Every moment, we are actually meditating, on different things. Our whole life is actually meditation. Unless we meditate on some object, unless we are occupied with something this moment, we cannot proceed to the next moment; we cannot move further. Our very existence which

is made up of our breathing, our awareness and our consciousness, proves we are meditating on something or the other. Otherwise how do we keep ticking? Just one thing: instead of meditating on different things, we should try and meditate on the eternal thing, which stays continuously inside us. Just a small change, that's all.

Chapter 1

Today we will try to analyze and understand: why meditation, what is meditation, how to meditate and when to meditate. All these initial questions we will analyze. Then I will respond to your questions. After the question and answer session, we will enter into the meditation technique. Tomorrow, we will work on samskaras, or engraved memories. We will also have a question and answer session and meditation technique. The day

after tomorrow we will work on a very important truth: unclutching, and we will work with the Nithya Dhyaan meditation technique.

I wanted to start the whole program with these very beautiful words from the Brahma Sutra:

Athaato Bramha Jignyaasaa

It means,

Let us enquire into reality.

These words are really powerful. The guru who is teaching is not saying, let me teach you reality. No! He is saying, let us enquire into reality. We need to understand an important thing: When you start with a sense of simple enquiry, only then can you reach the Truth.

The moment the teacher says, let me teach you reality, the disciple will encounter contradictory thoughts within himself. If the disciple is a little egoistic, he may start thinking, 'Who is he to teach me!' If he is humble, he may conclude, 'You may teach, but I may not understand.' Whether he is based on an inferiority complex or a superior attitude, there will be confusion in him.

These words are beautiful: Let us enquire into reality.

Here, we are starting in this same mood, with this same attitude: let us enquire into the truth of meditation. Let us

enquire into the reality of it. When the teaching starts with the mood of enquiry, with a mood of seeking, even the teacher will find so many new things!

Actually, learning never ends. Teaching can be a very beautiful and effective tool for learning.

First let us enter into the question, what is meditation?

It is a question analyzed and contemplated by millions of sages. Just like how the West has done great research and development in the outer world, the East has done, for more than ten thousand years, great research and development in the inner world. The East has researched on the very basic but core question: what is meditation?

If I had to put down the answer in one line, I would say,

Anything that raises your consciousness is meditation. It can be even a simple breathing technique. It can be a simple repetition of a

word, or it can be just simply sitting! In the Zen tradition, just sitting is meditation. You may think this is the easiest but in fact, it is the most difficult meditation.

Anything can become meditation, if it raises your consciousness.

Chapter 2

Why meditate? Why meditation? There are thousands of reasons for this. We should actually ask, 'why not meditation,' because for that we have a smaller number of reasons. There are plenty of reasons for why we should meditate.

Extensive research done by different scientists in different countries has proven that meditation results in good physical health, mental health, and a host of other derived benefits. But according to me, even those

results are not straight results of meditation, they are not the actual purpose of meditation. They are just the side-benefits of meditation. Good physical health, mental health, etc. are all wonderful to have, but they are only side-benefits of meditation.

If somebody asks me, why meditate, my straight answer would be, to raise your consciousness! The human body is designed to live in high consciousness.

The human brain is wired for enlightenment. Do you know that by your very nature, you are wired for enlightenment?

Someone who does not bring the possibilities of life into reality, will be carrying so many karmas – unfulfilled words or actions.

I want all of you to understand the word karma.

Karma is nothing but unfulfilled experiences

which stay in you, and which constantly push you to fulfill them.

Anything that you experience intensely and deeply will leave your system. It will liberate you.

Any experience that you did not go through completely, through which you did not have complete fulfillment, that you did not give your full energy, attention and awareness to remains inside you as karma.

There is a very beautiful verse in the Upanishad (Vedic verses):

Om poornam adah poornam idam

Poornaat poornamudachyate

Poornasya poornamaadaaya Poornam evaavashishyate

It means: From the Whole came the Whole. If you remove the Whole from the Whole, what remains is the Whole.

Even if we are carrying some karmas, fundamentally, we are in complete fulfillment - Wholeness. So any karma, us, again and again, to make us go through the same experience to fulfill itself.

any desire which has not become complete, cannot rest inside us for too long. It will try its best to fulfill itself. It will drive us again and again to go through the same activity, so that it can be fulfilled.

Please be very clear:

Why meditate? The single-line answer is, to raise the frequency of our consciousness. Let us see how it happens. For this we need to look deeper at how our mind works, how meditation influences our system, how meditation directly affects our 'hardware and software.' Our hardware is our physical body, our software is our mind.

Chapter 3

Let me try to giv e you a simple diagram so you can understand what meditation can do, and why meditation needs to be practiced.

We experience two states of mind in our day to day life. One with thoughts, another one without thoughts. We know we have thoughts when we are awake. In deep sleep, do we have thoughts? No. So there are two states of mind: with thoughts and without thoughts.

Our Being also experiences two states. In one state, we have a clear identity of 'I'. When we are awake, all of us are very clearly connected with the 'I' consciousness, we have an identity about ourselves. But, in deep sleep, we do not experience the 'I' consciousness, am I right? When we are in deep sleep, we don't have the feeling of 'I'.

So, understand that in the mind we experience two states: one with thoughts and one without thoughts. In the Being also we experience two states: one with the identity of 'I' and one without the identity of 'I'. In deep sleep, we don't remember our identity. In the waking state we remember our identity - I am this, I am that. When we are awake, our 'I' consciousness will be like an undercurrent – alive all the time.

Now let us understand how these two states of mind and the two states of being connect with each other and create different states in our consciousness.

The first state is when we are with thoughts and with 'I' consciousness. This is what we call the jagrat state or waking state. We are all now in that state. I can't say all of us, but at least most of us who are still awake! We are very conscious of our identity, and we have thoughts also.

In this waking state, the frequency of 'I' is more than the frequency of thoughts. That is why we are able to control the thoughts in this state. If we wish to, we can control a thought - we can expel a thought or create a thought. This is possible in the waking state.

The next state is the dream state. In this state, we have thoughts but there is no 'I' consciousness. We are not conscious of our identity in our dreams. That is why sometimes in your dreams, you will see yourself studying in college but sitting with your son next to you! This shows that there is no clear, logical identity of yourself in the dream state.

In the dream state, the frequency of 'I' consciousness is lower than the frequency of thoughts, that is why you are not able to control the thoughts. That is why you get erratic and illogical thoughts.

In the waking state, the frequency of 'I' is more and that is why we are able to control our thoughts. In the dream

state, the frequency of 'I' is less than that of thoughts and that is why we are not able to control the thoughts in our dreams. If at all we had the freedom to dream what we want, we all know what we would be dreaming, what kind of dreams we would be choosing!

In the third state, there is neither 'I' consciousness nor thoughts. This state is called sushupti. It is the deep sleep state.

These are the three states that we constantly experience in our lives – the waking state, the dream state and the deep sleep state.

But there is a fourth state that we have not experienced. It is called turiya. In this state, there are no thoughts but the identity 'I' is there. The 'I' consciousness exists but without thoughts. Very few people experience this in their lives. Some people experience this for a few seconds and then go back to their regular waking state.

If you receive a sudden shock or if you are sitting with nature in a completely relaxed state and in deep silence, maybe in those few moments you experience thoughtlessness. The identity is alive, the 'I' consciousness is alive but there are no thoughts. This is the fourth state of sushupti.

The dream state starts penetrating and overlapping the deep sleep and waking states. If our waking state is penetrated by the dream state, it is called daydreaming, like when we fantasize or imagine. If our deep sleep is penetrated by dreaming, it is called disturbed sleep.

Continuously at night or during the day, our dream state disturbs us. When our deep sleep state is disturbed by dreams, it results in chronic fatigue and insomnia problems. When our waking state is disturbed by dreams, we will be daydreaming with much less awareness of the world around us.

You might have experienced that sometimes you will get into your car, drive for ten kilometers and reach your office. Only when you stop in your parking lot, take out the keys, and get out, suddenly you will realize you have driven for so many miles. You would have taken hundreds of decisions from the time you got into the car and started driving: to press the clutch, press the brakes, press the accelerator, put on the indicator, watch the traffic light,… You would have made all these decisions, but without having any awareness of it. Suddenly you realize, 'Oh! I finished driving to the office!' When this happens, be clear, the dream state is overlapping or penetrating the waking state.

When the frequency of our consciousness comes down we will not be fully aware about the decisions we are making. We will not be aware of the kind of words we are thinking. We will not be aware of what is going on inside of us. It will be as if we are living in a house, but we do not know what is happening inside that house!

All our physical and mental disorders are directly due to the dream state penetrating either the deep sleep or the waking state. If both the waking state and the deep sleep state are penetrated by the dream state, we will have physical and mental disorders.

We will not have the clarity to move further. We will not have freedom or energy to move further. That is what we call depression. We will feel like all the doors are closed on us, all the possibilities are exhausted.

Let me come back

to the question, why meditate. Meditation is needed to create an increasing influence and awareness over both your thinking state and the unconscious state. Instead of the dream state penetrating the waking state and the deep sleep state; with meditation, the turiya or blissful state will start penetrating the waking and deep sleep states!

The more and more we meditate, the more we raise our awareness and the more we raise our consciousness of the fourth state – turiya. Turiya itself means fourth. You cannot give an exact name to this state. You can call it by any of these names: samadhi, enlightenment, atmagnana, brahmagnana, nirvana… They are all different names but denoting the same state. When this state starts penetrating and overlapping the waking and deep sleep states, we will see good health happening in the body, mind and being.

The purpose of meditation is to experience this fourth state at least once. We should experience this fourth state and bring more and more influence of the fourth state into our waking and deep sleep states.

Meditation is a method, a technique to bring more and more of the fourth state into our day-to-day life. If we experience the fourth state in our waking state and deep sleep state, we can claim to be meditators!

Chapter 4

The next question is when to meditate.

This is always a controversial question! All the youngsters think, 'I can do this in my old age.' All the elderly people think, 'I should have done this in my young age!'

All the young people think, 'I will have enough time in my old age. Now there is no time for meditation. I can do meditation when I don't have anything else to do.' All the elderly people think, 'I should have done this in my young age, when I was fresh and receptive!'

So the question is, not just how long to meditate everyday, but when to make the decision to enter into meditation!

Meditation is just like reading an owner's manual before you start driving the car. The person who does not read the owner's manual before driving the car will naturally meet with accidents! In the same way, the person who has not started meditation before entering into life will inevitably enter into suffering and depression at one point or the other.

I want you to deeply understand and analyze this question, 'when meditation?'

Please understand, meditation is the basic thing needed for life. It is not an option. It is a very basic need.

As I was telling you earlier, meditation is like an owner's manual for your body and for your life. The moment you start living, you need to go through it; you need to enter into it. Don't wait for accidents to happen to start reading the owner's manual of your life. Be intelligent and start this very moment.

After the age of seven, you need meditation, because before then, as a child, you are by nature in a meditative state. It is only after seven that you start getting conditioned by society and drop out of your true nature.

To really understand and enter into meditation, one important thing needs to happen in you - psychological revo-

lution. What do I mean by psychological revolution? It means a clear understanding about the Self, world and god. As of now, the under-

standing that you are carrying about life is not enough. That is why you are not able to experience a completely relaxed feeling in your system. When I say the words 'psychological revolution', I mean having a clear understanding about the Self, world and god - the source of the Self, the source of the world and the source of god.

If you are able to find solutions for all your day-today problems through just the understanding about you, the world and god, then you have undergone the psychological revolution.

If you are not able to find solutions for your day-to-day problems through your understanding of these three, then you need to explore further.

Only a person who has gone through this psychological revolution can meditate. Till then, any technique that you try will seem to only fail at some point in time.

People come and tell me, 'Swamiji, the moment I close my eyes, I get more thoughts than when I did not meditate! If I am in action, doing something, I have fewer thoughts. The moment I close my eyes and try to meditate, I have more thoughts.' The moment you say this, it means that the psychological revolution has not happened.

Psychological revolution is a basic need for meditation.

It now seems like a vicious circle. If you don't have the clarity, you can't meditate. If you can't meditate, you will not

have the clarity. It appears as a vicious circle!

The dream state constantly penetrating the waking state and deep sleep state, is what leads to more and more misunderstanding, more and more dullness, more and more lethargy, more and more tamas (dullness or laziness). This is what we call pravritti traveling towards suffering. It is the vicious cycle of lack of clarity leading to lack of meditation and vice versa.

If the turiya or blissful state penetrates the waking and deep sleep states, then that is what we call nivritti - moving towards fulfillment. This is the virtuous circle where clarity leads to meditation and meditation leads to clarity.

I always tell people, if you straightaway close your eyes and start meditating, you may have an increased number of thoughts. So in the initial level, I always give a technique which is not directly a meditation, but is more a contemplation. When you work with this technique, it won't lead you directly to a thoughtless state. It will lead you towards more and more clarity. It will lead to the psychological revolution.

Actually, many times we do not really know what our desires are. People brag about their desires in the outside world but they do not really know what they are talking about.

Three old ladies were sitting and bragging about their sons. One of them was saying, 'You don't know about my son. He loves me so much, he personally took me to a travel agent and arranged for my vacation and did the best possible arrangements for a twenty-day vacation for me.'

The second lady said, 'You don't know what my son did. He not only took me to the travel agent but also arranged for a private flight! He arranged for everything for a month-long vacation!'

The third lady said, 'This is absolutely nothing compared to what my son does for me! He goes to the costliest psychiatrist and all he talks about is me!'

Many times, what you think as life or what you brag about as a great life may not be exactly what you mean. It may not be exactly be exactly adding to your life in any way.

So in the initial level, taking up a technique that can awaken you, that can help the psychological revolution in you, is the best way to start.

So, start meditating here and now! Neither can age be the reason to postpone meditation nor time.

The next question people ask is whether they should meditate in the morning or in the evening.

There are three kinds of meditation.

The first is bringing the Truth or awareness into your life.

This is supposed to be done all twenty-four hours a day. Techniques like vipassana or bringing your awareness to the present moment all the time belong to this category of meditation. It is not a part of your routine. It should become the very quality of your routine. You may be doing anything – like writing, reading, cooking, discussing… but this thread of meditation should be happening in parallel, like an undercurrent.

There are other kinds of meditation techniques for which you need to spend a particular time, like one hour in the morning or one hour in the evening, or any other convenient time.

The Mahamantra meditation technique, where you hum for a few minutes and then remain a witness for a few minutes, can be given as an example for this category of meditation.

Then there is the third kind of meditation techniques, which you neither need to do the whole day, nor spend separate time for. Just the very remembrance of the technique is enough!

Examples of this are the statements of the great timeless Truths. When you are in a highly mature state, you don't need any separate technique. You don't need to practice the whole day or at any particular time. Just the very remembrance of these Truths will put you in the elevated state. You will be in that high state and experience the Truth. This is the third type of meditation. Examples of this are the beautiful Zen koans. They are profound Truths written in a concise way. Just the very remembrance of them will transport you to that zone!

There is a very beautiful story in the Upanishad (Vedic verses) where a disciple comes to the master and asks for a technique or a method for enlightenment. The master just says, 'Tat tvam asi, Tat tvam asi, Tat tvamasi' - 'Thou art that, Thou art that, Thou art that' - 'You are the Truth' and the story says, the disciple became enlightened!

It seems like a very strange story. The master just repeats a few words, and the disciple is enlightened. How could this happen. How is it possible? It looks to be too much! Actually, it is not so. If we have done the first two types of techniques, the technique that needs to be done the whole day and the techniques that need to be done at a particular time, then the very maturity that happens out of it will lead you to the level where the moment you listen to the Truth, you start experiencing it.

Chapter 5

Now, the next question, how to meditate.

There are so many different techniques. Somebody asked me the other day why we have so many gods, so many methods and so many techniques in the East. I asked them, 'In the West, why do they have so many cars?'

Why do we have so many cars in the West? Because they invest so much time and energy in doing research to give different levels of comfort and luxury in the car. The more research you do, the more car models are released! Each model offers a unique comfort level and a unique luxury. So much of time and energy has been spent to develop the comfort and luxury.

In the same way, in the East, we spend so much time in thinking and doing research and development on how to raise the consciousness of the individual. And because we have done so much of research and development, we have so many methods, so many techniques, so many gods, so many paths! All these are available to us because we have done so much research and development. We have hundreds and thousands of techniques in front of us because there are so many paths for so many different types of people.

We will experiment with three types of techniques in these three days. Each day we will do one technique. Today, we will do one technique that will work on our mind, on our inner chatter. Tomorrow, we will do a technique to release the engraved memories in us from our past. The day after tomorrow, we will do a technique to go to the deepest silence or core of our being.

Common Fears about Meditation

Now, I will try to answer some of the FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions on this subject. There are some usual doubts, some usual difficulties that people face when they enter into meditation or when they even hear about meditation.

Many people think meditation is something like blindly believing in some thing. People are afraid because of this.

They come and tell me, 'I am afraid that I might get too attached to meditation!'

People are also afraid that their desires, their fears, and whatever else they think of as their life, will be taken away from them if they start meditating. I can say that this is true! Once you start meditating, whatever you think of as your life will not be any more an important part of your life, because once you start meditating, the real truths will start revealing themselves to you.

All the time, you are trying to protect yourself from the basic truths because you are afraid of them. You don't need to protect yourself from your fears because these fears do not have a base at all.

The concept or the idea that you are a solid being, which is the root cause of all your fears, will simply be shaken by meditation. All that you thought you were, all your desires, all your fears, all your worries will be shaken and will start going through a big change.

There will be a big psychological revolution in you. You will have practically a new birth! Your inner software will have a new quality. I can say that it is like changing the inner software of your computer. Your hardware may be the same, but your inner software will go through a big change.

Meditation is all about changing the inner software.

Your body may be the same, your hardware may be the same, the things with which you are living may be same, the persons with whom you are living may be same, but the Being you are living will be totally different!

The Being will have a different quality. The inner software will be new.

If you apply it every moment of your life, if you are aware of these four states constantly, you will see in every decision, the mechanism or the way in which your thought The simple understanding of the four states of consciousness can initiate the psychological revolution in you. It is like a master key.

process goes towards meditation, and how every decision is influenced in the right way!

This is what I call the Cognitive Shift. It is receiving information, processing, and deciding in the best possible way.

If you understand these four states, if you become deeply conscious of these four states of existence, then when you come out of the deep sleep state, and enter the dreaming state, you will understand that the deep sleep state was illusory when compared to the dream state. When you come out of the dreaming state into the waking state, you will understand that the dream state was illusory, that it was not real.

There is a very beautiful story, a Zen story:

One day, early morning, a Zen master came out of his bed and started crying. His disciples were surprised to see him crying. They gathered around him and said,

'You are an enlightened being. Why are you crying? It is really surprising to see that you are crying.'

The master replied, 'Last night I dreamt that I became a butterfly.'

The surprised disciples asked, 'It was only a dream. Now you are yourself again. You are out of it. Why are you crying now?'

The master says very beautifully, 'I do not know whether I was dreaming that I had become a butterfly, or that butterfly is now dreaming that it has become a Zen master!'

But an important thing: again and again and again, you get a glimpse of this Truth every time you face a deep depression or low mood.

During deep depression, this understanding starts

rising from within, but we manage in such a way that the psychological revolution does not happen inside us at that time, because too much is at stake! Too much of the life that we know, that we are clinging on to is at stake. We are afraid of the psychological revolution.

If we allow the psychological revolution to happen, the results are totally unknown to us. We don't know what

will happen to all our cherished desires, cherished goals, cherished ideals and cherished ideas. We are afraid that we may have to let go of everything. So we manage not to allow the psychological revolution to happen in us.

When I started the session, I uttered the words athaato bramha jignyaasaa from the Vedas, wherein a great teacher says, let us enquire into the reality. It means that the guru and disciple are

both deciding to have the courage to follow where reality leads them! It is not just an enquiry into the truth, but the courage to go wherever the enquiry or research leads, where the understanding leads.

Just the simple understanding of these four states of consciousness can transform the way in which we make decisions. The cognitive shift can happen. The psychological revolution can happen.

The truth is there is no scale to determine whether the state in which you are living is authentic reality. When you were dreaming, you thought your dream was real. But when you came out of the dream state and into the waking

state, you concluded that your dream was illusory! It is only when you reach the fourth state that you will realize that not only the dream state but even the so called waking state is also an illusion!

The moment you hear the word illusion, you are afraid. You feel you may renounce, you may leave everything, and life may change drastically. I tell you, you will leave only one thing, and that is your suffering; nothing else! The person who understands that what is in front of him is not complete reality, will renounce only one thing - his suffering.

You might have had a rare experience, where in the dream state itself you were aware, 'Yes, I am dreaming!' And because of that awareness, you would have been able to alter some of the thoughts as you wish to in your dream! You would be able to change some of the scenes as you wish to in your dream – for about two to three seconds.

Understand that in those few moments, you are aware that you are dreaming, and you will be able to move a few things around in your dream as you wish to. But if the awareness increases further that you are dreaming, suddenly you will be awakened!

In the same way, in this world too, in the waking state, if the awareness about you, the center, or the 'I' increases,

you will have the experience that the whole world which is in front of you is a dream.

Not only will you have the awareness that this life is one more waking dream, but you will also be able to move around the incidents in your life as you wish to! That is what we call siddhis – mystical powers.

When this starts happening, if you get caught in the changing of the incidents in your life, by and by, the awareness of the 'I' will come down, and you will fall back into the same waking state again, and these special powers will also disappear.

But if you are not too much attracted to changing these scenes, and you remain centered on raising the consciousness, you become enlightened!

Whether it is awakening from the dream state to the waking state or awakening

from the waking state to the enlightenment state, the process is the same.

There is a beautiful technical term for this understanding. It is called avasthaa traya - understanding the three different states in which you are living your everyday life. This simple understanding can create psychological revolution in you and help you to go through the meditation techniques and get the right glimpse of meditation.

When the psychological revolution happens, inner healing happens. With the inner healing, if the techniques are practiced, then naturally, outer healing also happens.

Without the psychological revolution, if the techniques are practiced, it is called kriya or yoga - just physical movements.

With psychological revolution, if yoga is done, it will become a tremendous mediation. With psychological revolution, even ritual becomes meditation. Without psychological revolution, even meditation will become a ritual.

With clarity inside, if meditation is added to your inner space, you will see that every time you meditate, the clarity becomes deeper and deeper. Every time you

make decisions in your life, it will add more and more understanding to you.

With psychological revolution, with every decision that you make every day, the aptapramaanaas - the experiences of the enlightened masters, will become atmapramaanaas your own experiences!

Without psychological revolution, everyday that you live, every moment that you add to your life, will only be pravritti - going outwards, and not inwards, and adding more and more suffering, low moods and difficulties.

With psychological revolution, it will become nivritti – towards reality. You will become more and more relaxed, more and more restful, more and more aware.

The essence of what I call psychological revolution is understanding these four states of consciousness clearly, and trying to raise yourself to the higher and higher frequencies.

I can say that on a relative scale, if you have the frequency of say a hundred, it is deep sleep. If you have the frequency of a thousand, it is the dream state. If it is two thousand, it is the waking state, and maybe one hundred thousand, it is turiya or blissful state. With this proportion, you can know by how much the frequency of your consciousness has to be raised.

Sometimes you spend most of your life, most of your time, most of your energy between the dream state and the waking state – just moving listlessly between these two.

If you are aware, you will see that in your waking state also, in just a span of say half an hour, so many things happen around you, without even your awareness! You would have drifted to the day-dreaming state, wherein your dream state would have influenced your waking state with thoughts, thus causing you to drift off. When you come back to the waking state with awareness, you will realize that half an hour went past wherein nothing was really under your control! You would have been awake, your eyes open, and your body doing work, but you would not have been aware of what was happening. I can say that this is what we call the state between the dream state and the waking state. Most of us spend eighty percent of our day in this state.

Understand one thing: Never think that just because you are out of your bed, you are in the waking state. No! Maybe you can't afford to spend your time in bed all the time, and it is necessary for your survival to be out of bed, so you are out of bed. But that does not mean that you are out of the dream state.

Bringing yourself out of the dream state, and also out of the waking state, is what I call meditation! Bringing yourself completely out of the waking, dream and deep sleep states, is what I call dhyaan, meditation.

When a person tries to raise his consciousness towards turiya, the fourth state, naturally his body and mind start getting healed. I always tell people, when they come and ask me what the essential quality of spiritual life is, three things are needed for a successful life. I don't even want to call it spiritual life. The term is loaded with too many different meanings.

Three things are needed for a successful life. The first is intensity, second is intensity, and third is intensity, nothing else!

Part 2: Why Meditation

You may have heard different ideas on this same subject earlier in your life. You may be having some conflict or misunderstanding in that context. I now welcome your questions so you may have more clarity and you can internalize what you have heard. Once you internalize these few ideas which I have expressed or proposed, you will be helped to enter into the meditation more successfully. So I will spend a few minutes answering your questions.

Volunteers collect the questions from the participants.

Very intelligent question! This is a wonderful question which we need to understand and internalize.

Let us analyze one night's dream. For example, let us say that you go to sleep on the 14th night and on 15th morning you wake up. You sleep for around 10 hours. I am

sure many of you have had experiences of having lived around 10 to 20 years of your life in one night's dream, in just 10 hours time.

From your college days the dream will start and move slowly step by step and go up to your marriage, you having a son, your son's marriage etc. In this way, you live even 10 or 20 years of your life in just one night's dream, am I right? If you have experienced this at least once, you can follow very closely what I am going to present now.

One more thing: scientists are now saying that you don't continuously sleep at night time. You sleep for a maximum of 30 minutes in the deep sleep state. The rest of the time, you move between the dream state, the deep sleep state, and the waking state. In the East, the maximum deep sleep time is 30 minutes, but in the West they say that it is only 16 minutes.

You see, while sleeping, we go through the dream state and the deep sleep state. Maybe for half an hour, you fall into the deep sleep state. Then you go to the dream state and go through some dreams. Again you fall asleep, spend about half an hour in the deep sleep state; then again you come back to the dream state. In this way you keep moving from the dream state to the deep sleep state and back.

Understand: in one night, you dream as if you lived ten years of your life. It is like in the first episode, you see in your dream you are in college. In the second episode, when you come back to the dream state after your spell of deep sleep, you see you are getting married. In the third episode, again when you enter the dream state, you see you have a son. Maybe in the fourth episode, in the next spell of dream state, you see your son getting married.

An important thing you need to understand: when you fall asleep into the deep sleep state and then come back to the dream state and then repeat the same, in these different episodes, you do see the same world even in the dream state. Am I right? You do see the same world in the dream state.

Understand, it is a very subtle point, very subtle understanding; if you can catch this, it will really lead to a very big clarity, which can really revolutionize the way in which you think about your life, the way in which you try to solve the problems of your life.

A person was dreaming. In the dream he saw a tiger chasing him and he was shouting, 'Oh, a tiger is chasing me! Save me, save me!' His friend was sleeping next to him. He woke up and he saw

that his friend was shouting, 'A tiger is chasing me, save me, save me!' The friend was confused, 'What am I supposed to do?' The friend just needed to tell him, 'Hey, wake up!' Instead of that, if he tried to supply some weapon to kill the tiger in the dream, what will happen? He may kill himself or he may kill his friend!

If you understand these basic things, suddenly you will see the decision-making will be revolutionized. The cognitive shift will happen in you. The way in which you think and the way in which you make decisions, the way in which you try to find out solutions for your problems will be different. You will start working towards the right solutions.

In the case of the man having a nightmare of a tiger chasing him, the right solution at that moment is just to tell him, 'Wake up!' That's the right solution; instead, if you try to find any other solution it will only lead to more and more problems, more and more difficulties.

Here, all I want to tell you is: when you are dreaming, in a span of ten hours, you live ten years. You fall into deep sleep and come back to the dream state many times. Whenever you come back to the dream state from the state of deep sleep, even though there was a break from the last dream, you see the same world. Just seeing the same world after the break in the dream state cannot be the quality to define it as reality.

Please understand: after a break, if you see the same world, it cannot be the scale to define or say that world is reality. This happens even in the dream state. Even in the dream state, after the break, when you come back you see the same world. Just you coming back from the deep sleep state and seeing the same world cannot be the reason to say that it is a reality.

Only when you wake up from sleep, you realize you have dreamt ten years of your life in just ten hours. In the same way, only when you wake up from this dream in which you are living now, suddenly you realize you have dreamt maybe 90 years of your life in a few hours! Who knows, this life in the waking state can be another long dream!

I can say, that is the first step in spirituality. That is the first step for psychological revolution. Realizing and

Again and again, our sufferings are giving a clear statement: we are holding on to emptiness. Our suffering is nothing else but a clear statement from reality: you are not living with the reality.

The first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is called Arjuna Vishaada Yoga, the depression or confusion of Arjuna. We also face the depression and confusion in our lives. I call this 'depression of success'. This depression induced by success comes from achieving what we want to achieve, but realizing that what for we want to achieve has not happened. There are very few, rare, intelligent people who understand, 'I am facing this suffering or depression because I am not living with reality.'

Here, all I am trying to say is that just because you are seeing, do not think you are living with reality.

Usually I face another one question on the same lines: 'Swamiji, not only am I seeing this world, even the people who are living around me are seeing this world in the same way. How can you say it is a dream?'

Understand: in a dream if you are seeing a particular city, if you are dreaming that you are going to that city with your whole family, not only you, the family which is with you inside your dream also will see the same city because they are also projections of your mind.

So, just because the people who are around you see the same scene does not mean the scene is reality. Even the people around you whom you are seeing can be the projection of the same scene.

If your attention is centered on the stuff, naturally the inner healing cannot happen.

If your attention is equally distributed on the consciousness and the stuff, that is what The ultimate truth is: the stuff out of which your dream world is made, is the same as the stuff out of which this waking world is also made.

I call healthy life, balanced life. You will have physical health, mental health, and a vibrant life.

If your attention is totally centered on the consciousness, not on the stuff with which these worlds are made, that is what I call 'living enlightenment' or jeevan mukti.

Whether you want jeevan mukti or not, whether you want enlightenment or not, is secondary. But if you can turn a little bit of your attention towards the 'I' consciousness, towards the truth, towards the center, suddenly you will see that a tremendous inner healing happens.

I always tell people, realizing this whole world is one more dream brings a tremendous healing effect in you.

Understand, for example, if you are facing some very big difficulty or depression, if you realize very clearly, consciously that this whole thing is a dream, you will experience such a relaxed feeling or the inner healing happening in you. That inner healing is what I call meditation. That restful awareness which happens in you is what I call satori, the first glimpse of samadhi.

More and more restful awareness being added to you is what I call inner healing, or health, or raising the quality of consciousness.

Instead of the dream state penetrating the waking state while you are, for instance, driving, the blissful state can penetrate your waking state during the driving. Even when you are out of your bed and seemingly in the waking state, so much of your time is occupied by your dream state because of your low awareness.

People come and tell me, 'If I start meditating, I will not have time to do my business.' No! Meditation has nothing to do with a separate time; it is something to do with inner understanding.

As of now, so much of your time and energy is being spent in the dream state which possesses you. Instead of that, you can allow the turiya state, the blissful state to possess you.

You can just change the attitude; you can just shift the energy; you can just simply go through a big transformation. That is what I call 'psychological revolution.'

Here is one more question.

The person is confused because we have more than one deity in our tradition. I always tell people, you will suddenly feel a very deep connection towards some god, some technique. That is what I call 'falling in tune', 'feeling connected'.

If you don't feel connected to any one particularly, do not choose anything, continue your seeking. Continue your seeking and let the seeking become your god. Seeking can become your god. Let the seeking become your ishta devata (desired god). No need for a particular devata.

One more question:

This is another big problem. Sometimes, you will enjoy some stotras and chanting. Then you decide, 'Oh, such ecstasy and bliss and joy! I should have this always. Let me start chanting every day.' No! You missed the whole thing. The moment you decided, 'Let me chant every day,' you created a routine.

Understand: bliss happens to you when you are in choicelessness. The moment you choose bliss, you have chosen suffering. All choice, including choosing bliss, is choosing suffering.

The moment you choose, 'Now I am going to do this every day', you made it as a routine.

I have seen people chanting sahasranama. They would start in full speed. After just two pages, the speed of chanting would increase. After few pages, they would just see the page numbers continuously, 'Oh, there are 400more verses to go…' I always tell people, 'Do not bother about

completing the thousand names at all. Take up the book; god is not sitting there and counting like a bank balance, asking whether you have done all the thousand names.

Just sit in the beautiful mood, in a very loving way. If you can chant even five or six names, it is perfectly alright. That is enough. The moment you feel bored, close the book and stop. Do not do chanting or puja when you don't feel connected, when you don't feel that joy. If you are doing it without feeling the joy, you are abusing it.

Chanting some mantra, chanting some sloka without feeling joyful, without being in ecstasy is abusive. When you chant, if your concentration is scattered, it means you are not enjoying it. The moment you feel you don't enjoy, relax and stop.

A: When people ask me about intensity I tell them: feel intensely that you are not having intensity, that's all. You see, usually we feel a terrible restlessness towards the outer world, 'I have not done this, I have not done that…' The same restlessness, if it is directed to the inner world is called intensity.

You may be thinking, I am supposed to teach satisfaction; why am I teaching dissatisfaction? I tell you, your dissatisfaction directed now towards the outer world has to turn towards the inner world, then it will lead to satisfaction.

First thing which needs to happen is not satisfaction but the turning of direction, the psychological revolution.

inner world, it is called intensity. The meaning of intensity is feeling that something needs to be done immediately, to break free from the clutches, or to break free, in the inner world.

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

You ask what your intensity should be about. Do not bother about 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 everything; 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.

You are asking how to develop intensity. If I give the method 'how', the whole intensity will be lost.

Technique sometimes gives a method to escape for your mind. Your mind will start saying, 'Oh, I have done the technique, that's all. I know I can only do that much. Nothing else needs to be done.'

In Ayurveda, when we give medicines we say, 'This medicine is not Intensity will increase when you have the desire but not the technique. That's a right way to develop intensity. The moment the technique is given your mind will start working around the technique.

enough. You need to work with this medicine the whole day. So, you need to be intense, telling your body and mind to heal itself the whole day.'

Technique is not like an allopathic medicine that you can swallow and forget about everything. Sometimes the desire should be awakened; the desire or seeking should be awakened towards the inner world. And the person should not use any technique. Only then that seeking will start radiating in every action. The technique should not curtail, stop or reduce your seeking; it should deepen your seeking.

You are welcome. I always tell people, try to collect the best flowers from all the gardens and make a beautiful bouquet for yourself. You do not have to think, 'If I learn from one source I should not learn from another.' No! It is not like a shop that if you come to this shop, you can't go to the next shop. Go to all possible sources and learn all the best things. Pluck all the best flowers, and make a beautiful garland for yourself.

I always tell people, your ego is such it cannot be broken by one master. Now you need so many blows from so many different directions and so many methods from so many different sources. So, do not think, if I learn from one source I should not learn from another source. No! Learn from all possible sources and raise yourself.

First thing, you cannot completely merge yourself in action, or inaction. Your body is made of sattva, rajas and tamas, in similar proportions. Sattva is peace, silence, intelligent energy. Rajas is restless, very aggressive energy. Tamas is feeling lethargy, very sleepy and low on energy. Sattva, rajas and tamas are each 33% in us. After the 33% lethargy is exhausted, you will not be able to be in inaction.

People come and ask me, if I start meditating will I just leave my job and just rest? No, you cannot! I tell them, if you have that fear, just take a vacation, lie down for ten days, you will understand. On the eleventh day you will run for your job.

There is no need to completely merge in inaction either. I can tell you, you don't need to bother about action nor do you need to bother about inaction; all you need to bother about is psychological revolution. What goes on inside of you the whole day is what you need to attend to. You need to put your awareness only on that.

Even though you think you do your actions in the waking state, 80% of your actions are done by the dream state

overtaking the waking state. Instead of that, let the 80% of your actions be done by the turiya state overtaking the waking state. That's all you need. There is nothing else.

These are the questions which happen even before you enter. These are hypothetical questions.

Somebody came and asked me, if everybody became a swami how will the world run?

I asked him, if everybody dies how will the world run? He said, 'No, everybody won't die.'

I said, 'In the same way, everybody won't become a swami! That's all.'

Hypothetical questions cannot be answered.

I told him, 'Do not bother. God is not depending on you to run the world! He is not depending on you to create and maintain the world.'

He is asking: Can we really experience the blissful state after learning these meditation techniques? What do you think I am sitting and doing here!

The person who creates a formula to reproduce experiences of the outer world is a scientist; the person who creates a formula to reproduce the experiences of the

inner world is a mystic. These methods, the techniques which you are going to learn these three days are timetested, foolproof, created after great research and development by thousands of masters after thousands of years of research and development, and verified and experienced in my own personal life.

So, rest assured... be intense; that's all I am asking of you. That's all you need to do, nothing else. Just be intense, you will see, you will experience what has happened in my very inner space happen in your inner space also.

See, the word sankhya and the word yoga, both are two different expressions. Maybe I can say by the word 'psychological revolution' I mean sankhya, yoga, and something more. When you understand these ideas about the dream state, waking state and the superconscious state, every time the low mood or depression or disturbance comes to your inner space, bring this understanding into you.

Use this like a key and allow that psychological revolution to happen. You will see, first of all you will come out of the problem. Even if you come out of your suffering

2-3 times, you will have enough courage and energy to apply these techniques again and again, to evolve yourself again and again.

Beautifully Krishna says, let you raise yourself by yourself. If you raise yourself by yourself you are the best friend for you. If you don't raise yourself by yourself you are the worst enemy for you.

Neither are you doing it wrong nor is it the wrong technique for you. First, you should have experienced the psychological revolution, clarity about you, world, and god. Then, the technique should have been added to you. Without that clarity, if the technique is directly added it leads to boredom, dullness, and naturally, you drop the technique.

I always tell people: any study, any journey you undertake, any book you start reading even if you don't understand a single word, do not skip. If you don't understand and skip, slowly you will see that words which you did not understand will become more and more like a load, and your very interest in reading further will disappear.

In the same way, in the inner journey, without going through the psychological revolution or the understanding, if you just skip the understandings and enter into the meditation technique, it is a problem.

Even when I speak and explain the concepts, I have seen many people sitting and thinking, 'What you are telling is fine; now let us go to the technique, Swamiji.' I have seen people telling me, 'I understand, Swamiji; let us go to the technique.' They think they are very intelligent. They think straightaway the technique can help.

Technique is not an allopathic pill. You need a clear prior understanding because the understanding starts the churning. Then the technique is like an addition for the alchemy process to occur.

Don't bother about their coming into reality. You are not that powerful - fortunately. Fortunately, we are not that powerful to project our thoughts into reality. Otherwise we would have created a worse hell than what we are having now.

Fortunately, god did not give so much of energy to us to project our thoughts into reality. If at some time your

thoughts have become reality, if you have seen your dreams or thoughts becoming reality, do not use that power; try to divert that energy into your consciousness.

According to me, truly authentic yoga methods do not contradict each other, they only complement each other. So you can practice different yoga methods. Only thing, do not mix and make your own technique! Practice one method independently, say for 20 minutes and finish it. Then, go to the next; continue. If you mix everything and start thinking, 'I know all these things, I know the core thread, I think I can make my own technique,' that is where you will miss.

First thing, I want you to be very clear; if somebody is in poverty, they consciously chose it. Please understand, even if it hurts, I have to tell the truth.

Let me give one small incident that really happened in my life. It is a bit mystical, but I am narrating exactly as it

happened. I can say, I can take an oath that I am stating the simple straight facts! You can make what you want to make out of this incident.

In the USA, an autistic child was brought to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM for healing. The family is from North Bharat, settled in the USA. The child was about 7 or 8 years. They brought the child to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM and asked me, 'Swamiji, he is autistic. Can you please heal him?'

The family is from North Bharat and not a single person in their family or their surroundings knew Tamil.

I put my hand on the head of the child and started healing.

As soon as I started healing the child, the boy just said in village Tamil, with no respect, 'Remove your hand.'

I was shocked. In the whole family, not a single person knew Tamil. They were shocked and told me, 'There is no way that this child can hear Tamil words, because none of us speak and none of us know Tamil. He is always with us. How could he speak in Tamil?'

I thought maybe some spirit or ghost had possessed the child. I asked him, 'Who is speaking?' He said, 'I am the one in this body speaking. Don't you understand?' he continued in Tamil.

I asked him, 'Why are you asking me to remove my hand? I am healing you.'

He just retorted back, 'I don't want to be healed. It is not your business, just get out!'

I was shocked. He said, 'I do not want to take the responsibility of my life, going through the regular routine. I just wanted a comfortable life with somebody taking care of me. That is why I took this kind of body and mind.'

I said, 'That is ok. You have freedom, but your parents are such nice people. Why are you torturing them by being born to them?'

He said, 'I took birth because they are nice people. So I know they will take care of me. They will not put me in the hospitals or asylums or somewhere else. That is why I took birth in this family.'

This incident gave me a very big opening of clarity. Every soul consciously or unconsciously, knowingly or unknowingly, chooses its place, birth, and lifestyle. That is what we call prarabdha.

This truth may hurt you.

Understand, it hurts because you are not able to tolerate that you chose what you are having now. I tell you, we may choose poverty because it is a big freedom. With wealth, there is too much responsibility; it is a big bondage.

Start looking at yourself and think why you chose what you chose. Maybe that can help you to enjoy and celebrate what you have chosen. Instead of constantly turning your attention and awareness towards cursing and abusing what you chose, if you start looking at why you have chosen what you have chosen, you will suddenly see new things revealing. You will see that you are exactly where you wanted to be. That is the ultimate truth. Whether it hurts or heals, truth is truth. Usually, with a little patience, it heals; it never hurts.

I tell you, karma is unfulfilled desires and experiences. Your lifestyle and everything is straightaway consciously chosen by you.

So, if you want, you can consciously alter, rearrange, edit, reduce, delete, or recreate. You have complete freedom.

This is one of the worst lies taught to you. Because your universities and schools in the society are not able to teach you how to experience the superconscious state, they teach you the day-dreaming state.

Understand, just because they are not able to teach, just because they compromise, please do not waste your life in dreaming. Let us not miss the truth. Let us not miss the reality. Life can be lived without day-dreaming, and instead, with super-conscious vision.

I always tell people, with day-dreaming, these desires will give you deep restlessness before fulfillment. After fulfilling, suddenly you will see, they just show emptiness.

This is the big difference between life based on day-dreaming and the super-conscious life.

There are only two choices: either you live a superconscious life or a day-dreaming life. If you are not living a super-conscious life, be sure, you are living a day-dreaming life.

But there is a great fear, 'If I stop day-dreaming, how will I do my next planning? What should my next plans be? How do I invest my time?...'

You can see: if your workers or subordinates successfully convince you that without them your business cannot run, they will then start exploiting you. In the same way, your mind has convinced you that without it, you cannot run your life. That conviction is what I call suffering. That is what I call the root of suffering.

I tell you, when I say that you can live without your day-dreaming, I really mean it.

You may ask, how do I plan for tomorrow? Usually, you are not planning, you are only worrying. And even with your planning, you are only reproducing the past into the

future. You are limiting your growth by planning, because you do not have courage to live with your spontaneous vision, with the spontaneous revelations happening in your life.

Constantly you are struggling with your day-to-day planning and your life. Only the people who have the courage to trust their vision and their spontaneity become geniuses.

Please understand, a little courage from your part to enter into the life without day-dreaming can just revolutionize your life. I can say this is what I call 'psychological revolution'.

Just try this for ten days. In ten days, I don't think your whole life will be taken away from you. In ten days, if everything can be taken away from you, then it is not worth having, let it be taken away! So, just try for ten days - life without daydreaming. Suddenly, you will see the quality of spontaneity.

Because of your planning and day-dreaming, the quality of having visions is suppressed. If you just remove the daydreaming and have a little courage to experience that quality of creating visions, the quality of living with spontaneity, you will suddenly see that the visionary in you has awakened.

People who live with super-consciousness never fail or miss in their decisions, because the depth of dilemma or the oscillations and mood swings will be much less. When the mood swings and the depth of dilemma is limited, suddenly you will see an amazing amount of energy is saved and the decision making becomes very sharp and straight.

Whenever these thousands of people living in our ashrams around the world don't listen to what I say, I tell them, 'Alright, let them have freedom. That is the worst suffering; that is the

worst punishment!' The dilemma itself will kill; nothing else needs to be done.

Without intelligence, when the freedom is given, it will lead only to suffering. Our day-dreaming also is nothing but dilemma. The intelligence is not there, but the freedom is there. That is what I call day-dreaming.

Only kids need to dream to cope with reality. If, even after growing up, we need to dream to cope with reality, we are mentally retarded! We have not grown beyond childhood.

I can say this is one of the symptoms of the blissful state. In the blissful state actually the breathing pattern changes

and the whole body feels the wave. This is one of the symptoms of the blissful state.

It is possible. From time immemorial, the first gift was always given by the push from the master. But to stay in that state, you yourself should have gone through the psychological revolution. Ramakrishna was able to give one glimpse to Vivekananda. But Vivekananda had to go through the psychological revolution to retain it. So, the experience can be given, a glimpse can be given by the touch of the master. But if you need to retain it, surely you yourself have to go through the psychological revolution by living these great Truths in reality.

This is again a hypothetical question, 'If a person focuses on his work...' Nobody can focus without meditation. Actually the question with 'if' cannot be answered. 'If it is…' cannot be answered.

No! Meditation will not produce any side-effect except bliss and health!

There is no meaning even in the world which you are seeing, let alone your dreams!

Even the world which you are seeing has no meaning. So, forget about the meaning of the dreams which you are seeing. People come and ask me, 'Swamiji, I saw this dream. Please give the meaning about it, please explain!'

The world which you are seeing is itself useless. So, why waste time in interpreting the dreams!

If you want an honest answer I should say, I don't know. 'I don't know' is the honest answer. Because, according to me, the spiritual life itself is a simple, straight path. See, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. There cannot be any other shortcut. The shortest

distance between two points is a straight line. So, I can say, to live a spiritual life is a straight line. It is the most straight line, the only shortest route.

If you spent more time in deep sleep than in the dream state, in the morning you feel that you had a good sleep or rest. That is the sign of having a good sleep.

I can say I have chosen three methods, three techniques. On these three days, you will be learning the three techniques. Today will be like a preparation, introduction, entering into meditation. Tomorrow it will be a deeper cleansing. And day after tomorrow it will be the deepest level of 'unclutching' which is experiencing the true self.

No. Living in high intensity causes more energy.

Don't bother about them. If there are ten states, I'll have seven day classes! There are four states, that is why I have three day classes! I think now working on the four states is more than enough. If there are ten states, maybe after you see the fourth state, we can start looking into them.

I don't think your dream should be symbolizing your future. Your future is not that bad or that low that it can be predicted or planned in your dream! It should be predicted and planned in your waking state.

Understand, if your future is predicted and planned in the waking state you know where you are going. If it is predicted and planned in a dream state, where are you heading! You don't even know where you are heading. I think it is very dangerous. So it is better not to be planning and predicting your future in the dream state.

Maybe now we will enter into the meditation technique. After that, you can individually come and ask the remaining

questions, I will answer. Tomorrow we will enter into the session, working on samskaras. Today we had some clarity and understanding about different states we go through everyday. Tomorrow, we will see how our mind works in the different states, how our samskaras or engraved memories function inside us. We will work on that, study that and go through a meditation technique to remove the samskaras.

Now, we will do a very simple meditation technique, just to prepare you and lead you to the fourth state, turiya state.

What is exactly turiya? I was explaining to you, there will be awareness, but there won't be thoughts. So, now, you are supposed to throw away your thoughts, move away from your thinking system to the deepest silence, with awareness.

This technique is basically from Tibetan Buddhism. Of course in Tantra, it was used in the name of Brahmi mantra; in Tibetan Buddhism they call it Maha mantra. Itis a very simple but very powerful technique to go into the awareness with silence. It is going to the thoughtless state with awareness, without thinking but only having the consciousness.

Let me describe the technique. If you can, sit in vajrasana, hands on your knees. If you can't, sit comfortably in the chair. First step: your head, neck and the back should be in a straight line.

Second instruction: close your eyes, not just eyelids. After closing your eyes, stop allowing the movements or visions in your mind. The television of the mind inside you should also be switched off. If you open your eyes you will see the outer world. But if you close your eyes you will see the television inside.

If you just give a little pressure on your eyeballs (through your mind, not through your hands) mentally,… if you just give a little pressure, you will see that the movement in front of your eyes will stop.

Third step: intense humming from your navel center. Understand, the intense humming will stop your mind, the thought flow.

First step is your head, neck and backbone should be in a straight line.

The second step is to close your eyes and stop the pictures moving inside your mind. The third step is intense humming for 21 minutes.

The fourth step is to just sit silently for ten minutes. In the fourth step you will see the thoughtless awareness happening in you. You don't have to do anything, it will be happening in you. You will see deep silence, a settled feeling inside you.

Today's subject is 'Your Inner Space'. In the entire world, the most unused natural resource, or I can say, the most misused powerful natural resource, is your inner space! It is naturally available to each and every one of us. But just because we don't know how to use it, it constantly gets abused.

Chapter 7

From time immemorial, enlightened masters have been landing on planet earth and declaring that life is joy, ecstasy and bliss. Just this single simple understanding of enlightened masters declaring this is enough to make life blissful. We are not able to discard them by saying that they may be lying! We are not able to push their words aside because of their sheer authenticity. Their presence is too strong!

When Vivekananda addressed the Parliament of Religions in Chicago for the first time, he started by saying, 'Dear brothers and sisters of America'. In the reminiscences, the people who witnessed the scene say that it took at least several minutes for the crowd to settle down after the applause. It was such a strong experience for them! It is not just the clapping, it is the deep feeling that was stirred in them by the authenticity of Vivekananda's voice and presence.

Somebody asked Vivekananda, 'How did it happen?' Everyday we see in the streets so many people addressing gatherings in the same way as 'brother' and 'sister'. The problem is, when they call you 'brother' or 'sister', you don't know why they are calling you that. You immediately smell a hidden intent. When Vivekananda spoke those words, he spoke from his very being. That is why it touched the beings of the thousands who were gathered there.

One man goes to Mahatma Gandhi and says, 'I feel you are my brother'. Gandhi says, 'Yes, you are my brother. I accept you as my brother.' The man says, 'Then give me my share of your property.' Gandhi gives him just one penny and says, 'Please take it'. The man asks, 'How can you give me only one penny?' Gandhi says, 'I have 30 million brothers. Every single person in the whole of

Bharat is my brother or sister. I have to give all of them their share. So your share is only this. Please take it and go!'

So understand, you don't know for what reason people call you as 'brother' or 'sister'!

Anyway, Vivekananda very beautifully answers this question. He says, 'Before uttering those words, I felt it as my solid experience. I clearly felt that they are my own, that they just belong to me or I belong to them. That very feeling I simply expressed as words.'

There is a beautiful word ojas in Sanskrit. It literally means 'vigor' or 'depth'.

The listener cannot escape because the depth of the words will have such a gripping quality.

It has to enter into your inner space.

When Vivekananda says, 'Dear brothers and sisters', you cannot just brush him aside saying that he is lying or he is using sentimental

words or he is just being socially polite or politically correct. No! You simply cannot brush him aside, because it will be such a strong experience for anyone receiving it! You cannot push the master's words aside because they will be so authentic and strong; you can't help being touched by them.

I always tell people: either you agree completely with me, or you disagree completely with me. But you cannot push masters aside!

Anyway, masters are again and again happening on planet earth and saying, 'Life is joy, life is ecstasy, life is bliss, life is ananda' etc. But in our daily routine, we don't seem to be experiencing this as true. It doesn't seem to be reality to us in our lives.

I have seen, many times, those who live closely around living enlightened masters cannot understand what is going on. They see him constantly radiating so much joy, so much ecstasy. I always tell people: if you live with an enlightened master, either you will become enlightened or you will become mad! There is no other way because you are too close to the Truth. It is a dangerous zone!

If you resist, the resistance and energy needed will be too much because every moment you have to resist! You will not have enough energy to resist. The master's presence will be so strong, it will just penetrate you. You need almost equal energy to resist the energy of an enlightened master. That is the reason why you can't push masters aside.

So neither are you able to push masters aside, nor are you able to realize the truth spoken by them. Then where is the problem? Why are their words not becoming reality in our own life?

Chapter 8 The Abused Inner Space

Even people who seem to follow the words of the masters come out with the same question, 'Why has it not become reality in my life?'

I can say the only reason is the unused and abused inner space. That is the first thing in life that has to be taken care of.

Someone asked me, 'Can you give me only a single word of advice?'

Actually, this is the toughest thing. Many people come and ask me to give only one word of advice. I tell them: if I have to give you only one word of advice, I need at least two to three hours. If I can give whatever I want to, then I can give it immediately! One word means it has to be the essence.

Once, Bernard Shaw wrote a 100 page book. Somebody went up to him and asked, 'How could you write such a small book, just 100 pages? He replied, 'I don't have time; that is why I wrote only 100 pages. If I had a little more time, I would have written a much smaller book!'

To be precise, you need more time.

If somebody asks me to be precise and give only one word of advice, my advice will be, 'May you care for your inner space.' That's all.

From morning till night, you do not know what you are sowing, what you are growing. You do not know what you are encouraging. Suddenly when you see the results, you exclaim, 'This is not what I asked for!', 'This is not what I wanted,' 'I don't know how this happened in my life,' 'I don't know why god is punishing me so much…'

I feel sorry for god! For anything that goes right, the credit goes to you. For anything that goes wrong, the blame is dumped on Him! And every one knows that He is 'sitting somewhere up there,' and He doesn't interfere much either. So we just take Him for granted and keep on complaining about Him, 'It is because of him…' God has become a way to escape from our responsibility.

The abused inner space or misused inner space is the worst thing that can happen to an individual. Very beautifully Shankara says*, 'Aahaara shuddhayo smruti shuddhi hi.'* It means that if the intake is purified, your memory and your inner space will be purified. Understand, when Shankara says 'intake', he does not mean just the food which you take through your mouth. No! He means all the input that you absorb through all the five senses, the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and touch. Whatever you take inside through these five senses is called aahaara or food.

Our inner space is constantly abused by a wrong diet. We swallow so much of violence visually through movies and media. I don't say that you should not read newspapers. To know the news the world over, to keep in touch with the world, the newspaper is perfectly alright. But we go on spending time and energy in enjoying and

cherishing violent visualizations and information. When we read or watch such things, we are actually throwing so much negativity inside our inner space without realizing that our inner space is getting corrupted.

The corruption which happens to the inner space is what I call samskara or engraved memories. They are the memories that go and sit in your inner space and pull you to go through the same experience repeatedly, pull you to do the same kind of actions repeatedly, pull you to run through the same kind of thought patterns, even if you don't want to. Those memories are what I call samskaras.

Today's session is completely dedicated to work on our inner space, to work on our samskaras. We will do a few deep processes to cleanse the unnecessarily accumulated samskaras. Of course, all samskaras are unnecessary. You can be alive without any samskara. Your very body is made out of the samskaras which are needed in this birth. So your mind does not need to carry any samskaras to run your life, or to protect the infrastructure which you now have as your own, or to expand the infrastructure to add comforts and to do what you want to do.

Chapter 9

Please understand: your body has an innate intelligence which we call 'bio-memory'. In Sanskrit it is called prarabdha. When you design your body at the time of taking birth, you clearly decide about your life, the kind of enjoyment you will have and the experiences you wish to have. Based on that, you decide and design your body.

The energy or the ideas with which you design your body is called prarabdha.

Your prarabdha is intelligent enough, powerful enough and efficient enough to run your life and expand your infrastructure. Any samskara which is operating in your conscious or unconscious layer is nothing but a hindrance to the fulfillment of your life. There is no such thing as good or bad samskaras. No samskara is good.

People come and ask me, 'I feel like coming back to your lectures. Is this samskara also bad?' Even wanting to come back to the discourse, if it is based on samskaras, only means that you have not understood what I said the first time! When you listen for the first time and understand it fully, your samskaras simply drop, and you will not feel the need to come the second time. You will not need to do anything.

But sometimes, without the play of samskaras, just out of a deep gratitude or ecstasy, you may come back. That is perfectly alright, but not as a habit! People who come and sit as a habit are clearly not listening but just hearing and passing judgment on every statement uttered.

And some of them sit with open eyes and sleep! Sometimes I have seen, especially in the modern day, our schools and colleges teach kids how to sit with open eyes and sleep. Their eyes will be wide open, and they will be sitting very straight, but you will see that their mind

will not be with what is being discussed. The mind will be elsewhere. As I was telling yesterday, they will just be daydreaming.

If you are here out of habit, it is not going to help in the way it should. Because again, due to habit, even if the body is here, the mind will be elsewhere! That habit will also play along with the habit of coming here to listen. This daydreaming comes into play from the time you wake up.

Early morning when you wake up and put the toothbrush in your mouth, your mind is already in the office! When you are sitting in the office and working on your computer, the mind is already at the beach or in the club. When you are in the club, your mind is already in your house. By the time you reach your house and settle down, the mind is already thinking about what to do the next day. One thing is sure: if you are here, your mind is not here!

An inner space filled with samskaras is hell. An inner space without samskaras is heaven. So do not try to classify samskaras as good or bad.

A samskara by itself, by its very nature is negative, by its very nature is depressive.

I always tell people: if you come and sit here driven only by samskaras, after two days, even this will become boring.

Anything done out of samskaras will reduce everything to boring emptiness.

From our young age we collect so many different samskaras in so many ways. We accumulate them and also reproduce them. Samskaras do reproduce themselves even without any further action from our part.

Samskaras get strengthened in different ways.

There are some samskaras which get strengthened only by action, when you repeat the action.

There are some samskaras which get strengthened just by receiving information with regard to them, when you receive input from the world about them.

There are some other samskaras that need neither action nor information, just remembrance is enough, and they get strengthened!

We collect these different levels of samskaras, engraved memories, and store them in our system and expand them.

Someone asked me yesterday, 'Why are you using all these modern things, modern infrastructure?' I told him, 'What is wrong? It is perfectly alright. If Buddha created ten thousand enlightened people without flights, cars, computers or laptops, without any infrastructure like website, internet etc, then when we have all these things at our disposal, we should make use of them and ensure that at least 200 thousand people are enlightened! All of this modern day infrastructure should be used to transmit the true science, not just inventions and discoveries of the outer world.

The science of enlightenment is an authentic science. Understand, the science of enlightenment is the most needed science for today because if you don't know how to keep your inner space pure, there is no point in running behind outer world discoveries and inventions.

All of the infrastructure should be used to spread the right ideas in society.

In the East, we have done almost ten thousand years of research and development in the inner science, in the inner space. So we should allow this inner science to be spread using the machinery and infrastructure of the outer science.

Chapter 10

Seven Energy layers of the Body

Coming to the main subject, we have seven energy layers in our body.

The first layer is the physical body which you are carrying, made out of flesh and blood. The second layer is made up of the prana movement inside your body. Prana is actually the life energy which you take in when you breathe. Air is the medium that brings in prana for sustaining your life. There are five stages in the movement of prana in your body. They are prana, apaana, vyaana, udaana, samaana. These five prana, these five movements, constitute what is called prana shareera or breath body.

The next layer is the mana shareera or the mental body. The continuous words or thoughts that rise in you are called inner chatter. The inner chattering which is continuously going on inside of you is the mana shareera or the mental body.

The fourth layer is the emotion layer. I can say that intense inner chattering which does not respond to your logical analysis is what we call 'emotions'. That is the fourth energy layer in us.

The fifth layer is that which you experience in deep sleep. It is called the causal body.

The sixth layer you will experience in a strong meditation technique when you have thoughtless awareness.

And the seventh layer is enlightenment.

And likewise, if the samskaras are taken out of your system, suddenly you will see all of these seven layers fall in tune with each other.

The balancing, reconnecting, reuniting with yourself starts happening. That uniting is what is called Yoga. Beautifully, Patanjali describes, 'Yogaha chitta You have seven different layers in your system. If all the seven different layers fall in tune with each other, suddenly you will see all of the samskaras will leave your system.

vritti nirodhaha,' 'living without samskaras'. Only then the state without thoughts or the state of thoughtless awareness will be there. When the samskaras are taken out, the uniting happens. When the uniting happens, samskaras leave your system.

So, the seven energy layers are the physical, pranic, mental, emotional, deep sleep, joy and bliss, which you enjoy in thoughtless awareness, what J.Krishnamurthi calls 'choiceless awareness', the seventh layer or the ultimate pure enlightened consciousness.

Yesterday somebody wrote me a question: 'Swamiji, this stuff was too strong for me, especially the analysis on the four states of consciousness. It was very shocking when you said that when I come back I see the same world.' Actually the person wrote the question in a very funny way, 'When I come back, I see the same house, same car, same wife. But when I go back to the dream state, I don't see the same thing.' He underlined the words, 'same wife'! The answer for that question was very shocking to him. I think the same person again wrote one more note. During the darshan, I got one more note saying, 'It was too strong. I didn't expect I will have such clarity. I am afraid of the clarity now.'

Chapter 11

Self-healing Thoughts

You may have a medically fit body. That does not mean you are healthy. Of course, I can say from my experience of having seen millions of people, 99 per cent of people who do not have the 'self-healing clarity' in their system are never able to maintain even physical health.

In the last five years of my public life, I have initiated around 1.2 million disciples. With that experience, I am sharing with you, not just to boast or be proud. With this

authority, with this experience, with this understanding, I tell you, a person who does not have the self-healing clarity and understanding cannot even be physically healthy.

Just a year ago, I did a small research. I chose some of the people who had been through some meditation programs and some spiritual studying. I asked them to write whatever comes in their mind without editing for 20 minutes. Then I also asked people who are not exposed to spirituality to write the same thing. When I read those papers, it was a very shocking revelation.

In the case of a person who is not exposed to spirituality, if he had written 100 thoughts, more than 80 were directing him towards more and more depression. Only 20 thoughts were 'self-healing' or bringing him out of depression. But in the case of the people who are exposed to spirituality and meditation, I saw that more than 60 percent of their thoughts were self-healing. Only 40 percent were towards depression.

This is the power of self-healing thoughts, self-healing clarity, the touch of the Truth.

Only a person who has had a touch of the Truth in his life can maintain health. Understand, when I say health, I mean even physical health. Otherwise it is impossible even to maintain physical health, especially in this so-called modern society, with the stress and pressures of daily life.

Understand, you are afraid for your health. Sometimes Truth will be strong. There is no other way. But I tell you, if you just allow the Truth to enter you, it will create so much ecstasy in your inner space and so much energy to expand yourself in the outer space.

The knowledge of the Truth is what I call 'knowledgeweapons' or 'shaastra-shastra'. Whenever depression attacks you, suffering attacks you; life brings different scenes in front of you. This shaastra-shastra, knowledge weapon, can be so powerful, that you can just come out of the depression. So, even if the truth is too much, don't bother. Try to digest, assimilate and keep it in the corner of your heart. Let the shaastra-shastras be stored inside you.

The more and more shaastra-shastras you have, naturally the depression will have fear about you! It is just like if you have a huge army, naturally the other country will be afraid of attacking you. You don't even have to attack. The moment you display your power, the other country will think twice before attacking you. In the same way, the more and more you accumulate the self-healing thoughts, the knowledge weapons, shaastra-shastras inside your system, you will see that depression will have fear to come near you.

Even now, the Truths which I am sharing may be little strong. But I tell you, if you want the Truth to do the process of healing in you, it has to be digested and internalized.

Many times people ask me, 'Just by giving a few hours of discourse, how did you heal, Swamiji? How did it happen in me? Just 2 to 3 days I sat with you and listened to whatever you said. Suddenly I feel my system is healed. My health is much better.'

I tell them: It is not simple listening. They are not ordinary words. You will see when these Truths are added into you, you will completely rethink. You will redesign

your whole life. What you think as desires, what you think as fear, what you think as worry, what you think as depression, all these things will suddenly have new clarity. All these things will suddenly disappear. When the load is taken out of your inner space, there is nothing else but healing. Healing is the only thing that can happen to you.

The physical body is the first layer. The movement of prana is the second layer. The inner chattering is the third layer. Emotions form the fourth layer. The silence you experience during deep sleep is the fifth layer. In deep meditation, the joy and the intense vibrant silence that you experience is the sixth layer. Enlightenment is the seventh layer.

In the deep sleep state, it will be the graveyard silence, a negative silence. In meditation it will be intense silence. There is a big difference. When you fall asleep and come back, you will not become more intelligent. But when you fall into meditation and come back, you will be more intelligent and more blissful. When you fall asleep and come back, you may be fresh or more relaxed. But you will not be more blissful. But when you fall into meditation and come back, that silence is called intense silence, a live, vibrant silence.

Chapter 12

Samskaras in the Seven Layers of the Body

We store different samskaras in each of the seven different layers.

The samskaras related to chronic fatigue or tiredness are stored in the physical body. That is why when you try to do some exercise, a workout, or even simple walking,

the first thing the body will bring out is tiredness. But without bothering about these first level samskaras which are rising, if you continue to enter into it, suddenly you will see that the same action brings energy out of you. If you start walking, in few minutes, your mind will suggest ten times, 'I am tired. No...It is too much! We did enough! That is enough for today. Tomorrow we can do.' But if you don't bother about these samskaras and just go ahead, in a few minutes, the same action will bring energy.

I always tell people, 'karma phala tyaaga' not 'karma tyaaga'. The results of the actions should be surrendered, not the action itself. Karma tyaaga is very easy. That is why the whole spirituality has suffered so much. The worst thing that happened to Bharat was we not following our tradition, not following what Krishna has said.

But constantly, I am seeing, these superficial analytical reports going on abusing the Hindu tradition. The other day I was reading an article, there was a technical term they started using, 'Hindu rate of growth'. I was surprised!

He means the suffering of Bharat is because of our traditions. Itis not. The suffering of Bharat is because we did not follow our tradition, we did not imbibe our tradition. Instead of doing karma phala thyaaga, we started doing karma thyaaga. That is why we are stuck in the first layer, the physical layer itself.

I have seen this in many places, especially villages. There are some great things that are practiced in villages. But there are also the wrong understandings of the Truths like karma thyaaga instead of karma phala thyaaga.

For instance, in the morning until ten o' clock, you will see tea shops filled with people who will just be sitting and talking. If you want to listen to the great Vedantic truths, go to the village tea shops in the morning! You will see, the people will be sitting and just sipping the tea and philosophizing, 'Oh! Without god's grace nothing can be done! Only by god's grace anything can happen.' These are all great truths, but just to justify what they are doing, not to internalize! Karma pala thyaaga is the truth but karma thyaaga starts happening if you are stuck in the physical layer.

The chronic fatigue is deeply related to the intense craving for rest.

Please understand, this intense craving for rest brings diseases which will put you in the bed.

Actually if you see any advertisement for resorts, especially beach resorts, it will have a beautiful beach, an easy resting chair and a picture of somebody resting and looking so relaxed. The moment you see that, immediately something starts happening in you. You feel you should also be lying like that, completely resting, totally in peacefulness, in the deep peace. At that moment you see that something in you is awakened. That is what I call intense craving for tamas.

Understand: If you really find that same beach, that same chair and lie down, you will not have that same peace which you visualized. Till you exhaust the tamas engrams, the lethargy engrams that you carry in the physical layer, you cannot rest. Your desire for rest will not let you rest because the desire is from engrams, from samskaras.

Even if you find the same beach, same chair, same bench, same place, try to lie down. The moment you start resting, in a few minutes, this samskara will settle down and the next layer samskara will start. Even the decision to rest, if it is based on a samskara, you cannot rest.

There is a very beautiful story in the Upanishad:

A disciple goes to the master and asks, 'Master, please give me the method for enlightenment.' Master says, 'Just take

these 400 cows and when they become 1000 cows, come back.' The modern day disciple would have said, 'What! You are making 600 cows out of my enlightenment! You are trying to make more cows out of my seeking.' But the disciple is really a sincere disciple. He did not bother, he just took the cows. And the story says, when the cows had become one thousand, when he came back, master says, 'Now we have a thousand and one cows'.

In Vedic tradition, cows are highly respected as sacred. So, master says the disciple is also now raised to that level of sanctity.

Continuously when you work with cows, they cannot let you rest. They don't know you are working 24 hours. They don't know there is nobody else to replace you! They don't know any particular day as a holiday. They don't know one person can work only an eight-hour shift! They do not have all these problems. They will constantly demand your attention. In the disciple, the deep desire for rest had disappeared because of his working continuously with the cows.

I can say that the deep desire for vacation or the deep desire for rest, the chronic fatigue, if it leaves your system, 90 per cent of your spiritual journey is over. This first layer samskara is the worst problem.

The next layer is the prana or breath layer. The samskaras related to desire are stored in the prana, the breathing. That is why, whenever your desires are changing, suddenly you will see the breathing pattern will also change. For example, if you are caught by strong desire like lust or anger, your breathing pattern will change; it will be chaotic.

The third layer is the mental layer. In the pranic layer, which is the second layer, you store your thoughts about how your life should be. In the mental layer, you store your engrams about how your life shouldn't have been - guilt.

If your energy moves towards the future, it is desire. If your energy moves towards the past, and continuously it is revolving only around the past, it is called guilt. If it is flowing continuously towards the future, it is desire. If it is flowing continuously towards the past, it is guilt.

The fourth layer is to do with emotions. In this layer, you store all the visualizations related to pain.

Understand, the fourth layer is a very powerful layer. In the fourth layer, you don't need any action or information to strengthen the engrams. In the first two layers, you need to do some action to strengthen your engrams. For example, in the case of the desire for vacation, the more you give in to the desire for vacation, the more the desire will be strengthened. In the same way, for the other desires also, the more you enter into action based on those desires, the more the engrams will become strong.

In the case of the third layer, related to guilt and its related engrams, you don't need to do the same action. Just the information or remembrance about that action will strengthen the engram. For example, if you have seen the same place, or if you are seeing the same person, if you are seeing the same situation, immediately those engrams will become strong and they will be awakened.

In the case of the fourth layer, the pain layer, neither do you need action nor do you need information related to pain. So, you don't have to have the same pain again and again. You don't even need to receive information related to that pain. Just the engrams are enough, they can multiply. They can simply expand and multiply.

The fifth layer is the layer you experience in deep sleep. Even though there are engrams in this layer, you cannot do anything about them, because in the deep sleep, your mind cannot do anything. It is an unconscious layer.

In the first four layers, if you can reduce the depth of the engrams, samskaras, the fifth layer and the sixth layer will be cleansed naturally. The fifth layer will be cleansed if you clean the first four layers. If the fifth layer is cleansed, you will start experiencing the sixth layer more and more. The sixth layer is the meditation layer.

If you are getting into the deep sleep layer more easily, it means the first four layers are clean. If the first four layers are not clean, then you will suffer more in the fifth layer. That is why, when you have more stress and load, a lot of suffering related to sleep starts happening in life.

Sleep has become a big problem. Now, especially in the developed countries, I am seeing, they are able to get beds but not sleep! Their infrastructure has created the facility to have beds and different temperatures, different comforts and so many other things, but not sleep, because there is too much stress.

Not only that, if the engrams in the first four layers are too many, in the fifth layer, the relationship between you and your body gets disconnected. Reducing the engrams in the first four layers is making friends with your body.

We don't realize how we are abusing the body. Understand, if you are overweight, it is directly connected to some of these engrams. When you feel emptiness inside, lonely, you start filling it. You start filling it with food or by drinking. Usually women choose food. And men decide on drinking. Of course, in the modern developed society, you can't generalize! When you are feeling empty and lonely, you have to fill yourself with something.

Every single thing happening in your life is directly connected to some engrams. Removing these engrams, I can say, is making friends with your body, creating a deep friendship with your body. This is the best way to heal.

The other day, I received a big letter and a report from one of our devotees in USA. She came to our program around two years ago. Of course, she did the same meditation which we are going to do now. She had a tumor in the muladhara chakra, root center. She had surgery three times. She herself is a doctor. But again and again, the

tumor was growing in the same place. She came and she was doing this meditation which we are going to do today. And she was weeping uncontrollably. I tried to tell her, 'Please relax'. But it was uncontrollable. Anyhow, after the meditation, I asked her, 'What is the problem?' She said, 'I suddenly again re-lived the guilt'. At a young age, she had been physically abused by some of her close relatives. She said, 'Suddenly that samskara opened up, that guilt opened up. I re-lived it. That's the reason I was not able to control. Please forgive me Swamiji!' I said, 'That's ok. Let it leave your system.'

Re-living is relieving. Understand, consciously re-living is relieving. And this lady said, 'After that relieving, after that meditation, within a month, the tumor disappeared and never came back. Now at least one and half years are over, it did not come back.' Relieving the guilt, releasing all the samskaras heals. It is shocking but the guilt which she created in her young age not only evolved as a hatred towards that person, it had also evolved as a hatred towards herself and that part of her body! So the hatred had become tumor and sickness. When that engram was

released, the guilt was released, when the guilt had left her system, suddenly she came back to health.

We store so many pains and sufferings, so many physical and mental illnesses in our system in the form of some engram or the other. Not only diseases, even disorders like obesity or other disorders are also directly connected to some of our engrams.

Working on the engrams of the first four layers and re-living them and relieving them will heal your system very powerfully.

Understand, it is a strong technique. It is at least 100 times more powerful than any yoga or kriya you can do.

No doubt yoga or kriya heals, but it takes its own time. But meditation is like directly attacking the root center, the root cause of suffering. Yoga starts working on your physical body, exhausts all the tamasic engrams and heals you. Kriyas, the breathing techniques, start working on your pranic layer, the second layer and release the desire engrams, reduce the stress and start healing. But the meditation technique can work up to the fourth layer. The meditation technique straightaway works up to the fourth layer and heals you. That is why it is so powerful.

But for the technique to work on you, you need complete involvement and interest. You need to put your whole attention and awareness into the technique. If you can go into it and come out, you will see miracles happening inside you.

Understand: if you don't know the science of miracles, you will be making accidents. If you know how to use your inner space, you will be making miracles. If you don't know how to use your inner space, you will be creating accidents. Both are beyond your logic.

You see, miracle and accident are both beyond your logic.

If the effect is favorable to you, desired by you, you call it a miracle.

If the effect is not desired by you, if it is not benefiting you, you call it an accident.

If you know how to use your inner space, you will be constantly making miracles. Purifying the inner space is the plan for miracles. If you don't know how to use your inner space, you will constantly be creating accidents because you will be attracting the same frequency

incidents in your life. This is a wonderful truth which you need to internalize. Not only internalize, experience also, by entering into the process.

Understand: I don't even want to use the word 'meditation technique' for what we are going to do today. Today, we are going to do two things. One is a process. Maybe the second one can be called meditation. The first one cannot be called meditation, because it is more like re-living, going into all the things about which you are afraid, all the things which frighten you. Facing them, living them and re-living them, is what I call 'reliving'. Re-living is relieving.

Then we will enter into the meditation technique. It is a very powerful technique, which you can carry and practice in your home everyday.

Now I will take a few minutes to analyze whatever I expressed. Please understand, whatever I expressed is more like 'Athaato Brahma jignyaasa' or 'Let us inquire into the reality'. I have proposed whatever I wanted to propose. Now, you can analyze it through your questions. It is like a journey where the master's experience and the disciple's logic is used to do the churning. When the disciple's logic is used to work on the churning with the

master's experience, suddenly you will see the amrita – the sweetness. The master's experience comes out. If the disciple's logic is not intelligent enough to stay with the master patiently, then that logic emits something which is called poison. That logic will escape and run away out of its tiredness. It thinks it is not going to survive, so it emits poison.

In the story of the churning of the milky ocean, Vasuki the snake emits poison when it is used as the churning rope by the gods and demons. The disciple's logic is just like Vasuki. When Vasuki thought it couldn't survive, it started vomiting poison. When the logic feels it can't survive these great Truths and it is going to disappear as life is going to take a different direction, it vomits the poison called doubt, and creates problems.

If you have patience to work with the master's experience, you will see that the amrita of enlightenment comes out of your system. Let us churn the master's experience with our questions, so you can internalize all these great Truths, all these great revelations. Now we will enter into the process and the meditation technique after your questions.

A: I think we answered the same question yesterday. Do not decide that you should recite all the 1008 names. Devi is not sitting and taking accounts whether you recited all the 1008 names or not! Whatever makes you feel that oneness, that blissful state, recite those names and cherish. Enjoy those experiences and that mood and rest with that. If you really feel that you are in that state, further chanting will disturb that state. Just close the book and leave it. You achieved what needs to be achieved through chanting. Do not use the technique to disturb your peace! Sometimes you overdrive, you try beyond the point which you need to reach. So, do not overdrive. Stop where you are supposed to stop. So, start staying in that state whenever it happens by not doing anything. That is the best way to let that experience settle in you again and again.

I tell you, whether the master is enlightened or not, if your heart feels connected, go behind him. Even if he is not enlightened, you will become enlightened. Understand, if your heart feels connected, just go behind him. Even if he is not enlightened you will become enlightened.

If your heart does not feel connected, even if he is enlightened, he cannot help you. Even if he is enlightened, if your heart is not feeling connected to him, if you are not feeling that vibration, that ecstasy, that falling in tune with him, he will not be able to help you.

Just forget about it, so you don't have to bother about whether somebody is enlightened or not. Bother more about whether you feel connected or not. Judging the masters is one of the best ways to avoid spiritual growth. If you want to avoid spiritual growth, the best method is judging the masters. Start judging, so you don't have to judge yourself! The other day, one young man asked me, 'Like Vivekananda asked...' Ramakrishna, 'Have you seen god?' I am asking you, 'Have you seen god?'

I told him, when Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna said 'Yes' and Vivekananda was courageous enough to follow Ramakrishna. Not only have I seen but I can also show you god. Come with me.

The man just disappeared! We go on judging the master but we never worry about our qualifications.

I tell you, if your heart feels connected, if you feel some goodness being around him or some charm about him, just go behind him. Even if he is not enlightened, you can become enlightened. I have seen many disciples becoming enlightened, but the masters were unenlightened.

It is a very controversial question. I thought when I first read, I will avoid, but marriage is my favorite subject, so I don't want to avoid! Here he is asking, 'Animals don't get married and live a free life, why should we get married and suffer? Is there anything in marriage that is not provided for animals?'

Yes. Animals take birth as polygamous and die as polygamous. Human being in seed, in potential form,

when he takes birth, is polygamous but he should not die polygamous. He should have matured to become monogamous. Understand, that is what maturity is. Suddenly, you will see, when you start growing inside yourself, the deep friendliness liberates you from lust.

Please understand, just yesterday in our ashram, I was discussing this. In our ashramites' meeting I was teaching classes to my brahmacharis (unmarried disciples of the monastic order) about sannyas (life of disciples of the monastic order). The session had some very intimate questions and answers. There, I made a statement, a very important truth. It is not just for swamis, it is for everyone.

We need to understand, a deep friendliness will completely replace the need for lust. It is a very important sutra. Usually, in marriage, a deep hatred replaces lust.

A thirty-year-old man goes to the doctor. After a thorough medical checkup, the doctor says, 'Your health is not for married life. You have to completely drop your physical relationship. You have to be celibate alone. This man says, 'No, no, I am just thirty! I cannot suddenly quit; I cannot suddenly stop. Give me

some other alternative.' The doctor said, 'Ok, marry. Slowly it will automatically taper down!'

Understand, usually a deep hatred replaces your need for lust. But the truth is a deep friendliness can replace the need for physical relationship. If the deep friendliness replaces the need for physical relationship, that is what we call 'Vanaprastha' in the Vedic tradition, a ripened married life. When the married life gets ripened, it is called 'Vanaprastha'.

During the Vedic marriage, the blessing is given to the man, 'Let you become the eleventh son of your wife'. For the woman, the blessing is given, 'Let you become the eleventh daughter of your husband'. It means after ten years of living together, if the deep friendliness grows, suddenly you will see the need for physical relationship comes down, tapers down. So, I really feel the marriage system has something to contribute.

At least our masters had something in their heart when they created this system of family. So surely, marriage system has something to add to you more than just the animal life. I can say that something is the deep friendliness. I can say, the physical relationship is more like confirming whether the other person is still in need of me and wants me and wanting to know whether the other person still loves me or not.

If the guarantee, the confirmation, the security that the person is in love with you, needs you and will miss you, settles down in both the hearts, suddenly, you will see the need for physical relationship comes down. I can say, that is the gift, the fruit that you were supposed to have from the proper marriage system. That is the thing that animals cannot experience. Polygamous man can never experience the guarantee, the insurance that the other person loves you. If you experienced that, you have lived a pure fulfilling life, the life of a true, Vedic traditional 'grihastha'.

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

Just decide consciously, from today, I am going to live the reality, the truth of my Being. That is the decision. You have become the master, that's all! I always tell people, when I say I became enlightened on a particular day, do not think something has happened in my system. Of course,

something has happened, but that is not the actual main thing I want to convey. The first thing that happened was very consciously, I decided, let me live my enlightenment. Because I decided, as a side-effect, something started happening in my body and mind. But people always think, first the experience should happen and then you decide. No! First the decision has to happen. Then the experience happens.

So, nobody needs to choose you. You have to choose yourself. That is the best thing. Fortunately there is no election for choosing the masters.

Yes, wonderful, you really had a good meditation. The vibration in the spine means that part of the Kundalini energy got awakened. That is a good experience.

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

asking: I want to know the purpose of our life, purpose of our world, purpose of our universe and purpose of our god. The purpose of your life is the purpose of the universe. The purpose of the universe is the purpose of god. It means the purpose of your life is the purpose of god. Be very clear, find out the purpose of your life and you will be able to find out the purpose of god. But unfortunately, I cannot tell you the purpose of your life.

One more important thing, whatever you think as the purpose of your life, you will attract that kind of universe around you. You will create that kind of world around you. You will be devoted to that kind of god.

Understand, the purpose of your life decides the purpose of your world, the purpose of your universe and the purpose of your god. If your purpose is just money, you will create that kind of a corporate world around you, you will create that kind of a corporate universe. You will understand the whole universe as a company.

The other day, I was reading a wonderful article describing the whole universe as a company, Global Earth Holdings. If the purpose of your life is just money, the whole world will look like a corporate company. It will feel like the universe is a corporate company and you will

be naturally attracted to the god who gives or whom you believe will give money.

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

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

If you feel that you want both money and enlightenment, then your universe will be that way. You will create that kind of a world around you. You will feel attracted to the corresponding god.

So, I can say, the purpose of your life is the main core or thread. Unfortunately… I am sorry… fortunately... I cannot teach you that! You only have to find it out.

When an individual soul wants something, we can only bless for that individual decision. See, nobody can interfere

with individual freedom. If the person wants to marry, you can't make her a sannyasi. If she wants to become a swami, you can't make her marry. Whatever she wants, let that happen. Only that is the right thing. I can only give that blessing. Also, I think you also expect only that, because here you have said, 'Please kindly bless my daughter'. What she wants, let her achieve, let her be successful in that. That's what I can say.

It is a very nice question. You are asking, 'If life is a dream, how can a master who is appearing in that dream pull me out of it?'

Understand, in the night, if you dream that a lion is chasing you, 'simha swapna', the lion is chasing you in the dream only, but the lion in the dream can pull you out of that dream. Simha swapna can just make you wake up. If you see a lion in the dream, what do you do? You just wake up. The very fear makes you just wake up.

Just like how the 'simha swapna' can wake you up, the master who is happening in this dream can lead you to

enlightenment. Master is a simha swapna. Understand, he is a simha swapna. He can just wake you up.

It will permanently bring you out of negativity. Just go into it.

Understand, surrender the idea that you are a stupid disciple. That is an important thing. Here you have surrendered everything except for the idea that you are a stupid disciple. Surrender the idea that you are a stupid disciple. Then you will be able to understand what I said. Then you will not say this is too much.

People come and tell me, 'Swamiji, I'll do whatever you say, but not all these meditations.' What do you mean? Meditation is what I am telling you to do. So do that, otherwise it is contradictory. Surrender to me, guru bhakti

is supposed to lead you to atma bhakti. That is the reason for guru bhakti.

If you say, I am surrendered to you but I am stupid, this is too much for me, then don't think you have surrendered to me. You have surrendered many things to me but not the idea that you are stupid. Surrender that and you will realize the truth.

The unique thing with enlightened masters is their immense practicality. When people come and tell me, 'I have too many worries. What to do Swamiji?' I tell them, 'Just worry and suffer! The suffering will teach.'

They come to me thinking I will give them some consolation. Consolation is the worst nonsensical thing to delay your growth. Just suffer. Suffering is powerful enough to teach. You see, either you be intelligent and learn from the master, or suffer and life will teach you, that's all. It is a little harder way, but no problem. Just suffer, life will teach, so do not try to avoid suffering.

When you decide I have to suffer, then naturally you will see one or two simple teachings, your mind will start picking up and start practicing. Usually when people come and ask me, 'I am suffering too much, give me some

way,' if I give them some meditation, they will say, 'Oh! I don't know this meditation…' and if I give them some proper technique, after one month they will come and say, 'Now I have one more worry, I am not able to practice meditation.' They will only add more and more worries because their very tendency, their basic structure is to worry. Nothing can be done.

I tell them, 'Just suffer!' Then they start getting defensive, 'What! How dare he tell me to suffer! I will come out of the suffering.' I tell them, 'This is what I wanted. Please come out.'

You see, human beings have become such that if one has to do anything, it will start happening only with vengeance or with a challenging mood. We forgot doing something based on inspiration. Only with a challenging mood, violence, we even come out of violence! Even to come out of violence, we need a little violence. That's why I tell people, suffer, it is ok.

Sometimes, I make fun of people who are suffering. Then, immediately they come out of suffering. They just come out because they don't want anybody to make fun of their suffering!

What do you think you are doing? Have you given up everything to come and sit here? No! Now you can go into the fifth stage or beyond the fourth stage. See when I said that statement, it was a technical detail.

Sometimes, people think everything can happen just by their effort; just to tell that it does not happen that way I said so. But otherwise, you don't need to do much else. Just work on this fourth state, you will see the fifth state will automatically become cleansed.

Even before working on the fourth, they have already started worrying about the fifth. I've seen these people, they don't think about how to cleanse the fourth layer and work on it. The moment there is something which I said you can't do, immediately where does your attention go? No, I should do only that! That is why, many times I tell, you can't do meditation. That is only for intelligent people. Immediately they start doing, they just want to prove!

Anyhow… here is a question that I am not even able to read. It says, 'To seek…' after that I am not able to read.

There is a story I always tell:

One man gave an ad in the local newspaper, 'We need a person for the post of manager, who knows how to read and write French.'

One application came, 'I can write but I can't read.' The man who posted the ad was surprised, 'Who is this person who says that he can write but he can't read?'

He called that applicant for the interview. The applicant came.

The interviewer told him, 'I want a manager who knows how to read and write French.' The applicant replied, 'I already applied, I told you in my application that I can write but I can't read.'

The interviewer said, 'Please write'.

The applicant scribbled something on the paper. The interviewer saw the paper, picked it up but he was not able to understand anything. He said, 'What did you write? Read and tell me, I don't understand.'

The applicant who wrote said, 'I told you, I can only write, I can't read!'

So I think, somebody like that wrote the question. They can only write, they can't read!

I can tell you, first bring a smile onto your face. That is the purpose of your life. Then let that smile overflow, and bring the smile on every other person's face. Yes, if you don't have a smile on your face, and you are trying to bring it on another's face in the name of service, you will just be expressing and imposing your ego on others.

An NCC teacher told all his NCC students, 'Everyday, you should do one good activity and come and report.'

One day, three boys stood up and said, 'Sir, today we helped an old lady to cross the road.' The teacher was surprised and curiously asked, 'Why do you need three persons to help one lady across the road?'

One of the boys replied, 'Yes Sir, it took three persons because she didn't want to cross!'

Understand, many times, your service ends up in imposing your ego. So, let you bring a smile on your face, let a deep contentment settle. I always tell people, if you can solve all the problems of your life, just by your knowledge-weapons, shaastra-shastraas, inner clarity, inner healing, then start doing service.

First thing you need to do is solve your life by having the clarity about jeeva, jagat and ishwara. Jeeva is Self, jagat is world, and ishwara is god, source of the world and self. Then start doing service. Work intensely for this inner clarity within yourself.

The self-healing clarity, the inner clarity is so powerful it will release so much peace in you. Suddenly you will see the problem on which you were pondering, worrying, planning and getting confused, disappears and you are in that restful awareness. You are in that deep state of rest. That is the way you can identify the inner healing.

Why are you creating a problem? If you say you witness there are no thoughts, just celebrate you are in a thoughtless state. Enjoy that you are in a thoughtless state.

Why do you think you should have thoughts and you should witness? You are only creating more problems. If you think when you witness, you don't have thoughts that is what we want. Just be relaxed, do not bother about thinking. Let you be constantly in the witnessing mood.

A: Both the technique which I gave yesterday, and that which we are doing today, you can use when needed. But the technique which we are going to do tomorrow, is what I recommend for you to do everyday.

A: First thing, I don't think the outer systems of tradition have been used or misused for power as much as you are told. Maybe, any system, when it is used by an uninspired personality, the system will be misused but that applies for any system. So, maybe in the spiritual system, one or two uninspired people entered, and the system might have been misused by those people. But that does not mean the whole system is a failure! And you have been told too many times about those one or two mistakes.

You see, any system, whether it is social, political, or economic system, you don't go for an alternative even if you know the amount of abuse and misuse happening.. And you are told very little about the mistakes and abusive happenings in those systems. But unfortunately, about spirituality and tradition, I think you've been given too much information about small things. And you start thinking of replacing it, you start looking for an alternative. Do not think so many problems have happened, as you have been taught or told.

You have to ask them, not me! At least I don't chant!

Two things, there are so many things related to this question. First thing, I don't feel connected to this name. That is the reason I don't bother, or I don't feel pride when they chant, or I don't feel anything fulfilling when they chant. Second thing, maybe my name has become a brand name for my philosophy.

It is like, if you remember a particular shop's name, you remember all the products inside that shop. In the same way, for my disciples, maybe my name has become the center word for all the teachings which they received from me. To remind themselves of all the teachings they received from me, maybe remembering my name will be useful. That's the reason they may be using it. That's all the reasons I can find or analyze. More than that, only they can tell.

If repeating my name helps you to remember my teachings, then it will be perfectly alright, otherwise don't do it. Otherwise better remember your name. That is good

for you. If it helps you, if it inspires you to remember my teachings, and experience, then you can remember my name. And another thing, if you feel like remembering my name, then remember, otherwise don't bother; don't worry about why they are remembering. It is their headache; they may be feeling helped; so let them remember.

There is a beautiful incident in Ramana Maharishi's life:

Every Saturday, in his presence, his disciples would chant 'Ramana Satguru' - Ramana Maharishi's name as a song. He himself would sit and enjoy. Somebody asked him, 'What kind of an enlightened being are you? You are enjoying your own name being chanted.' Ramana Maharishi says very beautifully, 'Why are you reducing such a great power Ramana to this 6-foot body? Why are you reducing that great Ramana to this 6-foot body?'

He says it is a great power, it is a great energy. Just like you are all enjoying the name, I am also enjoying the name. So, you don't have to reduce that name to this 6-foot form.

In the same way, you don't have to identify. Still I don't sign my name. When people ask for my autograph, you will see I will only be writing the mantra which I used before

my enlightenment, because I don't feel psychologically connected to my name. From a young age, I had so many names. Parents called me by one name, friends called by another name, a nickname, and now the disciples are calling me by another name. The master who initiated gave a different name. So many different names! Somehow I do not feel psychologically connected, that's why when people ask me to autograph, I only use the mantra which I used before enlightenment.

I think it is time we enter into the meditation because many of these questions will disappear in the process. Understand, we are going to do two things. First thing we are going to do is re-living. Second, we are going to do the meditation technique.

What do I mean by the word 're-living'? Consciously enter into the memories which you don't want. Consciously enter into your guilt, your pain and the many suppressed desires, which you don't want to remain as part of your inner space. Whatever you are avoiding, just consciously re-enter into them.

People get frightened when they hear this and ask me, 'If we enter, will it not become strong, will it not become reality?' Fortunately, you are not that powerful to make

your thoughts into reality. So, don't bother. When you consciously enter into them, those engrams, if they are in some way going to be good for you, will become part of you.

22 December, 2006

I welcome you all with my love and respect. Today's subject is 'unclutching' – the de-programming of the inner self to experience your true Self.

Chapter 13

Let's get ready to experience initiation. Understand, today is the main part, the essence of the three days.

Let me define the word 'initiation'. Day before yesterday, I was using the word 'psychological revolution'. Yesterday, I introduced the word 'shaastra-shastra' or knowledgeweapon.

Whenever you need to heal yourself, whenever you need inner healing, you need to bring yourself again to the life energy. Many times you can see, a simple

disturbance from the outside or from the memory inside - either from experience or from memory - can drain your energy. Or even making too many decisions drains your energy.

You can see in your own life: in the morning, if you go and sit in your office, you don't have to do any work, just make some five to six major decisions, and you will be already tired. You say, I am done, that's all.

Either the incidents from outside or memory from inside or just simple decision-making makes you tired. The truths, ideas, words which bring you out of that tiredness, which bring you out of that low mood, which bring you out of that depression and give you energy and confidence, those only

I call shaastra-shastraas, knowledge-weapons.

The truths which not only bring you out of depression but also destroy the source of depression once and for all are called mantra. Understand the

word 'mantra'. 'Man traayate iti mantraha', the words which show the path for human beings is mantra.

Part 4: Why Meditation_English_part_4.md

Any mantra, if it comes from the enlightened experience, from the pure inner space, you do not know why, how or what, but you suddenly see it is true. It clicks, even though one part of your The truth that not only brings you out of depression, but once and for all, breaks the source of depression in you, is called mantra.

logic continues to fight, because if you accept the Truth and start expressing in your life, all your vested interests and many things which you thought of as 'life' are at stake.

That part may continue to fight. But your core, your being, will have that click, 'I know what he is saying is the Truth. Maybe, it is too strong for me; maybe if I start living it too many things are at stake, but it is the Truth.'

This can all be a confusion or disturbance. There may be a doubt in the corner of your You don't know logically, but suddenly your heart feels connected to the words which he is uttering, the Truth which he is expressing. That connection, that 'click' is what I call initiation.

heart, but the very core feels connected. If that happens to you it is called initiation.

Please get ready for initiation. Today we are going to enter into initiation.

I am trying to express some Truths. Understand, yesterday whatever I added is shaastra-shastraas, knowledge-weapons; they can bring you out of depression, they can bring you out of that low mood, they can bring you out of that dull feeling and get you into an inspiring and healing mood and an energetic feeling.

But today, what I am going to share can break the very core of depression, what we call 'root of your mind'. There is every possibility; just be available, receptive, and ready to let this satya or Truth, work on you. Suddenly you will see that click, that initiation happen in you.

Just do not sleep whether with closed eyes or open eyes!

Second thing, do not 'browse channels' like you do when watching television! While watching television in the house, you will not sit in front of one channel for more than five minutes. In fifteen minutes, you would have browsed all the channels and come back. The same thing continues everywhere, even when you sit in a discourse. After 2-3

minutes you change the channel. Your eyes may be open, you may be sitting here, but you change the channel and go into either the dream state or daydreaming state or almost-sleeping state! Just today, please do not change the channel!

Another thing, be completely relaxed and just play with the understanding of the words which come out of the enlightened inner space. Sometimes it will give you an idea, 'Oh, if I start practicing this, what will happen to…' Just push aside the prejudiced, pre-supposed and hypothetical questions.

Yesterday I saw many questions like, 'What to do if this happens…?' The 'if' has no answer. You can say, 'If the world suddenly disappears, if the world gets destroyed, what to do?' What to do, nothing can be done, that's all! That 'if' has no answer. The 'if' is just a cunning way of postponing the truth.

So now, just do not change the channel.

Second, just be relaxed, go with the flow, go with the whole expression.

Suddenly you will see somewhere it clicks. Somewhere, it just clicks! That click is what I call initiation. Initiation does not mean chanting some special mantra in your ears

or doing something special. It straightaway means making you experience a solid truth, giving you a clear inner space and the confidence to live that truth.

In the tradition of Vedanta, we have three beautiful words, shravana, manana and nidhidhyaasana. Shravana means intense listening; manana means internalizing, contemplating; nidhidhyaasana means living it.

If it is experientially transmitted, if you have at least one glimpse, then the initiation has happened; you are initiated.

It is not like a shop, where if you go to one shop, you don't go to another. Our ego is such, if it is beaten by ten to twelve gurus, only then it will die! It won't die just by something you learn from one person. So, there is nothing wrong in approaching different gurus.

Learn all the best things from all the sources and enrich your life. It is in no way connected to any of the old understandings you have about initiation.

Many times, when I start the initiation, I have seen people wondering, 'What does he mean by initiation? How is this going to help? How is this going to change my life? After all, it is just a few more words…' This is the usual mentality. Especially when I give such a big introduction about initiation, people think, 'Oh, he is wasting too much time on introduction. Why not enter into meditation, enter into the initiation?'

The big problem is, whether you believe it or not, it takes at least half an hour for you to start listening to somebody. For the first half an hour, you will be preparing your replies.

Usually conversation never starts till you are past half an hour into it. Until about half an hour, the listening never starts. It is just a monologue; it is just somebody talking, and either you will not be listening at all, or if you are listening, you will just be preparing your answers. That is the reason I am just preparing the mind.

Unconsciously, you also will be ready to receive these great Truths, to receive the initiation, to receive that click. At which moment the click will happen you don't know. But suddenly, once the expression of truth is over, you will see, you will feel, 'Yes, it is true, I am seeing it; it is true!…' So, just be prepared for initiation, entering into the truth.

Chapter 14

Let me express a keyword, I can call this word mahaavaakya. Mahaavaakya is the word which you need to completely understand; maybe this is the modern day mahaavaakya. That mahaavaakya is 'Be Unclutched'..

Now, let us try to analyze, understand and internalize this one truth, one mahaavaakya. We have various beautiful mahaavaakyas in the Vedic tradition: Aham Brahma Asmi; Tat Tvam Asi, so many wonderful mahaavaakyas.

'Be unclutched'. What do I mean by this word being 'unclutched'?

Let me try to explain it with a simple diagram how continuously our mind is working, and how we are clutching, connecting and creating suffering, how we are creating the ignorance or depression. Let me describe, then you will be able to understand what I mean by the word 'unclutching'.

How does our mind work?

How do we create thoughts and how do we give meaning to them?

How do we experience life?

Let us see…

There are various kinds of thoughts happening in our system. These different thoughts are represented as different shapes of varying lengths, breadths, and colors.

Sometimes, the thought is about some joyful experience which you had. At some other time, it is about some suffering which you had. Sometimes, it is about some guilt and at some other time, it is about some joyful memory. At one time, it is about some painful memory, then again, at some other time, it is a depressing memory… There are so many different thoughts.

Try this simple experiment. Write just for five minutes whatever comes in your mind, without editing, just as it is. Write whatever comes inside your mind without editing. Then read that page again. Suddenly you will realize you are nothing but a bunch of unconnected, independent, illogical, unclutched thoughts.

Please understand, the thinking flow which is happening inside of you is not logically connected. For example, if you see a dog on the street, suddenly you will remember the dogs which you have seen when you were a child, or the dogs about which you were frightened as a child. Then you will remember your childhood days, and the teacher under whom you studied. Then you will remember the place where the teacher stayed. The thought chain, the link will go on, but there is no logical connection between the dog which you saw in front of you on the street and the

teacher with whom you studied when you were young. Of course, both of them barked at you, shouted at you! There is no logic about how the mind moves.

Try this experiment just for five minutes. Just for five minutes, write down whatever comes. If you think no thoughts are coming, write that also. Honestly write whatever goes on inside, just like the medical transcription software that doctors use. Transcribe, as if your mind is connected to the transcription software. Whatever goes on inside, write with the same kind of grammatical errors, or same accent, or the same pronunciation, or same words. Even if it does not make any sense, just write it down.

Suddenly you will see, you are nothing but a bunch of independent, illogical, unconnected, unclutched thoughts. You do not know why the particular thought is rising after the current thought. There is no logical reason. Just something arises and then, something else arises; next, something else is arising… Thoughts are flowing, words are flowing.

Chapter 15

You start giving attention to it, either to fulfill or to escape. Understand, it is like slides on a projector. Any slide which is kept in

front of the projector light is seen as reality on the screen. The problem is that in your inner space, the projector light is not continuously on. It just comes and goes, comes and goes… but you are not aware of your existence. Many times, even though your eyes are open, even though your body is moving, you will not be aware of your existence.

You can see in your life, you will get into your car from your house, drive for half an hour to the office. Only after you reach the office, park the car, and come out of the car, suddenly you will realize, 'Oh, I finished my driving! I have reached the office.' You have taken 200 decisions in that half an hour. Right, left, applying brakes, stopping for signal… but you are not aware of your existence. That is why you don't remember all these decisions you took, and these things that happened in you. It means that in those few moments, the projector light was off.

Any slide, which was moving in front of it during those moments when the projector light of your awareness was off, is not part of your life. Again, for no reason, the light comes on. When the light is on, when you are aware that you exist, whatever thought moves in front of you, becomes a part of you.

Understand, it is a very subtle truth.

Unfortunately, many times, many major decisions, thoughts and the life-changing incidents happen when you are not aware. These are also part of your life, part of your biography but, unfortunately, you are not aware of the scenes, decisions, thoughts which went on, which contributed to your life.

Either directly or indirectly it will add to suffering. Either directly you will invite or indirectly you will create situations for suffering. It is a very important thing.

Like when you turn your car, the indicators blink, in the same way your consciousness

also blinks. You do not know when it is on, when it is off. If you just see the thought flow in front of you, suddenly you will realize, 'Oh god, all these things are going on in me! I myself do not know where I am heading. I myself do not know what is happening in me.'

First, I wanted all of you to understand, you are not aware of all the decisions, all the thoughts moving inside you, inspiring you to live the way in which you are living, inspiring you to think the way in which you are thinking, inspiring you to be the way you are.

Whenever I make this point, people get frightened, 'Oh god, I have enough suffering, now he is adding one

more suffering, one more fear! Now I don't know where I am heading.' Understand, I am not adding suffering. I am just helping you to experience and open up to reality.

One more thing: opening up to the reality, though it feels like suffering in the initial level, it will always lead you to joy and bliss, because sat, by its very nature is chit. Sat means the truth. By its very nature sat is chit, which means power, consciousness, and ananda, bliss. By its very nature sat leads to chit, and chit leads to ananda.

In the initial level it may feel like a little more responsibility, a little more load. Now, many of your minds would have decided, 'No, no, no… what he says may be right, that I am not aware of everything happening in front

of me, but I can't become aware of everything happening in front of me. Living in the present moment and being aware of whatever is going on is not for me. I tried many times Swamiji; you don't know how many techniques I've tried!…'

Understand, we are not as dumb as we think! We have a huge possibility, a huge potentiality. Maybe, the right initiation has not happened, the right click has not happened. So, don't close the file saying, 'No, no, no… I have tried many times; you don't know how many gurus I went to and how many techniques I have tried.'

There are many people whose 'profession' is seeking; I call them 'professional seekers'. But, they don't go for learning; they just go for judging, 'Let me also see what he is teaching.'

People come to me and ask, 'I know everything Swamiji, just give me in essence what extra you can add to me. I tell them, 'Sorry, I don't know anything extra to add to you! I can only remove something from you. I can remove what you think as knowledge, so that the truth can happen.

Please do not come to the decision, 'No, no, I think he is going to teach living in the present moment. I have tried many times, it does not work out, and even if it works out it goes away after some time. No, I am not going to teach

you living in the present moment, because you are living that already, why should I teach it! Even if you are suffering about your past, you are suffering in the present. Even if you are worrying about your future, you are worrying in the present. So, you are in the present. I am not going to teach you to be in the present. All I am doing is to try to take away some ideas, which you think of as your mind.

That is the first truth.

If your thoughts per second or what I call 'TPS' comes down, you will have clarity about your past and future. You may wonder, 'Clarity about past? I already have clarity. Why should I have clarity about my past by bringing the TPS down? I already know my past.' No!

Please understand, you don't know your past. You don't remember, or recollect the past as it happened.

Just take a simple example. See, your life is filled with different kinds of incidents relating to You recollect the past only as you want it, not as it happened.

joy, suffering, guilt, pain, depression. You do not look at life as it is. Usually what do you do? What do we do?

I used the word 'we' because sometimes people think the word 'you' is too condescending. That is the reason I used the word 'we'. The problem is, in a public place, we can neither use 'we' nor 'you'. If I say 'you', somebody feels condescended to. If I use the word 'we', if I also have the same problem, how can I teach you? That is the big problem!

Your life is a collection, a mixture of some joy, some suffering, some guilt, some pain… Usually, you collect only all the incidents related to suffering and create a shaft, a connecting idea, and you think your life is nothing but suffering.

Understand, you collect suffering, guilt, pain, depression… all these kinds of thoughts, connect them, and you think that your life is a long chain of suffering, a pain shaft. I have seen people, the moment I ask, 'How are you? Where are you from?', the first thing everybody

invariably starts with is, 'You don't know, Swamiji, nobody has suffered like me in their life…' This is a common introduction for their biography! 'Even my enemies should not suffer the amount of suffering I went through, Swamiji.' Even in suffering they want to be at the top and not second!

See, it is not that they just tell this to me, they believe strongly in this. They forget the joyful incidents, the happy memories which happened in between. They collect only the negative things and create a shaft. I call this a 'pain shaft'. Very rarely, sometimes, you create a joy shaft. It is very rare, not only in number, but also in quality, that you collect the joyful incidents and create a joy shaft and you feel life is joy. Most of the time you collect all the painful memories and incidents, and create the idea that life is pain.

Understand, if you create the shaft 'Life is pain' the problem is, you will just be waiting for more and more painful incidents to be added. For anything you believe in, you will collect more and more experiences and arguments to strengthen that belief. Once you believe your life is a long pain shaft, that is enough. You will just be waiting to pick up only the painful incidents and elongate that

shaft. You will never be able to remember or respect the joyful things happening in your life. You will be waiting, meditating for pain! I have seen people just waiting to add pain and elongate the pain shaft.

The important thing we need to understand is that we believe life is a pain shaft or that life is a joy shaft.

Understand, unconsciously what will you be doing? You will be continuously collecting more and more painful memories and incidents to strengthen your belief, strengthen the idea, but consciously, you will be trying to break the pain shaft.

In the diagram, I have given a gap after every thought. Different thoughts are like different shapes, different sizes, just coming and disappearing. If you think your life is a big pain shaft, a chain of painful incidents, then you will pick up only the painful things and add them.

The other day, one man came to me and said, 'Swamiji, I am going in for a divorce, please bless me.' I said, usually we bless only for marriage, not for divorce. Can you tell me the reason? Let me analyze.

Now, this man came and asked me, 'I am going to divorce; please bless me. I said, first let us analyze why you want a divorce. Then we will try to sort it out. He said that the immediate reason was that his wife while serving him his coffee spilt it on his shirt.

I was shocked and asked him, 'Don't you see clearly, it is not reason enough for divorce?'

He said, 'You don't know, Swamiji, today she will pour coffee, tomorrow she will pour acid!' He actually told me, 'You don't know, today she will pour coffee, tomorrow she will pour acid.'

I said, 'Why don't you be a little logical? Why don't you be a little truthful? How can you connect coffee and acid?

Don't you see the gap is too much?! You are creating too many ideas in your head.'

He protested, 'No, no, Swamiji, you don't know, how much I have suffered with her for the last ten years!'

I told him, 'Do not just create a pain shaft. Just come out with the incidents. Then we can analyze and look into it.'

The pain shaft will stay only if you are unconscious.

Please understand, your opinion about life as a pain shaft or a joy shaft will stay only as long as you are unconscious, not when you are aware.

I told him: 'Just come out, incident by incident, let us analyze.'

In South Bharat, there is a habit where, during the marriage ceremony, a small ring is kept in a small pot of colored water and both the bride and the bridegroom are supposed to try to pick up that ring. Whoever gets it wins. In those days such small games used to be played, because it was only during the marriage ceremony itself that the bride and bridegroom would see each other for the first time; so it was like a technique for zeroing down the distance between the couple.

This man told me, 'Even during that play she scratched my hand with her nail!'

I was really surprised. Then he started telling me all the incidents like this, from right after their marriage. After 2-3 minutes I said, 'Stop! Stop, Stop! This is much worse than a police record. I think you should not ask for divorce, your wife should ask for it having put up with you!'

You may laugh at this incident but actually if you see, this is exactly what we are doing continuously, sometimes about others, sometimes about ourselves. Continuously we are creating either a pain shaft or a joy shaft. One important thing we forget, neither can we break the pain shaft nor can we elongate the joy shaft, because neither shaft exists.

Just try to elongate the joyful moments. If some joy happens, try to hold on to that experience. It won't stay. Not only that, try to reproduce the same ambience, the same people, the same place, even the same temperature again as at the time you felt joy; still you will not have that same joy.

Addiction means believing that joy or ecstasy came due to some object or person or situation. People try to reproduce

the same thing again and again, even though the same joy or experience does not come back again.

Some people are addicted to partying, some people are addicted to smoking, some people are addicted to drinking, and some people are addicted even to newspaper reading, especially about violence. You do not know how much violence we are swallowing.

Understand, the more and more violence you swallow, you will become aware only if the violent pictures are moving in front of you. The projector light which is inside you comes on, the awareness that you exist comes to life only when the violent thoughts cross in front of you. It is like an automatic alarm clock. You tell yourself, 'I cherish this kind of thoughts; when these kinds of thoughts are coming in front of my mind, please wake me up.'

If you are enjoying lustful thoughts, whenever lustful thoughts cross your system, you will come to the awareness, 'I exist'. If you are enjoying violence, whenever the violent thoughts come into your system, you will come to life and know that you exist.

This is what I call vicious circle, you empowering negativity and negativity bringing you back to life; you empowering again more negativity, and more negativity bringing you to life and excitement.

That is why, if you

start cherishing violence, you don't have to reach hell, you are in hell! Even if you reach hell, you won't find any difference. See, I am not talking about getting information about life. For example, knowing about some accidents or murders that happened in your city is ok; it is knowing about life to be safe yourself. That is not what I am talking about. Many times we enjoy violence, reading tabloids and seeing violent scenes in the media.

An important thing we need to understand, the Western countries can afford to create violent movies; they can afford to create violent presentations in the newspapers, media or movies. They can afford because they have huge law enforcement and legal systems. There is no county, no village without a police station in the so-called developed countries. Of course, even with that, it is very difficult, but they can at least manage.

The other day, I was reading an article saying, with the support of a lot of scientific data and statistics, that in any city, if a boxing competition happens, within 30 days, the crime rate of the city goes up by 30%! In the same way, there was another study which said, that if a group of people meditate sitting in the center of the city, within 30 days, the crime rate of the city comes down by 67%. The study was done by one of the leading organizations teaching meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's TM group.

See, the West can afford to have these violent programs because they have the infrastructure to control and manage the society. In the USA, there is no county, no village without a police station and if you just dial 911, within 3 minutes, you will see a cop standing in front of your

home to take care of you, to attend to you. We can't afford to copy, duplicate and bring about the same violence in the East.

Bharat is running because of Ramayana and Mahabharata, not by any law enforcement control! It runs by the eternal Cosmic Constitution. We call it Sanātana Dharma. So, we can't afford to break it.

I want all our intellectuals to please understand, we can't afford to break our dharma. We don't have the infrastructure to replace it. If we dump our dharma, we don't have something to replace and maintain the social balance. If we are going to dump our dharma, we are swallowing too much of violence, too much of these tabloid ideas. If you see these people who read these weekly tabloids, you will see in them a very low level of consciousness. They will be constantly attracting accidents in their life, suffering in their life, because they are just waiting for painful incidents, because that gives them excitement.

Chapter 16

A very beautiful analogy by Ramana Maharishi: the dog will try to keep on biting the dry bone. As it keeps on biting, the bone will poke into its mouth. From its own mouth, the blood will come out, but the dog will think that the blood is coming from the bone and drink that blood, enjoy that blood.

Exactly the same thing happens in you when you swallow violence, when you eat violence, when you are digesting

violence. Save yourself from violence. Understand, it is not just the physical violence, even the psychological violence is constantly getting added into the society, into our system, from too many sources. If violence excites you, you will be waiting for those kinds of incidents in your life.

Understand, this is an important truth. The depression or low mood which you experienced 10 years ago, the depression or low mood which you experienced 9 years ago, the depression which you experienced 8 years ago,

the depression which you experienced 1 year ago, are all independent experiences that happened in your life.

Ten years ago, you would have been in depression because you don't have a son. Four years ago, you may have been in depression because you have a son! They are independent incidents causing independent experiences. But in the inner space, for the sake of convenience, you archive all the sufferings in one file for easy remembrance and easy reference. When you archive them all in one

file, by and by, you connect all these depressions and experiences and come to an idea, 'My life in the last ten years was depression.' No! All ten different depression experiences happened in different ways, for different reasons, at different times. But when you connect all of them and see, you come to an idea, 'For the last nine years, I have been in depression.'

The moment you come to an idea, 'I was in depression for the last nine years', now you create an enemy who does not exist. Now you start fighting with him, 'I have to come out of depression. What to do?' The moment you create the shaft that for the last nine years, you were in depression, now you know for sure, that for the next nine years you are going to be in depression.

You will say, 'Yes, for the last nine years I was in depression, then naturally, tomorrow morning I am going to be in depression. How can I suddenly come out? How is it going to happen? I am going to be in depression.' This is a passive agreement with your enemy.

Understand, first thing, you create an enemy who does not exist.

Second thing, you already made a passive agreement with your enemy.

Then how do you think you will not attract depression? You created the enemy who does not exist and already created passive agreement with him. Then, naturally, you will say, 'No, no, Swamiji, I am in depression, please do something.' My presence cannot help, only your presence can help you. Nothing else can be done.

People come and tell me, 'Swamiji, for the last twenty years I have knee pain.' No, it cannot be! Please, understand, it cannot be. I am not disrespecting you or adding more suffering to you by saying all the problems are in your head. No, I am not disrespecting you, I am just telling the truth: all the problems are in your head! I am just stating the truth.

The knee pain which you experienced two years ago, the knee pain which you experienced one year ago, the knee pain which you experienced two months ago, the knee pain which you experienced two hours ago are independent experiences. When you connect them and see, you stop the possibility of self-healing.

Whether you believe it or not, medical science proves that your body constantly updates itself and replaces itself

once in every 365 days. Your brain cells, the cells in your intestines are all replaced within a particular number of days. If you are carrying a particular disease for quite a long time, it means you have a strong belief that it is a continuous experience, it is a continuous shaft.

For example, once in 47 days, your intestine gets replaced completely. Understand, I am not saying that Ayurveda is telling so. If I say Ayurveda says so, you won't believe. Medical Your unconscious belief that something is a continuous experience forces your mind to bring the same pain and disease back.

science says so. The logical allopathic medical science is saying, once in 47 days your intestines are completely replaced. If you are carrying any disease related to the intestine for more than 47 days, even the new system which you create is carrying the same disease because you create it with the mental set-up, 'I have this problem, so I have to continue to have this problem. My new system should also have this problem.'

You might have heard about this story of a woodcutter:

There was once a woodcutter who was cutting a tree near the river when his axe fell into the river.

A goddess appeared and she brought a golden axe and asked, 'Is it yours?'

He said, 'No'.

Then she brought a silver axe and asked, 'Is it yours?' He again said, 'No'.

Then she brought his axe, made of iron and asked, 'Is it yours?'

He said, 'Yes, yes, it is mine.'

The goddess was very pleased with his honesty and handed over all the three axes to him.

Now, I will tell you the extension of the story, the second edition!

The same hunter was cutting the tree by the same river. He was being assisted by his wife. Suddenly, by mistake, his wife fell into the river.

The goddess appeared, brought a beautiful woman, and asked the hunter if she was his wife.

The woodcutter replied, 'Yes, yes, yes!'

The goddess got very angry and said, 'How dare you greedy fellow! Last time, when the axe fell into the river, you told the truth, but now when your wife fell, you are telling a lie.'

The woodcutter replied, 'No, no, you don't understand my problem. Last time you asked first whether the golden axe was mine, then whether the silver axe was mine, and then you showed me my axe. When I said the last axe was mine, you gave me all three. Now again, if you give three women to me what will I do! I know what suffering I am going through with one! That is the reason I took precautionary steps. Anything is ok, but please just leave me with one wife, not more!'

Anyhow, just like how that goddess was asking the woodcutter whether something better was his, in the same way, every time Parashakti is asking, 'Is this your new body?' She is creating a new body. The nature, the self-healing energy which resides in you is Parashakti, your Mother part.

Understand, the energy which is inside your body and rejuvenates you is the part contributed to you by your mother. It is from your Mother, Parashakti. Your physical mother is the representation of your Cosmic Mother. When the Cosmic Mother comes and says, 'Is this new intestine yours?', you say, 'No, no, no, bring my old one!'

Our mental setup is such that we strongly believe that depression or disease is a shaft happening inside us. It is

not. The depression you experienced ten years ago, the depression you experienced nine years ago, the depression you experienced eight years ago are independent, unconnected incidents, experiences. When you connect all of them and see, you create the pain shaft, the depression shaft, 'Oh, my life is depression!' Now you are ready to get defeated by the unknown enemy.

Understand, for the sake of convenience and easy reference, you put all the depression incidents in one file; by and by you started believing all of them are existentially connected. No, they are not existentially connected.

One more thing, the moment you believe all your depression is connected, you are a depressed being. The joyful incidents that happened in between the painful ones will be forgotten; you will not even remember them. Understand, you will not even remember them.

That is what I mean when I say that you don't have a clear picture about your past.

If you have a clear picture about your past, it will become a solid experience. It will not be a load; it will become strength. Undigested past is a load, digested past is strength. We don't digest our past. It just stays on us like a load, like a headache. When you connect all the painful incidents and create a pain shaft, you create an enemy who does not exist and you start fighting with him.

Please understand, I am repeating some of the words again and again because, suddenly, you might change the channel! If it is a little boring, please bear with me! I am repeating, so that it can enter into your system.

Somebody asks Buddha, 'Why are you repeating the same thing for forty years? He says, 'If you had heard the first time, why do you think I would repeat a second time!'

Chapter 17

Mind – Independent, Unclutched Thoughts

The shaft does not exist. Basically, your thoughts are independent, illogical, irresponsible, unconnected and unclutched. No two thoughts are responsible for the other's existence or disappearance, but you are afraid to believe in such an undefined frame of mind. You are afraid to live

with an undefined mind. So you try to define. Your trying to define is the first problem. When you try to define, you have to create some shaft, either as pain or as joy.

Understand, even with your spouse you live for a maximum of six months. Within six months, you create an idea about him or her. After that you live only with the idea which you have about the person, not with the actual person. Anything which the other person does, you will look through the lens of that idea only. In six months, you will come to an idea, 'Oh, this is the punishment given to me by god!' or 'I don't have to go to hell now; I am already in hell.' You will continuously see whatever he or she does through that mirror, through that glass. You don't live with a person, you live with a concept.

In the same way, you have an idea about your mind. You form either a pain shaft or a joy shaft. You live with that shaft, not with the experience.

Understand, it is like a fish tank. The water bubbles come in the fish tank. After every bubble there is a gap. Because the gap is too small you think it is a stream. It

is not a stream. Between any two thoughts also there is a gap. It is just independent, illogical thoughts moving.

The problem is, when you can't live or don't want to live with these independent, illogical movements, you create an idea of pain shaft or joy shaft and struggle with it. You create an enemy who does not exist and fight with it.

Now, all that we need to do is to stop creating this pain shaft or joy shaft, stop clutching all these painful incidents or joyful incidents and creating the shaft. The essence of whatever I was talking is, stop clutching and creating a shaft. That is enough, you will see, suddenly, the shaft disappears; the shaft does not exist.

Understand some of these important truths. Now we are coming to the initiation part. Any thought may suddenly click with you and you may feel, 'Yes! That is what is going on inside me; that is what I am doing.'

One important truth you should know: even if you want, even if you try consciously, you cannot possess or hold onto your suffering. Understand, it is a very important truth.

One person came and asked me an important thing, 'Swamiji, I am suffering with lustful thoughts. Please give me some solution.'

I told him, 'Just sit half an hour, your mind should not go anywhere else, you should just meditate on lustful thoughts. Think only lustful thoughts, no other thoughts are allowed.'

In ten minutes, he opened his eyes and said, 'I am not able to concentrate on lustful thoughts, Swamiji.'

I said, 'What are you saying? You told me just now you are haunted by those thoughts. I asked you to meditate on it; just be with it. Now you are saying, your mind is not staying on those thoughts. Your mind is going somewhere else!'

Understand: fortunately, you can have only one thought at a time, am I right? You can have only one thought at a time. The moment some other thought comes into your inner space, the earlier thought has lost its power or influence over you, am I right?

For example, the moment you decided to stand up and leave, you renounced the thought of sitting and listening. The moment you stand up, you renounce the thought of sitting; the moment you decided to sit down, you renounce the thought of standing up. Any thought which comes newly in you replaces the old thought. The old thought loses its power or influence over you, am I right?

A person once came and asked me, 'Swamiji, I am haunted by death fear. I have so much fear about losing my wealth, and about my death. Give me some solution. Please remove my fear.'

I told him, 'Please have a cup of coffee.'

He said, 'What do you mean, Swamiji?'

I said, 'Just think of having a cup of coffee and have a cup of coffee.'

He was not able to believe and asked, 'How can that help me?'

I said, 'The moment you are able to think of having a cup of coffee and decide to have a cup of coffee, the death fear which is haunting your inner space has left your inner space. Am I right?'

Unless the death fear which is haunting his inner space leaves his inner space, he cannot think of having a cup of coffee, right? So naturally, a simple thought to have a cup of coffee can remove the so-called powerful death fear.

Then he said, 'No, no, no, Swamiji, it looks too simple! The death fear comes back, what should I do?'

If it comes back, have one more cup of coffee, that's all!

He protested, 'No, no, no, you don't understand how seriously I am talking. You are playing with me.'

I said, 'I am not playing. It is just a simple thing.'

Understand, it is just a simple understanding. Fortunately, you can have only one thought at a time. The moment a new thought comes, it means the old thought has lost its power over you; otherwise, the new thought cannot come inside. If the old thought is so strong it will just multiply and sit in you. It won't leave your inner space. The moment a new thought comes, it means the old thought has lost its power over you and has left you. Only because of that, the new thought can come inside. So, the moment you have a thought to have a cup of coffee or a cup of water, the so-called death fear has left you.

The man was not able to understand. He said, 'No, no, no, it cannot be so simple. I am really having fear, Swamiji. It comes back.'

I told him, 'Alright, now you know the method how to replace the death fear once, then do the same thing again and again, that's all.'

He said, 'No, no, no, it comes back. Once I can drink a cup of coffee, next time what to do?'

I said, 'Have a cup of butter milk, that's all!

He could not accept, 'No, no, no, it comes back the third time.'

I said, 'Then, have a cup of water, that's all!'

Chapter 18

The new thought coming afresh proves that your inner space is now replaced by the new thought; the old thought has lost its power over your inner space.

Why should you be afraid of any thought that can lose power in your inner space? Why should you be afraid of it? Constantly we are carrying the fear that we will not be able to conquer the fear. We are carrying the fear we will not be able to conquer our attachment. We are carrying the fear we will not be able to go beyond our suffering.

Understand an important thing, this is what I call click, an initiation: if a thought can be replaced, if a thought can leave your inner space once, it means it can again and again be removed as many number of times as it comes. That's all.

People tell me, 'No, no, no, how many times can I replace?' Every time when it comes, have a cup of water in front of you, sip once, and keep it. Just play with your mind, tease your mind till it stops. Tease your mind till it stops. It might look very funny. You may say, 'No, no, no, it looks too simple. How can this be done? I might look like a mad person!' Nothing wrong! Looking mad is perfectly alright and better than being one!

Understand the simple truth, if a new thought can replace the old thought then naturally, no thought can occupy, possess and torture your inner space eternally. This is the click. This is the basic truth.

All you need is a cup of water to conquer your fear.

All you need is cup of coffee to conquer your lust.

But the mind says, 'No, no, no, it is not that easy. No, no, Swamiji, it comes back. What to do? It again comes back.' If it comes back you also again come back. You also again stand up. Understand, if you can replace the thought ten times, the eleventh time the thought will not come; the frequency will come down.

Fortunately, you have pure inner space which does not get corrupted by the flowing thoughts. That is the important thing.

Fortunately, you have a screen which does not get burned by the burning scene. If you project a burning scene on the screen through the film, will the screen be burned? No. In the same way, fortunately, you have a pure inner space, which does not get corrupted, polluted, or possessed by a particular idea or a thought.

Understanding this deeply can completely liberate you from all the sufferings you create for yourself. It can bring

tremendous self-healing into you, tremendous freedom to you, and tremendous courage and confidence.

See, now, if any fear arises in you all you need to do is, have a cup of coffee!

And one more thing: immediately, the mind will question, 'No, if I handle all fears like that, what will happen if my property is taken away? Who will maintain my family?' Don't bother.

All you need to do is stop creating the sufferings which you are creating, that's all.

Please be very clear, life does not happen because of you, life happens in spite of you!

Come back, unclutch again and again. Do not

clutch the thoughts and give meaning to them. Unclutch again and again, come back and rest.

You may ask, 'How to unclutch? I don't know. I don't think I can unclutch from my mind.' This very thought when it comes, 'I don't think I can unclutch from my mind',

you are already unclutched because the new thought can come only if the old thought can leave you!

Fear can come only if lust leaves. Lust can come only if the fear leaves. You can have a thought to have a cup of water only if the fear leaves. You can have a thought to have a cup of coffee only if the suffering leaves. The moment you are able to think that I should have a cup of coffee, already the so-called suffering has left. If that is sitting inside of your space how can you have a new thought? You can't.

Understand, handle the enemy one at a time. If you think, 'No, no, no, you don't know, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. I tried one thousand techniques; I can teach you many more techniques, nothing works. And my mind is not as simple as you think. Maybe your mind is simple, and that is why it worked.'

Please understand, even in our foolishness, we are not at the peak. That is one of the important truths we need to understand. All of us have a very clear idea that we are in the worst ignorance. No, it is not so.

Just a simple truth, if a simple thought of having a cup of coffee can come inside, it means any serious thought, be it pain, suffering or whatever, has left. That is why the new thought is able to come.

So, as long as you have freedom to entertain a new thought, you have the inner space to entertain the new thought.

The moment you bring the new thought, what happens? The old thought leaves you. Unless it leaves, you cannot bring a new thought.

Ability to Replace a Thought Vs Ability to Bring a Thought Back

Be very clear, your power to bring a new thought itself proves you have the power to drop the old thought. Instead of looking at the ability to replace, you look at the ability to bring it back. But you have both of these abilities.

You think, 'Oh, it comes back, it comes back, it comes back…' If you are constantly looking at the ability to remove, you will feel liberation.

Part 5: Why Meditation

Understand, what you mother, that you hatch.

The hen mothers the egg and gets the chicken out. Just a chicken comes out. If you are mothering the thought that you can replace any suffering, you will bring that into reality. If you are mothering the thought, 'No, no, whatever I replace will come back,' you will bring that in your experience.

Where you put your awareness, where you put your attention is the important thing. Understand, your very ability to get a new thought shows your ability to discard the old thought. Any thought can be discarded by If you are mothering the thought that it is going to come back, it will come back. If you are mothering the thought that it is going to go out, it will go out.

any simple thought. This simple understanding is more than enough to unclutch and to rest.

One important thing: whenever any fear, any unsolvable problem comes, all you need to do from today on is, have a cup of water, that's all! And just say, 'Ey! (You are just a thought.)' That's all. Your mind will get a little perturbed and shaken.

Understand, your suffering can rule you, just because you are afraid of it. Have you seen when these underworld

dons (godfathers) get created? They too will have the deep fear; but just your fear towards them will empower them. In the same way, your mind too has fear about you; but your fear towards your mind just empowers your mind.

This is the initiation.

There is a very beautiful story in Buddha's life:

Buddha says, 'Whenever I said in meditation, 'I am going to get up after a few hours,', I never became enlightened. Once I decided, 'If I am not going to become enlightened, I am not going to get up from this seat. Let this body dry up in this very place (idam aasanam shushyate shareeram

in Sanskrit). Till I become enlightened, I am not going to move.'

Buddha says, the moment he created that strong clarity, the authentic sankalpa (vow), the next second he became enlightened!

When you replace your suffering, if you are thinking, 'No, no, today I can replace ten times. If it comes back the eleventh time, I can only try tomorrow,', then nothing will happen. Decide very clearly, 'Till it stops coming, I am going to replace.' That is what I call courage, dheera. And once you have replaced it, you can start laughing at it, 'I was afraid of you for so many years, I was getting shaken by you for so many years! All it takes to push you out is a glass of water, a cup of coffee, nothing else!'

A thought to have a cup of coffee, a thought to stand up is more than enough to remove the worst suffering from your inner space. The problem is it looks too simple! People come and tell me, 'No, no, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, it cannot be so simple; I think you missed somewhere…!' People really think, I am too young; that maybe I know only a few things and that is what I am teaching.

Understand, the truth is simple.

There is a beautiful traditional song, 'O, so difficult to be a devotee of Shiva!'

Ramana Maharishi sang a very beautiful song, 'O, so easy is enlightenment!'

Unclutching – Your Very Nature

I tell you, it is neither difficult nor easy; even if I say 'easy', there is a little difficulty. It is not even easy. It is constantly happening in you! Every moment, a new thought is replacing the old thought.

Why are you afraid that you will bring your old thought back? It is like trashing your e-mails and bringing them

back from a trash can. You just deleted it and it is gone; now you are again going to the trash can and trying to bring that e-mail back! Relax.

Constantly your thoughts are getting replaced. This itself shows, nothing can possess your inner space. Nothing

can overpower you, nothing can overrule you.

Understand, it is a very simple truth.

If you can understand this one truth of unclutching and connect with this, if this one Truth clicks, this can destroy the root of ignorance, the root of the

mind. Nothing else is needed.

Understand an important Truth. Do not try to create one more shaft. Just realize that the shaft which you believe exists, does not exist. That's all you need to do. That's all you need to understand, and then rest in that unclutched awareness, nirvikalpa satya.

Let me explain exactly what unclutching is. When you sit for meditation, when you sit silently, you will see so many thoughts coming up. Do not connect all of them, and give a meaning to it. The moment you give meaning to the words, either you will try to suppress or you will try to execute. Either you will try to go beyond them, or you will try to suppress them.

Understand, creating a thought is Brahma's work, maintaining a thought by going behind it is Vishnu's work, destroying a thought is Rudra's work. If you stop doing all these three, you will become Parabrahma, that's all.

Relax from all the three - creation, maintenance and destruction. Relaxing from all the three is what I call 'unclutching'.

Let me give you one more detail, a very strong truth.

When a thought arises, if you start giving meaning to it, what will you do? Either you will try to do what the thought says, or you will try to suppress it, 'Don't come, wait. I am going to meditate'. Don't do either; instead of paying

attention to the meaning of the sound, just see the source of the sound, that's all.

Then your mind will say, 'No, I am feeling bored.' 'I am feeling bored' is one more thought. Why are you clutching? You see, why will you have the idea that you are feeling bored? The boredom which you experienced 10 years ago, the boredom which you experienced 9 years ago, and the boredom which you experienced yesterday are independent experiences. Why are you connecting all of them and giving the idea of boredom? Only when you connect all of them and give the idea, 'This is what is boredom', you will think, 'Yes, I am having the same experience, I am having boredom.' Do not connect. Unclutch and see.

Just see, if your mind says, 'I am feeling bored,' just say, 'What is boredom? Let me not give some meaning out of my past clutching. Let me see what you mean by the word 'boredom,' let me see what it feels like.'

Attack your enemy one thought at a time. If you think all thoughts put together is your enemy, you empower your enemy. Always understand, when you work with your enemy, divide and rule! If you think all your enemies are gathered together, you will start having all unnecessary fears.

Your enemies are not as intelligent as you always think. This is one of the important sutras. Understand, even in your life, your enemies are not that intelligent, cooperative and understanding as you might think. Just like you, they will also have problems among themselves.

If you think your mind is your enemy, do not empower it by saying, it is one single huge organism. No! Handle it one thought at a time, because in your hand, you have only one weapon, you have only one thought. One thought is one weapon. With one weapon, one thought, how will you handle ten thousand thoughts? No, you can't. So, break your mind also. Tell your mind, 'Come one thought at a time. We will see face-to-face...' Face every single thought. Unclutch from every single thought.

Your mind will say, 'No, no, no, half an hour I have unclutched. Now again thoughts are coming.' The unclutching that happened 30 minutes ago, the unclutching that happened twenty minutes ago, the unclutching that happened 10 minutes ago are totally different individual experiences. Why are you connecting all those unclutching

experiences and feeling that this unclutching and that unclutching are the same? No!

This moment, what is happening in you is an independent experience.

Please understand, you need to put your whole attention, your whole energy, your whole awareness, only then the click will happen. If that click happens, you are blessed. Because this single click can be used as a key for so many difficulties and problems in your life. It will revolutionize the way in which your mind functions, the way in which you make decisions, the way in which your fears strengthen you, the way in which your desires drive you crazy. The whole thing will be reorganized. The whole thing will be revolutionized.

Chapter 20

If you know any big idea or goal which drives you crazy can be replaced, just by a thought of having a cup of coffee, will you have respect for that goal? Will you have respect for that ideal? Suddenly you will see, whatever you thought as a goal does not have any more power over your inner space. Suddenly, you will see a non-moving, immovable, authentic Self arise in you. That is what I call 'living enlightenment'.

Your being does not need your mind to run your body. If your mind is constantly staying inside you, it is just because of your fear, 'What will happen to me? How will my body run if my mind leaves me?' You don't

understand, if your mind leaves you, life will happen in a much better way, in a much more intelligent way.

Your mind is the culprit.

Your thinking is the problem.

Your dilemma is the suffering.

Your movement is the depression.

When you sit, if thoughts are arising, just remember, 'Let me unclutch.' Just unclutch. Tell yourself, 'I am not going to empower this thought by following it, or by fighting it. Let me unclutch.' Again, in two seconds, one more thought will come. Again say, 'Let me unclutch.' After few minutes, you will see you are continuously repeating the thought 'unclutching': 'I am unclutching,' 'I am unclutching'… Then unclutch from that too. The moment you remember,

you immediately unclutch. Unclutch from the very idea about you…

Understand, you have two identities. One is the identity which you carry and show to the outer world as to who you are. This is called ahankara. Another identity which you carry in you, which you believe as you inside your heart, is called mamakara.

Your whole life is nothing but a fight between these two identities.

Ahankara, how you project yourself, will always be much more than what you are, it is the superiority complex.

Mamakara, what you

believe as you, will always be much less than what you are; it is the inferiority complex.

Your whole life is nothing but a suffering between this inferiority complex and superiority complex. Whether the

thoughts are related to inferiority or superiority, neither give life to them nor suppress them. Just unclutch.

Now, an important fear comes, 'If I constantly unclutch, who will run my life?' Understand, your prarabdha, with which you created your body, your bio-memory, is intelligent enough to run your body and maintain your infrastructure and expand your wealth. Trusting this truth is what I call bhakti.

Krishna says, 'Ananyaas chintayanto mamyejanaa paryupaasate teshaam nithya bhiyuktaanaam yogakshemam vahaamyaham,'- 'Whoever resides in Me, constantly remembering Me, their needs and comforts I Myself bring and see that those things stay with that person.'

Understand, this assurance He gives, even for the people who have the fear of unclutching and relaxing. I tell you, just try it for ten days. I am not saying try for your whole life, just try for ten days. Try unclutching for ten days; if you are not benefited, forget about me and my technique. You will see, it straightaway adds to your life. Nothing will be reduced, nothing will be taken away. Your clarity, your profession, your relationship, your health, everything will only be added to.

For ten days, try this unclutching. Constantly unclutch, whether you are eating, sleeping, driving or whatever you do. Of course, when you drive, don't close your eyes!

I tell you, you will never miss. I have seen how it just transforms life.

Don't have these hypothetical fears. Mind exists based on hypothetical fears. If you look into the hypothetical fears, the mind will disappear. Do not entertain the hypothetical fears of your mind. Just try for ten days.

When I say this, I am responsible for these words. Understand, I know it is getting recorded; I am responsible for what I am talking. Just try for ten days this unclutching. I assure you, I have seen, it only adds to your health, adds to your wealth, adds to your well-being and adds to your relationships.

Only your fear creates an idea, 'No, no, no, if I unclutch, who will pay my bills, and who will run my life?' You will

run your life in a much better way. When you unclutch, you pick up a few thoughts here and there and create a shaft, just like you pick up whatever you need from a conveyer belt.

In the same way, either you pick up all the sufferings and create a pain shaft, or you pick up all the joyful memories and incidents, and create a joy shaft. If you try to elongate the joy shaft or break the pain shaft, both are impossible, because neither shaft exists.

Another important thing, fortunately, every new thought proves that the old thought has lost its influence over your inner space. This proves that no suffering can overtake you.

There is a beautiful one liner: You can't step into the same river twice, because by the time you put the second step, the river moves. I tell you, you can't step into the same river even once, because by the time you put a foot and it reaches the ground, the water has moved!

Constantly, the very replacement of thoughts, the new thoughts appearing, shows you have the inner space which gets replaced, rejuvenated and refreshed, which is untouchable and pure. Because the inner space is pure, you are able to have new thoughts. The new thoughts

happening prove that the old thoughts have lost their influence over you. So, do not be afraid of depression, suffering, fear, desire or any of the internal enemies.

Let you be liberated from the eternal enemies.

Chapter 21

And the ultimate thing, do not be afraid of unclutching. An incident from my wandering days:

I spent ten years walking all over Bharat begging and eating, sleeping under the trees, and meditating. I have seen the villagers in North Bharat who have a novel trap to catch birds.

They will put a stick, held by the rope wound over it, and hang it between the trees. That's all. You will be surprised, how this can trap a bird.

Understand, when this stick is hanging, the bird will come and sit on the stick.

When the bird sits, just because of his own weight, what will happen? It will become topsy-turvy, upside down.

This poor bird starts thinking, if he leaves, if he relaxes, he will fall and die. I have seen, for hours, the bird will be

hanging. The poor bird will be fluttering, will be trying his best, shaking his wings, but it will be hanging, thinking that if he relaxes, if he lets go, he will fall, and break his head, and die.

Have you heard any time of a bird falling and breaking his head and dying? No! The foolish bird does not know that if he just lets go, he can just fly…! He can be liberated.

Understand: I have seen the bird will be hanging for hours... The hunter will slowly come after two or three hours; he will come and just pick up the bird and put it in the cage.

How that foolish bird was thinking if he let go, he would fall and die, in the same way, we have the fear that if we let go of our mind, if we unclutch, we will fall and our life will become a mess. Understand, there is no history, there is no record saying the bird which let go, which opened up has fallen and died. In the same way, there is no record that a person who has unclutched has lost something in his life.

One more thing, the bird feels that the stick is his security; he hangs on to it. But the hunter comes, and not only does the bird lose the stick which he thinks of as security, but he is eternally in a prison also. In the same

way, what you think of as security - your mind and life, if you hold on to it, what happens? When Yama, the Lord of Death comes, not only what you think of as security is lost, but you are also put to death.

Understand, just like that bird, in our foolish way, we are hanging on to the stick - the mind - with a fear, 'If I let go, what will happen …?'

Sometimes I have seen, when the bird is hanging, some birds which are flying come and poke this bird and tell him, 'Let go! I had the same problem; when I relaxed I just started flying. All it takes is just two or three seconds to balance.'

See, the bird will be topsy-turvy; when it leaves, maybe for two seconds it will start falling, and then it will just turn and start flying. Courageously facing those two to three seconds, that chaos, is what I call tapas.

Understand, rarely, a bird which was stuck in the trap but had the courage to let go and open up, comes back and tells the birds which are hanging, 'Hey, let go! Relax! Listen, I was like you. When I opened up, I never fell and broke my head and died. I only became liberated. I only became a free bird. Come on...'

I tell you this boldly with the courage, with the authenticity, and with the Truth of my experience.

When it comes from the experienced inner space, even if your logic is fighting, don't bother, Understand, if the bird lets go, if the bird relaxes, he will be enjoying his freedom. In the same way, if you let go, you will become Paramahamsa.

you will have that experience. When it comes from the truth, it will reach your true Self and being. All you need to do is just let go, and you will become Paramahamsa. Let you live enlightenment.

Let us enter into the method, the technique. It is a very powerful method, I call this Nithya Dhyaan. This technique is what I call Nithya Dhyaan.

I think I can answer a few questions related to this subject that I spoke of today. If you could write few questions, I will finish the question-answers; then we will enter into meditation. It is a very strong subject; let us internalize it by question-answers.

Understand, you don't even have to remove, just unclutch. Do not own it, that's all. Understand, here the waves of so many TV channels are present; are you seeing them? No. But when you sit in front of the television and operate

it, you see them. To stop the waves entering your space, all you need to do is just stop the television, that's all. You don't have to remove or suffer or struggle with the samskaras. Just unclutch from them, that's all.

Thoughts get replaced every moment. What are you talking about 365 days! Only thing, you need to trust that it gets replaced and allow it to happen. Because the gap between the thoughts is so small, you think it is a continuous shaft. It is not; after every thought, there is a break.

Understand, this you are talking before unclutching. Unclutch and see. Unclutch and see for a few times. Suddenly you will see, neither the same stimulus is the same stimulus, nor is the thought the same thought. The stimulus which created the same thought 9 years ago, 8 years ago and now, are not the same experiences. Why are you clutching again once more and seeing?

This is a wonderful question. This doubt I had for quite a long time. I met a Nobel laureate who invented the maser and laser. I met him in San Francisco. I said, 'Tell me exactly how the discovery happened.' (Because I strongly believe that such a discovery happens in the unclutched inner space.) Understand, when you are trying to unclutch, unclutch everything. Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'Throw out whatever you can. At one point, there will be something which you can't throw; hold onto it, that's all.'

When unclutched from everything, suddenly there will be some strong experiences happening, from which you will not be able to unclutch. Even the unclutching idea would disappear. Those experiences only I call 'revelation' or satya pramaana.

I always felt, only in that inner space the discoveries can happen. I asked him, 'First, please describe how you invented the maser'. He told me, 'Swamiji, I was sitting in downtown New York City on a park bench. Suddenly, in a deep relaxation, the revelation happened. I know

the formula, I know the truth now, but I do not know the method how I arrived at the truth, how it was revealed to me. So, I was afraid to present it to the scientific community because they might think I have stolen it from somewhere! So, I analyzed and came up with the logical steps to reach the conclusion that revealed itself so clearly. But, even now, the logical steps are not fool-proof. It can be questioned. But experience or the final truth itself is the full proof.'

I was shocked when I heard this, 'Oh god, this is what we call mantra drishta.' A person who experiences mantra is rishi. When you unclutch, sometimes, even in a deep silence, the unclutching happens automatically in you.

When you unclutch, you experience the same state, the same consciousness in which Krishna stays. Understand, Krishna wants you to experience the same consciousness in which He resides. That is why He came down and shared the great knowledge, the Gita, with the world. If He just wants to show His greatness, He doesn't need to come down. This world is enough to show His greatness. He has come down not to just show His greatness, but to inspire you to experience the same consciousness in which He is residing. Unclutching leads you to the same consciousness. That is what I call Krishna consciousness. Experience true Krishna consciousness where Krishna is residing.

Understand, when I don't connect with my name, because of that only that name connects my disciples with the Divine.

Because I don't feel this mind, I don't feel egoistically possessive about it. It is used as a technique by the people, and it really helps them to reach wherever they are.

Here is one more question:

Understand, it took ten years for me because I was seeking the technique. See, it's like having one lock and ten thousand keys. I was trying every key. Opening itself will not take ten years; opening took only one second. But finding the right key took

ten years. Why do you want to go through the same thing? I am here to give you the key. I have given you the key.

No. You can't elongate the joy shaft. When you try to elongate, you become addicted, but you don't experience joy. Addiction means, if you do that same activity, it will not be joyful; if you don't, you will miss something seriously. If you smoke, it will not be something great, but if you don't you will miss something seriously. That is addiction. So, trying to work on the joy shaft only leads you to addiction.

Here is a wonderful question:

It's a wonderful question.

Understand: the responsibility of the free bird is freeing other birds. It is the responsibility of the free bird to go and poke the bird trapped on the stick and say, 'Free yourself'.

See, the sangha of the master is the net. Even if you fall, you will not hurt yourself. First of all, you will not fall. But just to give you the deeper assurance, the sangha, the spiritual community, is created. So, I invite all of you, to come and experience the sangha.

That is why there is a beautiful verse in the Mundaka Upanishad: 'After initiation, the master has to bless.'

Understand, with the responsibility that I am Understand: it's a free bird's responsibility to liberate all the birds, to help other birds, and inspire other birds to free themselves.

free, I have the responsibility to free the other birds. With that authority, I bless you all: Let you all be Paramahamsas; let you all achieve and radiate the eternal bliss… nithyananda.

Thank you.

Chapter 22

Nithya Dhyaan

I think if we enter into the technique, then many of the doubts will disappear.

Let me now describe for you the technique, the essence of Nithya Dhyaan, the meditation which we are going to do. There were many different techniques in my inner space before enlightenment. After enlightenment, three years I was doing research on how to create a method to reproduce the same experience. This technique is the result of my experiments.

I started offering this technique in 2003. For the last five years, I have been working with disciples experimenting with these techniques. Ten years before enlightenment… three years after enlightenment, but before the Mission… five years of public life… the last eighteen years, whatever I studied, learned, experimented and experienced, if I have to give you the essence in one statement, it is Nithya Dhyaan. So, this is the mahaprasaad, the greatest prasaad you can receive from enlightened consciousness.

The essence of all these five steps is this unclutching. The first steps are just to prepare you, to bring you to the level of unclutching. First step: sitting in vajrasana, means sitting on your knees. If you really have pain, don't bother, just sit in a comfortable way.

People come and tell me: 'No, no, Swamiji, I have pain. Can I sit in the sofa or chair?' Of course, now you can sit in the chair, it's ok. But in the house, when you try, try your best to sit in vajrasana. You can have a pillow for support, nothing wrong, but try to sit in vajrasana. Sit in vajrasana, have your hands on the hips, and do chaotic breathing, intense breathing, as deep as possible, as chaotically as possible.

Second step: sitting in vajrasana having your hands in chin mudra on the knees, do intense humming (not 'om' or 'hum') 'but 'mmm' sound'.

Third step: put your awareness in every energy center. There are seven energy centers, which can be awakened if you put awareness on them. I will guide you.

People ask me, 'How to do unclutching in the house, Swamiji?' You can use either the cassette or CD for the guided meditation, that's better. If you start doing without music on the cassette or CD, after 2 to 3 minutes you will open your eyes and see whether the time is over or not. 'I think half an hour is over, I think I am doing too much!' That is why I always tell people, it is better to use the guided meditation.

Fourth step: just unclutch; this is the essence. Understand, I am describing exactly unclutching. Just sit. When a thought arises in you, just remember 'Let me unclutch'. Immediately, the thought will disappear. Then, there will be the next thought. Again remember, 'Let me unclutch.' After a few minutes, 'Let me unclutch' may become one more thought*.* Again, unclutch from that. Remember, 'Let me unclutch from this'. Every moment, just be unclutching continuously and consciously.

In the fourth step, suddenly you will see that thoughts per second drop drastically. At least, go into it once, only then you will be able to experience it.

Fifth step: just sit in a relaxed way, connected to the whole cosmos. If you have love for the guru, or love for some god: Rama, Shiva, Krishna, Vishnu…, just sit in a very deep and passive way, feeling connected to the cosmos, or god, or your guru, that's all. Just relax and settle down.

Let me describe the five steps again. Each step is seven minutes.

First step: sitting in vajrasana, having your hands on the hips, and chaotic breathing.

Second step: sitting in vajrasana, having your hands in chin mudra on your knees and intense humming.

Third step: putting your awareness on every energy center for one minute each.

Fourth step: be unclutched. Whatever happens, just be unclutched. Neither create, nor maintain, nor destroy a thought. Stop Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra, and you will become Parabrahma.

Fifth step: just feel connected with a deep, passive, prayerful mood towards the whole Existence, your god, your guru, and rest for a few minutes.

Please close your eyes. If you can sit on the ground in vajrasana, do so; otherwise, sit in the chair itself. In the first two steps, if you can sit in vajrasana, you can. From the third step, sit normally, in a cross-legged position or if you can't, just sit in the chair.

Please close your eyes and sit straight.

(Nithya Dhyaan meditation follows)

Appendix

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• Concept, design and execute project work(s) that will help expand your capacity for creativity and intelligence, and to serve society with responsibility.

• Experience continuous inner healing in the energy field surrounding the mystical Banyan Tree at the ashram in Bengaluru.

• Enjoy ayurvedic satvic food during all meals in a day.

People from all over the world participate in this unique program and experience a quantum jump in their inner space and outer life.

A one-day meditation program that sows in you the seed of Living Enlightenment. Through Kalpataru you will be blessed with:

Shakti, the Energy to understand and change whatever you need to change in life,

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

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

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

Mukti, the Ultimate Liberation called Living Enlightenment when all these four are integrated in you.

This program empowers you with the energy to align your actions with your intentions so you move with success and inner bliss.

- Energize yourself

A chakra based meditation program that relaxes and energizes the seven major chakras or subtle energy centers in your system. It gives clear intellectual and experiential understanding of your various emotions such as greed, fear, worry, attentionneed, stress, jealousy, ego, and discontentment. It is designed

to create a spiritual effect at the physical level. It is a guaranteed life solution to experience the reality of your own bliss. When you are liberated from a particular emotion, you experience a new world, a new energy. It is a highly effective workshop,

experienced by millions of people around the globe.

A meditation program that unleashes the art of living by demystifying the process of dying. This program creates the space to detach from ingrained and unconscious emotions like guilt, pleasure and pain, all of which stem from the ultimate fear

of death. It is a gateway to a new life that is driven by natural intelligence and spontaneous enthusiasm.

- Connect with your Self!

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

- Integrate your Devotion

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

Life Bliss Technology (LBT) is a residential program for youth all around the world. Offered over either a three-month and a two-year period, this program, with its roots in the ancient inner science of living enlightenment, is designed to empower modern youth with good physical, mental and emotional health, practical life skills and above all, the science of blissful living. By

nurturing creative intelligence and spontaneity, and imparting life skills, it creates economically self-sufficient and spiritually strong youth. Above all, it offers a lifetime opportunity to live and learn under the tutelage of an enlightened master.

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

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM offers Nithya Spiritual Healing, a science and service of energy based healing that is causing miraculous relief from a host of physical and mental diseases. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM initiates people into becoming healers of this Nithya Spiritual Healing system. The initiated healers world over touch at least people every day through this free service.

• Meditation and de-addiction camps worldwide: Over 2 million people impacted to date
• Nithya Spiritual Healing: A system of cosmic energy healing administered free

through ordained healers, through our worldwide ashrams and centers, touching people globally every day – healing both mind and body

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

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

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

• THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Vedic Temples and Ashrams: Over 30 Vedic temples and ashrams worldwide.

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

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

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

• Life Bliss Technology and Life Bliss Engineering Courses: Two year / three month programs for youth to learn Life Engineering and the Science of Enlightenment.

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

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

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

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

• THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Publishers: Over 5000 hours of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's discourses transcribed, edited and published in-house and made available in stores through books, DVDs and CDs

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

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

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

• Free Discourses on YouTube: Over 600 free discourses on YouTube – wisdom from the master, easily accessible. Ranked top in viewership

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

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

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

Part 6: Why Meditation_English_part_6.md

• Living Enlightenment (Gospel of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM)

• Bhagavad Gita series
• THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Vol. 1 (A biographical account of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's life up to the age of 17)
• Guaranteed Solutions
• Meditation is for you
• Don't Worry Be Happy
• Instant Tools for Blissful Living
• You Can Heal
• Follow Me In!
• The Door to Enlightenment
• Songs of Eternity (A coffee table book with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's messages and pictures)
• You are No Sinner
• So You Want to Know The Truth?
• Uncommon answers to Common Questions

Over 500 FREE discourses of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM available at YouTube