INTRODUCTION🔗

Whatever our approach to the Divine is, it plays an important role in our spiritual progress. If we approach Kṛṣṇa out of fear or greed, we worship a demigod.

But Kṛṣṇa says we are not wrong, but just that it is not enough. Kṛṣṇa is not here to discourage us. Understand, nothing is wrong, but it is not enough,it is not complete. That is not the place to stop. When you start as a normal seeker, you hear about all kinds of rituals.

You hear that a particular pūjā (worship), a particular homa (fire ritual) will give some specific benefit, and you start doing these things.

This is the way it starts. Then slowly, you not only go to all these pūjās and homas, you also go to many different temples. After some time, you understand that these rituals and trips to the temples are too much. Then you think, 'Why let somebody else do these things for me? Let me directly do it and relate with the Divine.' You start your own temple in your own home. You engage in worship. This happens when you become a little mature. You think that you should feel directly connected to the Divine. 'Let me do it by myself,' you think.

© 2020 Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam. All Rights Reserved

Next, when you come to the level of completion where you begin focusing and offering to only one deity, the deity becomes your guru. This is iṣṭa niṣṭa. Iṣṭa niṣṭa means bowing down, revering only your iṣṭa, your chosen deity. Wherever you bow down, even if you bow down to your father or mother, you should know that I bow down to my iṣṭa who is in your heart—your ānanda gandha.

© 2020 Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam. All Rights Reserved

Next, after some time you think, ‘Why only repeat this verse?

Why not do some meditation?’

Now the person who teaches you meditation appeals to you.

Meditation is again saguṇa brahman, which means meditating on a form. This is Līlā dhyāna, the next level of completion or next space of iṣṭa niṣṭa.

With god, one thing is that you may not be directly involved in the whole līlā. So you have to remember, remember and try to practice. With a living Guru, you are directly part of the divine play. So, you don't need to try to remember, remember; He will be remembering you!

He will be remembering you! This is called līlā dhyāna. Even if you are afraid that he is going to shout at you, it is līlā dhyāna. Listen! Practicing the presence of God is constantly feeling you are with Him, He is with you. Practicing the presence of God is the greatest, most powerful technique to put you in bhāva samādhi immediately

© 2020 Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam. All Rights Reserved

Practice Iṣṭa niṣṭa, with the whole Existence cognizing—‘I bow down to Nithyananda who is in your ānanda gandha; whether he is awakened or not, whether you experience or not, He is there in your ānanda gandha. If you are initiated into ānanda gandha, you will also experience him. If not, you may not experience, but I can experience.I bow down to Nithyananda who is in your ānanda gandha.’

Understand, ānanda gandha is a nādi, a subtle cosmic energy center just below anāhata cakra (heart center) and above maṇipūraka cakra (stomach center), which is awakened only by an Incarnation.

Listen! What you are carrying in the ānanda gandha will become reality. Please understand, your ānanda gandha is the source of your life.

Just like any slide kept in front of projector light becomes reality, any truth kept in front of your inner space, your ānanda gandha becomes a reality.

I have seen so many people, ordinary village men and women in India, living with their chosen ideal and living the highest enlightened life without even knowing the words integrity, authenticity, and all that! Without knowing any of these words, they are radiating Enlightenment! I tell you, just this one truth of Iṣṭa niṣṭa and Līlā dhyāna has made millions of village Indians, Indian villagers enlightened! Millions of Indian villagers practice the presence of God. Practicing the presence of God makes you more and more authentic. That is the beauty of the Hindu tradition! Beauty of the Vedic spiritual tradition! Iṣṭa niṣṭa makes you do lot of self-completion with you.

© 2020 Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam. All Rights Reserved So, the first level of completion is attending rituals and visiting temples, pūjā and yātrā. The second level is doing the rituals yourself, pūjā. The third level is having the feeling connection and concentrating on one deity, and offering only to that deity, iṣṭa niṣṭa. The fourth level of completion is realizing that the verses are more powerful than rituals, and you start chanting the name of your iṣṭa. The fifth level is visualizing a form and meditating on His pastimes and being immersed in His qualities, words, actions, body language and life; instead of chanting, you enter the space of feeling and living with His presence. Then, when you sincerely meditate, He Himself appears. He gives you His darśan (vision) and guides you to the higher level of practice. He guides you to the right living Master.

You need to go through all five levels of completion, only then will you feel completely connected to a living Master. When you come to the stage where you meditate on a single form, the Master happens in your life and guides you to the highest level of completion, enriching you with Enlightenment. The form upon which you meditate and your own form are expressions of the same divine energy. So the Master puts you into real meditation.

The seventh level of completion, the ultimate completion, the complete completion is when you experience that you are That. You achieve Enlightenment! When you start, you are like 18 carat gold. There’s nothing wrong with 18 carat gold, but you need to be put into the fire a little bit, and slowly, you become 22 carat gold. Then you reach the Master, a living enlightened Master. Then slowly you become 24 carat gold, and you become enlightened.

When you go to a temple and worship an idol, when you are in the first level of completion, you might feel that you are praying to a stone or metal idol.

As your completion grows, you will realize that the idol is not just stone or metal; it is living energy. Even without much effort, you will start feeling the energy inside the temple. Hindus worship through the idols, not the idols themselves; our rituals address the energy behind these idols. Logic cannot make us understand this. Only faith can, the śraddha that comes from authenticity.

©2020 Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam. All Rights Reserved

This very life is a blessing! Can we say that our life has been given to us as payment for some job that we did in Vaikuṇṭha (abode of Lord Viṣṇu) or Kailāśa (abode of Lord Śiva)? No! It's not as if we worked for 100 years in Kailāśa, and earned a check that says, ‘Alright, have 70 years of life.’ If we work in the army, they give us money to study. It’s not like that; we did not get life as a salary. It’s a pure blessing showered on us

Every breath is a blessing!