NITHYAM DHYANAM🔗

ANANDAM

The concept nithyam or nithya means the Eternal Truth and refers here to the intellectual understanding of this Truth. Dhyanam, which means meditation, here refers to the technique of changing the intellectual understanding into an emotional experience. Anandam is perpetual bliss and is the result of the merging of nithyam and dhyanam.

This is the way for the ultimate goal of life. Nithyam is the intellectual understanding of what is true and what is untrue. In Sanskrit, they say, ‘Nithya anithya vasthu viveka.’ Nithya is the intellectual understanding of what is eternal and what is ephemeral. Then dhyanam, which is to make the intellectual understanding an emotional experience, internalizing the intellectual understanding and anandam, the result or the ultimate experience. This is also expressed as, 'shravanam mananam nidhidhyasam.' Shravanam is the knowledge of the Ultimate Truth. Mananam is experiencing it. Nidhidhyasam is the outcome or bliss.

Nithyam is actually creating a new mental set-up which will guide you from inside. Usually we are all used to guidance from external sources. By relying on an external source for guidance, you will be dependent. The external source of guidance will not be available all the time and it will not be one hundred percent correct. In whatever problem you may have, you cannot express the problem, or present the exact situation to a third person. So the guidance, which is based on your presentation, cannot be one hundred percent correct. No external source of guidance can feel the situation exactly as you do. Moreover, it will not be available all the time.

So, the guidance should be customized to come from inside. That is why Masters, the enlightened Masters, have created some ways, some techniques, for getting guidance from within. When the Masters achieved the ultimate success, their own realization of Truth, they created a formula by which they, themselves, achieved the goal, so that all others could achieve the same goal. Just as a scientist creates a formula for getting the same result in an experiment that he did in his research center in the outer world, Masters created a formula for the ultimate experience in the inner world. They are called 'teachings' and 'meditation techniques'. When a Master gives some way or formula for having the same experience that he had spontaneously, that becomes a technique. When you listen to the Master's words, the mere listening will create a new mental set-up called nithya. Intellectual understanding itself will be sufficient. It will give you the power, the courage, to lead your life smoothly. People often think that mere intellectual understanding is a waste but intellectual understanding alone can make a change in your mental set-up. It is the only way for changing the mental set-up from mithya, which is untruth, to nithya, Eternal Truth.

Normally, our mental set-up is addicted to worry and fear. We continuously go on worrying. We create our own long list of worries. If, occasionally, the list of reasons to worry is finished, instead of worrying for the same reason and getting bored, we start worrying for no reason at all!

Usually we worry about external things. If there are no external causes for worries, we start creating them. This may be astonishing. The agony is, this is the simple truth. One day, if we feel there is no reason to worry, we start thinking, 'Oh, today, I have nothing to worry about. That means something really big is waiting. Tomorrow it may unearth. What shall I do?'

Moreover, our mental set-up fuels it. It adds various 'past experiences' of ours or something picked up as information on the way.

Once, a middle-aged man approached me, seeking my blessings for his divorce. I asked for the reason. The man said, “You don’t know, Swamiji. No man can live with her peacefully. Yesterday morning, while serving my morning tea, she spilled the full cup of hot tea on me. I can’t bear it anymore.’

I said, ‘See, spilling a cup of tea is not a crime and not a reason for divorce. She might not have done it intentionally. Please think it over. This reason is not solid.’

The man was not ready to give up. He said, ‘Swamiji, no. Today it was tea, tomorrow it may be acid.’ See the mental set-up? Once he has decided to go for the divorce, his mind builds up from what he might have seen in films or crime novels.

This is our present mental set-up. We go on worrying. At one point in time, if we feel it is too much, if we feel totally exhausted, we just go for some medication and settle down for some time. We enjoy some peace. We experience a ray of energy, guidance from inside. Once our energy is regained, once we feel energetic, we again dive into worry. This way, the way of mental set-up, of continuously diving into suffering, is called mithya: unreality or untruth.

Psychologists say, ‘If our enemy is strong, we feel ourselves to be great.’

By the same token, we also think ourselves to be great if we have too many worries in store. Throughout our life, we travel the same path, worrying for some time, relaxing for awhile and then again, worrying. We have made worry a basic necessity of life. Our mind lives on it. It is the axis around which our mind revolves. If we suddenly realize that all our worries have gone, we feel rattled. We feel lonely. With worries we are comfortable.

This mental set-up is dangerous. This is a vicious cycle. This has to be changed; the entire mental set-up needs to be changed. If you go on addressing the present problem alone, the external causes of worry alone, you will be traveling on the same path again and again. This path is of worrying for some time, feeling exhausted, relaxing, regaining energy, then again starting to worry. Some technique should be worked out to address the entire problem.

If we need to weed out a thorny bush, is it sufficient to cut off its leaves? No, the bush should be removed from the root. Not only that. Something else should be planted there. Otherwise, the bush will grow again and again.

Likewise, some way should be found to change the entire mental set-up.

For change to take place, for the cognitive shift to happen, our first step should be intellectual understanding. We should first understand our mental path, the way in which our mind reacts. Only then, our intelligence will start yearning for a change.

In Sanskrit, there is a beautiful word 'tat tvam asi', which means, 'You are that'. Whatever we think of as ourselves, we are that. Ultimately, we are That, the Self, the Truth and the Divinity within us.

If you think yourself a hero, you are that. If you take yourself for a mediocre person, you are that. If you condemn yourself for being a failure, you are that. Hero or Zero, the choice is yours.

Thinking of ourselves as heroes, taking responsibility for ourselves, is what we call liberation. At whatever level we take responsibility, we are liberated to such an extent. Taking responsibility cuts the mental path of going continuously towards suffering. Once we feel responsible, we will stop thinking about the external factors as being responsible for our suffering. We will slowly move towards realizing that only our own actions are responsible for our suffering. We will start yearning for a way to come out of it. In this way, we are liberated, liberated from the vicious cycle of mithya - unreality, untruth and illusion.

Then the cognitive shift happens and we turn towards nithya, understanding of Truth, reality.

In ancient times, society was divided into four levels, or varnas, now called the caste system. Each caste was set up based on the percentage of liberation, level of consciousness and the level of expression, not by birth but by mental set-up. It was declared ‘guna karma vibhagama’, by their mental set-up and deeds. Those who sold their time were on the basic, first level. They were called shudra. The very word shudra means ‘formula’. They were at the very base of society. They were the foundation stone on which the entire society could safely stand.

The next set of people was those who sold products. They were called vaishya.

Those who were confident, who could give protection, those who could protect in the outer world, were called kshatriya. Leaders and warriors fell into this group.

The creamy upper layer, those who sold wisdom, who were able to give protection not only in the outer world, but also in the inner world, were called brahmana. Those who could build confidence in the masses about the inner world, who could give courage to society to travel in the inner world, who could guide and assure safety in the inner search, were called brahmana.

Their feeling of responsibility towards society was the only criteria. If we can strongly feel responsible for our existence, at our being level, if we have the courage to shoulder the whole responsibility, we will start feeling and radiating the joy, the bliss, the ananda.

The brahmana group was a spiritual group. They became spiritual beings or enlightened Masters.

For the kshatriya, the leadership group, those who led the mass in the outer world, one day or the other, they would face the ‘depression of success’ in their life. Then, they would turn towards spirituality. They would eventually turn their journey to the inner world from their previous focus on the outer world alone. This is called ‘vishada yoga’, or the path of confusion. Leaders, after they feel they have achieved everything they wanted to achieve, not knowing for what and why they wanted to achieve, feel depressed. This is called depression of success.

At this point, they turn towards spirituality.

For the vaishyas and sudras group, satsang, or participation in a spiritual group, will be the starting point. A beautiful hymn by Sankara says:

It means, just by being in satsang, one can be liberated. In satsang, we continuously hear and receive spiritual information, again and again. We have the path shown to us. This is what is known as shravana or nithya.

The clear understanding of the message leads to a turn in our journey towards our inner world. We will stop running towards material success, outer world success and start journeying towards the ultimate success. This turn is the cognitive shift.

The path of the journey is mananam or dhyana.

The solution here is not readymade. In this area, readymade solutions seldom work. Readymade solutions cannot be permanent. They tend to change.

♦ A small story:

O nce, a young man wanted to cross a forest. He approached an old man, who had crossed the forest earlier, for guidance. The old man said, ‘Walk straight into the forest for one kilometer. You will see a lion. Take a left turn and walk for half a kilometer. You will see an elephant. Take a right turn and walk for one kilometer. You will have crossed the forest.’

Will it work? But he had no other way, no one else to guide him. Readymade solutions tend to be of this sort only. He can guide you only by his experience but the lion and the elephant may not be there. What to do?

Alternatively, he could give a torch and say, ‘Go ahead. You will find your way across the forest for yourself.’ This is the right solution.

In this journey, we will go on experiencing one thing after another, one truth after another. We will continue our journey saying 'na iti, na iti', 'this is not true', this is not true'. This is called 'nissangatvam', discrimination between truth and untruth, reality and illusion.

We will not be attached to the by-products. We will be in 'nirmohatvam', in a detached state.

The final experience, the ultimate success, is bliss, ananda or nidhidhyasam, that which is experienced. That is jeevan mukthi or liberation.

We may doubt whether liberation of the whole society and making everybody a Brahmana will affect the social set-up. Will it not interrupt and unsettle the workings of society?

Once we are liberated, we start feeling the responsibility. We start feeling energetic and we will be fond of doing our work. Society will flower in joy. If now we are selling our time, and we feel our responsibility, we will start strongly feeling we are selling only our time and we will not be able to waste even a second of it. We will be more devoted to our job.

Only when we are not feeling responsible, boredom occurs in our job. We feel stress and strain.

Once our internal intelligence starts feeling the change, the shift begins happening but for the shift to happen, the feeling should be conscious. There are two things, conscious and unconscious understanding.

If one is consciously aware of the fact that smoking is injurious to health, giving it up will be easier. If one is aware that smoking is injurious to health but are unable to avoid smoking, that is unconscious understanding.

For a change to happen, the understanding should be conscious. If we are consciously aware of the vicious cycle in which our mind works, the need for a change will come up.

There are many meditation techniques to change our mental set-up. If, by any one such technique, the new mental set-up is experienced, the need will become an urge. If the new mental set-up is once tasted, the longing will be intensified.

♦ A small story:

O nce there was a queen by name of Madalasa. She gave birth to seven children. All of them got enlightened by age seven and moved out of the kingdom. Their father, the king, was puzzled. How could all seven in a row get enlightened? He probed into the issue and found that Madalasa had taught them one simple word 'tat tvam asi', 'you are that what you are'. Just by internalizing the very word tat tvam asi, they got enlightened.

The present mental set-up is in the instinct level. This is the level of just responding to the situation and reacting without thinking of its repercussions. The intellectual understanding takes us to the level of intuition. This is the state of responding to the inner voice and hearing the internal guidance. Once the internal guidance is heard, the question becomes the quest, the urge becomes urgent, and the cognitive shift happens.

Now, there is only one choice before us, accepting the truth, moving into dhyana, meditation and liberation, experiencing and radiating bliss. The other choice is refusing the truth and continuing to be in bondage. Whether we accept it or not, we agree or not, we take it or not, the truth is truth.

There are many fish in a river. Some swim downstream, along with the current. Some swim upstream, against the current but both are in the same river. In the same way, whether we realize it or not, we like it or not, we are in bondage. We have only one choice, moving into meditation or dhyana and being liberated, or simply continuing with our own routine and being in bondage. The choice is clearly ours. Both ways we are responsible for our position.

Just be aware. We are responsible for our position. In whatever position we may be, strongly be conscious of the fact that only we are responsible for our position. Feel strongly that we are responsible for everything. It may be anything, a boon or an accident but be sure, we are fully responsible. We are responsible for the accident, also.

You may ask, ‘How Swamiji, how can I be responsible for accidents?’ Be very clear, there can be no effect without a cause. Every effect has a cause. If we are unable to see a logical cause, we name it as an accident. So be sure, only we are responsible for the accidents occurring to us. By feeling responsible, we will start enjoying the happening. Without waiting for the result, the happening itself will be enjoyable. We will start bubbling with joy. We will start radiating bliss. In the outer world, even if we succeed, we may end up in depression of success. It may create a low mood but, in the inner world, action itself will give us peace and joy. In the scriptures, it is said, ‘Separation from Krishna is also a joy.’ Even if the result of the action is suffering, it will also be enjoyable.

People often complain of lack of time to meditate. It is not lack of time; it is a lack of responsibility. If we strongly feel that we are responsible for our present position and consciously are aware that, by meditation,we can have a change, we will find sufficient time to meditate.

Just for the next twenty-four hours, feel responsible for each and every thing. Let this be your meditation. Feel responsible for your existence. Feel responsible for the boons you enjoy. Feel equally responsible for the accidents, also. Let this ‘responsibility feeling’ solidify in you. May the cognitive shift happen in you.

II

GRATITUDE AS PRAYER

In general, our religious life starts with prayer and ends in gratitude. Many of us learn to pray as part of our daily life, from early childhood, watching our elders.

Prayer has got different dimensions. It matures as we mature. Prayer is the bridge to divinity and our higher consciousness. Prayer is the bridge to take us beyond the sufferings of planet Earth. Prayer is the technique; it is the method to lead us to the superconsciousness state.

Prayer has got different forms. Nothing is higher, nothing is lower. Whichever way we want to start, we can start. We will naturally grow towards the higher level of consciousness. Let us understand the various dimensions of prayer step by step.

First thing, prayer starts at the physical level: going to the temple, praying to God, praying to the idols of gods and goddesses, doing some puja or worship by uttering a mantra, sacred chants, and perhaps going further by doing some havan, sacrificial fire rituals, with the help of priests. Prayer should start in a physical way.

Many people come and ask me, ‘Swamiji, why do we have idol worship in Hinduism? Many other religions do not allow this.’ I always tell them, ‘No, we do not have idol worship. We worship through the idol, not the idol itself.’

There is a big difference. What we do in Hindu worship is to worship through the idol; it is not idol worship. When we stand in front of the idol, do we pray, ‘Oh stone, give me a boon, or, Oh copper, please give me a boon. No! You say, ‘Oh Siva please give me boon; Oh Rama please give me a boon; Oh Vishnu, please bless me.’ We relate to the divine through idols. Idols are bridges to take us beyond the forms that we see with our physical eyes.

There is a beautiful incident in Master Vivekananda’s life. Vivekananda was wandering all over India. He went to a king’s palace. The king was an intellectual person. The king was educated in the western system of thought. He started questioning Vivekananda, ‘Why should idols be worshipped? Why should idols be respected?’ Vivekananda said, ‘Just give me a few minutes. I will explain it to you,’ and he changed the conversation to another topic. Suddenly, Vivekananda called one of the ministers of the king and said, ‘Can you get me the photograph of your king which is hanging on the wall?’ The minister said, 'Why not.' He, at once, brought the photograph and gave it to Vivekananda.

Vivekananda said, 'Can you spit on it?' The minister was shocked. The minister said, 'What are you saying? It is the photograph of our king. How can you say I should spit on it?' Vivekananda said, 'What is this? It's just a paper and canvas cloth. Why are you taking things so seriously? Just now your king said, 'Why should idols be respected? Why should idols be worshipped? It is just paper, canvas cloth and paint.' The minister said, 'No! It is not just simple canvas cloth and paint. As long as the paint and canvas cloth were separate, it was cloth and paint. The moment it started representing our King's form, it became a picture of our king, a portrait of our king. I can't spit on it. It represents our king. I can't spit on it.'

Vivekananda turned to the king and said, 'Understand, even when your photo can receive so much respect, why not God's photo? Why not God's idol? Why not God's murti (form)?'

The problem is that the moment we read one or two books on philosophical matters, especially Western philosophy, we start thinking we know all the philosophy that there is to be known. We start thinking we have become God. The moment we start thinking we have become God, we start idol worship to ourselves.

There are a few people who always think they are flying but they don't even move. Some people who have read some books think they have achieved everything, just by reading a few books.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'As long as you feel you have a body, as long as you eat and you take a bath, as long as you think you have to maintain your body, its good to do the vigraha puja, idol worship.'

He says, in a humorous way, 'The sandal that is applied on your body starts smelling within an hour but, when you apply it to God's idol, it never gets any bad smell.'

The food which we eat in three hours, how and what it transforms into, we know but never the food offered to God's idol. So, as long as we have the idea that we have a body, it is good to start doing idol worship. There's nothing wrong in that. It's actually a technique to go beyond the form.

As long as we have body consciousness, we can pray. This is the physical level of worship, the first level. There is one more piece of scientific research which I wanted to mention here. A great scientist went and stayed in the Amazon forest with a small group of tribal villagers. The tribal group is famous for one thing. They have a belief that, by making the idol of a certain person, they can either heal or kill him. They just make an idol of the person who they want to heal or kill and, if that person needs healing on his hands, they put medicine on the idol's hands and the person gets cured. If they want to kill that person, they just break the hands of the idol and the person dies.

Of course, when you hear it, it sounds like a story but this scientist wanted to know the truth. So he went with his three assistants and stayed with the tribe for ten years. Understand, not for one or two days – ten full years he stayed with them. He learned their language; he learned their way of living; he ate their type of food; he lived in their houses; he related and mingled with them and he almost lost his identity and became a tribal member himself. He video recorded and observed at least a hundred incidences.

He says that he recorded at least a hundred incidences, either by video graphing, audio recording or observing the experiences of the tribe. After doing research over the hundred incidences, he says that more than ninety-six of these recorded incidences proved to be one hundred percent effective. The other four created effect, but not one hundred percent. Ninety-six percent is not a small number. One hundred incidences, and ninety-six proved effective. He says they use a sort of vibration, a chant, a mantra.

First, they make an idol and they use the vibration or mantras to invoke that person into that idol. Then they treat the idol to heal the person or kill him. If he is a criminal, they kill that idol or, if he has to be helped, they treat the idol and heal him. You would be surprised to hear one more thing; they say they are even able to relate to a person who is dead already. Even with a person who is already dead, they are able to relate through the idols. This scientist has proved it. He has clearly observed and recorded how they are doing it.

When I read the research report, I realized that if we can relate with an ordinary man, an ordinary mortal through an idol, can't we relate with existence, with Parashakti in the Brahmanda (Universal Power), the immortal divine through an idol? Of course, we can!

The spiritual people, the great mystics, who dived deep into their inner consciousness, who achieved something at a spiritual level, created wonderful techniques for others also to reach the same level. Idol worship, or the vigraha puja, is one of the techniques created by those great mystics.

There are two kinds of religion. One is just a social religion that provides societal laws as to how many times we can eat, how many hours we can sleep, how many women we can marry, how many kids we can have, a religion that states just the social laws or social rules that we all should abide by.

There is another kind of religion, a spiritual religion, to show us the true nature of our being, to help us reach the ultimate consciousness, to help us taste the ultimate bliss, the spiritual bliss. The second kind of religion works in the inner world, in the mystery of mysteries, in a deeper, conscious level.

The Masters of this second kind of religion created the techniques and gave them to us in the form of idols. The Goddess Kali is the philosophical representation of spiritual wisdom. She says that, when we cut our ego with the Gnana khadga (the sword of knowledge), we shall be protected and taken care of. When we cut our ego with the sword of knowledge, Divine Existence will protect us and existence will take care of us. So, every form of God is a representation of some or the other great spiritual wisdom.

First, prayer starts at the level of physical worship; then next it goes to the level of verbal worship. Next, we go to a higher level. We chant the stotra, the songs, the mantras, the sacred chants, we do the nama japa (chanting the name of gods) and worship the divine and we pray. Stotra or repetition of God's names is verbal prayer. Verbal prayer plays a major role in keeping the mind at a higher level. Remembrance of some sacred syllable and its continuous repetition with awareness is very important. Without awareness, it becomes an unconscious habit. Please don't do that.

There are many people who repeat, ‘Rama, Rama, Rama...Krishna, Krishna...hey, did you switch off the oven... what's for lunch today?’ Then they start again, ‘Rama, Rama, Krishna, Krishna...’ No! Chanting should not be done unconsciously but with conscious awareness. Again and again, consciously repeating the Lord's name can lead you to higher consciousness. The more our mind is filled with some sacred syllable, sacred words, the more our inner chattering will be cleansed. Our inner chattering has so much garbage in it and unnecessary things that we throw into our inner chattering. There is so much repression and suppression. With so much anger and violence we suppress inside our being, where do we think it will all go? It will go and disturb our inner chattering. Our inner chattering is made up of nothing more than suppressed feelings and desires inside us.

If we suppress too much violence, too much sex or too much anger, those things only will come out in our inner chattering unconsciously. All our inner chattering is made up of the same stuff which we put inside. What we put inside, that is what will naturally come out. If we put mantras inside, the sacred syllables inside, the divine inside, the stotra inside, good words inside, we will see we are radiating the same beautiful words, the same beautiful feeling and the same beautiful bliss.

The more we chant the right words, the less we will be chanting the wrong words. People ask me, ‘Why should we chant God’s name?’ I tell them, ‘If you don’t chant God’s name, you will be chanting your wife’s name.’ That is what we will be doing in our life. If we don’t chant God’s name, we will be chanting somebody else’s name in our mind.

Our mind cannot remain unoccupied; our mind cannot be empty. If we chant the Lord’s name, we will be occupied in a positive way; we will reach the higher consciousness. Otherwise, we shall be chanting our boss’s name or our wife’s name or our friend’s name. It’s a cleansing process. Our inner chattering will have a new experience; our being will have a new space. It will experience a new consciousness when we use the technique of verbal prayer, by using some divine name or divine prayer.

If you do not like any divine name, you can use words like 'Om Shanti', or just 'Om'. Even these words will help you tremendously. Even these words can create a beautiful vibration in you.

Just the other day one boy was asking, 'What is the meaning of the word Om?' Om is the sound from which the whole world was created. Today, in this modern day, physicists and scientists are agreeing with this concept, that from sound came light, and from light came the whole universe. So the whole thing goes back to sound.

You would be surprised to hear this: in a place called Uttara Meru in Tamil Nadu, they were doing maha mrityunjaya homa (fire ritual for Lord Shiva), with the mantra of Shiva. The homa was going on continuously for three days when a group of westerners, who had come there as tourists, were curious to know what was going on. They asked, 'Why are you throwing such good varieties of food into the fire? Why are you putting all the valuable cloth into the fire? Why are you burning it away? Why are you destroying all these things?'

It seems the priest said, 'No! We are not throwing it away or destroying it. We are offering it to God.' The tourists laughed and said, 'What are you talking about? How will it reach God if you put it in the fire?' The Priest said, 'We invoke God into the fire using mantras, before making the offering to him.'

The curious tourists photographed the whole process using Kirlian photography. Everything on planet Earth emits a particular light. Not only living things, even dead things, emit a particular color ray of light. Using Kirlian photography we can actually photograph that light, the aura body. So the tourists took a few Kirlian photographs.

You will be surprised to hear the results. In all the photographs, one could see the dancing form of Shiva. In all the photographs, the dancing form of Shiva appeared in the same way. Mantras are not as simple as we think. When we do mantras with devotion and consciousness, they create their own effect, their own energy. This is the second level, verbal prayer.

The third level is important. That is mental prayer. When prayer reaches the third dimension, it becomes mental. First, it is physical, second verbal and third mental. At the mental level it is called meditation. At the physical level, it is called worship, or puja; at the verbal level it is called japa. At the mental level it is called dhyana or meditation. When we reach this level, neither our body needs to be involved nor our inner chattering needs to be involved. Just our being will be involved.

In japa, it is a communication; in dhyana it is a communion. In prayer, it is a communication between us and God. In meditation, it is a communion between us and God. We start experiencing the taste of the Divine. We start experiencing a glimpse of the Divine. We start experiencing a glimpse of bliss.

One important thing – as long as we pray or chant, God and we are different. The moment we enter into meditation, we start realizing the Godliness in us. We start experiencing the Divine in us. We start getting a glimpse of what we have been worshipping all these years. A unique communion starts between i and I.

It is not even between us and God because God has become a part of our being and we have become a part of God. The drop merges into the ocean; the ocean merges into the drop. We start experiencing the glimpse; we start feeling we are the part of the whole. The advaitic (non-dualistic) experience, or a feeling of oneness, starts happening inside our being.

It is a different kind of experience. As long as we do the chanting, we are worshipping. The moment we enter into meditation, we merge with the object we worship; we become one with it. We start experiencing the consciousness.

The fourth and final level is where neither we nor God exist. Both disappear into one experience. That is what I call ‘gratitude’. In the beginning, at the physical level, we worship; in the verbal level we chant; we repeat the lord’s name; at the mental level we meditate and we experience the Divine in us. At the fourth level, the spiritual level, not only do we experience the oneness; the idea of oneness also disappears. Only one thing remains, gratitude.

You may ask, 'Towards whom?' Towards nobody; just gratitude that is not directed towards anybody. As long as the gratitude is directed to somebody, there are two people: the person who gives and the person who receives but, at the ultimate level, it is not even directed to anybody. It just overflows. Energy expresses itself in the form of gratitude. Energy expresses itself in the form of bliss. A deep feeling of fulfillment happens in us. That is what we call samadhi.

Samadhi is the state where the being, after becoming totally fulfilled, expresses itself in the form of energy, where there is nobody who expresses and there is nobody who receives. Just the experience remains. It is a profound experience which can be described by only one word and that is gratitude.

The experiencer and the experienced both merge into the experience. In that moment, only one thing exists, the experience. Neither the experiencer nor the experienced exists. Both of them merge into one being. That is what one calls experience.

And when this happens, you will feel that life is showering so much on you. You will feel that it is too much. You feel like you can't tolerate it anymore. It is so much joy, so much ecstasy, one starts losing one's identity; one starts losing one's boundary.

We can have an identity as long as we have a trace of suffering. The moment suffering disappears, we lose our boundary. An important thing we need to understand is that we can have ego only if we are suffering. Our ego cannot exist without our suffering. Suffering is the root of our ego. It's an important thing we need to understand. We always think that suffering disturbs the ego. No! Suffering enriches the ego; it feeds the ego.

One more important thing, if our suffering is less, our ego is less. We feel we are too small, so we increase our suffering so that we can feel we are somebody. Ask anybody how his or her life is and they will say, 'Nobody should suffer like me. I am the person who has suffered the most on this planet Earth. Even my enemy should not get this much suffering.'

They know how to write their biography. Ask anybody to write their biography; this will be their first sentence to introduce themselves. The less suffering we have, the weaker the ego. The more the suffering, the stronger our ego becomes, so we always exaggerate suffering. The problem is after some time we forget we exaggerated and we get caught in the magnified suffering that we created ourselves. We might disagree and say, 'No, no, you don't know my life; you don't know my suffering and how much I have struggled' and all those things but, if you deeply look into things, there might be a little suffering but ninety-seven percent of the suffering that you actually feel will be your own magnification. And if you consciously stop magnifying your suffering by repeatedly talking about it, the little suffering that is actually there will also disappear because of your increased awareness.

♦ A small story:

One tabloid journalist died and went to Hell but he begged to God, 'Please let me enjoy heaven for one day. I am going to be in Hell for eternity anyway. Can't you be a little compassionate towards me, and give me just twenty-four hours in Heaven?'

God said, 'You are a dangerous guy; you can't be allowed in Heaven. You may write something about me! You are a difficult guy. You can't be let in.'

You can believe lawyers, but not tabloid journalists; they are a little difficult! But somehow he convinced God by saying, 'No, no. In twenty-four hours what can I publish? Moreover, your guys are the editors, so I can't write anything without their knowledge. Please let me in only for twenty-four hours.'

God said, 'Alright, come in.' The moment he jumped in, he started making demands. ‘If I can convince at least one of your journalists to go to Hell, will you give me a job here in Heaven?’

God thought to himself, ‘My people will never be convinced to go to Hell.’ So he agreed and told the journalist, ‘Ok, if you can convince at least one of my journalists to go to Hell, yes, then you can stay.’

Now this guy started spreading wild rumors. You know how these guys are capable of spreading rumors! He started spreading rumors that a new Satan, a new devil, had taken over Hell, that Hell had become totally high-tech and that they had centralized air-conditioning, and that the eternal hell concept was all wrong; hell had been completely updated; anybody who wanted to go there could do so and live luxuriously; and the other major news was that they want to start a new newspaper in Hell; if you were experienced in Heaven, there was every chance you could become the editor there in Hell.

He started spreading these rumors. If you want to spread any news, all you have to do is tell the news to somebody and ask him or her to promise not to tell others. Just ask them to promise not to tell anyone. You can be sure that person will tell his or her friend along with the statement, ‘Don’t tell others; it’s a secret.’ Ten minutes later, even the neighbor’s dog will be barking that news! Anyhow, the news had now spread all over Heaven. After twenty-four hours, the journalist was about to exit the gates of Heaven. When he reached the gate, God stopped him and said, ‘No, no, no-you cannot leave Heaven. You have to stay here.’ The journalist was surprised and asked, ‘Why?’ God said, ‘You do not know. We had ten editors and all ten ran away. They are now in Hell. We don’t have any journalists. We don’t have anybody to do our job. You have to stay here.’

By now, after repeating the same thing again and again and again, this guy himself was slowly convinced that, in Hell, everything was updated and he was going to find himself a good job. He said, ‘No, no. I also want to go to Hell. I want to become an editor.’

God said, ‘Fool! You are the guy who started that rumor. Why have you started believing your own stories? You are the one who created the rumor.’ The journalist said, ‘No, no, I may have started the rumor but, when ten people believe it, there must be some truth in it. When so many people believe it, it cannot be a lie. There must be some truth in it. Let me go there and check!’

Just imagine! The rumour that this guy started, he himself started believing! When we repeat the same lie again and again, we start believing it to be the truth. We, also, start falling in the same net that we laid. We, also, start believing.

One religious preacher I know in India who is very aggressive came to me for healing. He told me that he had a personal problem that he wanted healing for. After healing him, I was casually speaking to him. I asked him, 'Why are you preaching so aggressively? You are condemning all other religions. Your religion is great, no doubt, but why should you condemn others?'

He said, 'If I am not doing what I am doing, I feel insecure. When I see 10,000 people believing what I am saying and following my ideas, I feel safe. I am convinced that what I am preaching must be the Truth. I feel 10,000 people cannot be fools. I may be telling them the wrong things but, when so many people believe, there must be some truth in it. So, when 10,000 people are converted, I feel stronger in my faith.'

The preacher himself developed a conviction through the response of the people to his teachings! That is how we all are. When many people believe what we say, we fall into the same net that we created. That's what we all do in our lives. We create an idea that our life is full of suffering and misery. By and by, we start believing it.

If we analyze ourselves, we will see, very clearly, that there are thousands of miseries created just by our own mind, our own words. It is simply our own creation but we forget that we are the ones who created it and suffer in what we ourselves have created.

When ego disappears, we merge into bliss. When we are merged with bliss, the ego disappears. When we go really deeply into our being, when we become one with Existence, when we experience, only then gratitude flows. A pure joyous feeling overflows from our being. It is just gratitude, nothing else.

There is a beautiful meditation in Sufism. They say the only way to relate with God is through gratitude because only with gratitude can we start experiencing Him. With prayer, we can only relate with Him. However, with gratitude we start experiencing Him. With gratitude, the deeper level of our being, our spiritual layer, starts experiencing.

Let us understand these few concepts. Let us appreciate the things we have been showered with in our life. Let us feel gratitude for all God has showered upon us. Let us not always think about what next, what next and what next.

♦ I never forget to tell this small, and very nice, story in this context:

One guy was praying to God in the temple, 'O God! Please give me just one hundred dollars to take care of myself for one week. Within the week I will get a new job and soon after I start working, I will start donating money to you. Just for one week, give me one hundred dollars to take care of myself.'

A priest who overheard his prayer felt very compassionate and thought that he should help this guy. However, not being rich himself, he put a fifty-dollar bill in an envelope and went to this person and handed it over to him saying, 'God told me to give you this envelope. Please have it.'

The guy ran to his house, opened the envelope, saw the fifty dollars and started praying again. 'Oh, God! Next time when you send money, please send it to me directly, not through this priest. He's taken half of it as a commission.'

The guy did not bother about the fifty dollars that he received; he was only bothered about the fifty dollars that he did not receive. This is how the mind works.

We bother about the things that have not happened to us but we never appreciate the things that have happened to us. If we are asked to write the things that God has given us, will that list ever end? It will start with a limousine and it will go on longer than a limousine.

And if you sincerely start writing the things that God has given you, again that list will never end, because every single breath that we inhale and every single breath that we exhale is given to us by the Divine. It is God's own gift to us. Can we say we earned it? No!

The Divine gives every inch and every moment of life to us. Can we say we made it? Can we say we created it? No! Our very life, our existence, is given to us by the Divine. If we honestly make a list of all the things which were given to us by God, again it would never end. So many things, so much has been showered on us. Can we say we created our life? Can we say we created one single inhaling or exhaling breath? No!

♦ A small story:

A big science conference took place, where the entire science community came to the conclusion that, now man could do anything that God could do. ‘Why should there be a God at all? We can do everything ourselves. What do you say? God creates man? We can also clone. What do you say? Whatever God can do, we can also do.’ They decided that they had become so advanced that now they could tell God to go and take a rest. We didn't need him anymore. ‘We are doing everything ourselves. Let him retire’.

God said, ‘Alright, let us have a small competition.’ First, He created something to fly. Immediately, the scientists created the airplane. Then He created fire. The scientists also created something to destroy the fire. The competition went on and on. Finally, God just took some dust and created a human being. The scientists also took some dust and created a human being by cloning. God said, ‘No, no, no stop! Bring your own dust and do it, not my dust!’

The scientists were stumped! Do you understand? We cannot create anything that has not already been created by God. The Divine has given us everything but, when we take our life for granted, we live in deep misery. Two lists of things are there in front of us: one is the list of things that have been given to us, which have been showered on us, and the other is the list of things that we don't have.

Now it is up to us to either look at the things we don't have, and continuously suffer and make our life miserable or look at the things that we have and continuously feel joy, ecstasy and enjoy it. Whether we want to look at this side, or the other side, is our choice.

Bliss is our choice; gratitude is simply our choice. It is we who are supposed to decide what our life should be like; whether it should be hell or heaven. It is simply our choice. When we look at the things that we are showered with, which are given to us, then we will understand how much Existence protects us; Divine takes care of us; God showers on us.

One guy went to a real estate agent and wanted to sell his house. After a week, he ran to the agent and said, 'I don't want to sell my house. Please withdraw the advertisement.' The agent was surprised. He asked, 'Why? Why don't you want to sell?' The guy said, 'Only after seeing your advertisement in the paper, I realized my house is the dream house that I have always wanted. My house is exactly what I wanted it to be. It's really exactly what I always wanted it to be. Only now I realize how beautiful my house is.'

We take things for granted. We take people for granted. We take life for granted. Ultimately, when we take life for granted, we feel bored. When we do things unconsciously, we start feeling bored. If someone comes along and tells us how beautiful things are around us, we wake up to it suddenly. Instead, we should be able to see the beauty in what surrounds us, all the time. It is a shame if someone else has to point it out to us. When people tell us that we are lucky, that we are surrounded by beauty, we should be able to say, 'Yes, I know I am lucky and I am surrounded by endless beauty.' How many people can say this of themselves? The intelligent ones will be able to say this. The ones who have gone deep inside will be able to say this. The foolish ones will deny the statement and remain in suffering.

There was a great saint who lived in Maharashtra. During the last ten years of his life, he was asked to eat the same type of food. He was asked to eat a little rice and greens everyday, because his stomach had become sensitive. Every day, he would eat the same food. The devotee who cooked for him got tired of cooking the same food. Every day the same food! She went to the Master and asked, 'Master, are you not bored eating the same food? I am bored of cooking the same food. Are you not bored eating the same food?' The Master said, 'I am not eating the same food. How can I eat the same food? Everyday it’s different. Everyday it’s new. How can I eat the same food the next day? No!'

When we generalize, we feel bored. When we understand, when we live moment to moment, everything looks fresh. When we live moment to moment, things really look fresh and we live and feel grateful to Existence. When we take things for granted, we feel bored, dull, tired and depressed.

The biggest problem I see, at least in this country, (referring to USA), is people's attitude of taking everything for granted. That is why, even though there are so many possibilities for entertainment, you feel so much boredom. Depression has become a big disease.

Obesity is nothing but taking our food for granted. When we take food for granted, we try so many new techniques. Again we feel unfulfilled. Again we try some other techniques. Continuously, we take things for granted and try new things. The more we try, the more we get bored and depressed.

When we live with deep sensitivity, with deep understanding, without taking things for granted, we experience a new space in our being; we experience a new joy in our being. Then we experience gratitude towards the whole of life. We feel gratitude towards life, towards people, towards situations and ultimately, towards the whole of Existence.

Gratitude is the ultimate prayer and the ultimate attitude. Gratitude is the greatest attitude that we can have towards human beings, towards life and towards situations and towards God.

May you experience this gratitude and through this gratitude, the Eternal Bliss, nithyananda.