning started taking over me. The intensity to realize myself, my true nature, started possessing me. It started taking possession of me.

My sincere seeking, that "overpowered" me! That is the right word I should use. I just felt, 'What is it that I am seeking? Who is that me who is seeking? Who is that me that is deeply discontented about anything I see, hear? Who is that who is deeply discontented even about my own existence?'

It was such strong taking over for me. That is the right word I will use – "taking over".

The whole being took over with these questions of, 'Who am I that is experiencing this deep discontentment, suffocation, etc.?' I could very clearly see, that heaviness just went into the depths of my Consciousness.

Suddenly, the first thing that happened is: the idea of "inside" and "outside" broke for me. The inner space and outer space broke.

The first experience I had was I was able to see everything around me, above me, below me and behind me. I was able to see 360 degrees! I realized not only was I able to see, but I was able to feel and experience!

I felt that the skin of the stone, on the rock on which I was sitting, and the skin of this body, both carry me equally, in both I exist equally! The air, the breeze, the setting sun, the rising moon, the whole Arunachala Hill (where I was sitting); all the plants, bushes, shrubs, trees, everything, everything, everything, just became so alive! The idea something is inside and something is outside was completely lost!

First, I was able to see in all the ten directions, 360 degrees. Then in the next moment, I realized, not only was I able to see, I was able to experience all of that as me! There was no "inner", there was no "outer", there was no "moving", there was no "unmoving".

The smallest movement of the plants was my movement, and the highest stillness of the center of the Cosmos was my stillness. "Moves" and "moves not", what you call as "near", and what you call as "far off", those concepts were lost. What you call as "inner space"- inside you, and "outer space" outside you, the ideas were forgotten.

I didn't feel vulnerable; I felt powerful. So powerful! I just knew that I am oneness, that I am this Existence! The ignorance just melted down and the intense bliss of Enlightenment expressed in me.

If your consciousness is constantly moving towards the outer world, it is called Restlessness.

If it is constantly moving towards the inner world, it is called Intensity!

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is recognized today as a clear, legitimate, apolitical voice of Sanatana Hindu Dharma, and revered as a living incarnation of superconsciousness by millions worldwide. He is a Mahamandaleshwar (spiritual head) of Mahanirvani Peeth, the world's most ancient apex body of Hinduism. He is the most watched spiritual teacher with views, and the author of more than 300 books published in over 20 languages. His lectures are watched live every day on multiple international television channels and via video conferencing.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM conducts INNER AWAKENING, a 21-day transformational program that unlocks the FOUR POWERS in you, through practical teachings and 21 powerful initiations for kundalini awakening.