Equanimity In Success And Failure🔗

A sense of ownership over possessions and over your body is the same thing. What can you say are your possessions? You came with nothing at all. Can you claim that you were born with anything that is your own property? In the same way, you are going to leave this world also empty-handed. Can any of you say that all your possessions and wealth and luxuries will go with you when you leave this body? No!

People ask me, 'Swamiji, why do you wear sherwani (a traditional North Indian dress) and jewelry?' I normally wear these two pieces of saffron cloth and the only jewelry I wear is these rudrākṣa (sacred seed) beads. But when I am going for some discourses or for a specific event, maybe a corporate event, according to the occasion, I wear sherwani. I tell them, 'This body itself is a covering, a cloth for me; how does this second covering of clothes matter?'

This very prānā, the very life breath that is going inside your body through the air that you breathe is not your property. It is the property of Existence. Your very life is a sheer gift to you from Existence. When you realize this, you will immediately see that all your fears and worries and greed are so baseless. You are running behind something, thinking it is yours, but of what relevance is it really? When your very life is a gift to you, how can you claim that anything else is your possession?

One more thing: Real knowledge comes by experience, not through words, not just by talking about it. Let me tell you, the moment you imbibe a single point of truth or any single dimension of truth in any way, if you catch a single idea and imbibe it honestly, truthfully, it can do wonders for you.

Vivekananda says beautifully, 'Even if you memorize all the books in all the libraries of this world, it will not help you in any way other than increasing your ego about the book knowledge that you have. Instead of having a whole library in your head, just realize five concepts in your heart.'

I tell you, use only one idea and try to imbibe it in your being, experience it in your life. Your life will be transformed by even a single idea, just one idea.

In Tamil Nadu, South India, they describe beautifully the lives of 63 enlightened masters in a book. The name of the book is Periapurānam. If you study the lives of the masters in this book you will find that there are some masters who did not really do anything. They would have just plucked flowers and offered them to God, nothing else. Yet they achieved enlightenment! It is not what you do that is important. How honest you are with the act is what really matters. When they did the act of offering flowers, they were true and honest to the action.

You may ask, 'We also offer flowers everyday and do all possible things, but we are not enlightened. The only thing we get is the extra expense of maintaining the garden or buying the flowers!' The problem is, we are not honest. When these

masters plucked flowers to offer to God, they were thinking of Him to whom they were offering the flowers. They were totally devoted to the thought of the Lord and there was nothing else that was distracting them.

When we pluck flowers, even if it is to offer to a favorite deity, we are thinking of something else, somebody else. I have seen these people who do rituals regularly. Whenever they are doing any rituals, they will be thinking of something else. Their thoughts are either in their office or in their home. I have seen these people who regularly chant the 1000 names of the gods and goddesses as in the Vishnu sahasranāma and Lalitha sahasranāma. The moment they start chanting, they start looking at the index number of the verse that they have reached. They are desperate to see how far they have read and how much remains to complete the chanting.

The attitude, the intention, and the thoughts behind the action actually decide the energy behind the action, however it may look externally. The power of thought is immense. In fact, some of the latest research shows how our DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies. It has actually been studied that when a number of people focus their thoughts on something similar, like during Christmas or the football World Cup, certain random number generators in computers start to deliver ordered numbers instead of the random ones.

I tell you, all the so-called natural calamities are nothing but the effects of global negative thoughts. Your thoughts and energy directly affect your body, your cell structure, your decisions, your capacity to fulfill your decisions, the outer world incidents, even accidents. You create a mental setup that creates and attracts similar incidents to you.

If you can change your mental setup from greed and fear, which is what we have normally, to one of bliss, or ānanda, then your energy flow will start brimming and your thoughts will be much clearer and more in the present. When you do this, you have every power to control the outer world incidents because you and Existence have a very deep connection at the energy level. When you are blissful, when your mental setup is not one of worry, fear and greed but one that is in the present, always joyful, you will automatically attract all good things to yourself.

One more thing: All our minds are not individually separated pieces of the universe. They are all one and the same. All our minds are interlinked. Not only interlinked, they directly affect each other. This is what I call the ‘collective consciousness’. Though each one is independent in his consciousness, when one is conscious of one’s true nature, one feels as if one is part of the whole universe.

Each one's thoughts straightaway affect the others around. Your thoughts are more infectious than your cold. If you catch a cold from someone, you may suffer physically for a few days and then get over it. But when you catch thoughts from people, not only do you suffer mentally but you suffer forever also.

Not only are those who are staying around you touched by your thoughts, everyone who is living on the planet earth is touched by your thoughts.

The next truth: Not only at the mental level are you connected; even at the deeper conscious level you are connected to every other being. Your body is not just one body. Actually, there are seven layers or bodies.

The first layer is the physical body. The second is the pranic body. There are seven such energy layers or bodies. These energy layers can be represented as concentric circles, with the physical layer as the outermost circle and the seventh layer, the nirvanic body as the innermost.

We go into complete detail about these seven layers or bodies during the Nithyananda Spurana Program (NSP), our second level meditation program, now called Life Bliss Program Level 2 or LBP 2.

Now, at the physical layer, you, God and I can be represented as three different points in the outermost concentric circle. At the physical level, the distance is so much. If you come down a little, to the pranic level, the distance is reduced. If you come down deeper, to the mental level, the distance between you and I is still reduced and so is the distance between you, God and I. When you go deeper and deeper, these three entities finally merge into one at the innermost nirvanic layer. Please be very clear that at the deepest point of all these layers, God, you and I are one. There is no distance between the three.

Once you become aware and realize that you are a part of the collective consciousness, that you don't have an individual identity; you realize that you do not have a separate ego.

You think you own your individual identity. In Existence, there is no such thing as a separate individual identity. Once you know this truth, you go beyond pain, suffering, depression and diseases.

Understand this: As long as you are individually conscious, you will be continuously suffering. Why do you think you are continuously resisting Nature? Whatever Nature offers, you resist.

There is a beautiful saying:

When it is cool, you resist. You think you are different from Existence. I have seen sanyāsīs, monks, living in the Himalayas, living almost nude in the cold, in the snow. I have myself lived in such conditions, but the body was never disturbed. I never had a problem. I never thought that I was different from the atmosphere, never had the feeling of separation from Nature. When you start thinking that you are different from the atmosphere, from the air that is around you, you start resisting it.

The other day I read an interesting interview with this man who survived his jump into the Niagara Falls. If you have been to the Niagara Falls, you can understand the enormity of the fact that someone survived jumping into it. I cannot imagine someone surviving that jump. He says beautifully, 'When I jumped, I became a part of the Niagara Falls. I felt like I was a part of it. I never felt that I was different from the Falls.'

When you are in tune with the collective consciousness, when you become a part of the collective consciousness, Nature is with you, Nature is your friend and it will protect you. Nature will not harm you. As long as you think that you are an individual consciousness different from Nature, it will protest. As long as you are in tune with the collective consciousness, Nature protects you.

A very simple thing that you can practice now.

If you are feeling cold, just relax, identify the area where you are feeling cold, witness that area. In that area, don't resist the atmosphere, don't resist the air, don't resist the temperature, don't resist Nature and don't resist Existence. Just say to yourself, 'I am not going to resist Nature, I am not going to resist the temperature. I am not going to resist Existence. Let me relax.' Be conscious and decide. With this you will see the body relaxing and the idea of cold disappearing from that part and you become completely comfortable. When you think you are something different from Nature, you are disturbed by Nature.

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

Another example: When a living person dies of drowning, the dead body floats. The dead body is heavier than water. Yet, it floats. But a living body, which may be lighter, does not float. It drowns. Why do you think this is so? As long as you are living, you are not able to relate with water. Your ego prevents that. Your mind prevents that. In a dead body there is no mind and no ego and so it floats.

Wherever you want to achieve success, in a social or in an economic context, only when you feel in tune with the whole group and fall in tune with the collective consciousness, will you be able to achieve what you want to achieve. As long as you feel you are an individual, as long as you have an idea that you are somebody, an identity, be very clear that you will be resisted and you will be resisting. Whether it is in the home, at office or workplace or industry, this will happen.

If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will be again and again protected and taken care of. You will attain complete success, not only socially and economically, but you will experience a deep feeling of fulfillment.

As long as you resist the current, whether it is your workplace or your house or your company or any place for that matter, as long as you do not disappear into the collective consciousness, you will be continuously creating hell for yourself and for others.

Even in the physical layer, if you think you are separate, be very clear, you will be inviting diseases. One more thing, in the mental layer, if you think you are separate, if you think you are an individual, again and again you will be sowing seeds of violence. Seeds of violence will be created when you feel you are an individual. With collective consciousness, you unify, but with individual consciousness you dissect, you cut things into pieces.

Logic always breaks while intuition always unites. At the soul level, if you think you are an individual, there is no possibility for any spiritual growth.

First thing, at the physical level, you are not an individual. Your body and the body of the sun are directly connected. Any small change in the body of the sun can make changes in your body. Any small change in your body can change the body of the moon. Even if you are not able to logically relate to this, it is true.

In the mental layer also, you are not alone. Any thought which is put in anyone else's head comes and touches you and any thought created in your mind goes and touches someone else. Any thought sown by someone can touch you and affect you.

It is like ripples created in the water in a lake. If you are creating a strong wave, you will be creating an impression with your thought. You will be leading and inspiring others with your thought. If your thoughts are not solid enough, other waves will impress you.

Either you live like a leader or you will be a follower. There is no in between. You always think, 'I will not be a leader, I cannot do that much; I will not be a follower either; I shall maintain my own stand.' This is simply impractical. There is no such thing as 'my own stand'. Either you lead or you follow.

In the mental level also, again and again, if you think you are an individual, you will be resisted. The moment you understand that you are a part of the collective consciousness, you will not be resisted but will actually be welcomed and accepted.

In the ultimate way, at the spiritual level, the moment you understand that you are deeply connected, totally connected, intensely connected to the whole universe, not only do you start experiencing bliss, but you also start really living, opening many dimensions of your being.

See, with just this one body, you can think so much and enjoy so much. If you disappear into the collective consciousness, you will experience so many dimensions, so many possibilities, you cannot imagine!

Now that you feel you have just one body, you are enjoying this much. Imagine what you can do if you have two bodies. And just imagine what you can do when you have so many bodies! Imagine three different bodies in different countries enjoying different cultures. Similarly if the multitudes of bodies increase, so would the joy, the bliss. This same thing you will experience when you are a part of the collective consciousness.

During the Indian festival of Holi, rās pūrnimū, Radha and the gopīs (women devotees of Krishna) experienced the collective consciousness of Krishna. This is referred to as rās līlā, when Krishna gave them the experience of collective consciousness. We have a very wrong idea about this rās līlā. We think that this rās līlā is something where Krishna had a relationship with so many women. This is a very wrong interpretation. Krishna was just ten years old then! We tend to forget that!

We have not read the original scriptures and have come up with our own conclusions. We pick up and support what we want. We just want some support from some scripture and some master so that we can do something behind his back. So we just start blaming Krishna. What happened actually was that He gave the experience of collective consciousness to the whole group of gopikās and Radha. This collective consciousness is what I call God.

Throughout our second level meditation program - LBP Level 2 course, you will realize that you are a part of the collective consciousness. Not only that you are a part, but that you are the collective consciousness. You are not an individual consciousness as you think. Layer by layer when we go deeper and deeper, you will realize that you are just one with everything. So automatically the diseases disappear. You start feeling the well-being in the mental layer, the pranic layer, the etheric layer, the physical layer and all the other layers.

You are like an onion. If you peel the onion layer by layer, what is inside? Just emptiness! The onion thinks it has got something solid but when it is opened layer by layer, it is empty. Similarly, you think that you are an individual consciousness, but if you peel the individual layers, you will experience that you are nothing but the cosmic consciousness, the collective consciousness!

In LBP 2, that is what we do, the opening of your minds. You are asked to write for yourself, about your pains, desires, guilt and pleasures. You will not be showing your notes to anyone else. People ask me why I ask them to write all this when they already know it. I tell people that by writing them down, they are opening their minds in my presence. When they open their minds, I can heal their minds.

First of all you should understand that I do not heal. My presence heals. When the sun rises, the lotus blooms by itself. The sun need not go and open the petals of the lotus. Similarly, in the presence of the master, healing happens. Healing is not done, it simply happens. I can heal your body while it is in my presence.

In the same way, if you open your mind, it can be healed. If you open it, the sun can heal it; the energy heals all the wounds. LBP 2 is about opening up your energy layers one by one. Your pains, pleasures, guilt and desires are opened up. When they open up, you experience God. Not only do you search for God, but you experience God as well. Pure mind is God itself and not something separate from it.

We are all taught from childhood that there is a purpose to life. We are guided to work towards goals in life, which are almost always material goals. We are expected to live up to the expectations of our parents, later our teachers, much later our spouses and finally our children.

Understand, there is no purpose to life, except to live. The purpose of life is to enjoy life. How can we enjoy life if we get saddled with a bagful of goals that bind us down to duties, responsibilities and obligations? We are so stressed out by all that is expected of us that we have no time to enjoy what we are doing.

Life is not about purpose; life is not about goals. Life is not lifestyle. Life is not about impressing people about how rich or how clever or how beautiful or how skilled you are. Life is about enjoying the journey of life. It is not about the stress of looking for the destination. When the path is right, when you enjoy the path, the destination is always right; it will always be enjoyable.

Only the person who realizes the purposelessness of life can be satisfied in any action with whatever profit comes from that action of its own accord. Understand: Life has no purpose but it has a meaning. All the time, we are taught that life has a goal, a purpose, and we run behind various goals hoping to achieve satisfaction in life. But life has no goal; the very life, the very path itself is the goal. When you realize this, you relax into the present and are not affected by success or failure.

All this jealousy and envy also comes when you think that life has a goal and somebody else has been given something more than you to reach the goal. When you understand that you are unique and Existence has equipped you with all that you need to fulfill all your desires, you will actually be able to live life. Otherwise,

you will only be running behind some goal or the other. You will envy others who you think are closer to that goal towards which you are running. You will be caught in this roller-coaster of success and failure.

Understand that the goal of life is like a mirage. It does not exist in reality, but it continuously creates illusions of its existence. Live life every moment in bliss; enjoy it from moment to moment and you can see the tremendous difference it makes to the very quality of your life.

A small story:

This has happened according to the mythological stories in my native place, Tiruvannamalai, a spiritual nervecenter in India. That place is a spiritual incubator. Just like how premature babies need an incubator to supply air and all the basic things, in the same way, for an enlightened being to land on planet earth, you need a spiritual incubator to protect and help them.

The story goes that once Shiva appeared as an infinite column of light to settle a dispute between Brahma, the Creator, and Vishnu, the Sustainer as to who was greater. As per Shiva’s orders, Brahma had to find Lord Shiva’s head and Vishnu, the Sustainer, was asked to find Shiva’s feet. Whoever found their part first would be declared the greater one. The story is beautiful and it has a beautiful meaning. Who is Brahma? He is the consort of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge. Who is Vishnu? He is the consort of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. The story says that Brahma started searching for the head. Vishnu started searching for the feet. Vishnu came back after some time and accepted, ‘I am not able to find Your feet; please forgive me. I only now realised that it is an impossible task!’ Brahma also realized he would not be able to find Shiva’s head. But instead of accepting the fact, he decided to cheat. He took a flower as a false witness to testify that he had touched and brought it from Shiva’s head.

You need to understand the story: Vishnu is the embodiment of wealth. Brahma is the embodiment of intellect. Neither by wealth nor by intellect can you achieve enlightenment. That is the truth of the story. Neither by wealth nor by intellect can you achieve enlightenment.

One more important thing: If you travel in the line of wealth, you will get frustrated, you will understand, you will face depression of success and you will become really humble. You will fall and you will understand. This is symbolised by Vishnu surrendering first. But if you travel in the line of intellect, you will never accept that you are defeated. This is symbolised by Brahma bringing a false witness in order to escape defeat.

If you travel in the line of externally focused ego, or the path of material success in the outer world, at least at one point you will understand. You will experience depression of success. You will say, 'Enough! Let me rest. I understand that enlightenment can never be achieved in this line.'

But the person who travels in the line of internally focused ego or the line of intellect, not only does he never achieve, he will not even be able to understand that he cannot achieve. The intellect, the ego becomes so sharp, so subtle; it will bring false claims and false techniques to say that he has achieved it. Those false claims are only these false flowers, the false witnesses.

The ultimate knowledge can be reached only through sincerity, not through intellect or wealth. Then you are not caught in running behind the senses, behind the inner world or the outer world.

Now, Krishna talks about the different kinds of sacrifices:

This is a beautiful verse similar to the Upaniṣad verse:

The Whole is full. From the Whole, if the Whole is removed, what remains is still the Whole.

In mathematics, there is a similar analogy: from infinity, if you remove infinity, what remains? What remains is still infinity!

People often ask me, 'Who created the universe?' I tell you, the universe itself is the creator. The creation, creator and created are not three separate things. The universe itself is the creator, the created and the process of creation.

See, if there is somebody creating the universe, then that means the creator is intelligent and the created and the creation are not. But the universe is intelligence. The universe, the cosmic energy is intelligence and that itself pervades the universe.

You and I are manifestations of this cosmic energy. We are creations of the cosmic energy. But what does 'manifestations of the cosmic energy' mean? The intelligent cosmic energy pervades our very beings. The cosmic energy is the creator, so, we are the creator as well. The creator, the creation and the created are all the same; they are not separate identities.

Earlier I had talked about this Tamil scripture called Periyapuranam. Periyapuranam describes the lives of 63 Nāyanmārs. These Nāyanmārs were great Shiva devotees. They were more than devotees; they were disciples of Shiva, though Shiva was not physically present to teach them. The energy of Shiva was enough to teach and fulfill them.

One of these Nayanmaars did nothing in his life except pluck flowers and offer to Shiva. Another sang songs. In whatever they did they offered themselves to Shiva completely. They sacrificed themselves and their actions to their beloved Shiva. They were so completely absorbed in that activity, whether it was gathering flowers or singing songs or whatever else it was, that nothing else remained in their mind and thoughts.

Even the physical presence of Shiva was not relevant to these Nayanmaars. They were consumed by the energy of Shiva. They sacrificed themselves in the fire of Shiva. They were one with Shiva. For them, the creator, creation and created were one and the same.

In the same manner, the gopīs of Brindavan immersed themselves in Krishna. Nothing but Krishna was visible to them. Radha, the epitome of all gopīs, asks a friend. 'Why is it that wherever I look, and whatever I look at, I see only Krishna?'

The friend says so beautifully, 'Radha, that is because you wear Krishna as your very eye shadow! Whatever you see is only that eye shadow that is Krishna.' A true devotee not only sees God in everything, but is also ready to sacrifice anything for His sake. We shall see the various kinds of sacrifices in the next few verses.

Q: Swamiji, you said that in the innermost energy layer, the nirvanic layer, God, you and I are all one, and that one realizes one's divinity. In the LBP 2 course, you teach this as a part of one's death process. Can one achieve this state while still alive?

A very good question and the answer is, of course, you can.

In the LBP 2 course - the Nithyananda Spurana Program, we do teach techniques to go through each of these seven energy layers. These are the layers

that the spirit passes at the time of death. The first four layers are within this life span. Even part of the fifth is. Every day you move from your gross body through your subtle body into your causal body.

The gross body is the physical body in the waking state. The subtle body is your dream body, where you are when you dream at night. The causal body is where you are when you are in deep sleep. The causal body or layer is close to death. Every day you do travel to death and come back. This is the process that refreshes you, rejuvenates you and revitalizes you. In fact, if you lose this for a few days you will die of tiredness.

Once the spirit crosses the causal layer, it cannot return. The causal layer is a dark passage that is the transition point between this world and the reality beyond. This darkness of the causal body corresponds to the darkness of the mother’s womb, which is where the departed spirit travels and assumes a new body.

We take you through this journey to rid you of the fear of death and to dissolve all your engraved memories that condition you. In this LBP 2 course, you work on all your saṁskāras, the engraved memories that cause you all the suffering. You expel your negativities. You are born anew.

At the next level, when you come for the Healer’s Initiation program, you are taught how to reach the layers beyond the causal layer while you are still living!

When the Nithya Spiritual Healers go into meditation, they reach the highest level of energy, the seventh layer of nirvanic energy. They do this every time they meditate. They can be in meditation all the time. So they can be in the nirvanic layer of energy all the time! The healing energy of the cosmos flows through them and heals.

So you don’t have to die to reach the nirvanic layer of energy. All that you need to do is open your body-mind system to allow the energy to come into you.